Chris Devers wrote:
On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Bobbi Fox wrote:
I think it's a great idea, modulo the ability to limit editing access per the comments that have come before, and the absolute committment *NOT* to have the "theme" be red and orange :-)
Fine then, orange it is, and nothing but orange on orange on orange!
Hrm. I *like* the default colors of a fresh Kwiki install. A lot.
But -- isn't the whole *point* of a wiki that *anyone* can edit it?
Not necessarily. In theory, like a frictionless surface, sure. In practice, though, there are very often limits - and in practice, wikis are most often used by groups with some like-minded purpose at hand (ie. my office uses one for documentation).
I have no problem with the idea of the Boston.pm wiki being not just about Boston, Perl or Perl in Boston - if someone wants to post, say, his favorite recipe for noodle pudding, I see no problem with that at all.
However, it is quite possible - it's happened to a lot of wikis out there - that the purpose of the wiki - shared information amongst the group - gets hijacked by evil spammers (or equivalent). I'd be inclined to suggest that we take a chance at it being fully open to start with, but keep in mind the fact that it may have to be locked down in the future - in which case, the choice of wiki used should allow for lockdowns, even if we don't ever end up using it.
If we're going to need some kind of registration system, I wouldn't want it to be any more cumbersome than "create an account to edit", the way
Agreed. I certainly can't stand having to track userids and registrations. I've already got way too many.
That way, if spammers sign up, we can clean up the mess more quickly. For the (much) more common case of people being honest, the burden isn't that bad.
Yep. But I'd even say to keep switching that on as an option for the future and start out without even that limit.
The only absolute requirement I'd say right off the bat is that the wiki must keep histories of pages. The vast majority do, though not necessarily right out of the box. That way, if we do start getting abused, we can roll back easily.
If the abuse continues and becomes a serious problem, then and only then, consider registrations/lockdowns. But, having the option of such a scheme (via careful choice of wiki to start with) rather than having to migrate from one to another in the future if such a scheme becomes necessary, is something to keep in mind.
--david
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