[wiki-standards] Hello - request comments on Creole

[Mike Haseler]

Marc Laporte wrote:
> Hello Mike,
> 
> I am not sure I understand your aim ("to create a basic form of format 
> that can be used across a wide range of applications from wikis, to 
> blogs, to message boards, to private messages, to adverts for houses, to 
> address lists for scouts").
> 
> That sounds like a Content Management System. There are over a hundred 
> Open Source systems that you could work with:
> http://www.opensourcecms.com/

My aim is fairly simple to have:

1. one (or many) bulletin boards
2. one (or many) simple wikis
3. An events calendar (AS A LIST!!!)
4. a directory of local organisations/company
5. email groups
6. Web statistics
7. Games
8. Pictures
9. Games

This is going to be reproduced half a dozen times over a number of small 
sites I produce.

The aim is to have all the applications protected (or enabled in the 
case of games with user-highscores) by a single username/password with a 
central interface for decide which groups have what privileges for which 
applications. E.g. only scouter leaders can post emails but anyone who 
belongs to the group "scout parent" can see and subscribe to the scout 
newsletter.

Also anyone who registers for the scout email newsletter automatically 
joins the group and can use their password to post on the bulletin board.

If you are mad enough to want to play one for games on the website, you 
will get your own highscore.

YES the idea includes aspects of a content management system, but if 
there is a content management system that plays dungeons and dragons, 
then it ain't a content management system. To repeat, the central core 
of the system will be one username, one password.

Secure once - play many!

> 
> By choosing an existing system, you'll get already mostly debugged code. 
> You also have the opportunity to share your work & experience with a 
> community.
> 

If only people had started by writing a universal password 
authentication system and then most wikis, bulletin boards, etc. etc. 
worked with one password and it was simple to add your own application. 
Then I would be extremely happy.

> Your analogy to a toupee made me laugh. On a related note, here is to 
> encourage you to pursue your quest to offer wiki syntax:
> http://dev.tikiwiki.org/Why+Wiki+Syntax+is+Important
> 

The way I see it a wiki is just a bulletin post with a history and 
without the replies. A content management system is just a wiki. A 
directory is just a bulletin board with some added bits of information 
like name, address.

I already use the bulletin board as a directory and as an events 
calendar. To be honest it is utterly crap, but whenever I look at the 
bulletin board (PHPBB) I just find mods to put calendars on the bulletin 
board, and if I look elsewhere I find unknown software, with new text 
entering syntax, new user-interfaces and with a TOTALLY NEW PASSWORDS 
and totally incompatible authentication methods.

AND MY RULE OF THUMB IS THAT USERS WILL BE PUT OFF USING MY SITE IF THEY 
HAVE TO ENTER EVEN ONE PASSWORD - LET ALONE ENTER SEVERAL DIFFERENT ONES 
AND REGISTER SEVERAL TIMES!

Obviously PHPBB doesn't have the right markup for a wiki, but there is 
no reason why wiki markup should not be used on a bulletin board.

Of course, the biggest problems relate to how the applications all work 
together. The biggest headache is just letting each application know 
that the other applications exist. The other real headache is trying to 
force pre-written applications that assume that the world revolves 
around them to accept that they are just a cog in the site and not the 
whole site and E.g. if a user "joins" the site, the system has to allow 
the user to be a "site member" without having initialised their 
individual application data.

> IMHO, you should not be trying to write a parser from the specs. You 
> should join an existing initiative, be it a wiki engine or a parser:
> http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Engines
> 
> Best regards,
> 
YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT AND I MUST UTTERLY MAD EVEN TO ATTEMPT WHAT I AM DOING.

THEN AGAIN, ONE OF MY FIRST APPLICATIONS WILL BE A VIRTUAL GRASS GROWING 
APPLICATION, WHERE YOU WATCH VIRTUAL GRASS GROWING (NO I AM NOT BEING 
KIDDING - AND YES IT IS ADDICTIVE AND I'VE GOT SHEEP EATING THE GRASS, 
AND PLANS TO INCLUDE WOLVES EATING THE SHEEP, AND PERHAPS MEMBERS WILL 
BE ABLE TO SEND MESSAGES TO EAT OTHER AND POST ADVERTS, AND GUESS WHAT - 
THEY'LL BE USING MARKUP!!

Mike