[Foundation-l] The Ideal Wiki Software

[Titoxd@Wikimedia]

Speaking from the technical side, there is a hurdle with the "vastly
improved searches" that are requested, at least on one aspect. The way
MediaWiki currently stores its data is in InnoDB tables, which allow for
simultaneous reads and writes with high efficiency and low lag. However,
these do not contain a full-text search index; MyISAM tables do. The search
index table is the only MyISAM table on the database, due to precisely that
limitation. Currently, every edit has to be copied to the search table,
usually by a script, and those take a while to run and consume precious
system resources. Ideas as to how to make that process better are greatly
recommended at Wikitech-l.

As for categories: date of page creation is not stored in the tables right
now; that would be ideally something for the page table. The time a page
included in a category is already stored (or at least, there is room for
it), so that may be easier to do in the future. Dynamic sort tables have
issues with older browsers, but maybe a sortby can be done by the server as
well. These things do require a considerable amount of coding and testing,
though. 

Titoxd. 

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brianna
Laugher
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 11:05 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Ideal Wiki Software

On 23/01/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> In an ideal world, what features would the ideal Wiki Software have, and
> what would it be like?

I have outlined some of my hopes for the future of MediaWiki in
file/image management (ie. the Commons) in comments on this bug:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3712

I dream of a MediaWiki II that is actually designed to manage media -
like the name implies. :)

Vastly improved and more flexible search would also benefit all wikis.
There is a hella lotta potential for improving options when working
with categories, too (for example, I envisage a drop-down list with
options for the sort key - date page created, date added to category,
page name (alphabetical - current default), date page was last edited.
etc.

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

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