Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: gentoo_steve@×××××××.uk
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-user] (Slightly OT) A question about Wikis (maybe)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:49:41
Message-Id: 48FD97A0.9070507@shic.co.uk
1 I'm considering a project, and am keen not to end up re-inventing the wheel.
2
3 I'm looking to use collaborative techniques to put together a 'knowledge
4 base'... I require:
5
6 * Collaborative editing to grow the number of 'records' held.
7
8 * For the 'records' (pages) to be of a standard form - so that data of a
9 similar 'type' can be processed (summarised and filtered) based upon any
10 attribute (field). The 'records' - however need to be flexible - in the
11 sense that a field might be a sequence of records (recursively) in a
12 table... The 'type' of a particular record will be known, and should
13 have a common appearance and layout that can be edited independent of
14 the data. It must be possible to extend the type of records after data
15 has been collected... as the system evolves... but these fundamental
16 changes need only be possible for an administrator.
17
18 * Support for a hierarchy of users - such that only the
19 submitter/members of senior groups can view new data until it is
20 approved by a member of a senior group.
21
22 * Support for public comment & discussion on every page - a threaded
23 forum approach would be fine.
24
25 * (Ideally - not sure how this would be used) Support to drag in data
26 from third-party sites either using RSS or using web-services.
27
28 * Email notification of changes to pages where an interest is registered.
29
30 * Full version management.
31
32 I've briefly looked at Twiki and Xwiki (which show some promise - but
33 I'm not sure they're up to the job.) I'm familiar with Ruby on Rails -
34 though I suspect that it is too low-level for my purposes. I would like
35 to avoid focusing on the implementation details as much as possible and
36 focus on the design of the collaborative system using the highest-level
37 RAD approach I available today.
38
39 Have others addressed a similar problem (using gentoo)?