Time for VaultWiki?

[Kaelon]

Hi there, Pegasus,

I've been using a customized-version of NuWiki for some time. Now, my site has grown to support multiple, distinct, separate communities. Would VaultWiki enable me to create separate, self-contained Wikis that my different communities (sub-forums, within the same super-forum) could use in building collective knowledge? How would such a solution work?

Thanks!

[Kaelon]

Hi there, Pegasus,

I've been using a customized-version of NuWiki for some time. Now, my site has grown to support multiple, distinct, separate communities. Would VaultWiki enable me to create separate, self-contained Wikis that my different communities (sub-forums, within the same super-forum) could use in building collective knowledge? How would such a solution work?

Thanks!

I should emphasize that the reason that NuWiki doesn't meet this requirement presently is that the "Wiki Island" functionality disables "WIKI" bbcode, and I want my users to be able to dynamically call upon WIKI articles in their posts, depending upon the community in which they are participating. So, for example, users of my "Soccer" community could use Wiki codes that automatically direct to the "SoccerWiki", and users of my "Tennis" community could use Wiki codes that call upon the "TennisWiki".

[pegasus]

In essence you would be able to do this by utilizing the same forum permissions or however you have it set up. However, I do not know if your various subforums have multiple articles with the same title.

For example, if the communities each have an article called X, you would have to move each of your communities into a separate namespace (which would mean different super-forums).

If this is not the case, in your current setup it would be possible for inter-community linking based on the article titles that exist across the board. If this is a problem, I would recommend again moving each community to a separate namespace.

If you have accomplished any of this using Wiki Islands, then there would also be no problem because Islands have been ported to VaultWiki and do not function on a title basis.

[Kaelon]

Looks like we were posting at the same time; thanks for the swift response, Pegasus.

Here's a rudimentary sketch of my current layout:

--Forums for Tennis
---- Tennis Discussion Forums
---- Wiki for Tennis
--Forums for Soccer
---- Soccer Discussion Forums
---- Wiki for Soccer
-- Shared Forums

1. Would a setup like this be possible, allowing my users who participate in the Tennis Forums to use WIKI code that points directly to their Tennis Wiki?

2. How easily can I import my current Wiki articles (NuWiki format) into VaultWiki and place them in the same namespace?

[pegasus]

So reading now your second post, I would recommend making a forum with No Parent Forum called "SoccerWiki" and one called "TennisWiki." If you set the Display Order to 0 they would not appear on Forum Home. VaultWiki also has a mechanism in place that would allow you to then select a Forum that "SoccerWiki" would appear to be a subforum of. This would allow you to accomplish what you want and have separate [wiki] BB-Codes for each community.

And as for your third post, you can import your current Wiki articles into VaultWiki with our import script, but you would have to move some of your forum structure around afterwards in order to accomplish what I mentioned above. Since you have namespace changing going on, I would recommend Rebuilding the Article Cache twice: once after importing, and once again after rearranging the forum structure.

[Kaelon]

Thanks, Pegasus. When you say that I could have separate wiki BBcodes for each community, how exactly is this accomplished? Are rules set for parent-forums that impact their child-forums' use of the WIKI bbcode and assign it to a certain default namespace?

Also, my site makes extensive use of vBSEO. I have read that there is an .htaccess patch; do you have a link where I read more about how VaultWiki and vBSEO work together?

Additionally, my site has around 1.3 million posts (but only around 1,000 of those are currently Wiki articles). About how long would (a) the import of NuWiki, and (b) rebuilding the article cache take?

[pegasus]

For WIKI codes, you can define a tag for each namespace. We did it this way so that inter-namespace linking was still possible. So you could have a BB-Code called SOCCER and one called TENNIS. You could call one of them WIKI if you want but WIKI will not apply to both correctly.

For vbSEO, see: http://www.vaultwiki.org/issues/272/

Importing the Wiki and Rebuilding the Article cache will not take very long because those processes only affect wiki posts. There is also an installation step called Rebuilding the Link Cache, which does affect all posts (keep in mind the difference between Article Cache and Link Cache). Article Cache holds a list of all articles that have been created. Link Cache contains a record of links to articles throughout your forum for statistical use.

For a forum of your size I would recommend skipping this Link Cache step altogether. Your wiki's statistics (any Special pages) won't exactly be up to date, but since this newest version, VaultWiki should (gradually) rebuild this additional information on its own as your site is viewed by visitors or crawlers.

[Kaelon]

Perfect. Thanks, pegasus! You have a new customer! I will let you know if I have any problems moving forward.

So, to recap: my current active community has a NuWiki with six topical subflrums. Do you recommend doing anything with those forums in particular to make the transition painless?

[pegasus]

Turn off your wiki.

Set up your namespace structure (forum hierarchy) even before installing the software. You may also benefit from letting your users know some of the BB-Codes may change.

If any forums use "Wiki in Second Post," this is not supported. You may want to merge the two posts, or create "Second Post" articles with links at the bottom of the first. Or just split these articles into Books, because Books are still supported.

The old TABLE BB-Code as NuWiki had it is not supported. If you know of any articles utilizing this code you should modify them to use the MediaWiki Table Code.

If you used the following BB-Codes, I would recommend defining them yourself or not using them at all. SPAN, DIV, SHOWTHREADS, BOOKINDEX, FORUMINDEX, FIELD. There may be others, but that's what I can remember off the top of my head. In NuWiki, these were not written with performance or possible XSS attacks in mind, so they are not supported. Keeping NuWiki installed to allow these codes to be functional would be a waste of server resources IMO.

The NuWiki BB-Codes H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6,H7 have been replaced with an H=X BB-Code. H=1 does nothing at the current time, as we are saving it for special functionality.

After installing, you should probably run the tool "Convert Legacy Code to BB-Code" in "Wiki Article Tools." This will update the (supported) NuWiki codes to use the new BB-Codes.

[Kaelon]

By namespace structure/forum hierarchy, can you tell me more about this? Presently, my Wiki forums are deeply entrenched in each community's parent forums. How would I set up a namespace structure/forum hierarchy?

[Kaelon]

To clarify, right now, you can see how my forum communities are organized at:

www.playbypost.com/forums

I essentially would like the "Aelyria" community to have its own Wiki, and the "Warcraft" community to have its separate Wiki.

[pegasus]

For example, for "AleriaWiki." You would modify this forum so that the Parent Forum = No One. Then you would set Display Order = 0. To make that forum's main page be "AleriaWiki," set Forum Link = http://www.playbypost.com/forums/showwiki.php?title=Aleria:AleriaWiki

When VaultWiki is installed, you would go to the Namespace Manager, and create a new namespace called "Aleria." To make it appear in the same place deep within your forum structure, you set Display in Forum = Lore. You would set the other stuff however you want.

VaultWiki is going to want you to have a default namespace, so you should either define one of your communities as the default, or have the default namespace separate and contain simply a start page for your site or something (unless you actually have a site wiki).