WikiEngineReviewRhkCriteria

Last edit June 1, 2001
Features I Want in a Wiki

This is a bulleted list of the features I'm looking for in a wiki.

To understand more about why or what I expect to accomplish with a wiki, see: To see some suggestions for extensions to WikiEngines, see: (That page expands on some of the features listed here -- I think you need to read it to get the full flavor of what I'm looking for.)

I recognize that it is very likely I won't find a WikiEngine that meets all of these requirements. That's OK -- then I'll try to pick the one that fits the set of needs that I consider most important.

Requirements List

  • Easy for a newbie to install in Linux (or Windows)

  • Good performance with 100,000 pages (may require a database)

  • No proprietary software required (low cost)

  • Open source or freeware (so I can consider modifications)

  • Excellent means of finding information:
    • Page lists and indexes
    • Possible hierarchical organization
    • Ability to be indexed by Web search engines (perhaps selectable)
    • Full text search including words, wild cards, phrases, boolean, within x
Alternates to finding a WikiEngine with the search capabilities listed above could include using a separate search engine with a wiki that stores each topic in a separate file or finding a wiki that uses a database with those search capabilities. See WikiEngineReviewAlternateSearchDiscussion(?).

  • The ability to group pages for operations like application of password protection, email notification, import, export, translation

  • Subpages or other means of organizing pages in a hierarchy

  • Email notification of changes on selected pages (or groups)

  • Security.
    • Snapshots of most revisions, and associated rollback and diff capability, but provide a secure means of deleting snapshots to preserve the WikiNature of forgetting mistakes
    • No embedded HTML
    • Password protection on editing of selected pages (or groups)

  • Easy to read diff format

  • Re Diffs: If a system is accepted that stores snapshots of only the last revision by each author, a means must exist to declare a new baseline for the diff. (The problem I'm trying to address is the one, for example, where only one person modifies a particular page (or a private wiki). In that case, the diff just keeps growing and growing (like the Energizer Rabbit?) and becomes useless to highlight the most recent change.)

Maybe there is a workaround to the above if I create two separate identities for myself, and then edit pages alternately. (Maybe RandyKramerA and RandyKramerB.) I'm not sure what would be required -- am I identified on this wiki by a cookie? Would I need to edit from two different machines with different cookies? (A little cumbersome, at least. I'm more curious than serious.)

  • Images

  • Tables

  • Enhanced WikiNames including numbers and adjacent capital letters (even all caps for acronyms)

  • Headings

  • InterWiki links

  • Import / export capabilities (for private backup, offline editing, and to support mirroring)

  • Display original Wiki text formatting rules

  • Translators available (for translation between wiki formatting markups)

  • Editing support for mirroring

  • Editing contention resolution

  • A clean display to help readers and editors

  • Improvements to navigation
    • Ability to bookmark one or more pages to easily move between them (especially for editing)
    • ??

  • Hidden text

  • Global search and replace (or similar tools) to support things like renaming of pages. Possible alternatives:
    • Each page in a separate text file -- tools like SED, Awk
    • Pages stored in a common text file, possibly indexed -- editors with search and replace capability that can handle large files
    • Pages stored in a relational data base (MySQL, msql, etc.) -- ??

-- RandyKramer

Notes I put on another wiki, may reflect the beginning of a prioritization:

New Comments: What I want in a wiki: (See my WikiEngineReview at http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngineReview, which is rough and unfinished)

Here I try to list the things I most want (essentials):

  • Easy to install (on SourceForge)
  • History (more than last edit by previous author)
  • Diffs (MSWord style would be nicest)
  • Easy import / export
  • Easy backup / restore
  • Pages and history deletable
  • Change notification by Email, per page (or group of pages) (pages might be grouped by Topic, Category, or "EmailGroup")
  • At least three levels of headings (beyond emphasis)
  • Customizable templates (by administrator -- I guess they all are)
  • Lists (bulleted and numbered, nested)

Nice to have:
  • Global editing (to facilitate, for example, page name changes)
  • Page locking or password protection
  • Vastly improved search capability, including phrase, boolean, proximity (within x) -- might be achieved by an external search engine like htDig, with robots.txt limits on which engines can index.
  • WikiNames with numbers, all caps

This is in addition to what I consider the standard features of a wiki, not listed here.

CategoryWikiEngineReview