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Wiki.js

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Re: Wiki.js

#71

Post by hombre_fatal »

davidcollantes wrote: post #69
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…

Which "wiki folder" do you refer to? Are you talking about Wiki.JS, or some other wiki engine? I see you mention MediaWiki, are your simple steps for it?

When you click to download DokuWiki, MediaWiki, etc. you are downloading a folder that contains the application as well as an install.php script.

My steps work for all 5 of the wikis I tried before I settled on MediaWiki (though I don't necessarily recommend it to everyone). The install.php script might be in some subfolder, but the website instructions will tell you.

Neither DokuWiki nor MediaWiki (via sqlite) needed to have an external DB running, though some wikis do depend on MySQL.

It was just a quick summary to show how easy it is. e.g. PHP has an embedded server these days.

Re: Wiki.js

#72

Post by hombre_fatal »

hn_check wrote: post #67
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.

This is the problem with a good percentage of advice and life/career hacks on HN -- they're always spoken of in the early, idealist stage. Before the reality has set in. Before the downsides have made their presence known. I've been in a number of firms with wiki knowledge systems. In 100% of the cases it was a wasteland of derelict knowledge that had been abandoned and was usually much more destructive than benefici…

I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice.

It's like you're about to tell me that exercising doesn't pay off because it's hard to stick with a strategy. "Heh, let's see if he's still doing pushups in a year."

You don't seem to realize you're just describing literally all systems. How organized is everyone's filesystem and ~/Documents folder? It's pure chaos with the only sweet release being that you might not carry it over when you upgrade computers and get to start from scratch.

Will I be maintaining my localhost wiki in a year? I don't know. But it's worth a shot. After two days it's already 1000x organized than even my best efforts so far.

Is it for everyone? Nothing is for everyone.

But your comment seems to suggest that you think the alternative to is organized data which obviously isn't the case.

What you will realize is that there is no perfect one-size-fits-all strategy. All you can do is try things and see if they work for you, and see if you stick with them years later.

So, for today, I recommend trying some localhost wiki options in your battle against chaos. If it doesn't work for you, so what?

Re: Wiki.js

#73

Post by gary-kim »

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 anymore.

I guess, to a certain extent, that's because I'm an individual, not a company, and one that tends to open source pretty much everything they write. This is the same licensing that I use for pretty much all my projects (AGPL with no CLA).

Re: Wiki.js

#74

Post by richrichardsson »

oneplane wrote: post #26
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.

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?

Re: Wiki.js

#75

Post by hombre_fatal »

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.

Exactly, I wanted something more structured. The filesystem doesn't give me any organizational tools that I want.

My point is to see how easy it is to set up (I used to always equate PHP with having to get a whole WAMP stack online) thus how easy it is to try for yourself.

Re: Wiki.js

#76

Post by hn_check »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #72
hn_check wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem with a good percentage of advice and life/career hacks on HN -- they're always spoken of in the early, idealist stage. Before the reality has set in. Before the downsides have made their presence known. I've been in a number of firms with wiki knowledge systems. In 100% of the cases it was a wasteland of derelict knowledge that had been abandoned and was usually much more destructive than benefici…

I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice. It's like you're about to tell me that exercising doesn't pay off because it's hard to stick with a strategy. "Heh, let's see if he's still d…

>"I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice."

The take away is clearly "things that work in the small often don't work in the large. If you're taking life advice, take it from someone who has done something for a while and had a reasonable experience.".

Someone crowing about their two day experience is...well...

This applies to all sorts of similar enthusiastic advice. Intermittent napping. Standing desks. The Dvorak keyboard. Drinking your coffee with butter. New diets. Going without the internet. Meditating. Taking up karate. Working in parks. Whatever. There's a lot of wisdom and knowledge among them, but it isn't coming from the guy who just started.

If someone is giving a sales pitch for a lifestyle change based upon a tiny experience, they are often doing it because they think converting others makes it more real/more likely to yield the change they want. It doesn't work that way.

Try things. Try lots of things. Save evangelizing until you maybe have a real experience?

Re: Wiki.js

#77

Post by bovermyer »

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 use Zim for this, backed by Dropbox. It's just text files, and Zim is just an editor, not a server or anything like that.

If I ever tire of keeping a personal wiki for whatever reason, all of the content I've built up in it will remain organized as files within directories.

Re: Wiki.js

#78

Post by hombre_fatal »

hn_check wrote: post #76
hombre_fatal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice. It's like you're about to tell me that exercising doesn't pay off because it's hard to stick with a strategy. "Heh, let's see if he's still d…

>"I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice." The take away is clearly "things that work in the small often don't work in the large. If you're taking life advice, take it from someone…

Ah, so worthless cynicism and condescension after all. I see why you made a novelty account for this. But I wonder if you see the irony in promoting yourself into this role of inquisitor?

I get it, you're mad that I admitted I only have two days of experience while telling people how to get started in one of the most important software platforms in the world (it's how Wikipedia works) -- I'm not exactly making new sounds on this. Maybe you're fine with my install instructions, but I went too far (for your tastes) when I said it was promising so far. And you thought this behavior needed to be called out by your "Dunning-Kruger in the wild" meme account.

I don't think I've misinterpreted the situation, I just find it a bit sad and I wonder how much you think you've added to the discussion. That you run that account, you must think: "quite a bit!" I'll leave that one up to the audience.

Re: Wiki.js

#79

Post by hn_check »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #78
hn_check wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I don't really understand your take-away except for a cynical "bah, nothing ever works so don't try." Or maybe it annoys you that you didn't see some trite platitudinal disclaimer in my post about how how life is all about trade-offs and what works for Bob might work for Alice." The take away is clearly "things that work in the small often don't work in the large. If you're taking life advice, take it from someone…

Ah, so worthless cynicism and condescension after all. I see why you made a novelty account for this. But I wonder if you see the irony in promoting yourself into this role of inquisitor? I get it, you're mad that I admitted I only have two days of experience while telling people how to get started in one of the most important software platforms in the world (it's how Wikipedia works) -- I'm not exactly making new so…

>"Ah, so worthless cynicism and condescension after all. I see why you made a novelty account for this. But I wonder if you see the irony in playing this sort of inquisitor?"

You are irrationally hostile. My comments are not for your edification or service, and this is a shared platform where multiple people are reading and deriving value, each comment kicking off different thoughts and conversations. If you take this so incredibly personally, that's a you problem.

Your internalization and repeated attacks are bizarre. But you do you.

Re: Wiki.js

#80

Post by indigochill »

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'm getting back into the Zettelkasten note-taking technique which is like a tech-agnostic wiki system (it was originally implemented using physical cards). I originally tried a personal wiki but it was just more tech overhead than I cared to deal with. Plain markdown files with zettelkasten are doing it for me now. Zettlr adds some nice features like adding an easy ability to tag files (just hashtags in the markdown) and search files by tags. It all feels more freeform/lightweight than a wiki server.
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