Replicant » Replicant infrastructure

h1. MediawikiMigration

Redmine's wiki uses Textile markup, while MediaWiki uses the Markdown markup language. It looks some redmine has recently been working to make it easier to transition from textile to markdown: https://www.redmine.org/issues/32424 https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_reformat

TODO:

* Find links to projects that can help migrate the wiki content and compare them:

** Look if it's possible to keep the history to make sure that smaller contributors don't get forgetten

** Contact the Archive team to backup the redmins wiki

** Make sure it gets archived completely on archive.org/web

** Make sure it gets archived in files that can be restored (but without non public information like password hashes, etc)

h2. Rationale

The documentation on the Redmine wiki has lot of duplication of information. 

The solution that has been choosen for that is the following:

* Migrate part of the information in Wikidata.

* Use template and/or generate information from Wikidata.

Other solutions were also possible such as migrating to documentation system like pandoc, but doing that would increase a lot the required skills of potential contributors. 

Using complicated documentation systems has several issues:

* Practically speaking, it makes it impossible for many people that don't know how to program, to participate in Replicant, fix issues etc. This would be very problematic for diversity and inclusiveness of people as it would unnecessarily discriminate against people without such skills. We could also potentially loose important contributions.

* While it would make the job of contributors way easier than without any templating or ways to programmatically generate documentation, it also increase the dependency on people who knows how to use that documentation system.

Instead it would be better to use a documentation system that enable people without programming skills to easily contribute, while at the same time enabling people with programming skills to take advantage of it as well.

Pros of mediawiki:

* Can be interfaced with Wikidata.

* The syntax is easy enough to use by people that don't know how to program, many people are used to it, and at the same time it's well documented.

* The table syntax of redmine textile format is too complicated for several key contributors like dllud.

* The main functionality, including the preview work completely without JavaScript. GNUtoo had huge issues with the redmine preview not working without javascript, leading to many bad editions that are fixed in subsequent editions that are fixed in subsequent editions...

* Other projects like Libreplanet, and Parabola uses mediawiki

* Can be used offline thanks to projects like Kiwix

* Can easily be backuped by external projects like thearchiveteam

Cons of mediawiki:

* We need to migrate, if possible in a way that preserves history

* We loose the integration with redmine #<bug number> will have to

h2. Decision

At several conferences, including the Replicant conference in Paris in Summer 2019, and the FOSDEM, people were in favor of migrating to Mediawiki and didn't have objections to it.