PortlandWiki:Technical Queue

This is a list of worthwhile changes to the PW interface, infrastructure, and server. Most of these tasks require developer access to the PortlandWiki server files. If you are starting to work on one of them, please add "in progress by YOURNAME" to it! If you've finished it, move it to the Completed section! If you have any questions about any of them, message User:kotra or User:WikiMaster: one of them will probably know what it's all about.

For general and non-technical tasks, see PW:To do.

To do

Spam & Vandalism “Protection”

At our PortlandWiki meetup on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 Kotra expressed the desire to once again open up PortlandWiki for anonymous editing. Because vandalism remains such a threat, Kotra agreed to review Dave's anti-vandalism notes, and Dave agreed to install the following extensions (which are found installed on Wikimedia Foundation wikis):

• Extension:AbuseFilter

Installed by WikiMaster (talk) on 15:49, 17 July 2012 (PDT).

Removed by WikiMaster (talk) on 17:16, 17 July 2012 (PDT).

Reinstalled by WikiMaster (talk) (who remembered to set permissions this time) on 17:23, 17 July 2012 (PDT). Still getting the error. Are residual database artifacts causing this error message?:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method MWInit::methodExists() in (path to wiki)/extensions/AbuseFilter/AbuseFilter.hooks.php on line 144

The interesting thing is that the edits still "take" despite the error message. But it's a pain in the neck. Folks who occasionally contribute to this wiki might think they broke the wiki.

Removed by WikiMaster (talk) after persistent error messages (shown above).

• Extension:Bad Behavior

Installation attempted by WikiMaster (talk) on 10:53, 21 July 2012 (PDT). Immediately removed after receiving errors shown below (despite trying "fix" shown here):

error one

Warning: require_once($IP/extensions/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-mediawiki.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in (path to wiki)/portlandwiki.org/LocalSettings.php on line 607

error two

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '$IP/extensions/bad-behavior/bad-behavior-mediawiki.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/php5/lib/pear') in (path to wiki)/portlandwiki.org/LocalSettings.php on line 607

• Extension:AntiBot

Installed by WikiMaster (talk) on 15:49, 17 July 2012 (PDT).

• Extension:AntiSpoof

Installed by WikiMaster (talk) on 15:49, 17 July 2012 (PDT).

• Extension:CentralAuth

Warning: CentralAuth was designed specifically for Wikimedia projects which already had millions of accounts that needed to be merged into a global table.

Installed and then removed by WikiMaster (talk) on July 17, 2012.

• Extension:SimpleAntiSpam

Installed by WikiMaster (talk) on 15:49, 17 July 2012 (PDT).

• Extension:TitleBlacklist (Not installed yet.)

• Extension:TorBlock (Not installed yet.)

general tasks

• +share buttons: Facebook, Twitter, etc

See User:WikiMaster/SocialProfile#Share Buttons / Social Bookmarking (Facebook, Twitter, Etc.) for Dave's list of social media share button extensions.

• +forms
  • finish Occupy Events form

    ON HOLD (kotra was lead)

  • create Relevant Article form (example syntax in HTML comment, click "improve" to view)

    in progress by kotra and Dave

• add the pencil icon to the improve link

  in progress by kotra

• skin/interface updates
  • a "My panel" box/panel that includes buttons for "My uploads", "My edits", "My new messages", etc
• Investigate social profile for ways an admin can edit another user's profile

Completed

• liquidthreads back up after mediawiki update

(Awesome work putting LiquidThreads back together, Kotra!)

• Dave uninstalled Advanced Meta after it began generating significant database errors after upgrading to MW1.18.2.

Replaced with:

- CustomTitle

- Description2

• fix wikieditor inline image extension MsUpload
  • remove debug messages
  • anything else to get it working
  • fixed by kotra. Full details: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:MsUpload#linked_file_bugfix.2C_other_minor_tweaks_14723
• Dave uninstalled the Semantic MediaWiki extensions, including Semantic Forms. Reasoning described here:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:Semantic_Forms#Fatal_error:_Cannot_redeclare_class_SFUploadWindow_in_.2F.7Bpath_to_wiki.7D.2Fextensions.2FSemanticForms.2Fspecials.2FSF_UploadWindow.php_on_line_1102

(The above link will have to be updated after it gets archived, probably after the end of the month.)

• Dave updated and/or re-tested the installed extensions on PortlandWiki.

PortlandWiki Migration Project: OccupyMediawiki

On May 23, Dave contacted Amgine, administrator for OccupyMediawiki about migrating PortlandWiki from DreamHost to OccupyMediawiki's server.

Motivation

OccupyMediawiki hosts what they call a wiki family on their server of wikis that either support or have connections to the Occupy movement. PortlandWiki is a civic wiki for Portland with a significant Occupy Portland component, including an Occupy offshoot, the Community Assembly. For this reason, on Monday, May 28th, 2012 the OccupyMediawiki team approved PortlandWiki to host on their server without charge.

For Dave, one of the biggest attractions of migrating to the OccupyMediawiki "family" is to have a chance to collaborate with other civic- and social justice-minded wiki folk. A big plus is to also have the opportunity to work with MediaWiki geeks who have strong connections with the larger MW geek community. In other words, we'll have folks we can consult with whenever things go technically awry. We'll also have a chance to share wiki design and best practices with our wiki colleagues who maintain similar wikis.

Specifics - (Info between quote marks copied directly from email responses.)

• OccupyMediawiki hosts the MediaWiki platform, including support applications and a large selection of MW extensions.
• OccupyMediawiki's "servers are located in the Netherlands, and are semi-custom to minimize stored user data and to harden against a variety of internet threats."
• Amgine is "in the process of trying to rewrite our single-source tools to deal with Mediawiki's move to Git."

"(PortlandWiki has a range of extensions in use with which I am only somewhat familiar, but I know many of their developers. I'm sure we can get everything up and running. Of course if PortlandWiki moves to our service I'll try to push you to use SMW-maps with Open Street Map tiles over your current proprietary Google maps and other more-open solutions... Not a freevangelist, but I don't like people being spied on.)"

• We won't have shell access:

"The OccupyMediawiki group doesn't give shell access. The point of the group is to do all the ops, allowing the wiki community to focus on building/maintaining the content. Related to this, we only provide mediawiki. We'll work with you to integrate other software, various session security systems, etc, but OMg does not (at the moment) host fora, social media, etc. Think of it as wikia without the advertising for social change groups."

• We also won't have FTP access:

"(actually, for security reasons there is no FTP server.) However, we have 16+/7/365 support coverage, and are generally extremely responsive. We can be reached on irc at irc://irc.arxnet.org/Wiki-support. And we also are supporting several groups with customised skins which they maintain."

• But it's likely that we'll be able to maintain MySQL database access:

"Yes; it might require a day or so to get set up. (Actually, since it would require another MySQL account from the hosting corporation I shouldn't be so certain, but I'm pretty sure this can happen.)"

Sounds like a good opportunity! ~~ MarkDilley