I downloaded one of these traballs, but didn't look at it in detail, so I'm uncertain how complicated that would be. But if we're to move to MySQL anyway, either with my solution or a new CGI script, conversion is unavoidable.
I guess there are enough people out there who know some PHP, and it's easy to learn (easier than CGI, I think). As you know, Nupedia is PHP-based, and it works quite well. The script could also become a wikipedia "article" itself, which can be copied to a real file after an upgrade or error correction. It might be a good idea to limit write access to that "article", though. That could make a CVS unnecessary.
Which is another thing I need to know. Should I implement a "rights management"? If yes, how? Probably group-based, with an "editor" group giving out special rights? And limits that can be changes for each page, or should that go by page name, like "/Talk is open to everyone, /Lock can only be changed by editors"? Please give me input on this!
BTW, who should I contact for testing my script and the DB on a "real" server? Toan? And should I make the script public now, so everyone can take a look? As a wiki article, or post it here on the list?
Oh, so many questions...
Finally, I'm not sure I can do the long-term of the script maintnance myself. I'll work on the rights management and bug-fixing until it runs without bugs, of course, and can fix minor things when they pop up. But in a few weeks/month, I'll be quite busy at university, and can't promise anything there.
Magnus
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-admin@nupedia.com [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin@nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 11:30 PM To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] PHP Wikipedia
How difficult do you think it will be to import all the existing wikipedia data into your version?
What's your take on the general availability of PHP skills on the net, versus Perl skills?
I've been talking to Clifford Adams about the future of Wikipedia and UseModWiki, and he's given his blessing to a Wikipedia-centric fork of his code. Some of the design goals for UseModWiki, namely that it be easy to install, etc., aren't necessarily consistent with some of the more highly specialized needs of Wikipedia. He suggests that we find someone (Magnus? :-)) to take over the forked version, and that we could set up a modern CVS, etc.
I'm reluctant to go the PHP route, partially because I don't personally know much about PHP, but if you can convince me that it's sufficiently superior to a mod_perl or perl fastcgi solution, I'm thinking that we could go your route. Your code could be wikipedia-centric, and we could all learn to help you with it.
--Jimbo
Magnus Manske wrote:
Hi all,
as a few of you might know, I just wrote a complete (well,
almost) Wikipedia
software as a PHP script!
It has all essential wiki features like article editing,
version management,
user management, subpages, etc. Additionally, its data storage is completely MySQL (fast!), it
has a file
upload tool, some other goodies soon. Maybe best of all, script and database are prepared to support
some kind of
editor/superuser functionality for "locking" pages, as it is currently discussed.
Now to the bad sides (yes, there are some...)
- I don't have a server to host it yet. Maybe I can run it on
the Nupedia
server sometimes. So, no trying yet, sorry.
- The parser (to convert the source text into readable stuff)
is very basic.
I copied the HomePage and the SandBox from wikipedia, and they
look about
the same, but this is wherte the bugs will be.
- Currently, I don't have a means to convert wikipedia to MySQL
automatically, which is what would have to be done if (IF!)
this script ever
gets used.
Just letting you know there's an early but working alternative ready...
Magnus
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