[BBLISA] [Summary] Wiki Guidance + Apache mod_rewrite question

[Rick Pike]

Thanks for all the responses. For now I have set up UseModWiki, but am 
struggling to get the other 2 group members to use it. All 3 of us are new 
and I thought it would be a good way to share info as we learn it. When I 
ask them a question, I encourage them to add that info. When they ask me 
something I cannot answer, I encourage them to add it when they find out. 
I've also asked them to add a placeholder for something they would like to 
see added. If you aren't using a Wiki to share info, how else do you do it?


Apache Question
=============
Anyway I have set up UseModWiki in Apache as hostcomputer/cgi-bin/wiki.pl 
but want to set up hostcomputer/wiki as an alias. Having done this in the 
distant past, I thought I understood how to do this with mod_rewrite, but 
the alias just gives me the source, not the output. I have tried all kinds 
of variations, but so far nothing works.


General Opinion of Wikis
==================
Wiki's "tend toward giant balls of goo, where it's near impossible to find 
anything"
Wikis "don't work well for long, elaborate documents (design docs, 
etc).  But for short sets of instructions, they're great."


Getting People to Use a Wiki
=====================
  - make it a valuable resource, and people will use it.
  - show them how easy it is make content changes.
  - encourage everyone to take the things from their own notebooks that 
have general applicability and put them in the wiki.
  - if you need to document `how to do ___', put it in the wiki.
  - when someone asks you how to do something, put it in the wiki. Answer 
by sending the url of the wiki page.


Suggested Implementations
====================
kwiki - clean code, extendable, groks REMOTE_USER
UseModWiki - one cgi, integrated search, diffs for each page updated.
tikiwiki - looks good
twiki - well suited to corporate environments with basic user 
authentication and access controls, has RCS behind it, so you can go back 
and see who screwed things up.

Rick Pike
Pikesys Computer House Calls
ComputerHouseCalls at pikesys.com