Schoolforge-UK:This site

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History

www.schoolforge.org.uk was initially created in April 2003 with the UseMod Wiki software. While the site grew quickly, there was no clear procedure for new user registration, making it often difficult to identify contributors. In addition, many pages became interspersed with comments and anonymous follow-ups, which made the original material more difficult to follow.

The site was moved to PostNuke in June 2003, and it was hoped these shortcomings could be overcome by providing a range of collaboration tools. Over the following year the site continued to grow, and a Forum facility was added. However, PostNuke's wiki software has proved to be somewhat limited, and despite an effort to improve the coding, PostNuke has turned out to offer few benefits (and some would add, several disadvantages) over UseMod.

Requirements

In May 2004 we identified the following list of requirements :

  1. A nice front page that looks slick (in a friendly "stay-a-while" kind of way) when new people drop in ChrisPuttick
  2. A Wiki (or similar Content Management System), to which it is easy to add and edit web pages. RichardRothwell
  3. Can easily present information in HTML format
  4. Clearly separate "comments" FROM "content" JohnIngleby
  5. Register of members with information about them JohnIngleby
  6. Ability to upload images
  7. Blog-style news page
  8. Search facility
  9. Individual pages referenced with short URLs. RichardRothwell
  10. Forums that produce threaded, archived HTML pages, allow you to post messages by e-mail or on-line, and can mail out copies of posts or digests. RichardRothwell
  • The following would be "nice to have":
  1. Polls to gauge opinion
  2. Email notification of changes to "my" wiki page & discussion
  3. A further consideration is that the Webmasters are most comfortable working with PHP/MySQL

Why MediaWiki

Many free software packages offer some of these requirements, and it's possible that one or two (such as Plone and Tiki) may be configured to provide most, if not all all of the main requirements.

However, MediaWiki (the software used for the Wikipedia) was chosen because:

  • It has evolved out of a practical, large-scale project
  • There is a large body of users and developers
  • All but the requirements for contribution and notification by e-mail can be satisfied.

ToDo List:

1. Re-install the PostNuke database at wiki.coronet.co.uk/pn

2. Create logons for approx 70 existing PostNuke members with "proper" names (not just nicknames)

  • New passwords will be emailed to users
  • Convert approx 25 existing wiki personal pages
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