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------ ''2009-03-18 20:52:12'' [[nbsp]] It looks like any pages we've created in the last week are failing to show up in page Searches. They're fine otherwise. Could this be due to something that happened in the Server Upgrade? --["Users/Mwanner"] One other wiki had reported that, but when I tested it, it appeared to be because of their odd titles (I already filed it as a bug report). Perhaps it had something to do with my account or pure chance and there is an actual bug re: search. A sysadmin with database access should probably double check things. --["Users/JabberWokky" Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards] |
For now most of the FAQs can be found in Wiki Guide.
If you have a question that isn't answered already, ask it here!
Who "owns" my wiki?
Basically, you do. The longer answer is that Wiki Spot shouldn't and doesn't own the content, or the responsibility for the content, that it provides a home to. It's fully up to the admins of wikis to decide what license and terms they want their material to fall under. We encourage you to use a free license for your material, such as ![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
Creative Commons! See our guide to choosing a license for the content on your wiki.
Can I get a backup of the data on my wiki?
We think this is really important! For now, you can get a export of the full contents of a wiki by leaving a note on philip's page. Let him know if you want an export of just the current contents of the wiki or an export containing all the page / file history as well. The export will be in the format ![[sycamore]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/inter.png){kind=small}
described here.
This will eventually be automated, and we plan to support the ability to import as well.
2008-07-14T17:05Z While waiting for Wiki Spot to support this, you may want to try the Backup Script that I developed for this purpose. It has problems, but (if it works for you at all) you can get at least the latest version of all your data except for some wiki configuration settings. —JoeWells
Can I use my own domain name with a Wiki Spot wiki?
Yup! See our guide to using a custom domain name.
How do I include an image without uploading it to Wikispot?
To include an offsite image simply paste in the url of the photo. So if the photo was located at http://wherethepictureis.com/thepicture.jpg you would just paste http://wherethepictureis.com/thepicture.jpg into the page. The wiki sees that it's an external link and then sees that it's an image, so it displays it.
When should I do this?
Do this when you don't really think the image needs to be in the wiki. Uploading an image (By clicking on Files while editing and then including [[Image(thefilename)]] in the page's text) is preferred most of the time. When you upload an image it will be here for years to come, whereas if you just link to it (by pasting the URL) then it will likely disappear in a few years. An example might be a photograph that's very personal (for your page on here). Again, for most cases, uploading is preferable.
How do I create a page?
There are a couple of ways to do this. You can search for the title of the page — if the page doesn't exist, the search function will give you the option to create a new page (and open up an Edit screen). You can also type the address of the page into your browser's address bar. Upon finding out that the page doesn't exist, click the link to create the page.
How do I delete a page?
Just go into edit and press "Delete" down under the text area. Make sure you integrate what you wrote into other pages!
How do I make 'redirects' ?
See Help with Linking.
How do I find out the IP address from which an edit was made?
Display the page "info" to view a page's Revision History. Position and pause the mouse pointer over an editor's name and a tooltip will appear with the IP address from which the edit was made. For recent edits, you can also pause over the name of the user on the Recent Changes page.
Mapping Lat/Long?
Is it possible to use the address macro to map Lat/Long data? That would be seriously cool!
Yup! Just do [[Address("description here", "latitude", "longitude")]]. You can also use this to give more exact address locations, e.g. [[Address("1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA", "better latitude", "better longitude")]]. The address is really just a description — it helps people reading the page find the place without looking at the map. Of course, if you don't give lat/long yourself then we look it up for 'ya. The help with maps page needs updating with this information.
How kosher is it to blatantly "steal" stuff from Davis Wiki?
As far as content goes, you just need to attribute it to Davis Wiki someplace. Davis Wiki was built in the hopes that the material on it would be useful to others for a long, long time, and so its pages and most all of its content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
You should probably just use the Davis Wiki introductory content as a starting point, so leaving an attribution around before it transforms into something new isn't a big deal.
How best to template and create and seed a Multi-Lingual wiki ?
Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in the world with over a hundred spoken languages here. We want to soft launch with cantonese, french, urdu, spanish seed pages in addition to the main english seed articles. What we came up with is to add a trailing slash followed by the name of the language after any pages that users want in their own language. For instance Seed would be the main English article, whereas Seed/Cantonese, Seed/Spanish, Seed/etc would be translated version or equivalent of that page in their respective languages. Does Anyone have a better idea??? — HiMY
This is an interesting question! Why make these pages "sub-pages" of "Seed?" What would be bad about "Seed," "种子," "Semilla?" Anyway, let somebody know if you hit any issues with trying to support multiple languages!
Can I watch a page and get an email notification if it changes?
You can easily watch a page by adding it to your Bookmarks list: simply go to the page you want to watch and then click "Bookmark this page" at the bottom of the page. Then when you visit the Bookmarks tab on that wiki you'll see when the pages on your bookmarks were changed (the Interwiki Bookmarks tab here on the hub will show you all your bookmarks across every wiki). The tab itself will become bolded when there's been a change to the page that you haven't seen, too.
12/03/07: There is no "Bookmark this page" at the bottom or top of this page—or any other that I see. JH
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You are not logged in. You must have an account and be logged in to recieve messages and bookmark notifications, etc. You'll also have all your edits associated with your editor account so people can discuss them with you. Basically, you need to have an account and be logged in for many of the more advanced collaborative editing features. Some wikis also only allow editing by logged in editors.
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Opps, newbie error. Thanks, I have it as a bookmark, and the bookmark page as a subscribed RSS feed, now. — vht
As far as getting notifications when you're not on the wiki, there's an RSS feed available on the Bookmarks page, and that feed has all of the changes to the pages on your bookmarks list. There's lots of RSS readers out there that can do fancy things like pop up a window when a change has made or even send you an email. Some quick searching reveals rssfwd.com as being able to do this, and I think there's probably a few others out there, too.
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I use an RSS feed on my Recent Changes page to watch all changes made to the wiki.
3-jan-09: I'd like more instructions on how to do exactly that, i.e., get an RSS feed from the Recent Changes page. Thanks, HPMorgan (adld.wikispot.org)
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Go to the
Recent Changes page and use your browser's "add RSS feed" feature. Or use that URL in an RSS reader program. The exact URL for the RSS feed (which most programs will not need, as it is linked from the Recent Changes page) is http://adld.wikispot.org/Recent_Changes?action=rss_rc ... and ... Oh! Your feed seems to have problems with it! I'll go and file a Bug Reports for you. I think this is an easy fix. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
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Thanks for the feedback. Meanwhile I'm using URLy Warning to alert me to page changes.
How can I embed a flash movie?
Right now, you can't. You should just provide a link to the flash movie instead.
Should we allow this? What security risks does it pose (and how can we work around those risks)? Would this require we let people enter in raw HTML? If not, how would we do this?
Can be post a YouTube video link, like you can on many other websites and on facebook? —MikeK.
How can I change the name of a page?
Go into the Edit area and click the "Rename" button.
How can I get website statistics?
2007-08-28 05:02:05 What is the best way to get standard websites statistics? Specifically: Page Views, Heavily trafficked wiki pages, busiest time of day for the wiki, which pages etc. How about Google Analytics or some reporting akin to statcounter.com ? —HimySyed
Letting a snippet of javascript (a-la Google's Analytics or other offerings) would be the quick-and-dirty way to allow this, but it has its own issues: letting people input javascript opens up legions of security holes that would allow for really nasty things to happen (yes, this is very annoying. The web is not mature as a secure platform yet, sadly). So, for that to happen we have to come up with a way to "clean" up the javascript or allow people to input/choose from analysis providers.
I know that CharlesMclaughlin was interested in getting something like this started. Maybe he'd want to take this on as a project? I think there's two options if we wanted to do this: figuring out how to let people enter only "safe" javascript (in some way or another), or coming up with our own statistical analysis interface for communities to use.
You could also use a service that uses an image (tiny/hidden) rather than Javascript, for the time being. Image-based tracking doesn't retain certain types of information, but it would answer all of the questions you posed. I don't know of the providers off-hand, but once you found one you could enter the image tag into one of the footer buttons in the settings area. —PhilipNeustrom
Since Google Analytics was out of the question (for now), I opted for Site Meter and I used it in the Footer button 3 section of westsac and it came out looking fairly discreet and clean. —MasumiWatanabe
Some more thoughts, from JabberWokky: You can put a webbug in by using something like [http://trackingdomain.com/webbug.png], which is loaded when a visitor hits the page. That will give you info on the browsers and users, but not the search terms (which is likely what you're most after). It's also nice because the wiki community can see it and know it is there. For search terms (in the referrer), you'd need access to the web server logs. It would probably be a useful thing for wikis in general to have either reports or access to raw logs from the server... the latter is only iffy because a well meaning but non-thoughtful person might grab them so often the bandwidth usage becomes an issue. —JabberWokky
Wikis that use Webbugs or Statistics systems
Here are some of the systems that communities on Wiki Spot have chosen to use. If your community uses one or you notice a community using a different solution, list it here so other communities can see what options are available.
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lolicon uses Flag Counter, which splits the hits by country.
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wheatfield-backgreen uses Site Meter. This involved setting up a free account with Site Meter (the paid account gives more details, allows more traffic, etc.) and inserting text like <a href="URL" ...><img src="URL" ... /></a> in the “Footer Button 3” option on the “Wiki Settings/General” page. The instructions on precisely what text to use can be found at Site Meter's web site. It would give much better information (mainly referring URLs) if we could insert some JavaScript in “Footer Button 3”, but the Sycamore code carefully filters this out (for security reasons) whenever you try to alter this setting.
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santacruz also uses Site Meter.
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ilek uses anormal tracker.de.
Where can I learn more about wiki security?
Specifically, I am wondering if there is any way for the wiki username and password to be automatically logged off when the user leaves the wiki site. Currently, if a user logs into the wiki and then disconnects from the internet without logging out of the wiki, the user is still automatically logged into the wiki when they reconnect to the internet. I tried clearing the Remember Me check box in security, but it did not automatically log a user out when they left the wiki site.
Also, even if the wiki security for a page in the wiki site is set to not allow a user to view it without having the username, someone can still view the page if they happen to be able to guess the page name. Is there a way to make a particular page more secure, or does that conflict with what wikis are all about? Thanks! —egcmember
First off, check out the Help for Wiki Administrators page — we should try to integrate your questions into that page. As far as your first question: unchecking "remember me" and logging out and logging in again will make it so your Wiki Spot session will expire when you close your browser — simply visiting another web site is not enough.
Your second question: You can un-check "view" for a particular user group, but keep in mind that people will still be able to view the page if the default behavior for that page is that "Everyone can view." Does that make sense? What that means is if you want to make a page only viewable to a particular group then you should make sure that in the page's Security area no other groups can view the page except the group you want to be able to view it. —PhilipNeustrom
Have a question or don't know what's going on? Just type into this box and press "Add comment"!
Note: You must be logged in to add comments
2007-04-04 10:51:09 我很喜欢这里 —xiedir
2007-04-04 10:55:57 That's good, because we like having you here. :) —GrahamFreeman
2007-04-15 21:36:15 Why does this page or the "Help With Editing" page not have a section about comments? I could use some help setting up comments, and I know I once read a document about them... —DougWalter
I've added some more information to the page Comments and linked that page from Help with Editing! —PhilipNeustrom
2007-04-19 18:09:17 Torontopedia only allows logged in folks to edit. I have seed pages all over the wiki asking people to hit 'EDIT'. Since only logged-in people can see the 'EDIT' button, Can the 'EDIT' be shown to anonymous or non-logged-in people, and when they hit edit, something appears and tells why and how to register a username and then edit? —HimySyed
2008-07-11T14:44Z I second this feature suggestion. I think it would be better if both the “Edit” and “Bookmark” options were visible whenever the user could login (possibly making a new account) and edit or bookmark the current page. (Also, it would be good if there were an icon labeled “Bookmark” in the page header next to the other buttons, in addition to the “Bookmark” link in the page footer.) —JoeWells
2007-04-19 20:09:12 Compare the two pages, I don't know why the lines on RocWiki don't show on this Torontopedia template: http://www.torontopedia.tyo.ca/Templates/User_Page and http://www.rocwiki.org/User_Complicated_Template
I can't figure it out, anyone else have trouble with getting lines to show up? —HimySyed
So, right now you can't use horizontal rules inside a table. You used to be able to, but we had to remove that ability in order to fix some issues with quick edit. I don't think I've ever seen a horizontal rule used inside a table like that except for in that one instance..
Also, that page is really, really ugly :P There's a much better way to make that page look the way it does, if you want that kind of thing: you can use two Includes, one on the left and one on the right. Though, that wouldn't work very well as a template, because of the includes. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-04-24 20:24:34 I'm sure I simply missed this somewhere or just need an example macro to look at... When I file upload a photo and attach it to a page, I can make it appear on that page successfully. Now, how do I re-use the same photo on another page? what is the format? I enter the same macro on another page, and no photo appears. Thus far I have simply re-uploaded the same photo or image onto different pages, thus duplicating data and uploads unnecessarily. Thanks. —HimySyed
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Actually, you can't use the same image more than once, or on another page. It's a good idea, though, since a lot of us want this ability, and it's already on Feature Requests. Just go ahead and waste disk space like you're already doing as a workaround. —BrentLaabs
2007-04-28 17:47:07 Can I decide to host my wiki on my server at a later time? Is there any way to export the data? —75.37.0.146
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As it says above, we're working on an export/import functionality. Additionally, you can always download the
wiki software as it is open source/GPL. —BrentLaabs
2007-07-03 09:46:50 I would like to display computer code which is preformatted and contains line breaks. When I use the triple braces, the result looks very nice but I don't get any line breaks. Is there some other way to obtain preformatted code with linebreaks? —Yannis.Haralambous
Hey Yannis — yes, there is! What you were doing is actually the way it ought to work. There was a small mistake made in the latest version of the CSS files, and a few new wikis were affected. You can make the fix very easily: just go to your "CSS" page from your "Wiki Settings" page and replace the "layout.css" file found there with the latest version on the Themes page (the "Egghead" or "default theme — a direct link is here). Then preformatted areas should appear with line breaks, then. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-07-16 21:57:16 Is there a Category function? I've been searching around for info on subpages but haven't found much. For example, I want to have a section called "Chapters" and in that page have it show "Part I" and "Part II" (links to separate pages). Is that only a MediaWiki feature :(? —earthsprite
Hey there. First off — we want to make categorization easier and better in the future. The best way to organize pages together is by making links. If you want "Categories" that are automatically culled, you can do this using links, too. You can make a link on a page that also serves to mark it as belonging in a particular category — say ["Categories/My category name"]. Then, you can create the page "Categories/My category name" and place the magic macro [[LinksHere]] on it.
Sub-pages are just pages that use the "/" slash symbol in them. So, the "Talk" page associated with each page is a sub-page — it is named "Page name/Talk."
Let's make a page for Help with linking & organization (advanced) that documents these things, at least for the time being! Ideally, we should make the sub-page notion something that is not implicit in the name of the page, but rather reflects some sort of "new sub-page" concept. Even that, though, might not be that useful once we have an easy-to-use "tagging" (meta-data/semantic) system. I think that making the sub-page metaphor work is harder than making the "tagging" metaphor work, so we're probably going to focus our energies on that stuff. Hopefully that explains things?! —PhilipNeustrom
Come on now, Categories are great. I was considering MediaWiki and decided not to because there was already a pretty strong "city wiki" vibe going on here, and thus people branching off the idea of daviswiki would find the directory and then the wiki for my area. Don't give me good reasons to go to Wikia, they have way too many ads. :-/ —tobyk
Here's the current plan. I'm going to start hacking on that stuff once the GUI editor is finished. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-07-18 06:40:15 Okay, this is sort of silly. Isn't there a working way to make text larger other than using headers? They do not work with any other formatting (tables, bullets, etc). HTML doesn't seem to be allowed. Having no way to enlarge font size doesn't make sense to me. Any help? Thanks. —earthsprite
There's no generic way to enlarge fonts. Headers work well for giving emphasis to different page sections, etc, and are considered "good practice" because they are more meaningful than just font size changes.
An influential idea of wiki is that editors should focus on content, not layout. This isn't always the case, and sometimes you want to do something complex with font sizes. If you wanted to do something that applied to every page, then you'd alter the wiki's CSS.
You can also edit the CSS to create a new class, and use that in conjunction with tables (which allow you to specify tableclass="nameHere") to achieve all sorts of more complex designs. This is what we're doing here on the Wiki Spot hub Front Page to get our colored boxes with different font sizes. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-07-20 00:38:15 Hi Philip. I appreciated your notice that I had uploaded an image to the wrong place. I am totally new to wikis and am going to make some real gaffs before I get the hang of how things should be done! Hope I don't screw things up beyond all repair :) Here's another one I did: I accidentally deleted all the helpful stuff (Quick Start Guide, Default Pages, and Making New Pages) that's on the front page of my new wiki (Kusaal Language Development) and don't know how to get it back. Is there a way to do that? Also, is it possible to change my username (I'd like to include my first name)? And where will I find your answers to these questions when I log on again? Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks! —Steinborn
The wiki keeps track of all of the changes that happen, so it's impossible to really "mess something up" or lose something. You can check out the old versions of the Front Page, which you removed some stuff from, by going into the Info area of the page and looking around in the History tab. In the history area you'll be able to compare versions of the page or just press "view" on an old version to see what it looked like. You can view the "raw" wiki source of a version of a page by pressing the "raw" link, too. So, copying & pasting that would let you get it back or move it around easily.
It's not possible to change your user name at the moment. I would suggest creating a new account, logging in to your old account, and making your new account as an Admin for the wiki (in the Security area of the Wiki Settings page on your wiki). Then, just use that new account!
Paying attention to and finding changes:
You can see changes on your wiki by viewing the Recent Changes page. Likewise, you can view changes across a bunch of different wikis by going to a wiki and pressing the "watch this wiki" link. Then, you'll see that wiki's changes on the Interwiki Recent Changes page here on the WIki Spot hub. So, you can watch this wiki (the "hub" wiki). You can also mark pages as Bookmarks by pressing the "bookmark this page" link on the bottom of pages. You'll be able to see when your bookmarked pages change because the Bookmarks tab will get bolded!
I think I typed wayyy too much in my response — so I apologize! :) —PhilipNeustrom
2007-07-21 01:12:16 Do you guys have support for writing equations in wikispot? —eajung
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How complex of an equation? We can do XY = Z for instance. —JasonAller
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Philip and I want to have LaTeX on here, but I don't know if anything will ever come of that. —WilliamLewis
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Shouldn't be too hard. Just try and experiment with Texvc, I think. Some notes
over here.
2007-08-16 18:35:32 Is there a way to change the title of a page? I am trying to edit the page for my organization and the name has changed. Does anyone know if I can just edit it or if I have to make a whole new page? —KirisaGavrin
Just go into Edit and click on the "Rename" button to change the name of a page.
2007-08-19 22:04:53 Hi, Philip. Sorry to bug you again, but would you mind changing the name for the wiki "nworegonchew" to "linnbentonchew"? This thing is evolving even as we speak. :-) —RichLindvall
Moved this over. Hopefully it's the last name change! —PhilipNeustrom
2007-08-19 22:08:57 Are there front page templates for new wiki administrators, such as one for local wikis and another for common interest wikis? Or do we just modify what we see others doing? (I've noticed that some new admins don't seem to know how to change the name on their wiki—I only found out by accident. Yikes! I'd better study this more! —RichLindvall
Check out citywiki — that's where we're starting to build up a collection of pre-built pages. The idea behind that wiki is that it will serve as a template repository, though. It's just not there yet :) Please chip in where you can-! Also, there's a few things on gnome, too. For now, your best bet is to look at a wiki like Davis Wiki and copy where you see fit. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-08-21 13:48:18 I just created the montreal.wikispot.org, when I entered 'Montréal' in the General wiki settings for the name and the tagline, it didn't work and rejected all the changes I had made on the page. I understand we can't use 'Montréal.wikispot.org' but we can use 'Montreal.wikispot.org'. I just want to spell Montréal with the accent if possible. Thanks. —HimySyed
This was a bug. Should be fixed now. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-08-25 04:16:43 Hi, Philip. One last time. :-( Would you mind changing "linbentonchew" to "lbchew"? I'm thinking of getting the domain name "lbchew.org" and linking to Wikispot if I can figure it out. I'd like to make it easier for others in our area to find the wiki on the 'net. Sorry to cause you trouble on this. Thanks, again, for all your help! —RichLindvall
I changed it to lbchew. The problem with doing these changes it that links need to be fixed. When you're ready to do domain name stuff, check out using a custom domain name. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-08-25 15:18:50 Hey Philip - I had two questions. First, how do I change the title of my frontpage (where it says "Our untitled wiki"? I can't find a button anywhere in the edit page that says rename. The other question was, is there a way to add citations at the bottom of the page, like in wikipedia? Thanks! —76.21.199.106
Hey there (don't know who you are — remember to log in!). You can change wiki settings by logging in and then clicking the "wiki settings" link that appears under your name in the upper right hand corner. There's a link to different setting areas — the title is in the General Settings area.
You can do citations by using the footnotes macro, or just by linking text to a source if it's short. —PhilipNeustrom
I disabled my accout forever and now I can't create a new one with my own email address or go back to the old one. What can I do about it? —72.93.0.225 (whose disabled account is Randomguy)
Your account should be re-enabled now. Note that someone else complained about the lack of warning over on the Feature Requests page.
2007-09-01 16:30:55 How come people can edit my wiki (LBCHEW) without having an account? Can I change this? —RichLindvall
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Go to
Wiki Settings/Security on your wiki and make it so that Everyone can read, but not edit. —JasonAller
2007-09-03 19:16:29 Thanks, Philip & Jason, for all your help! You guys are great! Little by little I'm learning this thing—becoming a downright "wiki evangelist"! :-) My latest query regards how to get GOOGLE to recognize the link for LBCHEW. I've tried to upload the URL (http://lbchew.wikispot.org/Front_Page) to the GOOGLE site but to no avail. What should I do? —RichLindvall
Do you mean making lbchew appear in google searches? It will probably take a little while for it to happen. One thing you should do is add your wiki to the Wiki Directory and possibly make a page describing its mission. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-09-06 02:56:09 How do I activate the RSS/Live Journal feature on my events board (http://lbchew.wikispot.org/Events_Board)? —RichLindvall
2007-09-19 13:35:02 Hi. I'm a new wiki user. I tried different style and layout sheets, and then when I tried to revert to the original layout I got a big long Python error page. Philip noticed and left a comment which probably explains better than I can what's going on. I'll paste it below. Any ideas for how to deal with this? —It looks like you're using the style.css file for the simple sidebar theme but not the layout.css file (see Themes). If you wanted to revert back to the original wiki style, just go into the wiki settings CSS area, click on each file, and then click "revert" on the oldest version of the style and layout files. Is the current look what you wanted? Let me or someone else know if you need help — see our FAQ and Community Discussion pages. Best, PhilipNeustrom —mendhamt
This bug should be fixed now. You can just "revert" the CSS files back to the originally version to get the old format, or upload CSS files from the Themes page. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-09-20 01:58:59 How do I test that my email link is set up right? I'm more familiar with MediaWiki projects and searched in vain for an "email this user" link to test it by mailing myself. Thanks —LarryPieniazek
The email address in your user settings is just used for resetting your password. It's not used for sending user notifications and is not made public. We use a bookmarks system for notifications (see Interwiki Bookmarks) and that has a corresponding RSS feed. The best way to notify a user of something is to make a comment on their user page. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-09-21 16:04:19 How do add math formulas to my new wiki? —amsepd
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Help with Formatting shows some of the existing markup. There has been discussion of adding LaTex markup as well once the security issues are resolved. —JasonAller
2007-10-02 12:43:16 I would like to insert LaTeX formulae in my wiki pages. How can I do? —bfrenay
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Right right you cannot. The best way to insert complex formulae is to just render them to images and upload them directly. LaTex seems to be a very requested feature (see above question!), so someone may volunteer to add it. If you want the feature to come faster, consider making a donation. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-05 09:08:54 Hi Can I paste a swicki search engine to my wiki, in order to enable my community to browse the web selectively and mutualize the precious results ? For instance, if you go there: http://shedid-swicki.eurekster.com/ you can "grab" the swicki code (on the right) and publish it on a platform (a blog...): does it also work with a wikispot wiki ?
Best
philippe —philacour
We don't allow HTML or Javascript to be pasted into wikis because of major security issues associated with doing so. The way that search embedding works is using HTML and Javascript, so it won't work right now. Perhaps you can provide a link to the search engine on various pages of your wiki? We can set up embeddings for things like this on a case-by-case basis, though. What benefit would having the scwicki search embedded in the wiki be? —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-05 14:28:15 I'm making a wiki for an educational group. We've entered everyone onto the people page—is there a way to enter all the emails into a single "send to" button on the wiki, so it will be easy to notify everyone when we have updated content? (we are not all at the same institution). thanks—Marya —mzlatnik
There's no way to send batch emails through the wiki, like newsletters or "Hey, just letting you know we updated the wiki." The wiki has its own ways for people to find about changes. One way is to have people check the "Recent Changes" page on the wiki. The other way is for people to subscribe to the RSS feed on the Recent Changes page (click the RSS icon in the location bar in Firefox or something similar in other browsers). Many people use RSS readers these days as ways to keep track of lots of changes on different websites all at once. Do you want everyone to get an email when the wiki changes? If so, there are websites that will send you emails based on RSS updates, and you can paste the URL of the RSS feed from the Recent Changes page into those websites. An example site, which I've never tried so I can't vouch for, is rssfwd.com. You might have issues with these websites if your pages are private, though. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-05 18:50:12 Hi Philip Thanks for your answer. I guess the benefit of a swicki search embedded in the wiki would be to allow people to add more content to the pages through a search engine designed for that purpose. But it is true that a link is enough for the moment.
Also, I read your answer to Marya about the RSS and found it interesting, though I did not understand all of it. I shall begin with a first question, then
- when I paste the "Event board" RSS feed into my netvibes agregator, it appears "void", although I keep writing new events: U got any clue why this is happening (I didn't get any anwser for netvibes so far)
- where do the former "new events" go ? Is there any archive ?
Best
The events board is a bit special — you want to click the RSS icon that's on the page itself. It should look something like this: http://daviswiki.org/Events_Board?action=events&rss=1. Is that what you're dong? The old events get deleted once they pass and there's no archive at the moment. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-06 12:18:31 Hi Philip Yep, that's what I did. And it appears as: http://refa.wikispot.org/Events_Board?action=events&rss=1 on my netvibes widget preview
but then I get an "empty" message about this RSS feed... I don't understand: any idea ?
Best
It looks like that page is locked: "You are not allowed to view this page." NetVibes can't see it either.
2007-10-08 12:09:37 Hi Philip Thanks. I thought it was maybe because the "Events board" of my wiki was redirected to another one (for reasons of translation into french). Is there a way I can unlock a page without unlocking the whole wiki: i tried in the "Edit" part of the page to change the security settings for this very page, but it does not work...
Best
p —philacour
Yes, if you go into "Edit" and then into "Security" you should be able to change the settings on just that page. Because you renamed the Events Board page, you'll want to make sure you change the security settings on the "actual" page named "Events Board." When you're redirected, simply click on the link in the "redirected from.." area to get to the "real" Events Board page. When I checked just now, both the redirecting page ("Events Board") and the new page ("Tableau des messages") were locked to viewing.
2007-10-08 12:19:15 Hi again Philip I checked the problem a little bit, by changing the security settings one or two times. Still no success. I'm therefore back to my first hypothesis: since the RSS of wikidavis works with my netvibes page, and not the one of my wiki's Events board page, I think it is because I redirected the Events board page to another one (which I called "Tableau des messages"), where I pasted the RSS syndication instruction. For some reason, it does not work. What do you think ?
Best
p —philacour
Yeah, I think it has to do with the redirection. Hopefully the above will fix it?
2007-10-09 20:57:07 Hi philip I tried to syndicate another wiki of mine (events board page) and it does not work, whereas it does with wiki davis (still my netvibes page): where am I wrong then ?
Also, A friend of mine told me to take a look at wikidot.com : the functions seem more developed but i'm not sure whether they will remain ad-free. What do you think ? And are you definitely planning to remain non-profit. If so, are you planning to develop more/new functions gradually, such as allow video attachment, or constitute an "inner-wiki" linking editing icon (which would be great for my "analphabet" friends) ?
Thanks
Best —philacour
We're absolutely committed to remaining ad-free and non-profit. We depend on your generous donations to make this a reality. We're always working on new features (see Feature Requests for what people have suggested so far). We're a community that develops using an open development process and gives all our software away as open-source. We're dedicated to making something where anyone can get involved in making things better, and we're planning for the long haul.
I'm not sure what you mean about the "inter-wiki" editing icon — perhaps you can explain a bit on the feature requests page? We have Interwiki Links here — perhaps that what you wanted? Feel free to request features on the Feature Requests page.
2007-10-09 22:32:56 Hi, is is possible for certain pages to only be for a private set of members so they can discuss issues etc without the whole world reading? —educationprogram
Yup! Just make a new "group" for that set of members (on your Wiki Settings Security page), and then on the pages you want to be "private," just go into "Edit" and press the "Security" button. Hope that's clear. See Help for Wiki Administrators for more.
2007-10-10 08:43:49 Hi philip Thank you for your remarks and the pages you indicated
First answer: by "inner wiki" link, I did not mean "inter wiki" link but what was called "auto wiki" link button by another user (http://wikispot.org/Feature_Requests#head-70da66c75362587940796611f4241324b6eaa125)
Best —philacour
That sort of link feature will be coming with our GUI editor.
2007-10-10 09:16:12 Hi again Philip I'm still stuck in this RSS problem. I unlocked both the Events board page and the redirected one ("tableau des messages"), so that security is no more the problem. Still, syndication does not work with my netvibes agregator, while it does with wikidavis. I also tried to syndicate the unlocked non-redirected ("simple") events board page from another wiki of mine: still no success !
I'm problably wrong somewhere, but where ?
Best
The page doesn't seem unlocked to me. You need to make sure that anyone can read the page.
2007-10-10 15:13:02 Hi, I would like to know the limitations on the space provided by Wiki Spot for each Wiki. Can anyone tell me? —saisandesh
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There are no fixed limits, just within reason. The DavisWiki (on Wikispot) is the largest English language city oriented wiki in the world. What are your concerns? —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
2007-10-11 16:05:11 Hi all right, it was unlocked for "everybody" and not to "log-in people", but does it make a difference ? Now I unlocked totally the two pages and still cannot get any syndication. Why ?
The RSS feed will only show events when they occur on that day — for instance, the davis feed shows only events for today. It looks like the feed is working now, though.
2007-10-16 18:51:46 I do not see or cannot understand as to "how to sign up". I see a space at top-right on the home page but do not know how to go about that. Can you please answer, not just post, my question :)
are we there yet —216.7.115.27
Just click the "new user" link in the upper right hand corner and fill out the form that appears.
2007-10-17 17:59:06 Hi there Thanks for your latest answer: it did help.
Did you plan to translate some pages of your wiki (presentation, help...) ? Would you like some help for that ?
Best —philacour
The UI elements ("Edit", "Info", "Talk", message dialogs) won't be translated for a little while (we localization code in place). What would help, though, is translating the Documentation pages, with Help with Editing probably being the most important. You could just make new pages with page titles being the words in French (or whatever other languages you speak) — "Help with Editing" becomes "Aide avec l'édition" (or however it's actually written!) —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-18 21:28:57 Hi all right I began. It's just a test though. I 'll do it slowly. I need a bigger picture of the whole though, even if I start small. For instance, there's a wole list of "Help with"..., right, so I guess it would be better to find also a standard equivalent in French (help with will actually be translated differently according to what is coming next: "à" for Editing, or "pour" for some others). So I guess it would be better to choose "pour" if one is to take a standard expression. I need to think about it and do it with my community. You have a list of "rigid" standards you keep using all the time (other than "Help with") ?
best —philacour
There's nothing rigid other than "Help with.." I figure we can have, at the top or bottom of Help with Editing, links to other languages. Each language would have its own names for the linked "Help with <x>" Just so we don't lose track of the pages before they're fully translated, I made this page: Documentation translation.
2007-10-19 17:38:24 Thanx Phil I'll be working on it.
Best —philacour
2007-10-20 10:16:19 Hi phil I'm wondering what the difference is between the "local" wikispot project and wikitravel (e.g. http://wikitravel.org/en/Berlin/Pankow)
So I'm really a big fan of wikidavis, and I'd like to do the same for berlin (where I live), but I dunno whether this is a good idea, given the already big network of wikitravel. However, the projects seem different, but my ideas about these differences are confuse (every day life vs traveller's tips). Perhaps you could help me here to weigh the pros and cons ?
Thanx
Best —philacour
2007-10-22 08:03:34 Is there a list of deleted pages, and can I restore a certain page? The background to my question is the strange revision history for this page: http://median2008.wikispot.org/ShortSwordTutorial?action=info
It was renamed from something else and then directly deleted without further editing. I can't figure out how to restore the page, and am curious whether that is caused by the renaming, or a general problem with the history of deleted pages. —Xeraan
The page history is always tracked. It looks like that page was deleted by an admin using the permanetly delete option — tell 'em not to do that unless there's a good reason :) —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-25 19:16:00 Is it possible to change the text color for a line or series of lines? I'm working on a template for the many buildings on the UW-Madison campus, Templates/UW Building and I was thinking to make it white text on the dark red boxes. I can format it a different way if there are no text color tags set up, but I thought this would look cool. —KarlMogel
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I may have just answered my own question by reading above - I could try to create a new class in the css file. But I'll have to try that later. If there's a cimpler way, let me know. -KJM
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Okay, so for the last half of an hour I've been trying to get the table class to work, and I can't figure out how to get each line of the table to look differently. I only know a little about table css stuff from fiddling, but I've managed to get the tables to have the colors and borders I want in the css file, however, I don't know how to get the rows to alternate white and red, and still be the same table. Is it just not possible here, or is there something I'm missing? - KarlMogel
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Right now you can't make the rows to alternate using CSS. This was requested as a feature.
2007-11-12 14:25:47 I'm interested in putting a universal RSS feed on my other sites for the wiki, but it looks like the only rss link is the personalized one from the bookmarks page. Is there a way to create an rss feed for recent changes that is not user specific? —JonKuniholm
The Recent Changes page has an RSS feed associated with it, too. There's no explicit link to the RSS feed, but modern web browsers will display a little RSS icon when you visit the page. For instance, Firefox puts an RSS icon in the location field, and clicking on it brings up the feed and the URL for the feed. If your browser doesn't expose RSS functionality (I know that Firefox and Safari do — not sure about Internet Explorer), you can get to the feed by going to http://wikiname.wikispot.org/Recent_Changes?action=rss_rc. Similarly, every page on the wiki has an RSS feed of all of its changes associated with it (and the Interwiki Recent Changes page produces a personalized set of changes, too).
P.S. I started a page called RSS that hopefully explains this, too! —PhilipNeustrom
2007-11-14 15:04:36 Can I create all my pages (including images)off-line and then upload them like creating a website, or must I type (or copy & paste) my copy & uload images online as I create a WIKI online? —172.135.193.89
Right now you'll have to type / copy & paste your content directly into the wiki. In the future, of course, we'd like to have some sort of offline / import capability, but there's nothing right now.
2007-11-15 14:27:18 I have not yet begun to create my WIKI. If I want to upload an image, am I able to determine what size it appears on the page? Can I determine its location – like determining if copy surrounds it or it goes across the entire page and copy is above or below it? Can I upload an image that copy is then created on or must I first include the copy on the image and then upload it? Can the image be captioned beneath it? —172.135.203.71
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Yes, Yes, Either way works, and Yes. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
2007-11-27 02:41:20 I am trying to insert a radio station in New York. I click on "edit," and there doesn't appear to be a place to enter data. Maybe I'm just missing something... Wanda —WandaFischer
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Which wiki were you trying to add this to? —JasonAller
2007-12-15 07:19:23 Are there any limits to how many wikis you can watch? How many RCs you can be tracking? I'm watching a fairly hefty number, and I'm a wee bit worried I might run up against some sort of limitation, either a simple maxed out count or a limiter in database queries and start missing updates without realizing it. —JabberWokky
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I'm at over 600 and appear to be fine. Most are low activity wikis I'm just watching to make sure they don't become overrun with spam or vandalism. (I'm pretty much leaving this note for people reading through this and wondering) —jw
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As a later update, it seems to run fine (on the server setup on 2008-09) to about 800 wikis. As I push 850 on my watch list (which is totally insane unless you're watching new wikis to assist them), I'm seeing the first slowdown of the Interwiki Changes page. Sometimes it is snappy, but it sometimes takes awhile to gather all the changes (with no obvious connection to number of changes — sometimes it takes awhile to find five changes in one wiki, sometimes it is snappy with a hundred changes from a dozen wikis). Basically I'm saying: for the 99.995% of users, it scales fine. You could be a student whose classes and clubs all have wikis that they are watching and have no performance issues or limits.
There's no hard limit and you shouldn't hit any real issues with a sane level (I dunno, less than 200 or so?) We'll just have to wait and see if there are performance issues at some point and set an arbitrary limit then.
2007-12-18 16:12:36 I think I just deleted the Events page in the new wiki for my organization. When I go to the Recent Changes page and try to recreate the page, it does not have the "Add Event" fields on it. I had deleted the page because adding an event was generating an error. How can I get the Events Page back, or create a new Events Page with the Add Event fields in my group's wiki? The wiki is located at: http://elversongardenclub.wikispot.org. Thanks for any help!
Hey, I think I figured it out - sorta. I found the Events macro and pasted it into a new Events page in the wiki. Now, as the admin, I can add events but not delete them. When I click the delete link for an event, it says I am not allowed to add an event.. How can I fix that? BTW, this wiki stuff is really fun!
That's a bit of a bug that's being caused by the Events macro not being on the "Events Board" page and instead being on a page called "Events." To fix it you should be able to move the Events macro over to the "Events Board" page — or go into "Info" on the Events Board page and revert back to the original version of the page (recommended).
Looks like the Events Board page is working now. Thanks very much for your help! —egcmember
2008-01-08 14:15:46 Is there any software like Wikipedia's AutoWikiBrowser available or planned for wikispot? I would like to do some substantial editing at the Chico wiki. —GregBard
I just took a look at AutoWikiBrowser — no such software is out there that works on Wiki Spot, to my knowledge. That browser is open source, however, and it doesn't look like it would be too difficult to modify it to work with Wiki Spot. I don't think it's necessary to have such a utility to do substantial editing, though? —PhilipNeustrom
2008-02-20 14:43:12 Can a css drop down menu be added to a wiki? Thanks —Nic
2008-04-03 17:01:39 How many simultaneous edits can the wikispot network handle without serious degradation? —Develine
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A lot. I don't know exactly how many edits can be made, as each edit will hit the database. I'm not that deep in the programming end. However, there have been some pretty serious edit wars on Davis Wiki which have been handled with no difficulties. Additionally, users who are only browsing should be affected less, since the current version of each page is cached in memory. —BrentLaabs
2008-04-22 17:41:59 how can I use an RSS app in my wiki? —Guillermo
Every page has an RSS feed listing all of that pages recent changes, and the Recent Changes and Bookmarks pages have special feeds. You can subscribe to any of these feeds — just open a web browser and click on the feed icon that appears — in FF this is in the location bar, in other browsers / feed readers this may be elsewhere.
2008-04-27 14:37:33 How do I add a registered trademark symbol (R)? How about diacritical marks? Thanks. :-) —Jannamark
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Howdy®, There should be unicode support for À, Ǟ, and ã. The easiest way to enter them depends on which operating system you are using. —JasonAller
2008-04-29 17:03:20 how can I write HTML code to explain for example how can I create an i-frame, but just to be shown as code, not to be implemented in the wiki? —Guillermo
in a box <div>like this</div>
2008-05-09 02:13:26 Hey (whoever wants to answer my question), I was wondering if there's a way to permanently delete an image off the wiki with adminfu powers. It's a copyright issue and I'd be much happier if the image just didn't exist on the wiki anymore.
Ah, I figured it out! I didn't know I had to restore it first...
Thanks regardless, for the general wiki creation/management!
Cheers. —BenChaney
2008-05-20 14:19:57 Hey, is mod_rewrite or mod_redirect enabled on the server? Could we have a /apple-touch-icon.png to /Wiki_Settings/Images?sendfile=true&file=apple-touch-icon.png rule placed? If it isn't already enabled, don't worry about it... if it is enabled in the future, poke me for Wiki Spot and Davis Wiki icons. —JabberWokky
2008-05-22 23:33:45 What are your limits for size? I'd like to start a wiki for my high school classroom.... I'd like to find a free one with a good amount of file space provided. I hade to get one started and have to start over if I run out of space... —209.174.75.4
Wiki Spot has no set limits for size. Of course, there is always an upper limit to this type of thing. The servers only have so much storage, processing power, and network bandwidth. All code has some inherent limits on how much data it can handle. However, this isn't something you'll likely run into. Wikispot hosts the largest English-language local wiki in the world and it doesn't have any problems. —WilliamLewis
2008-06-26 09:20:50 Testing to see if comments can be anonymous, a necessary feature for my wiki... —156.34.222.114
You can test all you want in the Wiki Sandbox. And you can choose to require accounts or not require accounts on a wiki by wiki basis, but IP addresses are always recorded.
BIG
How do i make text bigger? i tried <big></big> but that doesn't work as it normally does. thanks
See Help with headings.
2008-07-07 14:03:44 Is there any way to use Google Maps' embedded map feature? There seems to be no way to include arbitrary HTML (the angle brackets get quoted automatically). I know about the Map button at the top of the page, but I would like to present a Google Map at a specific location in a page and have it always show up without waiting for the reader to click on the Map button. Also, when the reader clicks on the Map button, the output for my new wiki (wheatfield-backgreen) currently looks awful, because it tries to recenter the map to make the pop up balloon visible and because the map is too small this doesn't really work well.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! —JoeWells
Embedded maps are currently a feature request. Can you explain more about what's wrong with the way the map is centering right now? As it stands, the mapping feature is geared toward specific points rather than locations.
2008-07-07 20:44:00 Thanks very much for replying to my question about embedded maps.
Yes, I hope the embedded map feature gets added. It would be lovely.
Regarding the problem with the existing map feature, I have put a screenshot at Map Problem Report. This is what shows up on my wiki when the “Map” icon is clicked. Notice that the green arrow and red balloon have almost scrolled out of the map view pane. When the map comes up, they are in the center, but then get scrolled to the edge as the balloon pops up. Notice also that the balloon text is too big to fit in the map view pane. It would make things much better for me if I could ask for the map view pane to be larger, or if I could ask for there to be no pop-up balloon. Is there a way to do this? Also, is there a way to get the map to always show up, without needing the Map icon to be clicked first?
By the way, I'm replying in a new comment because when I try to edit the page, the text gets cut off in the editor at 49152 bytes (which is 48 * (2 10), i.e., 48 Ki bytes). (UPDATE: I've checked, and the correct data is being sent in the HTML. All the text is present. So it is something in my browser that is cutting the text off at 49152 bytes.) (I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.12, which is the Ubuntu Dapper Drake version with the latest security patches. I have a few extensions and I have no idea if they could be interfering to cause the problem.) If I then saved any changes, the items since April would be lost, so I'm adding a new comment instead. I suppose I could try to use the “quick edit” feature, but I'm not confident that would do the right thing.
Also by the way, my wiki's “location” probably also qualifies as what you think of as a “specific point”. :-) ☺ This is explained on the wiki's Front Page.
By the way³, feature suggestion: previewing of comments and quick edits.
Thanks for the lovely marvelous wiki system! —JoeWells
That map definitely doesn't look right — my version has the points centered in the region and the balloon up toward the right hand corner. The text in my map is also normally-sized. I've never seen the map look that way before. I've been using FF3, FF2, Konqueror and IE6. I haven't taken a look at FF 1.5 in a while, but I can try and get it installed. I'm skeptical that it's a FF1.5 issue, though, as this is probably pretty standard google maps stuff — I'll poke at it if you can't isolate it as an extension snafoo, though.
I've just tested using “firefox -P test” where “test” is a fresh user profile with no configurations or extensions. I continue to get the problem where the green arrow and red balloon get scrolled almost out of the map view pane when the balloon pops up and the balloon text does not fit in the map view pane. It looks the same as in the screenshot I reported above. —JoeWells
Further testing reveals: This is simply what happens when a user's default font size is large. The text in the balloon uses the user's default font size. If the balloon is too large to fit in the map view pane, Google's JavaScript scrolls the map pane to center the balloon. There are several things that ought to be done about this. First, it would be good if the balloon chould be optional. In the case of my wiki's Front Page, the balloon is useless. Second, it would be good if popping up the balloon text could be postponed until the small red balloon is clicked by the user. Third, it would be better if the balloon text were styled with CSS. I assume it is not styled right now because it is in an iframe element. It would be better if the default CSS style sheets supplied for wikispot wikis arranged to style the map balloon text. —JoeWells
Ah, I see in the Changelog that on 2007-08-07 the auto-popping-up of the balloon behavior was added. Apparently, before this the balloon did not automatically pop up. Can the old behavior be added as an option, so the balloon does not have to automatically pop up? —JoeWells
Another comment: I just tried using CSS to style the text in the map balloons (I was actually trying to make the balloon text disappear as much as possible by playing with font-size and color), but because the entire map is inside an iframe, the CSS of the parent document is ignored. And I don't have any way to insert CSS into the HTML that forms the content of the map iframe. —JoeWells
As far as the text getting cut off, I've also never heard of that happening to anybody, so it certainly shouldn't be happening! Hopefully this isn't an FF 1.5 issue! Of course, none of my comment here helps you fix your problem, but at least for now you can know that it isn't supposed to do that, at least! —PhilipNeustrom
I've also just tested this using the fresh user profile, and this problem (where the edited text gets truncated to 48 Ki bytes) goes away. (I am using the unextended Firefox to do this edit.) So it must be one of my extensions that is messing things up. Probably no one else has this problem, so no need to worry. —JoeWells
2008-07-09 12:47:08 What is the best way to make the link text for an uploaded file be something other than the file name? If I do [[file(foobar.pdf)]], the text that appears to the reader is “foobar.pdf”. If I want something else like for example “link text”, I have to do something like [http://wheatfield-backgreen.wikispot.org/Wiki_Sandbox?action=Files&do=view&target=foobar.pdf link text] to go to the file viewing/editing page (“link text”) or [http://wheatfield-backgreen.wikispot.org/Wiki_Sandbox?sendfile=true&file=foobar.pdf&download=true link text] if I want the file to be downloaded directly when the link is clicked (“link text”). However, these are a horrible pain to type and will be hard for my wiki's users to figure out. (UPDATE: Plus, they are fragile and will break if the wiki implementation internal details change.) Is there a better way? It would be great if something like [[file("link text","file name")]] did the right thing. —JoeWells
You'll have to link to it like an external link for now. Good feature request, though.
Thanks for the answer. By the way, is it a good idea if I move my comments to either the bug report or feature request pages if/when I figure out that is what they are? —JoeWells
2008-07-09 14:23:47 Is it possible to do cross-wiki includes? It would be great if something like [[include(gnome:Seed)]] would include the Seed page from the gnome wiki. Is there any way to do this, or do I need to copy the content into my own wiki? —JoeWells
This functionality was kinda intentionally not developed for the sake of wiki autonomy. At least initially, there was a concern that the collective Wiki Spot borg would envelop all wiki uniqueness and control, so I thought that something like being able to include pages across wikis might encourage this. You'll have to copy the content of the pages you want over for now, though. —PhilipNeustrom
Thanks for the answer. I'll copy. (UPDATE: I noticed a friendly gnome (Users/JasonAller) copied some pages for me including Seed.) It's too bad there is not a way to automatically check if my copy is not the latest version of what I copied. I suppose I will bookmark any pages I copy from so I can notice changes. —JoeWells
2008-07-12 13:39:20 Can someone with database access please clear the “Default address locale” setting in the Wiki Settings/General control page of the wheatfield-backgreen wiki? There is a bug (reported as “Can't clear default address locale” on the Bug reports page) that prevents me from doing so. I understand that it might take a while to fix the bug, so I am wondering if someone can just zap this field in the database for me. I would like it to revert to its initial state (which I am guessing is the empty string). Due to the bug, the best I can do by myself is make it the string “ ” (1 space character).
By the way, is this the correct place to make support requests like this?
I am grateful for any help.
—JoeWells
Should be clear-able now. —PhilipNeustrom
Thanks much! I confirm the bug is gone. —JoeWells
2008-07-30 20:54:57 We're in the process of setting up a wiki for our church community (around 150 people). We're somewhat bending a 'wiki principle', in that we're looking to restrict edits to most pages to church members only (of course, anyone in our local community or beyond can join & become a member...) My plan is to set up a group ("Members") with ~150 user IDs in it and use that in the Wiki Settings/Security page to control access to our wiki overall. The question is: Will we have an issue using a group with that many IDs in it for security purposes? Thanks! —MichaelOConnell
You shouldn't have any issues, and if you do just drop a line here and we can figure it out. Best, PhilipNeustrom
2008-08-01 10:55:48 Is there a macro for current date and time? how about for --[["Users/USERNAME"]] DateAndTime ... besides the button on the edit screen? —davidbessler
In the distant past there was but it was too complicated for people to figure out how to use.
What about a simple ~~~ adds your signature, and ~~~~ adds date and signature. This works well on pmWiki here. —DavidBessler
2008-08-01 10:58:02 A "reverse" comments box would be nice too ... perhaps [News] which appends comments to the TOP of the page. —davidbessler
2008-08-02 19:54:29 Can I change my username? —Zimarev
It's probably easiest for you to: 1) create a new account 2) with your old account, add the new account as an admin on your wiki 3) disable your old account. —PhilipNeustrom
2008-08-10 23:27:40 In the initial default common.css file, the class noFloat (for span elements) is implemented with “float: left”.
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First question: Huh? Isn't “noFloat” a confusing name for something that is implemented with floats?
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Second question: Why is this implemented with floats? Is there a good reason for this? This seems to leave no way to get images inline in the middle of text. I suppose I could change the meaning of noFloat in common.css, but common.css says “These are the styles you probably don't need to change”.
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Third question: Does this mean if I put images in a table they will all escape from the table, or does the behavior change for images in a table?
noFloat only applies for thumbnails that don't have an explicit left or right alignment given to them. E.g. [[Image(name.jpg, thumbnail, right)]] is specifically right whereas [[Image(name,jpg, thumbnail)]] is not. Maybe you could suggest a better name for this case (defaultAlign?)
Agreed, “defaultAlign” (or anything similar) would be less confusing. Thanks for explaining that it is only used for thumbnails.
This only applies for thumbnails. They have to float because they have a border around them along with a potential caption. We tried over and over, and this has been mentioned before a few times, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this in CSS without making the element float (as far as I/others could figure out!)
style="display: inline-block" is supposed to do this, but it doesn't work in my 2-year-old Firefox 1.5 browser. (I just checked. Maybe it works for you?)
By the way, does this mean that non-thumbnails are not allowed to have captions???
As far as tables — I'd avoid using thumbnails in them, but it should work because it floats inside the table cell. —PhilipNeustrom
Why would you avoid using thumbnails in them? In general, is there some reason to avoid using thumbnails anywhere you could use a non-thumbnail image?
2008-08-18 10:51:44 Is there any way to thumbnail an image from another page at a different size than it appears on that page?
On my wiki's people page, I have this code:
[[image(imgp1905.jpg,thumbnail,500,"caption text omitted")]]
On my wiki's main page, I want to reference the image, but at a smaller size. I tried this:
[http://wheatfield-backgreen.wikispot.org/People?sendfile=true&thumb=yes&size=192&file=imgp1905.jpg]
However, the size=192 portion of the URL appears to be ignored, and I get the image sized as though I requested size=500.
Is there any way to get what I want without duplicating the image? —JoeWells
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The best way (
IME) is to duplicate the image. That way you can also change it one place without changing it elsewhere. If you do have an image you want to include on several entries, create a distinct entry for it and use [[Include()]. To do what you're doing is a very "building a website" way of thinking, but not a very "building a wiki" way of thinking. Remember that many people editing means that having something that you change on your People entry that affects an entry elsewhere is generally a bad idea — somebody will change it to be better for that one entry and wind up affecting your front page. Also, entries can be renamed and moved around over time. As such, duplication (or an obvious include, preferably with markup comments) seems to be good practice. —jw
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Hey Joe, right now there isn't a good way to use an image in that way on multiple pages. It's suggested on the feature requests page ("so I don't have to upload an image multiple times") We wanted the image process to be straightforward. We probably won't explore more detailed image stuff until we have the
GUI Editor in production. Making images associated with pages was a design decision (more straightforward association between the image and the page, easier to pick a file name, generally not as confusing for people). Adding the ability to annotate metadata (author, date taken, etc) to an image, as you noted, would be good, as would the ability to refer to images on other pages. —PhilipNeustrom
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Currently, there is no way to use an image multiple times, even within one page. Partially, because images are considered to be associated with a page, rather than as an independent entity. The design reason for doing this is because it means we only have to keep track of one thumbnail-resized image for caching (and memory caching accounts for a lot of sycamore's speed).
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There is also (c) which is to wait until someone else implements it (multiple pages with the same image).
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Hey, I'm trying to get free work out of him. It's not like either of us are prioritizing this issue.
Nonetheless, is there any way to achieve what I want without duplication?
Also, is there some reason why the size=192 URL parameter is ignored? This seems likely to represent a bug somewhere. If this parameter has no effect, then why is it generated as part of the HTML for thumbnails?
Unfortunately, I can not solve my problem with an include because I need to use the same image at two different sizes, and neither of these sizes is the original image size. Also, I would prefer to leave the original image untouched and make it available for download from the wiki. If there was a way to solve my problem with an include, I would love to learn about it.
(I also have a philosphical disagreement with your views on images. However, my technical questions remain regardless of this disagreement.
In my disagreement, I am disappointed that images are being seen as ephemeral fluff that can blow away on the wind without notice. I think you are confusing the image with the separate notion of the role the image may play on a wiki page. Images are as important as ordinary wiki pages. Images have an identity. An image has an author, a copyright owner, legal copying conditions, etc. These are properties of the image, not the page, and not the role within a page. For these reasons, I would much prefer to see mediawiki-style handling of images, where images are taken seriously.)
So I am confused how the thumbnail sizing works. Here is my guess: The first time the size URL parameter is seen, a resized version of the image is generated and cached. On subsequent fetches, the size parameter is ignored. But the cache must be cleared at appropriate times to get the right results. So I guess all cached thumbnail images are cleared at each page edit. But that seems too expensive, especially for a page that has lots of thumbnails of which only a few might need regeneration after an edit. Is my guess right?
Wouldn't it be better to index the cache by the pair of the file name and the size? This would make it much easier to support multiple uses of an image per page.
Yeah, it's a quick fix.
So, if you don't like the workaround above, then your choice is to either (a) contribute a solution to your and my feature request by writing some python, or (b) using some other software such as MediaWiki. I personally like having images as metadata about a topic, but I don't see a problem with propagating them across a few pages on the same wiki. License information can be included in edit comments when adding them to a page or adding them to the page itself — sure it makes it more difficult, but at least it's organized.
It is important to be able to add license information and other image metadata some time after adding an image to a page. More information may be obtained, the license may change, etc. And the information needs to be associated cleanly with the image.
On MediaWiki, images are just bits of ephemeral fluff that float around the wiki without a home. Here, they're tied to a page which keeps them organized and the namespace uncluttered. —BrentLaabs
I completely disagree with your last two sentences, but I am not going to bother to debate them.
I'm not likely to do implementation work myself due to lack of time, but see the item I added to the Sycamore Feature Requests page (search for MoinMoin and “student projects”). —JoeWells
2008-08-26 11:04:53 What's a good place to get one or more mailing lists associated with a wiki hosted? (No, a message page on the wiki is not sufficient for this purpose because too few of the people involved know how to use RSS at all.) —JoeWells
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It's not really a Wiki Spot thing, but I'd recommend Google and recommend against Yahoo!. Ideally you find somebody to set it up on a server for you, but I'm in a few real world groups that organize via mailing lists, and I've noticed that Google seems to be easier and have much fewer problems (especially among less tech-savvy people) than Yahoo!. Again, however, this really is not a Wiki Spot issue, but I'll toss in the vaguely on-topic comment that you can use your domain for email lists even if it's pointed at Wiki Spot. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
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I would not recommend Google Groups. I have had a lot of trouble getting it to send to a non-google address. Yahoo, on the other hand has a very good interface for managing multiple addresses associated with a yahoo account and choosing different addresses to send to for different lists or other settings like no mail (read it in the private archives), bureaucratic mail only, and digest. For example, I was originally subscribed to an egroups.com list with a non-yahoo address before I had a yahoo account. When I got a yahoo account and yahoo bought egroups, I was able to confirm that I had the other address and then I could manage my list settings in yahoo groups with my yahoo account. Later when I got a whole other non-yahoo email, I was able to move the delivery over to that, and I made similar adjustments with several other lists. Between the various lists I have used the yahoo list subscriber interface pretty thoroughly and am quite pleased with it. YMMV. Also there may be some non-profit community group in your area that can arrange this hosting for you,
Davis Community Network does this here in Davis if they approve your proposal. —NickSchmalenberger
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Beware of asking for recommendations — I can't say that Nick is less right than me. It's all just watching people on various mailing lists and getting a feel for how much trouble they are. In the end, if they work right they are pretty much identical, so the critical factor for me is just the overhead of how much of a pain it is for non-tech savvy people to subscribe and manage them. If you want a fountain pen or historical reenactment group to be able to communicate, you want to spend time talking about pens or events, not technical stuff about the mailing list itself. Nick's experience is the inverse of mind — poke at both and see which you like. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
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Thanks for the info! I did not expect the main recommendations to be major companies like Google and Yahoo. I'll investigate some more.
JabberWokky, is the recommendation for Google referring to Google Groups or Google Mail (or some combination)?
Also, what do you mean by “you can use your domain for email lists even if it's pointed at Wiki Spot”. Huh?
By the way, to be more precise, the features I am looking for are as follows. (1) Forwarding of e-mail sent to the list to the list members (obviously!). (2) The ability for anyone (including people with little computer confidence) to add/remove/change their e-mail address. (3) The ability for an administrator to add/remove/change or ban any e-mail address. (4) Sensible handling of temporarily/permanently broken subscribed e-mail addresses. (5) Anti-spammer safeguards. Other features like list archives, a web interface to sending/reading e-mail, etc., could be nice but are probably not essential. —JoeWells
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Google Groups is one way, or if you have a domain name for your group you can point it at Google Apps (which includes Google Mail), and you can set up you own mailing lists or groups with your own choice of privacy and interface. Yahoo! has a single interface with several options of how public or private it is. Both have combined documents and calendar interfaces. Again, it's not really a Wiki Spot thing, so I'm hesitant to recommend one in particular. Perhaps you should copy your question and replies to your personal entry when you're done? —jw
2008-10-19 22:09:12 I disabled my accout forever and now I can't create a new one with my own email address or go back to the old one. Can you reenable it? -TomKuruzovich
I re-enabled your account. —PhilipNeustrom
2008-11-19 01:29:45 You say: "Requiring your users to register an account can help to build community. Or you might want to hold data for a more secret project, where only a few users get to edit and view pages. In these cases, your friend is the Wiki Settings/Security page. "
Is it possible to restrict access to the site to people to whom I have given passwords?
John Kilcullen —larpc
There is no way to do this at the moment besides creating a group account that you give out the password to. To my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong, Philip), there are no immediate plans to add this feature. You're not the first person to ask for it, though. —WilliamLewis
If you create a group, and add those users names to it and only allow that group access to your wiki you could do it. —JasonAller
The funny thing is that both davis and wikispot started as password access only to the server. It might be a reasonable feature to add. (Though one would have to tell us the purpose of the wiki to meet our Community Guidelines.) —BrentLaabs
It is possible we are making assumptions here. John, what exactly are you trying to do? Yes, you can restrict access to editing to just those people who are logged in. Yes you can restrict viewing and editing to just those people who are in a specific list. There is no way to have a global password that everybody uses to add themselves to that list, but that might not be what you are talking about. What exactly are you looking at doing? If you tell us, it may well already be possible, and the above people are just making assumptions regarding what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, if you already know these people, you can just have them sign up, tell you their logins and add them to the "can view" or "can view and edit" list. There have been family and project wikis that have done similar things. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
2008-12-09 19:55:18 I saw something about getting Wiki Visit Counts via 
, but I fear that how one would go about this is completely unclear to me. Could you, very kindly, elaborate? Thanks much. —Mwanner
2008-12-09 15:16:59 You can add an image located on another server to an entry whose views you wish to track, or if you want to track all views (minus edits) and you are the wiki admin, you can add an image to the footer (see wiki settings). Basically, you use the external server to provide stats on that image, and thus see stats for the whole site. That's how many web statistics services work. At the very very basic level, you can just host an image anywhere and look at the server log (keeping in mind that you need to make sure that the image is not cached). For more advanced results, use a web statistics service or software package and you can track all kinds of information about visitors.
There are probably better explanations out there on the web statistics websites that show you how to use their service. As I don't use any, I am hesitant to recommend a particular one. There are also javascript snippets that are used in the same way. I think Google Trends uses a javascript bug for instance. —JabberWokky
2008-12-11 01:41:19 Can admins get at their user's email addresses? —Mwanner
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2008-12-11 06:14:28 By design, no. It is not considered part of the wiki's data (otherwise anybody could sign up for a Wiki Spot wiki and grab a big mailing list of people, since all Wiki Spot logins are valid across all wikis). That's part of the reason we ask for contact information on the Wiki Directory entry on the hub. It is really only used for password recovery and the creation of wikis. —JabberWokky
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I can understand that. Still, by usage, you know which users are associated with which wikis— it seems to me that you could make the addresses of users who have edited a given wiki available to the admins of that wiki. The alternative is for us to ask the user to post their email address for all the world to see. Even using the MailTo macro, it still leaves their address out there in public. Anyway, I don't mean to be argumentative— just to put the thought out there. Thanks again for all your help! —Mwanner
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Maybe we can have an option in user settings like: "Allow administrators of wikis you edit to see your email address." I like privacy, but I can see how it would be useful for things like fundraising, or contacting confused users. —BrentLaabs
2008-12-11 13:07:37 Another question— can one, by any chance, change the interwiki Wikipedia logo? We will be using a lot of links to Wikipedia, and the logo is mighty noticeable. See Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, for example. But I fear the answer is that it's a global setting? TIA —Mwanner
2008-12-11 08:56:17 You can certainly change or remove it by changing the CSS for either a.interwiki or img.interwiki_icon. A typical way (off the top of my head and thus untested) would be something like:
a.interwiki[title="wikipedia"] img.interwiki_icon { display: none; }
Swapping it out for a local image is a bit more complicated but pretty straightforward if you know CSS. —JabberWokky
Great, that worked. I wasn't quite sure where to put it, but I found some other "a." expessions and stuck it in there and it worked fine. I know zilch about CSS, but so far, I've lucked out tinkering with it. Thanks again...—Mwanner
2008-12-11 21:12:11 If I've disabled my account, how do I start a new one with the same email address? —66.127.213.173
2008-12-11 21:17:01 How do I please disable/CANCEL MY NinetteLawrence account page???? Please cancel it for me!!!! I would be very grateful if you would just please cancel it for me, and then just tell me how you did it, and how you can make any changes in a name in an account?? My email address is petcarecals@yahoo.com, phone # is 530-902-8711 Thank you. —66.127.213.173
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Log in to your account, go to "Settings" (upper right hand corner), and then check "Disable this account forever". Then click the "Disable Account" button. Once you have disabled the old account, you can create a new one. Out of curiosity, why are you disabling it? —Evan Edwards
2008-12-13 00:59:18 When I get a message, and click on the Messages link, it takes me to the Wikispot Interwiki Bookmarks page. Is there any way to change this so that it takes me to my User page? —Mwanner
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The short answer is no. However, you might like a more philosophical answer that kind of gives you some context. Just understand it is my personal take on the situation, not anything official: The problem would be figuring out which user entry to take you to. You can get a message on any wiki (or multiple ones between when you logged in). In fact, you'll note that if you edit on another wiki, your editor link in the info will go to that wiki's entry for your editor account (you can change this in your editor settings if want). Wiki Spot tends to be set up to allow for editors to cross edit and communicate with each other within the context of whatever community they happen to be in at the time. In fact, even if you've never visited a particular wiki, you have a
default editor profile there that shows what wikis you have custom profiles on and has a link to your edit history. You can also bookmark any entry and be notified when somebody edits it. Wiki Spot works a bit differently than Wikipedia, which seems to be how you're envisioning using it. I can sympathize: sometimes the way Wikipedia works drives me nuts, but I understand why it doesn't work like Wiki Spot. They work under very different initial concepts: Wiki Spot is a set of equal communities that are free to operate and develop however they like. There are also editor accounts that work between them (assuming they are open to being edited; not all are, some are entirely closed off from the public, while others don't even require an account at all). Your editor account itself is not strongly tied to any given community. It just provides a basic level of identity for you (which may be required in some communities). You can be banned in one wiki and an admin in another and a normal editor in yet a third. Or you can have multiple editor entries under that single account, all equally valid and customized to each community. You can also ignore all other communities and just stay in your own corner. It can take a while to become familiar, especially if you're used to using something else (like Wikipedia) that is similar enough to cause cognative dissonance. Kind of like people only familiar with blogs trying to wrap their head around the concepts of a wiki. Of course, now that I've waxed philosophic about it, somebody else might have a different take on how things work, but the core nutshell summary is pretty simple: a specific editor account isn't strongly tied to a specific wiki community. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
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As those of us who have been around a while will recall, there were once radically different takes on how this worked, or should work. Rochester Wiki (
rocwiki.org) used to be hosted on the same server as Davis Wiki; both were essentially flagship wikis for the Sycamore project. The Roc people were radically against the integration of the user tables (that is, one user account for all wikis), and left the project for that reason. And probably also because I got really mad at them in an email. They were very centered on making one website and one community the best it can be, where Davis Wiki folk had a more expansive vision. So the vision that remains here is something along the lines of what JW said above: many interconnected communities, with users who provide connections between these communities (or, in the case of JW, all wiki communities). I think we have achieved this vision, at least partially, and provide interconnections between projects. I'm going to help out with camarillo because it's near my home town, though I probably wouldn't even participate if I had to go look for it, register a new account, etc. Despite my basically unprofessional conduct with Roc Wiki, I feel it is probably best to have lost them in the long run. Having a constantly inconsistent vision would have been a lot to deal with over the past two years. — In regards to the original topic, it would be mad hella wicked cool if clicking "messages" triggered a little javascript widget and displayed which userpages had been edited. Not sure if this is a good idea though — does Interwiki Bookmarks query the database each page load? —BrentLaabs
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Thanks for the interesting responses. My only problem is that we're probably going to have a significantly unsophisticated user base, at least in the near future, with, I fear, little interest in the larger Wiki community, as we are focused on the History of the Saranac Lake region, and I would guess the average age of the membership of the organization (which dates to 1980) is somewhere north of 60. So we'd definitely be interested in a work around.
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And yes, Evan, I hadn't thought about it, but the situation is a lot like the different parts of Wikipedia, though as I spend 99% of my time in en.wikipedia, and 1% in commons, I don't spread myself around anything like you guys do. BTW, they have finally come up with a unified login scheme. Incidentally, I was surprised to see the statement that "you cannot copy material verbatim from Wikipedia and place it on the Wiki" on the Davis wiki's piece on Copyrights. While that may be technically true, it would only be an issue if Wikipedia tried to enforce it, and I feel absolutely certain that they never would. And they are working on a changeover to a CC license. —Mwanner
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Alas, they are working toward a CC-By-SA (and have officially embraced it as of quite awhile ago now). But that still has restrictions that CC-By does not. People are free to incorporate CC-By into anything — a newspaper article, a term paper, a photo of an old house into book they wrote on the history of a place. CC-By is fully open to any kind of use. CC-By-SA enforces requirements on the licensing of the new work. But this is not at all a Wiki Spot issue, as individual wikis can license however they would like (although they run the danger of blocking the use of their content the way Wikipedia did if they use a restrictive license). I actually was discussing this the other day with somebody who was lamenting the state of scientific publication copyright as he gathers the permissions for his doctoral thesis. You can just say "I'm sure they'll look the other way", but it would be much nicer if they said explicitly, "feel free to use this". And this was a discussion between authors who wanted to use each other's works, but had more than one contributor to their works. Also, you mention that they would not enforce the license, but
there are lists and letters specifically to use to enforce compliance. —jw
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I was unaware of those lists and letters— I have seen growsing about sites mirroring virtually the entire encyclopedia without any attribution. What they're asking for in the compliance letter seems mild enough— a link to the Wikipedia article(s) copied and a visible GFDL notice. Heck, I guess I'll even comply on the Wikipedia articles I've copied to our site. —Mwanner
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About CC-SA/GFDL enforcability: I would say that it's a good enough idea to keep up the notice about not transferring content from Wikipedia. However, I essentially never delete content copied over; I'd just assume wait for a DMCA takedown. However, it's good practice not to copy the article wholesale, because it gives you the opportunity to write something new and probably more oriented to the topic of your wiki. —BrentLaabs
Making the user page change notice send someone to their user page is probably a good idea — at least if they just have one user page (e.g. don't edit multiple wikis) (A software change) —PhilipNeustrom
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I was thinking about it, and it would make a heck of a lot of sense (when clicking the messages link) to present a list of just the entries with updates, and if there is only one, directly go to that. That solves the whole thing, regardless of how you're using messages. Right now the whole list is presented with a flag... I'm envisioning that:
For one message, clicking on messages takes you to the updated entry.
For two or more, something like the following appears (yes, I'm aware that I'm using bad markup — consider this pseudocode):
You have new messages on several entries
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||<#ccccff>changes|| JabberWokky (on
opencafemain) last modified Oct. 29 at 05:43 PM by knuggy (Comment added.)
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||<#ccccff>changes|| JabberWokky (on
whuffie) last modified Dec. 6 at 10:01 PM by JasonAller
Or you can [linktousersettings click here to manage your notifications].
Anybody for moving this thread to Sycamore?
2008-12-13 13:29:40 And another newbie question: is there any way to have a Talk page automatically include a [[Comments]] box (and maybe not offer the user a full set of templates on the way in— just create the page)? I note that it already has the special feature of a heading reading "This page is for discussing the contents of..." Could we take it the next step and make it a real Talk page from the get-go? —Mwanner
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That's a software change. It was first brought up a week or two ago, and has already filed as a feature request. Most wikis seldom use the Talk entries and delete them as soon as a resolution has been reached. You seem to be building permanent ones in advance, although I don't quite see why (see the [[stop]] macro). The other issue is that they can't be changed from English for non-English wikis. Allowing new Talk entries to pull from a template (something like "Template/Talk" ) seems to make the most sense. —jw
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Ah, sorry, another Wikipedia habit— I have often found the Talk pages on Wikipedia to be at least as interesting as the article itself— you'll see the thinking and negotiating that went into making the page. Then, of course, there are the ones full of, shall we say, less helpful comments. Those I could live without. Anyway, I'm sorry, I'll try to control the impulse to want to make this site just like Wikipedia. It's just that I'm 4 years and 25,000 edits indoctrinated, so the cognitive dissonance, as you noted, is slightly crazy-making. —Mwanner
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Don't get me wrong: If you want to make a Wikipedia clone, you're welcome to. It's just that Wiki Spot tools and most of the editors here are more focused on the kind of wiki you're creating with limited scope, localized editors, etc. For instance, your large number of rules are intended to discourage editing by masses without thinking. It's needed on a large site that gets flooded by anonymous one-shot editors: discarding 98% to the find 2% of good editors is okay. But you're dealing primarily with neighbors who you can actually talk to on a person to person basis and who are each individually valuable and are going to not be interested in "editing a wiki" — they are interested in the subject. That's a different kind of mind set, and one that can be put off by the kinds of brute force cut and pasted warnings and notices that are needed in a very large scale project. The time you spent in creating all those warnings, rules and pools of cut and paste violation notices could be spend just writing to, listening to and training each individual editor. The neat thing is that if you do that, they will help the next new editor (and be more likely to chat about the positive experience with the person they are having dinner with later that day). The tradition of hospitality and individual communication scales up to at least 10,000 editors, and probably quite a bit higher. All of that said, you're welcome to be completely authoritarian (or meritocracy or plutocracy or mirror the rules of a real world organization) — as long as you're serving a community somehow, you're always welcome at Wiki Spot. This is all just a suggestion based on experience dealing with wiki communities that grew out of situations and goals more similar to yours than those of a global multi-language encyclopedia. —jw
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Point well, taken, and we have responded to your earlier note by toning things way down— the Rules are now Guidelines, the banning is gone and the language is a good deal lighter. Coming from Wikipedia, those first Rules felt like Policy Lite to me. Nevertheless, we may need more guidelines than the average city wiki, 'cause we have a director of the org who is deeply concerned about correctness— not a real natural fit to a wiki, but we're confident she'll come around. And the reason for the cut 'n' paste violation notices is that I'll be leaving the wiki in the hands of someone who's brand new to wikis for a couple of months, and I wanted to give her some tools that could be useful if things get messy. But you're quite right— the odds are we'll have more trouble inducing people to give it a try than trouble fighting off vandals and spammers— I have noticed all those wikis out there with no edits in several months. Thanks again for the advice and counsel— we definitely need some.
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Please only take it as thoughts from a different perspective... it's your wiki, and I'm not telling you you have to build it in any particular way. But the conversation was open so I kicked in my two cents. —jw
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One other reaction to your comments, though. It may not be obvious, but there is a lot of community feeling and mentoring of newbies going on at Wikipedia— way too much of the other crap, true, but still plenty of kindness and civility. — Mw
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Mw, how much time have you spent on the original wiki,
Ward's Wiki a.k.a. Portland Pattern Repository? Also check out Meatball Wiki. Both of those should get your creative juices flowing about what a wiki can be. —BrentLaabs
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Sorry for the delayed response— I've been trying to get enough structure and content into our new wiki to make it feel like a going concern before we truly launch the thing, and before I go into a nearly three month internet blackout. Anyway, no, I had never looked at Ward's or Meatball. There's clearly a lot of interesting stuff there— I found a link to a great article about Wikipedia, f'rinstance. But I definitely have my hands full getting the HSL Wiki going, and I am (probably foolishly) considering starting another Saranac Lake wiki— this one a conventional community wiki, as opposed to the historical basis of our first wiki. I would like to think that the general interest community wiki would pull community members to the History wiki and vice-versa. We'll see... — Mw
2008-12-30 22:24:24 I'm getting "No space left on device" errors at hsl on any page create attempts. —Mwanner
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Thanks! — Mw
That should be all fixed now. —PhilipNeustrom
2009-01-13 19:16:21 We're going to be adding a number of historical photos for which we would like to be able to add meta-data. I know we could include it all in the photo caption, but it would be nice not to have to have it all on display— any chance of having a sub-page for image files. (Note that this would also be useful for those who want to license a particular image differently from the rest of their material.) —Mwanner
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Off to Feature Requests with you. I suppose you could get away with just mentioning particular photos on your Copyrights page too.
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Will do. For the record, though, this goes beyond copyright issues— for historic photos, you really need to record who took it, when, and essentially any other known info. A lot of it fits reasonably in a caption, but not all. It does occur to me, though, that we could create our own sub-page for the photo, and link to it from the photo caption.
2009-01-20 22:18:39 Questions from Harvey Morgan (maddaze) of adld.wikispot.org: 1) How do I see all the registered members of the adld wiki? Or should I be asking how I see the names of all those who follow the wiki?
2 There's a lovely page explaining how to upload and insert photos. I can't find similar detail on handling files. In particular how do I supply my own description of an inserted file, to be displayed in place of the file name? —maddaze
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You can see it by viewing the page "User Statistics". You'll probably want to rename it, but it is
here. It only displays editors who have edited your wiki, not just watching it. As for the file macro, there is currently no way to do so, although I think it would be pretty easy to add. It is possible there was some worry that providing a description would lead to people uploading viruses and trojan horses and making them look like valid links. Also, feel free to translate anything here to French and place it here on the hub. We're currently trying to support multiple languages, but it's a work in progress hampered by the lack of bilingual editors... but I'll help you as much as I can. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
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Seems to me "support multiple languages" involves two different tasks, and I'm sure I'm not breaking new ground when I talk about this. 1) Change the language of the prompts like Welcome, settings, watch this wiki, login, logout, etc. 2) Make the explanatory and help texts available in French. Having no way to do either 1 or 2, I've started on pages in French that explain for our non-English-enabled users how to accomplish various tasks, like
subscribe to the ADLD wiki. I'd be interested learning more about a project that led wikispot to be at least bi-lingual.
2009-01-29 19:23:39 Is there a standard way to add a timeline to a page? —InsaneLampshade
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Uh, no. You can, however, copy what they're doing on Davis Wiki:
Davis Timeline and the year pages (e.g. 1912. —BrentLaabs
2009-02-01 15:34:20 How do I register under a new Username with the same email address? —66.31.127.134 (The Vigil Hawk)
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Go to the settings link in the upper right hand corner while logged in as "The-Vigil-Hawk" and change the e-mail listed. Save settings. Then go back into settings and disable the account (last option on the page). Now create your new account! —JasonAller
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But I can't seen to log in at all; not on Wikispot or on the wiki I created. Also, I only have one email address. I just wanted to change my Username, not my email. — 66.31.127.134
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Turn "accept cookies" on or accept cookies from wikispot.org on in your browser. Changing the e-mail address is one step in changing your username. Just add +wiki after the e-mail account name and before the @ sign and it should work. —JasonAller
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It worked! Thanks! — 66.31.127.134
2009-02-23 21:38:42 Please remove the listing for this restaurant. I now have their old tel. number and the calls are irritating, to say the least. Please, get this off your website today!!!!! Or, I'll consider it harrassment tomorrow!!!!!
Barbary Coast Savanah BBQ
1226 20th Street
Sacramento , CA 95814
Phone: (916) 441-0622
Cuisine: Barbecue
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In the future, instead of threatening us, maybe you should go to the page and delete inaccurate information yourself. Wikis are made to be edited, so why don't you actually solve the problem instead of just complaining? I deleted the phone number for you, but please note that we're driven by user contributions, and can't ensure everything is currently correct. —BrentLaabs
—165.196.18.76
2009-02-27 16:07:39 Oops! I set up my site, aisavesenergy.wikispot.org, using the registered name david-stookey. Realizing that best practices say it should be DavidStookey, I changed it, deleting the first one in the process. Now I can't administer the site; I can't even Edit pages because of my security settings. How do I get back on the throne? —DavidStookey
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I'll let people with database access to the server know. Hopefully, they'll get back to you today — but we're in the middle of a major server upgrade and move, so it might take a couple of days for them to get back to you. —BrentLaabs
2009-03-18 20:52:12 It looks like any pages we've created in the last week are failing to show up in page Searches. They're fine otherwise. Could this be due to something that happened in the Server Upgrade? —Mwanner
One other wiki had reported that, but when I tested it, it appeared to be because of their odd titles (I already filed it as a bug report). Perhaps it had something to do with my account or pure chance and there is an actual bug re: search. A sysadmin with database access should probably double check things. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards
