Anyone have a view on #GitBook vs #MediaWiki as a public way of developing a collection of informative documents, and presenting a view of a system (organisation, campaign, movement). Open to continuous collective (re)writing.
Look&feel of GitBook seems so much cleaner, MediaWiki typography IMHO is not pleasing.
But what's under the hood? What are they like to manage & maintain? How easy is it to put a different skin on MediaWiki?
GitBook costs, but offers a not-for-profit free option.
@mike_hales Another option to consider if you're really writing a book is WikiBooks.
All Wikimedia foundation websites now have a WYSIWYG editor, so Markdown formats are no longer an issue.
@njoseph Exactly. I think it's an ever-expanding collection of explorations, not a book. So MediaWiki would be the natural form (?) - *IF* I can satisfy my typography-nerd yearning for elegant layout. And my desire for wonderfully woven diverse content - which is in the community, right? Not in the tool.
@mike_hales This seems like a natural use case for a wiki. I'd say that you cannot go wrong with MediaWiki since it has a wealth of plugins, themes and export options.
Make sure you add the VisualEditor plugin to your installation for ease of editing.
Choose a Skin that's closer to what you want and then you can customize the fonts, look and feel and layout by simply editing the CSS.
BTW, #FreedomBox has a one-click installer for MediaWiki, with default settings suitable for your use case.
@mike_hales are they the only options you’d consider? What about Sphinx?
@hugh Tell me about Sphinx?
@mike_hales it's what they use at http://www.writethedocs.org / https://readthedocs.org . I don't know much about gitbook but Sphinx can be self-hosted which I consider a big advantage.
@mike_hales it's written in Python I think. If you want non-programmers to contribute though, I'd go with Media-Wiki, even though I also find it ugly.
@hugh Whatever it is, it definitely has to be for non-techs. Markdown is as close to code as I can bear! And though I understand the importance of this, self-hosting is not at all on my personal agenda. Though of course, in a collaborative/open-coop project, there may be a friendly local tech-nerd. Or several ;-)
@hugh On the ugliness of MediaWiki . . . what do folks think? Anybody got examples of beautifully re-skinned MediaWiki sites?
@njoseph_1 Please, where can we see an example of the Timeless theme?
@mike_hales @hugh I haven't spent much time on selecting a skin really. You can find my timeless skin at https://njoseph.me/mediawiki/
There are several theme galleries for mediawiki on the web.
official:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Gallery_of_user_styles
unofficial:
https://blog.bluespice.com/2017/08/23/top-10-mediawiki-skins/
Besides, every skin page has a preview image too. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Dusk
See the Manual page on Skins.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skins
@hugh Mmm Write/Read the docs is a whole other kettle of fish. Very presentation-aware.
I have a hurdle to get over, with hosting an instance of . . whatever: Sphinx, MediaWiki. A committed low-tech person for 30 years (I traded, one time, as <Barefoot Documents>) my deep inclination is to use a (coop) platform to publish from. Having tech partners in a document project might swing me . . . But, what do folks feel about *hosted publishing (wiki) services*? Why would I launch/maintain a server?
GitBook is more definitive, the face of a focused project/organisation, MediaWiki exploratory, the diffuse trail of a wandering tribe? GitBook structure is hierarchical, MediaWiki is proper (=messy?) hypertext needing a lot of editorial effort?
Rather than good ol' hierarchical nesting, is there a hyper-document environment that's intrinsically dialectical (has tools and architecture that actively predispose to dialectical organisation of pieces of content, to skilful *weaving*)?
@mike_hales check out http://dokie.li it might be perfect for your needs and also is supporting #ActivityPub!
@wakest This is intriguing. A complex thing! So I wd be glad to know:
• what this doesn't do well or simply, that is often done in a wiki?
• what this can do, that goes beyond what we're used to with wikis?
• how nerdy it is, to become a fluent user?
• how old the initiative is, and how big, currently?
@mike_hales I think the project has been going on "a long time" but this current incarnation is rather new. It has some serious support behind it, like Tim Berners-Lee so I think its the type of thing thats gonna have real support. Its not someones "side project" Its also supported by MIT and is an official project of W3C https://www.w3.org/wiki/LinkedData
@wakest I can see, for example, that dokie is a step towards the global collaborating/trading/gifting economy that Oliver Sylvester-Bradley is sketching https://open.coop/2017/01/10/planet-open-source-operating-system-collaborative-sustainable-economy/
High stakes? Worth learning? I see that Tim Berners-Lee is on board http://csarven.ca/dokieli-rww And that The Read/Write Web and LinkedData are core to the vision. Looks good! More to learn, ho hum
@mike_hales Another self-hosted option you might want to look into is BookStack (https://www.bookstackapp.com). The organization is hierarchical (book, chapter, page) and you have a choice between WYSIWYG and Markdown for non-technical contributors. Moreover, it looks better than MediaWiki. I’ve been using it for the last few years on personal and professional projects and have been really happy with it.
@mike_hales
GitBook requires that you write your files in Markdown format, while MediaWiki has its own older format that pre-dates Markdown.
It's not expensive to switch since Pandoc can convert between MediaWiki format and Markdown.
Changing MediaWiki themes is as easy of dropping a few files in a directory and adding a line to the config file. I personally use the Timeless theme.
You really have to think about whether it is a book/manual or a general collection of information.