Difference between revisions of "WikiIndex:Admin Notes"

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October 2010 Upgrade Thoughts

Upgrade

I'd be happy to try to upgrade this MediaWiki and/or add extensions that we might need, but not sure what's needed and also not sure what customizations, etc. we've had that we'd have to keep in mind. Any thoughts? Raymond King | talk

• Oh, and yes, I know about the favicon and will fix as soon as possible ...

One common extension we don't have is Extension:Renameuser, which allows bureaucrats the ability to change the name of an account. Elassint, 10 14 2010

Also, how about Semantic MediaWiki

• Semantic Wiki (allows if statements which can help make better infoboxes and other stuff too)

Making WikiIndex a semantic wiki with the extensions. - I like this, ~~ MarkDilley

I would like to consider if we would like to move to a semantic MediaWiki - I am asking now if all that is, is the extension. This is an estimate I got from Yaron Koren of WikiWorks.com:

Update of existing code: .5 hour

Updating site copy: 2 hours

Installing SMW and related extensions: 1 hour

Setting up wiki for SMW, including re-arranging category structure: 5 hours

What do folks think? ~~ MarkDilley

• CITE (allows easy creation of references)

I almost forgot about the cite extension, that's practically mandatory, and semantic would not be a bad idea either. Elassint, 10 16 2010

Nice but not mandatory in terms of DocumentingWikis as different than EmergentWikis. Best, MarkDilley

So when do you think a possible upgrade might happen? Elassint, 10 17 2010

Can you think of anything else that we've customized or added that we should be careful of when we upgrade? If not, then I'm ready to move forward with it. Could you help me identify and ask any other admins? Raymond King | talk

When John Stanton retired, I took notes about what files needed to be saved during an upgrade, Raymond King - please talk with me before doing an upgrade. Thanks, MarkDilley

• The idea of installing Semantic MediaWiki greatly appeals to my inner geek, but I can't think of any specific uses for it right now. Then again, with the shiny new toy in front of me, that might change. Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:37, 27 October 2010 (PDT)
• Are there any downsides to installing SMW, apart from the workload? Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:37, 27 October 2010 (PDT)
• I don't see the point of the Semantic Mediawiki upgrade. The question is, is that useful to the users of this Wiki? I can't say for certain that it is for everyone, for me personally it doesn't seem to be. I would be interested in the possibility of having stronger anti-spam support ((Like Check Spambots for example)) TeraS 18:10, 27 October 2010 (PDT)

Semantic MediaWiki has one big advantage for this wiki: It allows structured an guided data entry through Semantic Forms which is substantially easier than the current system. Additionallly I see no reason why Semantic Drilldown should not be useful for users too. Just have a look at Discourse DB to see an example. --kgh 08:19, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

I second the suggestion of RenameUser. — User:Sean Fennel@ 13:38, 31 October 2010 (PDT)

Mark Dilley asked me to comment here on why Semantic MediaWiki would be useful for this site. I can point to two big reasons - form-based editing, and drill-down browsing. You can see examples of those two here and here. Yaron Koren 18:43, 31 October 2010 (PDT)

This sounds like it could be a dream come true for the site. Using forms, we could create an incredibility easy way to index wikis. I think we should upgrade to Semantic MediaWiki. Elassint, 10 31 2010

I just realise that Yaron commented on SMW as I did. To cut a long story short: Go for it! --kgh 08:22, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

Giving visitors the ability to index their wikis using forms would be brilliant! The more we can avoid populating the "Wikis to Add" category, the better. --MarvelZuvembie 17:18, 4 November 2010 (PDT)

I think Replace text is always a good choice on a wiki. --kgh 08:25, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

Someone will have to look at Whos Online. Probably it will have to be switched to WhosOnline though I do not know if it will be able to serve the same purpose. --kgh 08:42, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

(1) As long as the layout isn't changed to anything resembling "New Wikia Look" (my main complaint with New Wikia Look is the comments that can be posted to the bottom of articles (example: "I LOVE TWILIGHT!!!!!!!!ITS CLASSY" comment posted in comment area of an article at Twilight Wikia.) (2) I was going to suggest adding the Gadget that gives people the option of of have "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" in their Preferences, but probably not much need for it at WikiIndex (since articles are fairly small in comparison with some other wikis). --EarthFurst 20:51, 11 November 2010 (PST)

Summary

data from http://wikiindex.org/Special:Version

• Upgrade (how-to): 1.10.1 → 1.16.0
• Installed extensions: SpecialInterwiki, CharInsert, InputBox, ParserFunctions, ConfirmEdit, SpamBlacklist, UniversalEditButton (deprecated)
• Extensions to install (proposed by others): Cite, Renameuser, Semantic MediaWiki, Semantic Drilldown, Semantic Forms, Replace Text, WhosOnline, (AntiBot (used in Wikipedia) or Check Spambots)
• Extensions to install (proposed by me): AbuseFilter, Title Blacklist, CategoryTree, TorBlock, AntiSpoof, Nuke, CheckUser, TitleKey, OpenDocument Export

Does the host have the DBA extension for PHP installed? The readme says it'll improve performance.

That's my suggestions. --190.26.27.91 18:38, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

It was suggested in the wikitech-l mailing list that for the next releases MediaWiki would need PHP 5.2.3 so we need to ensure that the new host has that version installed. It should also have MySQL 5.1 or later. --Bachinchi 03:27, 7 November 2010 (PST)

In case there will not be a change to another hoster, these two precondition are fulfilled since this wiki is already running PHP 5.2.3 and MySQL 5.1.41. --kgh 12:26, 7 November 2010 (PST)

To me this sounds like a plan. Concerning DBA: If I get this page right it would be better to have APC rather than DBA. Cheers --kgh 12:26, 7 November 2010 (PST)

Logo

Crazy thought / change the logo? Here's a concept, comments welcome Raymond King | talk

I prefer our current logo, it fits in well with the style of the site and the monobook skin. Elassint, 10 21 2010

Understood; I was thinking that we'd also move from monobook to vector when we did the upgrade. Example at ICANNWiki.com Raymond King | talk

I don't see a need to rebrand right now, even under vector. I must admit to being biased to the current logo though :-) ~~ MarkDilley p.s. look at past logo ideas too.

To the right, I am suggesting a rebranding using the same image and different lettering - with the image above the text - also this is the favicon we have had for a while, lost recently. Many complements of the logo, thus my pushing for keeping it is some fashion. :-) ~~ MarkDilley

I love this logo. The current one appears to be a bit, no offence please, quaint in the meantime. This one is very catchy, modern and clear. It works on heaps of skins and allows a good favicon. --kgh 08:36, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

I find the logo great, but it could be even greater :-) though a need for a rebrand seems not to be. But think also about the favicon which is currently empty. Please let me have a further look on it. --Wolf | talk 00:07, 27 October 2010 (PDT)
@Raymond, was it your design?

I tried something yesterday, but got no reasonable results so far. I guess the shape in the teeth of the key was intended as a metaphor for gardening? --Wolf | talk 00:37, 28 October 2010 (PDT)

p.s. this one could fit better ;-)

What about this straight forward logo below? Indexer 01:11, 30 October 2010 (PDT)

It's not a bad idea, but there's no way we can make a 396 × 98 logo like that work with monobook or vector. Sorry. Elassint, 10 30 2010

This is a Citizendium clone. I do not really fancy it. --kgh 08:36, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

Here another suggestion:

too much "hidden" content ;-) ? --Wolf | talk 11:43, 30 October 2010 (PDT)

Okay here is the same logo in 128 by 128. Indexer 17:52, 30 October 2010 (PDT)

that's not the problem. If it should work as favicon, it has to be scaled down to 32x32 or 16x16 pixels - try better with a square shape. --Wolf | talk 05:34, 31 October 2010 (PDT)

Yours is not 32x32 or 16x16 either, and mine is square shape. The green colour doesn't look good. Indexer 16:13, 31 October 2010 (PDT)

Favicon

This simplified logo (minus the text) might be something that could be recycled into the favicon. David Shepheard 04:32, 27 October 2010 (PDT)

I like that idea. It would make an excellent favicon! TeraS 18:11, 27 October 2010 (PDT)

I think this is a good idea as well - and if we kept original keys, we could change lettering to this color. ~~ MarkDilley

A nice one. See me comments in the logo section. --kgh 08:38, 1 November 2010 (PDT)

I like this a favicon. I'm neutral on changing the logo, but if we do, I think matching with this favicon would be the way to go. --MarvelZuvembie 17:08, 4 November 2010 (PDT)

not really working favicons

Dreamhost Disaster

Our former hoster, Dreamhost, had a server failure about noon on Saturday, May 5th that caused 23 of our wikis and blogs to go down including WikiIndex.org and RecentChanges.info. They brought up a replacement server on Sunday the 6th but were unable to restore our sites from either the failed server or the server backups and that condition remains today. Luckily the databases for the sites were not affected because they were on a separate server and we were able to pull the very latest data out of the database.

We had already made the decision to move from Dreamhost to 1and1 before this failure occurred because of the many outages and very bad performance of Dreamhost, so we decided to rebuild all of the sites on 1and1. Some of our sites are quite large and uploading just the images can take over a day, so restoring the sites is really a pain. Dreamhost and 1and1 are on different versions of the MySQL database and restoration without corrupting the data proved a bit daunting for a while until we found the magic bullet. Most of our wikis are now operational including WikiIndex but several sites are still awaiting name transfers and some wikis have yet to be restored.

There are almost always losses when this kind of thing happens and for WikiIndex we lost images that were entered between 15 Dec 2006 and 5 May 2007. Most of these are logos and they can be recovered as we get the chance. The image loss was the result of poor judgment on my part because I had elected to backup the image directories on the server that failed because of their size.

If you run across a missing image just re-upload it under the same name and all should be ok. If you notice any configuration or extension issues just let me know and I'll track them down.

Sorry for any inconvenience this outage may have caused.

John 22:09, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

You will be ok wit 1and1, i used em for eight years, never had downtime. Just other things to watch for now, Good Luck wit 1and1.... Written by a 1and1 eight year ignored client

Dreamhost

We are going to have to find a more reliable hoster than Dreamhost. The outages over the last two weeks are just unacceptable! Let us know if you have a recommendations for a MediaWiki friendly hoster. We are going to change within the next two weeks. John 12:06, 26 February 2007 (PST)

System Outage 2/22/2007 - 2/23/2007

Sorry about the system outage over the last two days, Dreamhost upgraded PHP 5 to a new version and it took down all of our wikis that were not on MW version 1.9.X. I was force to upgrade all of our wikis to 1.9.2 and still have some to go. Not a happy camper!

Beware of PHP 5.2.1 upgrades and MW versions below 1.9.x!

John 19:29, 23 February 2007 (PST)

Spam Control Policy

I've put up a proposed Spam Control Policy page to try and get our spam fighting coordinated and everyone on the same page. Please check it out and revise, extend and discuss as you wish. The local spam blacklist is a bit out of control and may be defeating it's own purpose. I propose deleting the content of that page and starting over using the new policy.
John 14:44, 18 February 2007 (PST)

Page Location Problems

Since the Move we have been experiencing some problems with specific pages generating errors. The problem was traced to the code that allows the use of so called "pretty URLs" (URLs without the /index.php part). The offending code has been removed and all is well. The downside is that you may have to re-bookmark specific pages. The issues with this code are complex and we will continue to use the ugly URLs until we are sure we have code that addresses all the issues.
John 16:28, 8 February 2007 (PST)
(Partial workaround implemented 15feb07.)

Vector and 1 million hits

Sorry for joining this page late, for some reason this time I did not receive an email alert that a message had been posted on my talk page. Anyway, and I think someone else has mentioned this on this page, I think it would be good to change the default page "skin" to vector (to do this put:

$wgDefaultSkin = 'vector';

in LocalSettings.php). This gives a modern look, familiar to users of wikipedia.

As an aside, I notice that the MainPage is approaching the 1 million hits mark. Maybe someone could design a nice banner to mark the occasion? All the best, -- Carl McBride (talk) 03:23, 17 November 2010 (PST)

This wiki uses MediaWiki 1.10.1, this version was released long ago and doesn't include Vector. To use it, this wiki should upgrade to 1.16. See the thread above. --Bachinchi 08:55, 17 November 2010 (PST)

Thanks Bachinchi. Given that any presumable upgrade would be to the latest version, I implicitly assumed that it would be to 1.16.0. However, in general, on upgrading one usually maintains ones original LocalSettings.php file from before. For this reason I made an explicit mention of the $wgDefaultSkin variable. Otherwise WikiIndex would continue with MonoBook as the default skin (which is starting to look dated) regardless of the version installed. All the best, -- Carl McBride (talk) 09:09, 17 November 2010 (PST)