Well, moving to an upgraded server gave me additional MySQL databases and shell access, so it was much easier to upgrade the wiki software, and I've done so. Now it needs testing. Please test out the
Blue dKosopedia. Details below.
- The look is MediaWiki's new default skin. While I'd like to get a general sense of what the reaction is, I don't want to hear any bitching and moaning. If you like it say so, if not, say so. The final product may or may not look like that. Note that under user preferences you can choose your own skin. Also Kos has said he's not locked into orange for life.
- I've noticed that some html formatting isn't acting like it did, and it'll take some poking around to figure out why. Also, it's using "ugly URLs" for some reason, and that should be an easy fix, though it may not happen soon.
- The new software has "category" support. Please test it out and see if it's useful.
- I copied the database as of Sunday morning - 1/9/05.
- It's there for testing. Please test, but also do not expect any changes you make to survive the testing period. That's why it's called testing. That said, there's no reason why blue dkosopedia can't remain up for some period of time after the regular dkosopedia itself has been upgraded, in case you end up posting your doctoral thesis on blue and then your hard disk crashes.
I'm calling it the Blue dKosopedia, or bluepedia for short, because I wanted to make it obvious that it was different than the regular dKosopedia so I didn't royally screw up the regular dKosopedia at some point in the process. And blue because of the red state / blue state thing (and because I'm now possibly the oldest undergrad at UM and I still can't believe that Rose Bowl game). I've also registered bluepedia.com and within a day it should point to the test wiki.
Which means nothing at this point - the main thing is to see how it works. I'm especially interested in the potential utility of categories.
Update [2005-1-9 15:1:46 by The Centerfielder]: BTW, there are some customizations I made in the original dKosopedia that I haven't propagated to the upgraded source yet: dKos blockquotes, for example. And though I like the new MediaWiki default look, I think the font should be a tad smaller.
One other thing to consider is the license under which dKosopedia is published; the older version of the software defaulted to GNU Free Documentation License. You can now choose one of the Creative Commons licenses. For those who care about such things...