Puppy Website: WIKI Migration

[tombh]

I'm not going to be doing this in the immediate short-term, I'd like to get the bulk of the rest of the website done first. But it's worth thinking about and discussing for now.

Here are the categories/sections in the current WIKI:
CategoryApplication
CategoryDevelopment
CategoryHardware
CategoryHowto
CategoryDocumentation
CategoryCommunity
CategoryDeletionProposal
CategoryLocalisation
CategoryNews
CategoryDerivative
CategoryReleases
CategoryUsers

Here is how I propose these categories will inhabit the new website:
CategoryApplication
CategoryDevelopment
CategoryHardware
CategoryHowto
would all remain WIKI categories -- see here -- and so will remain editable, revisionable and commentable as per expected with a WIKI. Further categories could be added. There is a free tagging mechanism whereby new categories can be created on the hoof, as it were, and also a interlinking thingamyjig that allows entires to belong to multiple categories.

As for the other categories they can find places in the newly structured website and will still be editable, but because of the extra functionality of Drupal they can also be endowed with stricter access. This might provide a way of encouraging slightly tighter editorship for pages that need it such as the Manual/Documentation.

Therefore CategoryDocumentation will be catered for by the "Manual" section and may possibly be consolidated with it.

CategoryCommunity would be catered for by the new "Community" section.

CategoryDeletionProposal would be catered for by a tagging system -- a simple radio button (along with Update Proposal) on the page's edit form.

CategoryLocalisation would be provided for by the "Puppy Sites" bit under the main navigation bar.

CategoryNews is catered for by the "Latest News" sub section under the "Home" section.

CategoryDerivative will be replaced by "Puplets" under "Downloads".

CategoryReleases doesn't have a direct relative yet but would probably come under "Downloads" -> "Official Releases"

CategoryUsers Will be replaced and built upon by a number of sections, including user profiles and user blogs.

It is likely that most of these categories can be migrated fairly easily using modules and custom scripts. However there will also be a significant number of pages that may need migrating/categorising by hand.

The current WIKI is quite a beast and I know I haven't looked at every single page, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[LOF]

My 2 cents:

-There is a lot of stuff in the Documentation category. I've no idea how much of it is fully covered in the manual or is even something that should be there. This might need to be looked at.

-A MainPage equivalent will still be required and a link to that will be needed on the menu.

-Is archiving news easy under the new system? If not then maybe a transfer of old news from the latest news page to the wiki could work?

-I feel that puplets need to have their own seperate page to which specific data could be added. Again I don't know if the wiki or the puplets page with sub-pages is the best way.
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Also as a sort of sidenote, I've slowly started going through the existing wiki in search for pages that are in need of serious editing using the new CategoryEditProposal that I created. Anyone is welcome to help either tagging pages or editing them.

[HairyWill]

There is a lot of stuff in the Documentation category. I've no idea how much of it is fully covered in the manual or is even something that should be there. This might need to be looked at.

I agree. There is a fair amount of glossary style and general linux stuff eg http://puppylinux.org/wikka/pget
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/DirectoryStructure
general linux background doesn't really belong in the manual or a howto. Whilst it might be preferable to point at general external resources instead, often these subjects need some specific explanation, for example the top level directory /initrd

A MainPage equivalent will still be required and a link to that will be needed on the menu.

Not necessarily, if there are several links in from the rest of the site.

Is archiving news easy under the new system? If not then maybe a transfer of old news from the latest news page to the wiki could work?

It is done manually by creating new pages for each month, cutting the content out of the main one and adding the archived months to http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ArchivedNews[/quote]

I feel that puplets need to have their own seperate page to which specific data could be added. Again I don't know if the wiki or the puplets page with sub-pages is the best way.

Probably the best way to decide this is considering the possible/desired editors of the information. I wouldn't expect every puplet author to have editorial rights on the general site. Once they have produced a wiki page with a reasonable description an editor should ensure it is linked from the puplets page where only the essential (standard) details are held for the puplet The puplet page is problematic in that if it is organised alphabetically recent versions may be hard to find. If it is organised chronologically then searching for a known version when you don't know the release date may be harder.

Also as a sort of sidenote, I've slowly started going through the existing wiki in search for pages that are in need of serious editing using the new CategoryEditProposal that I created. Anyone is welcome to help either tagging pages or editing them.

I've seen that. In the case of pages with content less than 2 sentences and one link I think it would be reasonable to mark them as pending deletion. In fact I might start a page with a list later. The more useless pages we can dump before migration the better. Though I am strongly in favour of keeping anything of reasonable substance.

What should we do with all the puppy1 stuff, people still use it I imagine but it must be confusing for newbies?

[tombh]

CategoryDocumentation
Yes it would be good to not have any overlapping content in the site, namely between the Wiki and the Manual. But I guess there will inevitably have to be some repetition because the Manual is kind of 'official' advice and the Wiki is 'personal' advice. But saying that there is certainly some easy consolidation that could be done, for instance there is a whole formatted and structured manual already amongst the current Wiki pages, it would be both confusing and a fragmenting of efforts to have both that and the the official Manual.

Whilst it might be preferable to point at general external resources instead, often these subjects need some specific explanation, for example the top level directory /initrd

Good point, it'd be good to use external sources where possible, but some aspects are too specific to Puppy and do need their own detailing.
My plan is to give the Wiki it's own button on the top banner like the Downloads and Manual currently enjoy. It will also have a sidebar like the manual with a menu tree to help you browse. I can also put teasers to the latest Wiki entries on the front page.

CategoryNews
The way news items work in the new site, is much like a blog, each item is an object within the database and so is archived, ordered and paginated automatically. This will make it easier to archive in the future. However, it would not be straightforward to copy all the old news archives into the new system. Perhaps it would be best to have a category within the new Wiki called archives where we could keep all that.

Puplets
The way I have set this up on the new site is as a sub-section under the main section "Downloads". So strictly speaking they are not part of the Wiki, though they will be user contributable. At the moment anyone can add a Puplet (or an official release for that matter) but they can then only edit the content which they themselves uploaded. Only privileged admins can edit other peoples content. Again each Puplet is an object in the database, with not just a description field, but name, size, parent, md5sum, creation date and download URL fields. It will be easy to program the viewing page to order the Puplets by any of these fields.

Pages for Deletion Editing
Most of the Wiki will be migrated using a custom script so it will be easy enough to add functions that ignore/delete pages depending on their assigned category and functions to ignore/delete pages that have less then 2 sentences. I reckon if there is an Archive Category in the new Wiki we could keep less relevant stuff in there, maybe the Puppy1 stuff?

[Lobster]

Looking good. The manual is there.

Can we all be reporters? PCPuppyOS Final is available . . .
Someone just managed to run Puppy for a 64processor (command line only) etc

Is rss or similar possible from Barrys blog?

[tombh]

Yeah, at the moment anyone who is registered can contribute content (apart from actual main pages themselves), eventually though I think registered users will only be able to submit wiki entries where all other content will require the user to ask for higher privileged role first.

Yeah, that's a great idea about including an RSS feed to Barry's blog, I might even have a look at that today.

[WhoDo]

Can we all be reporters?

If "we" can't, then "you" most certainly can! Tom if you can't feed the news from Barry's blog, and even if you can, I'd suggest that Lobster needs access to the Latest News as Editor-in-Chief. IMHO, 99% of what we find out about new releases, puplets etc comes from Ed. That shouldn't change just because we've move the site and given it a facelift. Agreed?

[WhoDo]

Duplicate. Please delete.

[raffy]

(Just a note about the redirect after puppylinux.org is pointed to the new host.) When puppylinux.org is pointed to Hostgator (new host), the link to the current wikka will be: http://pupweb.org/wikka and a permanent redirect of old wikka links will be placed at puppylinux.org.

[Lobster]

If "we" can't, then "you" most certainly can! Tom if you can't feed the news from Barry's blog, and even if you can, I'd suggest that Lobster needs access to the Latest News as Editor-in-Chief. IMHO, 99% of what we find out about new releases, puplets etc comes from Ed. That shouldn't change just because we've move the site and given it a facelift. Agreed?

I need help (but enough of my personal life)
The news used to be daily but that is quite a pace
I started it to familiarise myself with Puppy World
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews

It means going through the forums
each day and reporting any important bits (your choice)

A great way of learning and contributing

The Additional Software (PUPs, n' stuff) section in
this forum are all newsworthy items
- not sure if rss is possible?

Another thing to consider is the HowTo section in this forum
Excellent posts like this deserve to be on the new site . . .
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 635#192635

[tombh]

@Whodo:

I'd suggest that Lobster needs access to the Latest News as Editor-in-Chief

How do you mean exactly? Currently all registered users can add news items and Lobster is an admin and can edit absolutely anything he wants on the whole site.

@Lobster: I've just been mastering HTML parsing and custom RSS syndication today, which basically means I can RSS-ify anything. Darrelljon had made some feeds for certain forums here but they frustratingly had the sticky threads always at the top, but I've figured out how to remove them now. In fact I should even be able to RSS-ify the "View topics since last visit".

I'd never thought of taking some of the many excellent forum posts and making them a part of the website/wiki. It's a good idea because there are quite a few. But wow that is a particularly clear and concisive post on CPU management!

[darrelljon]

The sticky threads can be hidden with a bit of tweaking of the RSS generator I used, but someone else will have to do it. Otherwise might aswell just wait for the new site with new RSS feeds. I've noticed the old RSS feeds unavailable sometimes, I don't know if they're a drain on the bandwidth of the forums.

[tombh]

I've just posted all the new RSS links on my blog.

[prit1]

@Tom: Great job. This will be very useful. I can add them to my RSS parser and get the updates from there. Cool one. Thanks a lot.

[tombh]

Okay, I've managed to migrate the entire wikka wikki into Drupal -- see here. I've followed the roadmap set out in the first post of this thread.

There are a few things i want to mention, but I'm not sure if I'll remember them all right now, but I'll give it a go;

*This is now an opportunity to reorganise the wiki; new categories, delete entries, move entries etc.

*Apart from the following categories,
CategoryApplication,
CategoryDevelopment,
CategoryHardware,
CategoryHowto,
I have put everything else under the Archives category.

*Under each of Drupal's menus there are further categories, such as basic, advanced, general, these are not set in stone, they're just suggestions for what is possible. We should discuss the best categories to use for each section.

*Entries can belong to multiple sections and categories.

*Does anyone have time/enthusiasm to help move/sort/reorganise?

*Has the data migrated well? Missing pages, chunks of text, poorly rendered characters, etc?

[HairyWill]

Am I being dense?
How do I edit a page?
I am logged in.

[tombh]

doh!

I'm just wondering the same thing! It's a user privilege thing somewhere I have to click... I'm sure I'll figure it out in a mo....

[WhoDo]

Okay, I've managed to migrate the entire wikka wikki into Drupal -- see here. I've followed the roadmap set out in the first post of this thread.

Woohoo! I can finally manage my EZpup and EZpup Help pages!!! The new wiki works great and it seems soooo much easier to use with the visual editor! Great job, Tom! NOW we're cooking!

@Lobster
This is a chance for you and your dedicated wiki team to create a beautiful and functional repository of knowledge for Puppy, without having to recreate all of your prior hard work on the current wiki. Please, let us know what you think, and spread the word among your fellow wiki maintainers.

[HairyWill]

woohoo
I was editing this http://74.54.199.50/~whodo/wiki/how-tos ... ronwindows but now it is gone from the list of general howtos and if I try and access the page direct I get "you are not authorized to access this page"
I just tried to create a couple of pages as well. I got the little green message on the front page saying it had been created but now I cannot find it.

[tombh]

@HairyWill: Oh bother I figured out the problem, it's to do with the input format that all wiki-entries are set to. There's 3 to choose from Filtered HTML, Full HTML and PHP code, I chose the second. The problem is that authenticated users (ie registered users without extra privileges) are only allowed to use the first.

Now the reason I set it to the second option is that the first strips some HTML tags, which break/reduce some of the migrated wiki pages. So the task is to add as many allowable tags to the Filtered HTML filter so that the pages don't break whilst keeping the security benefits of having a reduced tag-set filter.

But first sleep

@WhoDo: Hooray!