[Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?
Jim Hu
jimhu at tamu.edu
Tue Apr 10 23:06:10 UTC 2007
Look, when you posted, you did not indicate that you had already
looked at either meta or mediawiki.org, or even knew that they
existed. I've helped others install and set up wikis who didn't know
that these sites had the docs, so pointing you there seems pretty
reasonable to me. Now you tell us that you've "printed and read
hundreds of those pages already". In which case, I'm puzzled that
you didn't find the answers to some of your original questions.
> 1 - Sign in as admin. Is that so hard? How do I sign in as admin?
If you installed the wiki, then you specified an admin user and
password. If you logged into the wiki with that, then you signed on
as an admin (sysop/bureaucrat). There's a limited amount of stuff
you can do via the web interface, but you can do a few useful things
like promote/demote other users
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Setting_user_rights_in_MediaWiki
Other stuff you do by editing LocalSettings.php.
> 2 - Make others sign-in as lesser-editors and contributors. I need to
> see how hierarchies of user-capabilities work before I go live.
In addition to the link above, there's this
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Preventing_Access
which is linked from the link above.
>
> 3 - Lock parts of article contents so users can add to them but not
> delete the locked part, admins can change anything.
Can't do this with current MW out of the box, but it can be done with
extension called ProtectSection. This is not documented anywhere on
the web as far as I can tell...I've been meaning to add it to the
mediawiki extensions pages. But this is not a standard capability
for mediawiki, so it's not the dev's fault - or the community's -
that it's not documented.
>
> 4 - Change/customize a few visual things, like the sidebar.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Navigation_bar
I found this by typing "sidebar" into the search box on meta.
If those specific pages don't address your inquiry, then explain what
is ambiguous, incomplete, or confusing, and in my experience, people
here are happy to help. But most of the people on this list don't
view themselves as vendors where you are a customer. I'm happy to
refund the full cash value of what you've paid me so far...no, wait...
I also note that your original inquiry you wrote:
> Now, I'm not askin' you all to answer my detailed questions above
> (unless you want to!).
>
> I'm asking if anyone knows of a reference where I can look up these
> kinds of (must be) precedented things.
suggested that you did NOT want specific answers because you could
figure it out if we'd just point you to the missing manual. So
that's what we did....and now you're back spouting "grow or die".
Jim
On Apr 9, 2007, at 4:00 PM, Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
>
> Thanks, folks, for the replies.
>
> 1 - In response to the suggestion that I NOT "bother" (my
> interpretation) the MediaWiki folks with my inquiry: I disagree.
> ANY customer-need is a signal for the original programmers to tune
> their product, or marketing, to better align with their audience.
> Grow or die. Nature abhors a vacuum, information fills it. Hey,
> and if these listservs can tolerate "out of office replies" and
> cc's of the entire threads, I'm quite confident readers can also
> handle seeing my full original inquiry.
>
> 2 - I note no one has "Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-
> configure instruction manual?" except (a) web links that contain
> contents that are not responsive to my inquiry (and I've printed
> and read hundreds of those pages already) or direct answers (thank
> you very much, but ... I'm asking how'd YOU learn so I can teach
> myself - I want read what YOU read to answer these questions for
> myself, and more!)
>
> I'll keep hunting.
>
> - Peter Blaise Monahon, USPTO/OTPC, 571-272-3950, MDE 4D68, WS01419
> - Monday, April 09, 2007 9:13:07 AM
>
>> michael.ittner at elixic.de wrote: I will be out
>> of the office starting 17.03.2007 and will
>> not return until 06.04.2007.
>
>> Jim Hu <jimhu at tamu.edu> wrote:
>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents
>
>> michael.ittner at elixic.de wrote again: I will
>> be out of the office starting 17.03.2007
>> and will not return until 06.04.2007.
>
>> Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Peter, It's best to ask only the MediaWiki
>> mailing list about this rather than cc'ing the
>> Wikitech list which is meant for Wikimedia's
>> own projects rather than external projects
>> that use MediaWiki. There's a FAQ at
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ
>> and MediaWiki forums at http://mwusers.com/
>> which you may find answer some of your
>> questions.
>
> [Peter Blaise says: My original (refused) post shared my particular
> comments that those exact resources as offered were unresponsive to
> my specific challenges. The FAQ is a mere 20 pages. Remember,
> though, that I'm asking about an INSTRUCTION MANUAL so I can answer
> my own questions, and I offered 4 sample questions, which you very
> kindly tried to address below.]
>
>>> 1 - Sign in as admin. Is that so hard?
>>> How do I sign in as admin?
>>
>> Go to [[Special:Userlogin]] on your wiki.
>> You will have created an admin account
>> when you installed MediaWiki. If you don't
>> remember that user's name, try looking at
>> [[Special:Listadmins]] on your wiki to see
>> if there is anyone with admin access. If not,
>> you'll need to add that via the database.
>
> [Peter Blaise says: Nope. I presume you mean "Go to
> [[Special:Userlogin]] on your wiki by typing "Special:Userlogin"
> into the [Search] box" ... however, even "going" to
> "Special:Listusers" I only get red "Admin (Bureaucrat, Sysop)"
> links. When you suggest that I "add that via the database" - what
> I'm asking is "...by doing what...?" In other words, I'm looking
> for a MediaWiki INSTRUCTION MANUAL someplace. Has anyone else
> found one that provides a referential resource for MediaWiki?
> Letting MediaWiki know I'd like one seems a logical act. Hello?
> MediaWiki? Are you li$tening? Hello?
>
>>> 2 - Make others sign-in as lesser-editors
>>> and contributors. I need to see how
>>> hierarchies of user-capabilities work
>>> before I go live.
>>
>> Other users should be able to create
>> normal accounts at [[Special:Userlogin]].
>
> [Peter Blaise says: Ahhh ... but I want to prevent anonymous
> contributions, hence my wording "MAKE others sign in as lesser
> editors". Again, thanks for some insight (which does not work for
> me), but I'm asking how you learned, and if there's a MediaWiki
> INSTRUCTION MANUAL someplace.]
>
>>> 3 - Lock parts of article contents so users
>>> can add to them but not delete the
>>> locked part, admins can change anything.
>>
>> You can only lock an entire article, not part of
>> it. A way around that is to add content to a
>> template and lock the template. For example,
>> put your content at [[Template:Main]] and
>> type {{main}} on a page to include that
>> content there.
>
> [Peter Blaise says: Yes, I was reading about templates over the
> weekend and wondered if that might work. How'd you learn that?
> Have you tried it, actually? Anyway, I'll try, but I imagine the
> call to the template will be visible when editing the page, so the
> original page contents will not only NOT be visible during editing,
> but the call itself can then be munged. In other words, I'll
> explore. I was hoping MediaWiki or someone already explored what
> to me is hard to imagine is unprecedented, and that there might be
> a MediaWiki INSTRUCTION MANUAL someplace...]
>
>>> 4 - Change/customize a few visual things,
>>> like the sidebar.
>>
>> The sidebar can be edited by any admin
>> at [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]]. Angela, Angela
> Beesley http://www.Wikia.com/
>
> [Peter Blaise says: By doing what? " MediaWiki:Sidebar" brings up
> "There is no page titled "MediaWiki:Sidebar". You can create this
> page." Is that an error? Do I need to be "admin" first? Is that
> an okay default message, meaning that if I want a custom, non-
> default SideBar, I need to create a new SideBar from scratch? Do
> I ... oh, too many questions.
>
> Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?]
>
>
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> MediaWiki-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054
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