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Moderators: martimiz, Sean, Ed, biapar, Willr, Ingo

Is SilverStripe just CMS #201?? - No Wiki?


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19 Posts   12082 Views

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PerryM

Community Member, 7 Posts

30 May 2008 at 12:07am

Edited: 30/05/2008 12:08am

I've just spent 2 full months installing and reviewing 200+ CMS - SilverStripe looks interesting but like 200 other CMS the Wiki part seems to have been left out.

How in the world do you expect a community to find information? With "Stickys" in the Forum module? Maybe a "Search" box somewhere?

Forums were designed for chit-chat and everyone's opinion. Knowledge is based upon facts that are verifiable with links to other Web sites. This is what a Wiki does.

I notice that the developers did just that with DokuWiki but fee the users of SilverStripe don't deserve the same tools. This is not uncommon with CMS - the vast majority use a Wiki for documentation and education but deprive their users of the same tool - a Wiki.

So when will SilverStipe ever integrate a Wiki? Please don't integrate MediaWiki since it's 10 years old and is about as primitive a Wiki as one can imagine. DokuWiki is not bad.

Oh well, its on to CMS #202 and so far TikiWiki is hands down the winner when a community needs to do more than chit-chat about the weather.

Hopefully I'll be notified when a Wiki is an integral part of SilverStirpe...

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dio5

Community Member, 501 Posts

30 May 2008 at 12:30am

There's a dokuwiki on silverstripe - so I must be missing something in what you're saying.

Ok, it's a bit messy / hard sometimes to find something, but there's also the api for developers.

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jam13

121 Posts

30 May 2008 at 2:19am

I think he's noting that SilverStripe doesn't have a wiki module (not that it would be that hard to write one).

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Willr

Forum Moderator, 5523 Posts

31 May 2008 at 10:30pm

As much as it would be awesome to have a wiki as part of silverstripes core and do something like that so its as simple to install a wiki/ forum/ blog the core team has more pressing work to be done. Maybe if this is a critical / much requested feature a couple community devs might like to tackle it as a module but I doubt this will be tackled in house any time. We just did a Wiki Site and decided just to use MediaWiki for it rather then write anything based on SilverStripe.

What we use on silverstripe.com is have a seperate doc wiki installation on a subdomain which seems to work well so I recommend that!

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Aaron

Community Member, 63 Posts

9 June 2008 at 4:50pm

Does this person mean a built-in/contributed Wiki to use with the CMS?

I doubt it, because ALL CMS systems I have used don't have one as part of the core. I don't see it as being a popular necessity. Every CMS I have used either has a module, or at the very least a bridge to Mediawiki or the likes.

I think the initial poster is referring to a documentation/tutorial wiki, as he/she makes reference to the use of these forums. They must have just not looked for it.

Admitingly, the Wiki's content has much to be desired. But so does paying for decent software. ;-)

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PerryM

Community Member, 7 Posts

9 June 2008 at 5:22pm

Edited: 09/06/2008 5:22pm

I've used TikiWiki for 100+ web sites and it has a Wiki at it's core - everything revolves around the Wiki.

For those chat rooms where light chit-chat is the only function needed then a Wiki is not needed. My sites have the members gathering information, discussing it, and then placing it in the Wiki for easy retrieval and maintenance.

My members have a desire to work together and accomplish a goal - usually to out-fox fellow non-members. This results in the members saving money, getting first dibs at something, and knowing much more than their fellow consumer.

You can't do that with "Stickys" in the normal chat room.

I was just wondering if SilverStripe would ever consider a Wiki just as important, or far more important, than chit-chat rooms....

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Aaron

Community Member, 63 Posts

9 June 2008 at 5:42pm

As with other popular CMS systems like Joomla and Drupal, Wikis are usually added plugins or a bridge is made between the CMS user and session to a large scale Wiki like MediaWiki.

TikiWiki - I've never used it (first i've heard of it actually), but it appears to be a Wiki first and CMS second. I am unsure what limitations this would put on the CMS part of it, but I am sure there are some. In my experience, a CMS is a CMS first and foremost. Wikis, Forums, Galleries are an as-needed extra. This might be the reason why I've not heard of it. Many others probably feel the same and stick with the likes of Silverstripe, Joomla, Drupal and Modx.

A can't agree that a CMS can possibly be judged simply by the absence of a Wiki in it's core. It doesn't make sense - they are two different things.

If that were a popular criteria, then I can think of a bunch of other things that would need to be considered criteria. Article submission, Workflow, Excellent user email campaign system.

The fact of the matter is, every CMS is different with a different set of features, pros, and cons. I have never seen anyone say that a CMS might be incomplete without a Wiki. ("How in the world do you expect a community to find information?"). That is probably why the other 200 CMS systems you tested are in the same boat.

I think in this case, Silverstripe, and the bulk of the CMS's out there simply don't meet your particular requirements. Most people solve this issue by running a CMS and Wiki together, separately.

Cheers
Aaron

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Willr

Forum Moderator, 5523 Posts

9 June 2008 at 5:48pm

Edited: 09/06/2008 5:49pm

The forums and wiki both have their places. The forum is designed to generate discussion, 'chit chat', support, answer questions / show off work. where as the wiki is designed to be much more structured and formal and provide more of a reference. Ideally we would like the forum/ wiki to work in harmony. Generate the ideas in the forum and discuss ideas about things in the Wiki.

Sam has recently added comments to the wiki to encourage discussion about a certain topic on each page which is a really handy feature. If you put too much emphasis on the wiki with every piece of content/ discussion there it will dilute the good / quality content and just make things a bit of a mess I would of thought?

EDIT: I still havent worked out if we are talking about a lack of a Wiki Module or the SilverStripe.com Wiki !! :P

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