Community Wiki software

Community Wiki software Lee G Moore 2/9/09 10:41 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Vincent Horn 2/10/09 1:58 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/10/09 3:01 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/10/09 3:03 AM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/10/09 4:18 AM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/10/09 4:31 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/10/09 4:54 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Lee G Moore 2/10/09 10:26 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/10/09 12:47 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/11/09 6:21 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/11/09 8:10 AM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/11/09 8:41 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Vincent Horn 2/11/09 12:17 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/11/09 4:05 PM
RE: Community Wiki software beta wave 2/11/09 10:12 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Jackson Wilshire 2/12/09 7:10 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Lee G Moore 2/12/09 1:14 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Chuck Kasmire 2/14/09 5:31 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Kenneth Folk 2/14/09 11:57 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Gozen M L 2/14/09 2:00 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/14/09 4:54 PM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/15/09 4:47 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Chuck Kasmire 2/15/09 8:10 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Eric Calhoun 2/15/09 10:38 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Hokai Sobol 2/15/09 11:22 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/15/09 12:58 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/16/09 12:49 AM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/16/09 5:32 AM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/16/09 5:41 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/16/09 10:18 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/16/09 11:41 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Trent S. H. 2/16/09 12:00 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/16/09 3:45 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Trent S. H. 2/16/09 5:11 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/16/09 5:15 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/16/09 5:56 PM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/17/09 12:26 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/19/09 3:44 PM
RE: Community Wiki software C4 Chaos 2/19/09 4:04 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 2/19/09 4:26 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/20/09 7:26 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Wet Paint 2/20/09 7:27 AM
RE: Community Wiki software Mike L 2/24/09 4:42 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Mike L 3/20/09 8:06 PM
RE: Community Wiki software Daniel M. Ingram 3/21/09 4:17 AM
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Lee G Moore, modified 15 Years ago at 2/9/09 10:41 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/9/09 10:41 PM

Community Wiki software

Posts: 18 Join Date: 7/4/09 Recent Posts
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

Below is a topic mentioned by Daniel in the "Sharing like back in the day thread..."

7) things about the DhO, like our desire for a more sophisticated wiki for that would do something like what my book does except have the advantages of a wiki and be more collectively generated: we are working on that now: any advice on the best, most powerful, user-friendly engine to drive it?

I'd like to explore some of the requirements for a wiki / or community portal site explored a little here. As a professional web developer I have some background in utilizing open source solutions including configuring and writing custom plugins as necessary and even building dynamic sites from the ground up. If I have a clearer idea of what specific website capabilities are wanted, I can do some research and see if there is a good match out there.
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Vincent Horn, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 1:58 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 1:58 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 211 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Hi Lee,

Ah, it would be great to hear your thoughts on this. When I was speaking w/ Daniel he was saying it would be nice to have, "Something with both blogging commentary for discussion of points, as well as a formal wiki a la wikipedia, but hopefully easier to edit (such as with wysiwyg editor) would be good. I am sure we could find someone to set the thing up somehow. Thing I would like: good security, very easy editor, good search capabilities, and some nice thematic formatting so it looks professional."

When you get a chance (perhaps after your retreat) we could chat about this. :-D

-Vince
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 3:01 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 3:01 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: josh0

I'm also a professional web developer, and I've thought about this sort of thing before. It wouldn't be difficult at all to set up a MediaWiki wiki (à la Wikipedia). That would obviously give us the advanced wiki behavior. It does look like there are various ways to integrate forum software such as vBulletin and PHPBB with MediaWiki, and various other solutions as well. There may well also be an existing product out there that does what we're looking for however, and there's always the possibility of building a custom solution (which is the route I tend to take, but that's more because of the projects I usually take on).

I'll take some time to look into what sorts of things are out there as well, as this is definitely something I'd be interested in.
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 3:03 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 3:03 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: josh0

Something that just occurred to me that might be a fun project would be to take the text of Daniel's book and just drop it into a wiki as a sort of seed. Once that's there any of us would be able to go in and mark it up, create links to pages on particular concepts, and all that fun stuff. Might be a cool project.
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:18 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:18 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 7/26/09 Recent Posts
nice. here's my suggestion. as for wiki i suggest sticking with the standard open source Media Wiki (same platform that runs Wikipedia).

as for Daniel's requirement, i haven't tried it yet, but i think a good solution would be the open source Wordpress MU + BuddyPress. see http://buddypress.org/

that said, i think it would require DhO to have it's own domain and reliable hosting emoticon if and when this happens, i'd be willing to pitch in emoticon

~C
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:31 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:31 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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P.S. alternatively, WordPress can also be used as a wiki emoticon
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2008/07/15/wordpress-as-a-wiki
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:54 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 4:54 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: josh0

In general I find that trying to shoehorn new and radically different functionality into something is a bad idea. If we really want a good, featureful wiki, I think our best bet is to go with real wiki software. MediaWiki, as you said, is an pretty obvious and solid choice.
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Lee G Moore, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 10:26 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 10:26 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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From the requirements I've seen so far, it sounds like what is desired is a full featured portal solution (Drupal, PhpNuke, Joomla, Mambo, DotNetNuke). Portals usually offer the ability to setup pages, create and manage content, site searching, user administration, authorization & authentication and have Plugins or Modules to handle additional functionality like Forums, Blogs, Wiki's, Private Messaging, ShoutBox etc.

Their are tons of portal solutions out there and they all have their pros/cons. One particularly hard part to get right is a javascript wysiwyg editor. Very basic ones seem to work well but are limited in capabilities (think gmail editor). I've worked with several different sophisticated javascript wysiwyg editors and they have their frustrations. Still one you get comfortable with the quirks it's no big deal usually though it's better to author long posts in a separate desktop editor because nothing sucks more than spending 45 minutes crafting a masterpiece of rhetoric and then your fancy javascript wysiwyg editor crashes.

It looks like we have a few web developers here so if we need to do some custom module/plugin building, we won't risk the only developer leaving the community or being on retreat when some work or fixes need to be done.

Vince,
My recovery seems a little slower than I'd like, so I'm probably not going back on retreat until Monday or Tuesday next week. I'm available most anytime except 9 AM - 4 PM MST when I'm sleeping. Other than that I'm just relaxing at the hotel. Let me know when to call to discuss further.

-Lee
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 12:47 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/10/09 12:47 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: Tracy.

What I want is a php/mysql-driven database of peoples' own meditation breakthroughs. Submissions could come from a web-based form and include fields like where you think you were on the maps at the time, what tradition you're in, what the problem was, how you solved it, what happened next, etc. Then users could search the database for keywords and categories and get results that might be relevant to their own practice problems. If registration were required before submission, it could be somewhat anonymous while also allowing the ability to follow a single person's contributions/meditation path.

I know I search out books that could be categorized as "spiritual memoirs" in the hopes of finding such information, but they rarely even include it!
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 6:21 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 6:21 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Alright, it sounds like we have the talent to do this in abundance!

Let's go ahead and define the steps we need to do to get this going.

It sounds like we need to do something like this, with this coming from a relatively unsophisticated web developer:

1) go ahead a register a domain name
2) get a solid host for it with a full set of capabilities so we are not limited
3) decide which software we use to drive the wiki. I prefer something powerful and stable to otherwise, but some assessment of costs and tradeoffs may come into play.
4) figure out who will actually load/configure/etc the software and who will to the website theme design
5) go ahead and do those things

Please, those with more experience, go ahead and add your feedback to this so that this energy may continue to make things happen.
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 8:10 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 8:10 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: josh0

I would recomment switching items 2 and 3, as certain hosts are better suited to certain software suites. Other than that, however, that looks like a pretty good list of first steps to be taken.

My own personal interest is in Python-based web development (specifically Django) as opposed to PHP, which does limit your options somewhat (though not in terms of quality or price, I should add). However most large-scale solutions currently out there are going to be in PHP so it's a tossup as to whether or not this is relevant.
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 8:41 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 8:41 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 7/26/09 Recent Posts
sweet! looks like this thing is quickly taking shape emoticon

i'm in IT but i'm not a web developer so i tend to look at things from a more system integration and less coding perspective emoticon

so, here's my suggestion. based on Daniel's requirements (e.g. personal blogs), i think it would be best to implement a standard and popular open source solution, such as WordPress MU. see: http://mu.wordpress.org/

my reasoning for this is as follows:

- it's free, open source and it's in PHP. so hard core developer's would easily groove with it emoticon

- it would be easier for non-hard core developers (like me) to participate in the creation process. also, design-wise, there are a lot of templates available to start from.

- it has solid developer support, highly customizable, lots of plugins, and scaling will not be an issue, RSS ready, blogging-engine in tact and tested. no need to re-invent the wheel.

assuming we go with WordPress MU, i imagine DhO becoming something like http://scienceblogs.com/ (i.e. dedicated members with blogs in addition to the wiki, and who knows what else emoticon)

my two cents.
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Vincent Horn, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 12:17 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 12:17 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 211 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Hey guys,

Ok, so Daniel and I touched based and we concluded that the best way to move this forward would be for all those developer / tech geeks here that are interested in potentially contributing to this little project to do an initial conference call to move the thing forward. This way Daniel can give the download at the kinds of specs we're looking for and we can hash out all the geeky technical stuff from there.

So, if you're available we'll do a conference call next Monday evening (Feb 16th) at 7pm CST (8pm EST, 6pm MST, 5pm PST). So to join in use the following info at that time:

Conference Dial-in Number: (218) 339-4300
Participant Access Code: 812186#

I look forward to chatting with you geeks! ;)
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 4:05 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 4:05 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Step one, that of purchasing the domain name, is done: dharmaoverground.org it is.

Step two: those who are interested hopefully will do some research so that Monday's conference call during which we hopefully will be determining what software to drive it and then who will host that software will go smoothly.

I would just love it if every time I typed A&P or 4th Jhana or emptiness or something like that that it had wiki functionality and would lead people into a deep treasure trove of dharma, good maps, good correlations between traditions, good resources for further information, so that people don't have to do so much work to get up to speed on this stuff but can jump in more easily from wherever they are coming from so as to open this stuff up to more practitioners who could benefit from it. I would love to see people discussing the various points of the maps, tips for navigating and recognizing them, points of controversy, etc. That would all seem to functional and healthy, and I am thankful for everyone who will help work to make that happen.
beta wave, modified 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 10:12 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/11/09 10:12 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 5 Join Date: 8/30/09 Recent Posts
I was looking for the wiki component at this site... am I missing it? Or would the wiki piece be using a different piece of software?
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Jackson Wilshire, modified 15 Years ago at 2/12/09 7:10 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/12/09 7:10 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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I am totally on board with this vision! This is exciting.
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Lee G Moore, modified 15 Years ago at 2/12/09 1:14 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/12/09 1:14 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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I would love to get more deeply involved in this but, am going back into retreat at MBMC on Monday. I wish you guys the best of luck putting together a kick ass site.
Chuck Kasmire, modified 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 5:31 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 5:31 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 560 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Sorry if I missed some preliminary discussions but I think there are some fundamentals that you need to address:

-What is your reason for doing this?
-Intended audience?
-Level of access/participation you are seeking?
-Is the intent to create an online community or to foster local groups?

I think we need to reflect on the fact that this group is dominated largely by tech-savy young males. Is that because of the technology? Format? Culture? If we want a larger audience and participation (I would) – then this has to be addressed before you build as this will be critical in defining your requirements.

In my experience, women usually make up half or more of local groups and the meditation retreats that I have been on - and they are very active participants. I am not saying it's wrong to have a geeky male dharma site – just that you need to be mindful of what you are creating from the beginning.
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Kenneth Folk, modified 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 11:57 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 11:57 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Thanks for making an excellent point, Chuck. I too would like to see more gender balance here. Any ideas for bringing that about? Are we doing something that is alienating women? Or are we just not doing enough to include them?

I would love to hear from the few women who do frequent this site as to what we might do to get more women to participate.
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Gozen M L, modified 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 2:00 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 2:00 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Responding the CheleK and Kenneth asking about women tending not to participate online:

When I've spoken to women about this, they typically respond that they do not feel comfortable with the sort of dialog, debate and -- too often -- conflict that occurs in online debate between men. So they may listen in but remain silent, or they may just leave.

Here is my somewhat radical suggestion: Create a women's area of the website. Men would not be allowed to post there. The women themselves would decide whether men could even read the posts in the women's area. But in no case could the men post. The most that a man could do (assuming that men were permitted read what the women write) is to email a woman and ask her to pass along what he wants to say. But it's up to the woman to decide whether to do so or not.

What I am suggesting is the creation of a women's "safe space."

Thoughts?

Gozen
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 4:54 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/14/09 4:54 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: -Jill-

Hi Guys,
Being born and raised in a traditional dogmatic Buddhist Asian country, not-male, not-tech-savy, and not intellectually sharp, I don't feel excluded here in any way, nor do I feel turned off by the often nit-picky debates. I find them fun to read and follow. I find little reminders here and there that are inspiring for my practice, and feel a cozy reassurance that there are people out there who understand, that if I ever run into a crisis, blockage, or confusion in my meditation or in being alive, I could reach out for help in a thread here or send someone a PM. Oh, and I check out the links to dharma sites I haven't seen when you guys post them.

Yet, I generally don't get any urge to post, and if we started a women's only section, I probably wouldn't post much there either (but I think that's a good idea, if there are enough women votes for it). I wonder if it's a female thing to not be as enthusiastic about engaging in public dharma discussions, or if it's just me. And I'm curious to know if there are more men than women actively posting in other internet forums with gender-neutral topics.

Another thought that comes to mind is that women often support each other by sharing their feelings and giving emotional encouragement, while men often give support by helping one another figure things out. I don't know how true this is as a generalization, but I know that I prefer the more male "let's figure things out" type of support that we see here. Even when the threads are full of argument and picky debate I find it inspiring, motivating, and reassuring, because people seem honest and sincere here.

A new wiki that gives the creators all the freedom to shape it any way they want would be cool, but I'm a big fan of the Dh.O. as it is.

Kudos to all the male dharma geeks.
Jill
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 4:47 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 4:47 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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thanks for posting this. good to hear from someone from the other side of the gender pool emoticon
i generally agree with what you've written. it's probably a typology thing. males are just more geeky online (this applies to blogs, forums, online gaming, etc.)

my sense is that for now, DhO doesn't have to specifically cater to women at this time (although they are more than welcome). baby steps first. let's get the structure going and see how far this will take us.

~C
Chuck Kasmire, modified 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 8:10 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 8:10 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 560 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
I agree. I did not mean to suggest by my earlier post that you should hold off on implementation until you have all your requirements - but I can see how it implies that. I like an interactive approach where the two sort of dance around each other in co-evolution and I really like the energy everyone is bringing to this. My suggestion is to stay mindful of 'big picture' goals as you go along fleshing out the various elements – trying to give them some voice right from the start. I am aware that the technology these days is much more flexible than in the past (personally, I like Seaside).

I created a thread 'Community Wiki Content Ideas' in order to separate ideas about content from technology issues so the two don't get tangled up.
Eric Calhoun, modified 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 10:38 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 10:38 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 8/25/09 Recent Posts
Just to throw out a free option, I can recommend http://pbwiki.com if you want to go a free route. I'm sure it wouldn't be as powerful as what could be set up by the collective geek-fu, but we're using this free wiki service on a project exploring emergence, group experience, and what action in the world is.
So if you want to see what free and functional looks like, check that out.
Hokai Sobol, modified 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 11:22 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 11:22 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Jill, thanks for that, I believe it's useful. And I don't say this as a male dharma geek, which I admittedly am.
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 12:58 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/15/09 12:58 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Author: ccasey

I'd like to put out: If there was a re-design, I'd prefer a lighter background with a dark font, because it would definitely be much easier for me to read. And, if the image was smaller at the top and had a pre-load JavaScript, the site would be easier to navigate to from my cell phone when traveling.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 12:49 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 12:49 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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As to my thoughts on requirements:

I want something that is very easy to navigate, something that is easy for non-techy people to edit and wikify, something that looks good, has no adds, is stable, and fun. I wish it to be available to the DhO community with previous version and change-noting capabilities so that things can't be permanently lost or horribly messed up by some editor. I wish it to be there to build something like what my book does but with a whole lot more perspectives and input. Thus, for instance, one might find a section that looked like the wiki version of MCTB's Progress of Insight chapter, but with lots of commentary, lots of wiki words, lots of things to dive into, build on, link to, things that lead elsewhere, to techniques, to experiences, to theory, to practice tips, to discussions of objects, like an evolving grand encyclopedia of geeky, practical, empowering, community build kick-ass dharma that will help people get up to speed, practice well, participate in discussions here with an understanding of the words we tend to use here, etc. I want there to be able to be discussion threads attached to the pages so that people can debate and add to various points. It would be cool if it could interface directly with DhO somehow, but if not, that's life. I would like wikied pages to be able to have multiple words that point to them, so for instance, "A&P", "Arising and Passing", "4th ñana" and "2nd vipassana jhana" would all point to the same place. Helpful?

Thanks to Jill for your perspective.
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:32 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:32 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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most of what you describe as requirements can be accomplished by Media Wiki--the same wiki software that runs Wikipedia. however, the downside to that is that the editor is not user-friendly. it would take some learning curve but once you get past that then it's a piece of cake emoticon

however, maybe the web developers in this group know of a better solution. but in my experience, i haven't seen a (free) user-friendly wiki/blogging software that solves the pain of editing web pages. WordPress comes close. but it's not a full-pledged wiki. my initial take on this is that we may have to implement the wiki part as separate from the blogging/social network part and just integrate the two together by linking and clever design.

~C
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:41 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:41 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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P.S. btw, aside from wikipedia here are some examples of wikis implemented using Media Wiki.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Foundation_for_P2P_Alternatives

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

does this line up with your vision, Daniel?

from a technical perspective, the advantage of using Media Wiki is that it is a popular standard for wikis, it's free, its open source, well tested and used my many. the disadvantage is the learning curve for editing. but like i said, once we get passed that, it's a piece of cake emoticon
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 10:18 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 10:18 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: bhikkunow

Although I only only recently joined the site, I've been tracking conversations for several months and I have also noticed the imbalance in participation by women. I think it would be easy to lose track of this issue, which I believe is important, in midst of the technical discussion of how to implement the community Wiki -- which I also realize was the original intent of the thread.

While I'm excited about the community Wiki, I don't see it addressing the discomfort, relayed by Gozen, about the way dialog, debate and conflict occur on the site. However, I don't think a separate "safe space" would resolve the issue either because the whole point (it seems to me) is the integration of everyone's views in a space that is open and safe for all. I don't see that happening in a segregated environment.

I think a thread on the specific issue of women's participation... or maybe simply "issues with debate and dialog on the DhO" would serve just as well to provide a place for the discussion. I also appreciated Jill's comments, but I can't help but think there are a lot more women that could weigh in on the subject if they chose to... and... I'm pretty sure I would benefit by hearing their opinions.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 11:41 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 11:41 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

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Regarding Wikipedia, I am pretty geeky, programmed back in the day, write a little HTML code at times, and find Wikipedia's syntax and editor to simply suck. We can do way better. If we want community participation, we need a very easy editor. I looked around PBWiki's webpage and found it so inaccessible, bare, non-technical and sparse as to be nearly useless, though they did give hints that they had a lot of features that looked very appealing. I called their sales dept to discuss pbwiki with them and they were not home. I look forward to the conference call
Trent S H, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 12:00 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 12:00 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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I can't be on the call although I am interested in helping; hopefully the outcome is posted and I will hunt down my web developer buddies to help if need be.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 3:45 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 3:45 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

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There were just three on the call, and the outcome was something like this:

Probably Mediawiki, as opensource, with the addition of tinymce WYSIWYG editor (pretty good, open source) hosted on either dreamhost or mediatemple, with wordpress. Would prefer to somehow transfer entire DhO to there if possible and have it on wordpress. If I have the time and energy, I may do this tonight and just check it out.

Issues: integration of the two. Likely will have a main portal and then two sections, one like this with threads, one with the wiki proper, and then need to figure out how to get back and forth between them. As screens are getting wider, it might be interesting to have two panes in one window, with the discussion threads to the left and wiki to the right, or something like that, so that people could see both if they wished easily and naturally, despite them running on two different engines. Possible? Tech geeks: let me know your ideas.
Trent S H, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:11 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:11 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Just spoke with a friend of mine who is a Sr. web developer at eBay and this is essentially what we talked about:

Using Mediawiki, we could repurpose the "Discussion" section part of each article to explicitly link to a forum page. Then rework the code to also create a new thread in the forum every time a new article is created in the Wiki. Conceptually this does not seem difficult to me, although I have not viewed either of these software packages source code. He says it would require some intermediate to advanced PHP/SQL work and some working knowledge (or time to read through) Mediawiki and the forum's code. My PHP skills blow, but it's just another language as far as I'm concerned; I may be able to hack this out myself or enlist the help of another friend who loves hacking solutions in this manner.

The above solution does not really solve the GUI integration concern, as it keeps the forum and wiki separated. However, he said that we could make the discussion tab "contain" the forum. To do that we would "turn the discussion page into an iframe which points to the forum thread, that way they 'appear' integrated." He says this solution is probably about the same difficulty as the explicit forum link.

The second paragraph seems like the best solution as far as I can tell. The work involved seems theoretically relatively simple, and although the forum and wiki are "separate," they are also "together" in a way that is intuitive, simple, and wouldn't lose a user in a mess of windows and links. Also, the "article" and "discussion" tabs could probably very easily be recoded to draw more attention to them so that new users see the added forum capabilities without needing a magnifying glass.

Let me know how this sounds. I'll be following up with the other friend I mentioned to see if he'd be interested in helping.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:15 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:15 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Thanks, Yabax. I just signed up for mediatemple, and dharmaoverground.org now lives there. I am working through reading up on the next part. They have Drupal and Wordpress available for 1-click install, and I have downloaded tinymce WYSISYG editor to my laptop, along with mediawiki. Now how to figure out how to install them. Yabax: if you are there: call me. Thanks.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:56 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/16/09 5:56 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
MySQL is up and running on mediatemple, 128MB.

Next: I was looking at Drupal, which has a wiki plugin that seems to work with mediawiki: http://drupalmodules.com/module/pear-wiki-filter

Someone who knows more about this please help me sort out whether to go with Drupal or try WordPress and Mediawiki as isolated entities or what...

Drupal looks pretty powerful if it also will wikify well, but I'd love to hear opinions. Thanks, D
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/17/09 12:26 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/17/09 12:26 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 7/26/09 Recent Posts
both Drupal and WordPress are powerful CMS. WordPress MU is excellent for multi-user blogging, but Drupal excels in community-based sites. see this review: http://performancing.com/wordpress/wordpress-and-drupal-compared-pros-and-cons-each-cms

however, BuddyPress could extend a WordPress installation into a social network platform. giving us all the social media functionality we need.
see: http://buddypress.org/

both implementation would require customization though so i'd like to hear from those who are more technical to pitch in on this.

~C
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 3:44 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 3:44 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: Tracy.

I use Wordpress at my job on a non-blog website. It's easy enough to use, but I don't like how the dashboard (admin control panel that you see whenever you edit or add something) is designed for blogging. Unless you use Wordpress for its original purpose, it takes more searching and clicking to get to the features you're actually using. Also, with Wordpress anyone who edits a page gets logged into the main dashboard, and can poke around and see everything even if they can't edit it. In general, I think it's a better idea to use a package like Drupal, which is designed for community sites and not just blogs. Drupal includes the features we need (wiki and forum) as modules of the original software, whereas Wordpress includes these things only as plugins made (I assume) by outside developers. I think that what the review linked above means to say is that Wordpress is good for a site based around a blog, but Drupal is better in most other cases.
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C4 Chaos, modified 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 4:04 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 4:04 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 0 Join Date: 7/26/09 Recent Posts
good point. agree with your assessment. that's i proposed using BuddyPress: http://buddypress.org/
it's backed by Automattic (the group that created WP), so i think it would be a good solid plugin.
check out this demo site: http://testbp.org/
looks like a solid social network platform.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 4:26 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/19/09 4:26 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Thanks for the link to BuddyPress. I also found WordPressWiki.org, which looks like a new WordPress wiki plugin. Vince is looking at all these to see if we can use them together and how it will work. This may be the final solution, but we will see if they work together. We will see how this works out.

On the Drupal side, I was looking around and found Liquid Wiki and Pear, but they don't give me enough information to determine if I would like them, and Vince said he had used Drupal and found it somewhat clunky to use at the admin/developer level. There is also some question of stability. Thoughts?
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/20/09 7:26 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/20/09 7:26 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: ccasey

Hello all: I contacted an old friend, who is an expert in this field, and here is his response, (with his permission): Well, I skimmed through the discussion, and I see a lot of talk about MediaWiki and Drupal, both of which I might tend to recommend. MediaWiki is probably the strongest open source wiki out there. Only trouble is that it's just a wiki and it sounds like people want other kinds of features, as well (discussion forums? blogs? other stuff?) The advantage to something like Drupal is that it has features or plugins for all those things, so you can have a unified system with a single login for everything. Whereas if you piece the site together with disparate software (MediaWiki for the wiki, WordPress for blogs, phpBB or something for discussions) you have the problem of several different user interfaces, awkward connections between them, and separate logins/passwords for each application. Merging all those separate pieces of software into a cohesive whole is a lot of work and you're likely to end up with such highly customized software that you can't easily incorporate new versions of the software you started out with.

Drupal (or Joomla) avoids all those integration problems, at the expense of perhaps not having the ideal feature set or user interface for any particular module.

Another point I might make is that often in situations like these, details of the technology can start to suck up so much attention that whatever original purpose the group had in mind gets lost. Sometimes it's better to just choose something that exists and works pretty well, plunk it in, and live with it. It's possible to use any of these tools (blog, forum, or wiki) to substitute for any other -- you can hold discussions in a blog or a wiki, use forums as blogs, etc. -- even if they're not ideally suited to the purpose. (To be continued below)
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Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 2/20/09 7:27 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/20/09 7:27 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: ccasey

One other thing to consider is a hosted service rather than installing your own software. You might take a look at Backpack by 37 Signals, for instance: www.backpackit.com or Central Desktop: www.centraldesktop.com or some of the other hosted collaboration services I list at www.thinkofit.com/webconf/workspaces.htm. These things tend to offer easier user interfaces (gentler learning curve, anyway) than something like MediaWiki. On the other hand, they charge fees, and you can't get under the hood and modify them the way you can with open source software. Good Luck!
Mike L, modified 15 Years ago at 2/24/09 4:42 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 2/24/09 4:42 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 75 Join Date: 5/13/09 Recent Posts
Here's one site that appears to use mediawiki and embodies the kind of structure that at least the wiki portion of DO 2.0 might resemble: http://senseis.xmp.net/ (see esp. the Starting Points link)

for example, here's a page and it's associated discussion page:
http://senseis.xmp.net/?Joseki
http://senseis.xmp.net/?topic=172
Mike L, modified 15 Years ago at 3/20/09 8:06 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/20/09 8:06 PM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 75 Join Date: 5/13/09 Recent Posts
What happened with this? A wiki is looking more and more essential to what DO is.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 15 Years ago at 3/21/09 4:17 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 3/21/09 4:17 AM

RE: Community Wiki software

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Vince is on retreat, as is Lee More, and so for the moment this is on hold until they get back, which will be sometime early-mid April.

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