I want a new wiki, one that does what it should.

July 15, 2008 2:39 PM

I hate MediaWiki, and am looking for an alternative. Problem: My MediaWiki site has tons of data.

So I've got a fansite (twinpeakswiki.com, if interested) that has a reasonable amount of data in it. I've come to grips with the fact that I HATE MediaWiki. It's so unintuitive, there is virtually no web-based administration for anything, the learning curve is just too great and I've got better things to do.

So, I'm looking for an alternative, something that is snazzy, modern-looking, graphically pleasing right out of the box, and preferably with skin support. Oh yeah, it has to be able to deal with my MediaWiki database data somehow (export-then-import? conversion utility? I dunno, have no idea what's out there.)

Any ideas are most appreciated!

posted by jbickers to computers & internet (7 comments total)

You could export to XML (Help:Export) and then write a script to import into another format from that.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:15 PM on July 15

Check out DekiWiki as an intuitive alternative. I searched high and low for a wiki that made sense to non-wiki people and this one had the best UI i could find. They have a migration page about moving over from MediaWiki as well, and also offer a service where they'll do it for you.
posted by ukdanae at 3:36 PM on July 15

WikiMatrix is your one stop shop for all things wiki, relative and related. Conversion from one format to another is often difficult or impossible, but a lot depends on the guys who made the wikis and the skill of the operator. I converted a MoinMoin site to DokuWiki and ended up writing my own parser in Plex (a python library) to do all the work.
posted by chairface at 3:46 PM on July 15 [2 favorites]

I like MediaWiki but I agree, it is unintuitive not to mention that I always have to search the documentation for the configurations in LocalSettings to make it do what I want. You figure they would build a web interface for that...
(sigh) but besides all that I do like Mediawiki or at least I've gotten used to it.
posted by crios at 5:25 PM on July 15

what's with all the "wiki" stuff? I'm just wondering what the origin of it is...
posted by zollypop at 6:20 PM on July 15

zollypop: Wikipedia's entry on Wiki's might help you.
posted by SirStan at 7:29 PM on July 15

zollypop: The original wiki has some historical correspondence.
posted by hattifattener at 8:12 PM on July 15