Wiki 001

I think we're agreed that we want a wiki for at least some functionality.

I also think we're agreed that we want to use free, open-source, non-proprietary software. This narrows things down considerably.

I'm willing to shelve the idea of leaving open an obvious pathway to getting the data into 'semantic web' triple form. I think this means we don't need to consider or discuss this aspect of things any further. I've also shelved the detailed proposal I was working on, as I think it would only be a distraction from getting started.

Technologies considered so far are: MediaWiki, Waliki, Tiki and Xwiki. If anyone else has found anything suitable, obviously we can consider that. I've haven't after a fair bit of research.

Of these, I think there's general agreement of those expressing an opinion that MediaWiki is too Byzantine. Waliki is in early development and doesn't have a DBMS, using github as a back-end instead, so I'd strongly prefer not to use that. The other two seem viable.

Chris, via one of our round robin emails (I assume it's OK to publish this):

From playing around with it, XWiki looks very powerful, but possibly a bit intimidating for us as administrators to get set up; there are a lot of options available. PHP vs. Java probably shouldn't massively inform our decisions, except in that it might be slightly simpler to get PHP apps set up with a web-hosting company. However, I don't foresee this being a massive issue either way. I will say that I have more experience with Java than PHP,  so that does make me lean in its direction a little

I agree with this, and think Tiki offers us the best chance of getting started quickly and using features 'out of the box' while affording us the ability to customise functionality as we choose. Php has apparently been substantially improved as a programming language in recent years, and is definitely more widely supported by hosting providers etc so allows us more option there should we need them.

So I'd like to propose that we go with Tiki as our best option given that we want to get things rolling quickly.

I am in the process of getting a server set up which we can use as a live system under the labourroots.uk domain. Is Windows acceptable as an OS? Tiki will run fine on it. I'm not trying to steamroller this through, just to get things moving forward after a brief (apparent) hiatus.

One issue we need to consider is how comments/talk pages are to work. In wikipedia, talk pages are an unstructured nightmare. Somewhat better formats are available as extensions to MediaWiki, and in other more recent wiki software. However, especially in the context at least of using a wiki for policy development, we should certainly be thinking about how this is actually going to work, and whether talk pages are likely to descend into long-winded slanging-matches.

Tiki allows forums to be used to discuss Wiki pages, which is better than the unstructured nightmare of MediaWiki talk pages, but not sure it offers the kind of tight integration between edits and discussion I'd ultimately like to see - but not sure any other Wiki software does either so that is a wash. Ditto creating tighter and more easily interrogable tracking of exactly which contributions were made by whom.

I'm going to go ahead with setting up a Tiki installation for now, but obviously any objections, suggestions, etc can be made and addressed here.

Loomio 001

There's been some suggestion that we could move our conversations from here onto the Loomio platform. We may also wish to consider its usefulness as a tool in other areas. At the very least, this experimentation may aid more generally in thinking about this kind of functionality and our requirements. It's hoped that the main discussion on Technologies 001 will help us to form a better idea of the kind of systems we should be using in the medium-long term. In turn, investigation into individual technologies like Loomio can feed back into that discussion. Chris MacMackin has a Loomio set up https://www.loomio.org/invitations/9d29d860dbed6a843a85 and experimentation with it is ongoing. Comments so far: David Pavett:

...I think that we should spend a little time considering different formats for debate. The trouble with blogs is their rather linear form leading to a jumble of different threads coming from one debate. Bulletin boards overcome this partially with nested threads. The Loomio platform offers a far more sophisticated solution and should be considered.

Chris MacMackin:

I'm glad to see that David mentioned the Loomio platform, as it is something which I have come across and found interesting as well.

John Walsh:

1. Do 'threads' have to be owned by someone, or can they be just a thread? 2. First impression is that Loomio looks to be oriented towards 'decisions' - not in itself a bad thing but maybe not at all suited to developing policy (or maybe even developing technology)

Chris MacMackin:

I don't know that Loomio does have [a collaborative editing platform]. This is part of the reason why I'm not sure it will be our ultimate solution.

John Walsh:

1. Loomio...could be a starting point. It doesn't look like a place for complex policy discussion (but may be it is?) but we could get some multiple threads up and running and see what we want to do.

Chris MacMackin:

Loomio is a very cool project and I think it could be very useful for us deciding how to move forwards. I'm not sure how well it would scale, though. It looks great for groups of up to a few dozen, but beyond that I'd think it could easily become unmanageable. It could be a very useful tool for collaboration in groups drafting policy resolutions and the like, though.

David Pavett:

The Loomio people say, I think, that there platform is suitable for debate between up to around 1000 people.

Chris MacMackin:

True, for some time we will have a number of contributors that is manageably on Loomio. When they say 1000, does that mean suitable from a technical perspective (it can support that many users without its performance degrading) or from a practical perspective? I find it difficult to believe that a debate between 1000 people would be doable.

I (i.e. Tim Wilkinson) personally think the very basic but simple and familiar blog system (with one or two tweaks) is good enough for the short-term, so that migrating the conversation elsewhere is not an immediate priority and is therefore to be avoided in favour of things that are. Once we have a better idea of our overall system, organisation and technologies we can design a proper platform and either migrate or retire the discussion here. More discussion of this on the Organisation/Admin thread.