vB wiki

[Tradjick]

Do you know how a wiki works? In principle, somebody writes an article and other people can edit the source of it.
This could be a great addition to vbulletin boards, where several usergroups can have different rights. It is also thinkable that the modified article would require mod/admin validation.
If something like this would be available I´d install it immediately. :ninja:

[akiy]

I asked about vBulletin integration with PHPWiki here, but so far, there hasn't been any information...

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=62799

[Tradjick]

Do you know how a wiki works? In principle, somebody writes an article and other people can edit the source of it.
This could be a great addition to vbulletin boards, where several usergroups can have different rights. It is also thinkable that the modified article would require mod/admin validation.
If something like this would be available I?d install it immediately. :ninja:
bump

[ataraxia]

The other, perhaps even more significant, aspect of a wiki is it's ability to instantly and automatically create cross-referencing hyperlinks.

Here is how it could work. Suppose I posted a message containing, say, the word "BorisYeltzin". If someone else has already posted a wiki "article" with BorisYeltzin as the title, the word in my message would be automagically hyperlinked to it. (Note the deliberate smashing of two capitalized words together. This makes it a "wikiword", recognizable by the system as such.)

If, on the other hand, I posted a message containing "NikitaKruschev" and no one else has already posted an article for that, the word in my message would not be hyperlinked to anything (yet) but would be suffixed with a hyperlinked question mark. Clicking on that would take the message viewer to an empty "post an article" box, inviting them to say something about Kruschev.

In either case, all (or most) articles (as distinguished from messages) can be edited by anyone. So, what happens is that the articles on, say, Kruschev and Yeltzin will continue to grow and evolve.

Note that there is a difference between articles and messages. Articles are referenced by wikiwords and can be edited by anyone. They may contain other wikiwords and also tend to be stand-alone "glossary" or "encyclopedia" style pieces rather than "conversation". In contrast, messages may contain wikiwords linked to articles but may only be edited by their authors.

Integrating a wiki with vB, then, would probably entail a separate wiki engine which periodically parses the vB message base to convert any new wikiwords it finds in the messages into hyperlinks to corresponding wiki articles. Perhaps it could even go so far as to examine it's current list of wikiwords and then convert "nearly wikiwords" in the message base into actual wikiwords. (E.g. Change Nikita(space)Kruschev into NiktaKruschev.)

The wiki's ability to automatically link certain words is the next GIANT step in the evolution of the basic hyperlink concept that is the basis of the World Wide Web. This is not a trivial thing! It is probably the "next big thing" in the Internet! The vB community can be a leader in this! (If we don't, someone else will!)

References:
The Essence of wiki (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEssence)
What's a Wiki? (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1071705,00.asp)
Wiki FAQ (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiPhilosophyFaq) (Has lots of good Q&A's to help you visualize this.)
Advantages/Features of a wiki (http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/PmWiki)
List of Wiki engines (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines)
Sand Box (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiSandbox) Try it out here. Scroll to bottom and click on "edit this page".
The Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org) Probably the largest wiki. Has 1/4 million articles and clearly shows the raw power of the wiki concept. Quite amazing!

[Natch]

As I see it the big thing is not the intra-document hyperlinking (this has been part of the HTML spec since HTML was not so hyper) but that it is managed without having to code it manually ...

[ataraxia]

Yes, Natch, you might call this something like "hyperlinking for the masses".

Hyperlinking becomes "automatic", so to speak. Any time anyone writes a wikiword, if an article exists by that name, it will be hyperlinked. If it does not exist yet, an "invitation" to write one is displayed (i.e. the suffixed questionmark. Example: WikiWord? (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWord)). Note, too, that the wikiword may also become a link at any time in the future when a corresponding article is written for it.

Incidentally, many wiki engines also have capability for interaction with "sister" wiki sites. Consider the implications of this....

WikiAudience (http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/Audiences) - who is it for?
WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks)

[ataraxia]

One of the more subtle yet very significant advantages of the wiki linking concept is that makes it both very easy and even automatic for the average user to provide cross-linking.

In the current vB methology, if I wanted to provide a link in this message to a thread on, say, Nikita Kruschev, I would have to go off on a tangent to find that thread, copy its URL into my clipboard and then paste it here.

Unless the cross link is something particularly important to me as the author of this message, in most cases I would probably not bother to do it.

However, if wiki-style linking was available in vB, all I would have to do is type "NikitaKrushev" (as two capaitalized words smashed together) in my posting. IF a thread by that name already exists, the link would be immediately created! IF the thread does NOT already exist, a hyperlinked "?" would suffix the word. Clicking on it would take any user to a "Start New Thread" page with "NikitaKruschev" as the title. Once someone posts the first message in this new thread, the "?" would disappear from all occurences of NikitaKrushev throughout the entire message base and the word would universally become a hyperlink to that thread.

The important point here is that, as a poster, I do not even need to know if someone has already started a thread on Kruschev. All I need to do is type the name as a wikiword. If the thread exists, my word will be automatically linked to it. If it does not exist, an "invitation" is extended to all readers (including me) to create the thread now or at any time in the future. And, if the Kruschev thread does not exist today but someone else posts the first message in it, say, next week, the incidence of NikitaKruschev I wrote today (and all others) will become a hyperlink then.

The ultimate result will be messages which are richly crossreferenced and the creation of lots and lots of new message threads for which navigational links are automatically built-in.

It would seem that it might not be too difficult to dynamically generate an index and/or hierachical Table of Contents of all threads. For further organization, anyone creating a new thread (by posting the first message) could be asked by the system which main forum or sub-forum it should be placed in. Thus, we could have both wiki and traditional forms of navigation.

Further, I suggest that we modify the wiki philosophy of "anyone can edit anything" to "anyone can add their comments as a simple reply to any thread". I think this will allay a lot of fears that forums operators seem to have about wikis.

Adding WikiWord linking capabillities could be an e-n-o-r-m-o-u-s leap for vB. As message bases get larger, more hierachically complex and consequently harder to navigate, this may be one way to help our users from getting lost in the chaos.

[nexialys]

i may have a wiki for vB in no long, i've asked one of my cousin that have built a complete PHP/wiki lately... i will ask if he can make an integration script for vB...

will have the answer in the week-end!

[Burgy]

i may have a wiki for vB in no long, i've asked one of my cousin that have built a complete PHP/wiki lately... i will ask if he can make an integration script for vB...

will have the answer in the week-end!
nexialys
I would love to see or use it. Have been looking for a possibility to integrate vb3 userdata into a wiki.

Please stay tuned and tell us what came out of it.
Best greatings from berlin
your Burgy

[memobug]

I have a wiki for my board about bonsai trees. I have it linked (one way) with my vB board: If you click any word in a forum post, javascript jumps into the wiki search.

I am using MediaWiki for the wiki software. It seems like it would be theoretically possible to parse vB posts using the same scheme of linkage [[words in double brackets]]

Regards,

Matt

[Tradjick]

This would still be so great an and add a new world of features to vbulletin. What did you cousin say, nexialys?

[nexialys]

<a href="http://www.pmichaud.com/" target="_blank">http://www.pmichaud.com/</a>

very occupied guy, didn't have an echo yet, but you can contact him directly... i'm pretty sure he will be interested to deal with such a project...

[Tradjick]

I?ll ask him. But unfortunately i?m not a big help as i still can?t code. :(

[nexialys]

you don't need to code, you have to prove that you need the tool, and he may be interested to help... the goal of a developper like him is to provide the proper tool for the clients... (heredity)

[ataraxia]

So far, the only existing wiki-based forums system I can find is TikiWiki (http://www.tikiwiki.org).

While this system may not be what you would want (I don't think it is very mature product yet), it will serve as a good example of the increased power a wiki-based forum could have. Play with the demo and post a message or two with some WikiWords (i.e. two capitalized words smashed together).

[memobug]

> Play with the demo

Are there any links to demo sites in English? I found French, German and some English flight enthusiast site with no wiki links.

Regards,

Matt