About this wiki (technical)

This wiki is an instance of Mediawiki running on the Server. See Special:Version for detailed information about this instance. Mediawiki was chosen after considering other options and user testing—let's see how long it lasts ⌛

Before this wiki we were using a handbook. It was originally GitBook before that got enshittified, which took a (git) repository with a folder hierarchy of markdown files and produced a nice, book-like website. Someone forked GitBook to Honkit, which was a relatively easy migration.

Over time it became clear that the barrier to editing the handbook was so high that only very few people were contributing, which motivated the search for something else. https://www.wikimatrix.org/ was a useful comparison tool.

Decision considerations

Factors for MediaWiki

• Very good visual editor
  • never need to even look at wikitext syntax unless you want to
  • 'in-app' with same UI
  • "should" reduce the barrier to use
• Huge adoption
  • strength in numbers
  • large extension ecology
  • likely people have used the software before
• Possible gateway for people into Wikipedia
• Solid development infrastructure
  • Wikimedia Foundation
  • BlueSpice + other secondary companies

Factors against MediaWiki

• Database
  • No more git
  • Can't have a local copy easily
    • If instance goes down, info no longer accessible
  • Migration not easy
• Has a huge legacy/emphasis on backwards compatibility
  • lot's of janky code that will likely stay janky
  • tooling around seems a bit archaic: contribution barrier
• Patchy support for privacy: "MediaWiki was not written to provide per-page access restrictions..." https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Security_issues_with_authorization_extensions despite which:
  • Semantic ACL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_ACL
  • AccessControl: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AccessControl (most doc in czech)
  • Lockdown: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Lockdown
    • Used by Dezentrale https://wiki.dezentrale.space/Special:Version (example on https://wiki.dezentrale.space/Projekte/Schlie%C3%9Fsystem)

Other wiki software considered

• Wiki.js
  • node based, flat-file, has a lot of conveniences built in (like ACL)
  • used for https://wiki.diesunddas.xyz/
• Dokuwiki
  • php based, flat-file
  • used for https://wiki.ecohackerfarm.org/start
• Bookstack

Other organizations using MediaWiki:

• Dezentrale: https://wiki.dezentrale.space
• Inventaire: https://wiki.inventaire.io
• Noisebridge: https://www.noisebridge.net/ (cool themes & templates)
• Hackerspaces wiki: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org (cool theme)
• Baldur's Gate 3 wiki: https://bg3.wiki/ (magnificently themed)