Rowan Collins wrote:
2) Can you clarify what you think makes the current
customisation
process difficult, and - even more usefully - can you suggest how it
might be improved?
I think, what most people installing MediaWiki find confusing, is the
absence of any centralized administrative interface; some parameters are
configured in a script (LocalSettings.php), others directly in the
database (e.g. Interwiki links), and again others in the
MediaWiki-namespace etc.; additionally, there are some configurations
seen on the Wikimedia sites which are completely undocumented, e.g.
based on extensions, or MonoBook.{js|css} hacking, or templating etc.,
and a lot is changing between the releases (e.g. location of the
translations for interface elements). Even if one was involved for some
time in a Wikimedia project, one won't know exactly how all of this is
tied together. Beyond that, what makes running your own MediaWiki site a
real challenge is the current state of the documentation (e.g.
explaining the Trackback functionality someone asked a few days ago,
which somehow exists, but without any traces of documentation). A quite
easy approach could be to create *one* single page explaining the
concepts behind this ("why which feature is managed where and how").
Another, but probably unrealistic approach would be to write an
administrative interfacee which should be task (and not technically)
oriented.
Because of this, IMHO the documentation is crucial; a friendly usability
(whith a task-oriented interface) would be better, of course, but the
world isn't perfect anyway; with an accourate manual and working
examples one can at least *try* to make things work; but if the
documentation is out of date or incomplete, you have to understand the
code to use the beast. And that's something beyond the scope of most
people trying to set up a MediaWiki installation.
Since MediaWiki is Open Source and anyone could at least try to update
the documentation, or draft some kind of administrative interface, there
is not much to criticize but ourselves. However, having tried to start a
complete and systematic rewrite of the documentation a few months ago
myself, I learned that this can't be done in a convenient amount of
time, not if the manual is supposed to be well-written, easy to
understand, and should contain tested examples, and go deeply into
discussion of important administrative aspects like security,
replication, and high availability . Even if I'd write this im my native
tongue (which would hopefully sound clearer than this mail), it would
take approximately 9 to 12 months for a small group of people (1-2
writers, 1 techy, 1 spell checker/editor), and require a considerable
amount of research, and result in a 900-pages-book to be printed most
favourably by O'Reilly ;)
The bottomline: The Wiki collaborative authoring priciple seems to work
well for information which can be segmented in distinct particles (like
Wikipedia articles). It seems to work less for information with some
degree of required linearity (like a manual, or a textbook, which starts
with the basics, finishes with advanved stuff, and has to be consistent,
coherent, and cohesive in itself). Since it's improbable that one single
person will do the task, the real challenge I see is how to utilize the
Wiki priciple for the creation of a considerable larger and more complex
document like the MediaWiki manual...
Just my thoughts,
Regards from Berlin, -asb