[Bf-docboard] Wiki upgrade status 01

[mindrones]

Hi!

This is the first of many mails I'll send to let people know what's
going on about the wiki upgrade :)

First step (server side) is pretty much done, see below what has been done.

Please report any issues we can find here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Meta:Wiki_Tasks/Bugs


NEW SERVER
===========

We have now a new server!
See http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/servers/
We are proudly hosted on "Scales"! :)

I've been given access to wiki installation on Scales, so I can help the
admins with wiki stuff there.


NEW MEDIAWIKI VERSION
======================

We upgraded to Mediawiki 1.16.2 (the latest available)


WIKI IS NOW UNDER SVN
==============================

We have setup a local svn so that:
- the online wiki is under tags/
- we test new stuff in trunk/

This permits us to:
- try things in svn before touching the live wiki,
- keep an history of what happened,
- eventually revert bad actions,

...making our lives much easier!

I'm very happy we got this, and my sincere thanks go to Marco Walraven
and Nathan Letwory for being so kind and "open" to new ideas and for
pushing me to try things myself on the server :)


NEW ACCOUNTS POLICY
=======================

Anonymous users are not allowed to edit anymore.

Registration is free and automatic, but you have to confirm your email
to be able to edit.

This will avoid anonymous spammers and will let us to ban a real account
instead of banning IPs.

If you were working with a non registered account just go in the
preferences and register you email, you'll receive a confirmation email,
reply and you should be done.


OLD ACCOUNTS DELETION
=======================

Also, we are in the process of deleting unused accounts.

According to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:RemoveUnusedAccounts.php:

An unused account is one which has no edits, no deleted edits, no log
entries and no current/old uploads.

This is because we had 40k registed, mostly inactive, users.


ENHANCEMENTS
=============

- Wiki is (for now) the same as before but MUCH FASTER :)

- People are already reporting image caching issues are gone.
  We should work on a more solid caching mechanism in the coming week.
  Hopefully this will speed up further, and lower the load on the cpus.


------


Next in line, Francesco Siddi has prepared nice banners for the wiki,
we'll put them up in the coming week.

These will link to:
- the donation page on blender.org to help the peoject
- a wiki page where people can read what's going on

After that, we'll clean up the wiki css to prepare for real work on the
wiki skin.

But that's for another mail! :)


Regards,
Luca



_____________________________

http://www.mindrones.com