Talk:Sites using MediaWiki/Archived discussion from meta

Ideas for more Wikimedia projects
I work for a medium sized software company. I was thinking of building our "Knowledge Base" (public facing site) for my company using Wikimedia. However, when I look at the sites that are using Wikimedia, I don't see many (if any) for-profit businesses listed. Am I missing something? Is there some reason that businesses aren't using Wikis to power their external Knowledge Bases?

Wikimedia seems quite ideal for a project that would hold information on "prior art", i.e., a place that would collect known uses on technology, that would provide information for those who need to defend against patents. The main idea is that a central open place were everyone can record what they know would reduce the costs of finding such data. It can also serve those that don't want the monoplistic protection of a patent for their idea, but do not want others to register their idea as a patent, so they need a place to make their idea public that would not be as costly as a patent so that there would be evidence of "prior art" that would prevent anyone from obtaining a patent on the same idea.

The link at the bottom:

Wiki For You (http://www.vacilando.org/index.php?x=4229) - We can install and host your own wiki running WikiMedia software

Seems to be an advert is this allowed?


 * Seems useful to give hosting providers and there's already at least one other in the lists, so I created the hosting section and put those two into it. Jamesday 06:48, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I replaced redirect by "see", because of the disadvantages of inter-wiki redirects, see MediaWiki User's Guide: Using redirects.

See also en:Wikipedia talk:Sites using MediaWiki.

host for a mediawiki based wiki?
Can anyone direct me to a company that will help me set up and host a mediawiki based wiki? I've found some that run other wiki engines, but I prefer to stick with mediawiki. Ike9898 16:26, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I could help you somehow - you can find mymail at http://portal.wikinerds.org Npc 00:21, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I can install, configure and host your own wiki running WikiMedia software - contact me via http://www.vacilando.org/index.php?x=4229


 * See also Comparison of wiki farms.--Patrick 14:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Spam Filter not allowing edits?
I am attempting to add
 * # alabamahealthlaw.org, an educational resource for attorneys, healthcare providers, students and others who are interested in learning more about healthcare-related legislative, judicial, executive and administrative developments in the state of Alabama.

in the Public Personal List but keep getting the following message:
 * The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to an external site.
 * The following text is what triggered our spam filter: http: // endeavour [dot] zapto [dot] org (I added the [dot]s here)

I can'f find that url anywhere on the page. Does anyone know what could be causing this or how to get around it? Banjolawyer 03:39, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

It's a pitty that a Spamfilter seems to be necessary :(


 * I've found the link (using search source) and removed it. You should be able to add the link now. Ambush Commander 18:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Additions to the list
Foresight Linux: wiki.foresightlinux.com

Categorizing
This list, whever it ends up, is rather long and messy. I propose that it be divided up by subject area. Thoughts? Evilphoenix 04:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * So, hearing no objections, I'm going to start categorizing the list based on different topics. Evilphoenix 02:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Categorizing by subject makes the list even longer and messier. I advocate for reverting the categorizing and for proceeding with the specified cleanup process. RobiH 06:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. It seems that you are the one who came up with the idea of sorting the Wikis based on size and this particular formatting system. Personally I think that sorting by Category does complicate things a bit, but I think that makes it much easier to find a Wiki on a given subject area that you might be interested in. An Alphabetical listing (which is how the list is organized now) makes it easy to find a Wiki if you happen to know the name of the Wiki you're looking for, but if you're just looking for Wikis by topic, again the exceedingly long alpabetical listing is rather cumbersome. Further, in sorting Wikis by size you lose both the benefits of an alphabetical and a categorical organization, in that in a lit of 700 wikis sorted by size, it's impossible to easily locate a given Wiki either by name or by subject matter. Therefore I strongly disagree with your proposed reorganization convention. If there seems to be a consensus for organizing by size or alphabetically (which there does not seem to be at the moment), I'd be happy to fork the list off, because I personally want a topical list somewhere, if not here. But at the moment we don't have very many people participating in editing this list. What you could do that I'd appreciate is formatting the wikis that have been sorted into the method you propose, with the information about their size and all that. Best regards, Evilphoenix 13:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetic seems clear and well organised, eliminating the need to search both for the subjects a wiki covers and then for the wiki itself within each of the lists containing and possibly containing it. Size seems worse than either alphabetic or subject. Jamesday 23:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I suppose the question is a user going to be looking at that list looking for a specific Wiki, or trying to find Wikis on a topic of interest? If it's a topic of interest, obviously a topical approach works there. If it's a given Wiki, then yes theres an advantage to alphabetical, but my feeling is that if you know a given wiki name youre looking for, you probably know the topic being covered, so topical isn't all that bad. Evilphoenix 01:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)