threads / discuss / 13101

Re: Git Wiki improvements

Subject: Re: Git Wiki improvements

## tl;dr

12 messages between Apr 14, 2008 and Apr 14, 2008.

replies: 11people: 7as markdown or json

Jakub Narebski· Apr 14, 2008, 01:03 UTC · lore

[Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>]

Pack, Dylan wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Jakub Narebski wrote
>> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote: 
>>
>>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
>>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
> 
>> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains 
>> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
>> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
>> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
>> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
>> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
>> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
> 
> Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea. We would loose a bit control, and would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains. On the other hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site. Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self hosted wikis.

Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).

By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Dill· Apr 14, 2008, 01:11 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

True but how much control do we need? Wikidot pretty much lets you do anything you would need and it's very well designed. It would reduce Petr's workload and Wikidot seems to be very reliable. I don't think it would hurt IF the wiki was somewhere else. IMHO.

On Apr 13, 7:03 pm, Jakub Narebski <jna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 49 quoted lines

> [Cc: g...@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pa...@suse.cz>]
>
>
>
>
>
> Pack, Dylan wrote:
> > Jakub Narebski wrote
> >> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote:
>
> >>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
> >>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
>
> >> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains
> >> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
> >> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
> >> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
> >> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
> >> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
> >> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
>
> > Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> > for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> > the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> > money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> > developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.
>
> I'm not sure if it is a good idea.  We would loose a bit control, and
> would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains.  On the other
> hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site.  
> Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self
> hosted wikis.
>
> Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at
> git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided
> by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).
>
> By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents
> which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...
>
> --
> Jakub Narebski
> Poland
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Dill· Apr 14, 2008, 01:20 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Oh ya and wikidot allows custom domains so maybe it's possible to set it up using the git domain that is currently in use.

On Apr 13, 7:03 pm, Jakub Narebski <jna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 49 quoted lines

> [Cc: g...@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pa...@suse.cz>]
>
>
>
>
>
> Pack, Dylan wrote:
> > Jakub Narebski wrote
> >> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote:
>
> >>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
> >>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
>
> >> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains
> >> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
> >> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
> >> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
> >> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
> >> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
> >> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
>
> > Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> > for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> > the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> > money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> > developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.
>
> I'm not sure if it is a good idea.  We would loose a bit control, and
> would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains.  On the other
> hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site.  
> Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self
> hosted wikis.
>
> Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at
> git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided
> by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).
>
> By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents
> which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...
>
> --
> Jakub Narebski
> Poland
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

J.H.· Apr 14, 2008, 01:40 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Depending on the level of customization your really looking for, you could always make a request to kernel.org to host the wiki ( already hosting ext4.wiki.kernel.org, btrfs.wiki.kernel.org, moin.wiki.kernel.org, etc)

It's running a shared hosted version of mediawiki, however I know for a fact the admin doesn't want to do *too* much customization of the underlying wiki and doesn't have a lot of time to devote to it, he's good at keeping it running but the content / customization would need to be handled by a more dedicated person.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley

On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 03:03 +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Show 36 quoted lines

> [Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>]
> 
> Pack, Dylan wrote:
> > Jakub Narebski wrote
> >> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote: 
> >>
> >>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
> >>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
> > 
> >> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains 
> >> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
> >> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
> >> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
> >> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
> >> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
> >> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
> > 
> > Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> > for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> > the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> > money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> > developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.
> 
> I'm not sure if it is a good idea.  We would loose a bit control, and 
> would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains.  On the other 
> hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site.  
> Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self 
> hosted wikis.
> 
> Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at 
> git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided 
> by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).
> 
> By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents 
> which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...
>

Dill· Apr 14, 2008, 01:47 UTC · re: J.H. · lore

Interesting. I like how kernel.org uses the same software as wikipedia. More familiar. Plus I probably would trust kernel.org more than wikidot.com being more reliable. If it was indeed moved to kernel.org I volunteer to help port and transfer the data over.

On Apr 13, 7:40 pm, "J.H." <wartho...@eaglescrag.net> wrote:

Show 60 quoted lines

> Depending on the level of customization your really looking for, you
> could always make a request to kernel.org to host the wiki ( already
> hosting ext4.wiki.kernel.org, btrfs.wiki.kernel.org,
> moin.wiki.kernel.org, etc)
>
> It's running a shared hosted version of mediawiki, however I know for a
> fact the admin doesn't want to do *too* much customization of the
> underlying wiki and doesn't have a lot of time to devote to it, he's
> good at keeping it running but the content / customization would need to
> be handled by a more dedicated person.
>
> - John 'Warthog9' Hawley
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 03:03 +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> > [Cc: g...@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pa...@suse.cz>]
>
> > Pack, Dylan wrote:
> > > Jakub Narebski wrote
> > >> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote:
>
> > >>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
> > >>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
>
> > >> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains
> > >> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
> > >> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
> > >> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
> > >> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
> > >> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
> > >> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
>
> > > Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> > > for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> > > the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> > > money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> > > developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.
>
> > I'm not sure if it is a good idea.  We would loose a bit control, and
> > would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains.  On the other
> > hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site.  
> > Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self
> > hosted wikis.
>
> > Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at
> > git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided
> > by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).
>
> > By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents
> > which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Dill· Apr 14, 2008, 02:25 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

The more I think of it... maybe it's best to leave the wiki alone. It's not broken...it's just not great. Maybe we should just leaves things as they are? I'm sure we can work around the problems the software sometimes gives us. But on the other hand a move to git.kernel.org would be easier to use it's just a lot of work to move it over there. Anyone else have complaints about the wiki? Or maybe I'm the only one. ;)

On Apr 13, 7:03 pm, Jakub Narebski <jna...@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 49 quoted lines

> [Cc: g...@vger.kernel.org, Petr Baudis <pa...@suse.cz>]
>
>
>
>
>
> Pack, Dylan wrote:
> > Jakub Narebski wrote
> >> On Mon, 14 April 2008, Pack, Dylan wrote:
>
> >>> I've noticed to that the wiki gets mixed up if I use the GUI editor.
> >>> Looks like I'm going to have the syntax after all of well.
>
> >> Unfortunately Git Wiki administrator (Petr Baudis, who also maintains
> >> git homepage), doesn't have much time to spend on configuring wiki,
> >> and doesn't know well MoinMoin.  The problem seems to lie in the fact
> >> that Wikipedia-like (or rather MediaWiki-like) syntax provided by
> >> (I guess) media4moin plugin doesn't modify GUI editing.  This affect
> >> mosts macros, which in default MoinMoin syntax are written as
> >> e.g. [[BR]], while Wikipedia-like syntax uses e.g. {{BR}}.
>
> > Perhaps a move to wikidot.com would work? They have an awesome set up
> > for wikis. I've tried them out and they are fast and always improving
> > the wiki. We could even add google adsense on the wikidot site for
> > money to be put into various git projects decided on by the
> > developers. Not sure how much money though a git wiki site would make.
>
> I'm not sure if it is a good idea.  We would loose a bit control, and
> would have git homepage and git wiki in separate domains.  On the other
> hand some of admin stuff would be passed to wiki hosting site.  
> Bazaar-NG, Mercurial and Monotone (and also Emacs) have their own self
> hosted wikis.
>
> Git homepage at git.or.cz (or git-scm.org), Git Wiki at
> git.or.cz/gitwiki and free git hosting at repo.or.cz are all provided
> by Petr 'Pasky' Baudis (thanks a lot, again!).
>
> By the way, Git Wiki initially began as a "staging ground" for contents
> which would get incorporated into Git Homepage...
>
> --
> Jakub Narebski
> Poland
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Santi Béjar· Apr 14, 2008, 08:06 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Maybe we could switch to a wiki with git support (it solves the problem because there is no GUI, jeje), for example ikiwiki. This way you can edit the pages from the web and from git. Some time ago I told it to Petr and he answered me "but I'd prefer you to discuss this at git@". I didn't because I didn't find an "easy" way to convert MoinMoin to Markdown (used by default in ikiwiki, but can can be others via plugins), but maybe others know!

Santi

Johannes Schindelin· Apr 14, 2008, 14:58 UTC · re: Santi Béjar · lore

Hi,

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008, Santi Béjar wrote:

> Maybe we could switch to a wiki with git support (it solves the
> problem because there is no GUI, jeje), for example ikiwiki.

While this would seem a good idea from the viewpoint of using as much of your own dog food as possible, I think that the Wiki is fine as-is. Especially since I like to spend more time hacking on Git than on the Wiki, and I expect most people to feel the same.

IOW I think a change of system is just not worth the effort.

Ciao, Dscho

Sean Estabrooks· Apr 14, 2008, 15:48 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:58:29 +0100 (BST) Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Hi Johannes,

> While this would seem a good idea from the viewpoint of using as much of 
> your own dog food as possible, I think that the Wiki is fine as-is.  
> Especially since I like to spend more time hacking on Git than on the 
> Wiki, and I expect most people to feel the same.

It's not just about eating dog food but improving the chances that people use and update the wiki with useful stuff. Adding the ability for people to clone a copy of the wiki onto their own systems and use it offline can only help. If people are permitted to push changes back to the wiki it has the potential to change the rules of the game in a positive way[1].

A change in infrastructure like this might increase the number of contributors of tutorial and faq answers. It might even give developers a little more time with the source rather than documentation and user support. Then again it might not, but we'll never know unless it's tried.

> IOW I think a change of system is just not worth the effort.

There seems little reason to discourage someone from taking a stab at it if they're so inclined.

Cheers, Sean

[1] Ikiwiki uses the Markdown format which has fewer features than say Asciidoc but is very Emacs/Vim friendly so it's not hard to imagine people cloning the wiki and using it this way.

Johannes Schindelin· Apr 14, 2008, 16:03 UTC · re: Sean Estabrooks · lore

Hi,

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008, Sean Estabrooks wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:58:29 +0100 (BST)
> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > IOW I think a change of system is just not worth the effort.
> 
> There seems little reason to discourage someone from taking a stab at it 
> if they're so inclined.

Oh, sorry, I see how what I said could leave that impression.

What I meant was this: I am quite content with the state as-is. Having said that, if somebody wants to try, it could turn out to be useful for all the reasons you mentioned.

Thanks, Dscho

Jeremy Maitin-Shepard· Apr 14, 2008, 16:18 UTC · re: Sean Estabrooks · lore

Sean Estabrooks <seanlkml@sympatico.ca> writes:

> On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:58:29 +0100 (BST)
> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

> Hi Johannes,

>> While this would seem a good idea from the viewpoint of using as much of 
>> your own dog food as possible, I think that the Wiki is fine as-is.  
>> Especially since I like to spend more time hacking on Git than on the 
>> Wiki, and I expect most people to feel the same.

Show 5 quoted lines

> It's not just about eating dog food but improving the chances that people
> use and update the wiki with useful stuff.  Adding the ability for people to
> clone a  copy of the wiki onto their own systems and use it offline can only
> help.  If people are permitted to push changes back to the wiki it has the
> potential to change the rules of the game in a positive way[1].

I've thought about this possibility myself, but it seems that the clone, edit, commit, push cycle may not really be ideal for a wiki. For one thing, it is hardly ever necessary or useful to have anything more than per-file commits. Also, if there are a large number of simultaneous users trying to push to the repository, you could run into a problem whereby you can never successfully push because ever time you try, it is not a fast-forward, so you have to fetch then merge (we can assume the merge is just done automatically because e.g. only different files were modified) then try to push again, but before you have a chance to retry the push, the branch head may have changed again due to another push.

I suppose in practice this may not be a problem for the git wiki as it may not have so many contributors, but this would certainly be a problem for e.g. wikipedia.

More generally, though, although we may all dislike using webpage interfaces, actually having to keep the entire wiki updated locally doesn't seem terribly useful. Really, you just want a way to edit a particular page in your text editor, have various commands available for e.g. previewing, and have commands available for showing the log information with a nicer interface than a web page.

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard

Sean Estabrooks· Apr 14, 2008, 16:53 UTC · re: Jeremy Maitin-Shepard · lore

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:18:42 -0400 Jeremy Maitin-Shepard <jbms@cmu.edu> wrote:

Hi Jeremy,

Show 14 quoted lines

> I've thought about this possibility myself, but it seems that the clone,
> edit, commit, push cycle may not really be ideal for a wiki.  For one
> thing, it is hardly ever necessary or useful to have anything more than
> per-file commits.  Also, if there are a large number of simultaneous
> users trying to push to the repository, you could run into a problem
> whereby you can never successfully push because ever time you try, it is
> not a fast-forward, so you have to fetch then merge (we can assume the
> merge is just done automatically because e.g. only different files were
> modified) then try to push again, but before you have a chance to retry
> the push, the branch head may have changed again due to another push.
> 
> I suppose in practice this may not be a problem for the git wiki as it
> may not have so many contributors, but this would certainly be a problem
> for e.g. wikipedia.

Yeah, it should be okay on this scale, its the same as having multiple developers push into a common source repo. Ikiwiki itself is hosted in Git and handles its own wiki exactly this way. It can be updated via the web site or Git push. Running "git pull --rebase" before doing a push into the wiki isn't onerous.

Show 6 quoted lines

> More generally, though, although we may all dislike using webpage
> interfaces, actually having to keep the entire wiki updated locally
> doesn't seem terribly useful.  Really, you just want a way to edit a
> particular page in your text editor, have various commands available for
> e.g. previewing, and have commands available for showing the log
> information with a nicer interface than a web page.

The goal would be to make the help texts available in multiple ways. In a text editor, or converted into other formats for use with other tools. More importantly they should continue be easy to find with Google and editable via a browser for quick fixes by casual users. But as it stands, the wiki information is stuck on the web.

Git's documentation is already handled very close to this today. It's easy to clone the asciidoc source, read in a text editor, and turned into web or man pages. It seems attractive to do likewise for the wiki docs since the tools are all at hand.

Cheers, Sean