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Wiki.js

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Re: Wiki.js

#101

Post by hombre_fatal »

greggman3 wrote: post #93
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just got into it two days ago This is the rub. I started a tiddlywiki last year, and stuck with it for several months, but now it has fallen to the wayside as too cumbersome.

I ran my own personal wiki in like 2004 - 2008. I'm not sure too cumbersome is the word I'd use. I just never found it that useful. Today though Google Docs, Keep, Notes, Github Gists, github itself, and many other places I can easily store notes and access from anywhere. No reason to setup a wiki and have to maintain it myself.

For me, the problem after 10+ years is how disjointed all of the data becomes and how much data you generate across the web. I have stuff that means something to me scattered across every service and every account.

When you start to plan how to move all of your stuff under one umbrella, the solution starts to sound a lot more like a wiki on paper, I think. Even if you move all this stuff to your filesystem, I think you still need a layer over it to manager it all -- or at least I did.

Of course, it's not the only answer. And I admit I have been contributing to wikis like Wikipedia and UESP for a decade now and the jump to a personal wiki was a no brainer.

But I wonder, what solution would you consider for this "disjointed data" problem? Do you just not see it as a problem? One of the first things I did when I stood up a personal wiki was to log into ancient google accounts to exfiltrate ancient google docs that I'm glad I found again.

Re: Wiki.js

#102

Post by mekster »

ta20200710 wrote: post #59
schoolornot wrote: post #17

This is exciting. A compelling FOSS alternative to Atlassian Confluence was sorely needed. Mediawiki has some UX and RBAC challenges that makes it difficult to scale to large organizations.

> large organizations Interestingly Amazon just finished a multi-year effort to migrate off MediaWiki internally to comply with an infosec mandate that PHP is banned company wide.

Why is PHP banned?

Re: Wiki.js

#103

Post by antoineMoPa »

ta20200710 wrote: post #59
schoolornot wrote: post #17

This is exciting. A compelling FOSS alternative to Atlassian Confluence was sorely needed. Mediawiki has some UX and RBAC challenges that makes it difficult to scale to large organizations.

> large organizations Interestingly Amazon just finished a multi-year effort to migrate off MediaWiki internally to comply with an infosec mandate that PHP is banned company wide.

Source?

Re: Wiki.js

#104

Post by mekster »

gary-kim wrote: post #73
oneplane wrote: post #27

I wonder why it's AGPL and not dual-licensed or some different GPL. As it is right now it's dead in the water for any commercial usage unless you're manually installing the thing on a manually installed server somewhere (which you probably aren't). With automation you'd build images based on their images but run via your own CI/CD with your own security scans and any additions you might need (like additional logging…

At least for me, the fact that it is purely licensed under the AGPL and that the copyright is owned by multiple people makes me far more comfortable with using it. It's a guarantee that the project will remain open source so I don't have to worry about suddenly being in a situation where I have to migrate away because the company or person decided that they don't want to have this be free and open source software any…

> It's a guarantee that the project will remain open source

What are you talking about? They can change the license to a closed one from a certain version in the future.

Re: Wiki.js

#105

Post by hombre_fatal »

mekster wrote: post #97
hombre_fatal wrote: post #40

Slightly related PSA: Everyone should consider running a wiki locally just for yourself. It's like being able to organize your brain. I just got into it two days ago and basically spent the whole weekend dumping things into it in a way I can actually browse and revisit, like the short stories I'd written, spread out across Notes.app and random folders. You don't need to run WAMP, MySQL, Apache, phpmyadmin or anything…

If you're going to run it locally why not just use Apple Notes app? If using a web app, it would be better to run it on a $5 server, so if you want to type in something while you're outside with just your phone, you can do that also.

I've been using Notes.app (and every other note-taking app) for years. It has zero organizational power. I don't think anyone would use it if it weren't for the fact that it comes on macOS/iOS and that it's synced by default.

I have thousands of notes in Notes.app across every subject. And moving them into my wiki (categorizing them, linking them) was one of the first thing I did. And one of the best things I've done. Like I had all sorts of stuff in there: stories I've written, lists of things, texts me father sent me, 4 different documents where I had written down birthday/xmas ideas for my girlfriend that I never remembered to check.

These mapped very nicely to pages and categories on my wiki. I even have a page for my girlfriend (globally available on my sidebar) that now has a === Gift ideas === subheader.

One day you just might decide Notes.app is not cutting it for you and that you want better organization. Maybe you won't. I'm in my 30s and didn't do it til now.

I have mine running from Dropbox, so my other computers always have it synced. The real issue is mobile access. It's not something I care about right now but making it internet addressable is certainly something I could do in the future.

Re: Wiki.js

#106

Post by zeta0134 »

keithnz wrote: post #65
hombre_fatal wrote: post #40

Slightly related PSA: Everyone should consider running a wiki locally just for yourself. It's like being able to organize your brain. I just got into it two days ago and basically spent the whole weekend dumping things into it in a way I can actually browse and revisit, like the short stories I'd written, spread out across Notes.app and random folders. You don't need to run WAMP, MySQL, Apache, phpmyadmin or anything…

I did start similar things over 10 years ago. Where I am at these days is just text files ( markdown ) nested into folder structures. I've found this the most sustainable for quite a few years and it's been super useful. Main thing is, do whatever, as long as you find it easy to sustain.

This is what finally replaced Google Keep for my shopping list and then eventually everything else. I use Markor and Syncthing on my phone, and a standard text editor on my various computers. It is super nice especially to be able to organize the directory using standard file management tools, search using grep and friends, etc. There is something to be said for simplicity.

Re: Wiki.js

#107

Post by zcdziura »

yreg wrote: post #83

Wikis are also useful for note-taking, I'm using Wiki.js to document a D&D campaign to have some canonical reference of what actually happened in past sessions.

Same here, it's been a great asset to have available to document stuff in my homebrew world and have it reference other stuff. Being able to link my wiki out to my players for their own use is very handy.

Re: Wiki.js

#109

Post by hombre_fatal »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #34
Keyframe wrote: post #21

I need one function in a wiki platform that I haven't seen so far. When I write text, in its WYSIWYG editor, I need an ability to paste in an image (a screenshot that I just grabbed, let's say) and for it to automatically upload it and embed it into text. Does this support something like that?

Since you can write arbitrary JS in extensions, no reason why that couldn't be implemented by a library. Since I just got into MediaWiki and write my first extension (finally a dark-mode that works), I'll see if this can be implemented. Perhaps with https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Upload .

Oh, it does work for MediaWiki, you just need the "Add Image" widget open in the editor.

Re: Wiki.js

#110

Post by dspillett »

richrichardsson wrote: post #74
oneplane wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it's AGPL it will probably never end up in the same commercial use cases as Confluence does. Google has some motivations written down from their lawyer department: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ It boils down to 'not worth the risk, do not use'.

Is the suggestion here that, say I was in the business of selling proprietary software, by running Wiki.js and making it accessible to the public that the copyleft license would then apply to my proprietary software?

If you package it with your software, then that might be the case unless you had negotiated other licencing terms first.

Simply hosting it with your information in would not have any such effect, but many commercial entities avoid anything xGPL just-in-case. In this case perhaps because they see a time that they might later want to package and distribute documentation that is in the wiki without converting it to something else first.

There is an extra concern with AGPL that does not exist with GPL specifically because of its key difference. AGPL applies to hosting the software and making it available not just distributing a compiled form. Some interpret this as meaning that if it is hosted on the same server, or in the same site, as other software then that other software becomes AGPL licensed too. I doubt anyone would enforce this interpretation but the possibility is enough to put off those who create proprietary software.

> making it accessible to the public that the copyleft license would then apply to my proprietary software?

Not just the public. Anyone you give access to, so for non-public hosted proprietary software you could be beholden to giving them access to the code under the AGPL in situations where AGPL applies. This will be a complete blocked for many creators of proprietary, or other non-*GPL licensed, software.

[if the above makes me sound against AGPL rest assured that I am not - I in fact might end up using it at least initially (at least until I decide upon which of the more proprietary-friendly options to use) for some near-future projects]

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