[Mediawiki-l] Long-term: Wiki import/export format

[Lee Daniel Crocker]

Problems: The frequently-changing database schema in which the wiki
information is stored makes it difficult to maintain data across
upgrades (requiring conversion scripts), offers no easy backup
functionality, makes it difficult to access the data with other tools,
and is generally fragile.

Proposed solution: Let's create a standardized file format (probably
something XML-ish) for storing the information contained in a wiki.
All the text, revisions, meta-data, and so on would be stored in a
well-defined format, so that, for example, upgrading the wiki software
(from any version to any other--no need to do one at a time!) could
be done by exporting the wiki into this format and then importing it
into the new installation.  The export format would be publishable
and easier to use for other applications, would be a simple file
system for which commonly-available backup tools could be used.  A
periodic export/import would serve to clean the database of any
reference errors and fragmentation.  Tools could be created to work
with the new format to create subsets, mirrors, and so on.

I already have some idea of what is needed, but I solicit input.

-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/>