Migrating gmod.org advice/RFC

[Scott Cain]

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[nathandunn]

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Dave Clements-3]

Hi Scott,

We are in the process of migrating the Galaxy Wiki from MoinMoin to a GitHub hosted pseudo-wiki (still looking for a good term). The content will be in GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) plus YAML for metadata and structured content.  We'll then use MetalSmith (http://www.metalsmith.io/) to generate the actual web site, and it's MetalSmith that will process the YAML.

Editors will be able to edit local copies of the doc and generate the website locally, as well as edit doc directly in GitHub.  This model will fully leverage the power of GitHub.

Moving GMOD.org to straight github would also leverage that power and community involvement.

However, I think this would be tremendously difficult, and the advantages of moving from MediaWiki to GitHub are far less than moving from MoinMoin to GitHub.

1) MediaWiki supports a ton of extensions such as Templates, Categories, and Extensions.  GFM does not support any of that.  A lot of content on GMOD.org would have to be disentangled.

2) GFM is deliberately crippled.  The theory (I think) is that you should be using CSS for formatting instead of markup.  I like that goal, but the current GMOD.org is chock full of MediaWiki / HTML hacks to achieve formatting (I put a lot of it there). Translating that to pure GFM / CSS would be a nightmare.  

GFM does support directly using HTML, but it does not support mixing the two in many circumstances.  For example, tables are all GFM or all HTML.  And GFM tables are painfully limited. Only the simplest tables can be translated to GFM.  If you want row headers, or colspans or rowspans, or right or center alignment in a cell, or ... you have to translate the whole table to HTML.  And that defeats the whole purpose of having a wiki.

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I've CC'd Dannon Baker who is also working the Galaxy Wiki move. He's not familiar with the current GMOD.org implementation, but he knows about migrating wikis to GitHub.  He may have more to add (and might even contradict me :-). 

And, we've been running our wiki on AWS for years.  We've been very happy with it.

My 98¢

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Nathan Dunn <[hidden email]> wrote:

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[nathandunn]

Dave, 

I wasn’t advocating using only GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), all of which I agree with your points on.  

GH Pages (https://pages.github.com/) can either use straight HTML or use Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/ it is basically metalsmith.io on Ruby ), which can use either GFM or HTML, which provides a pretty rich UI and multiple integrations (http://www.jekyll-plugins.com/) and still allows direct editing of content within GitHub. 

Any who, I agree that the easiest option is to grab an AWS instance off of the Amazon Market Place to save yourself some time and the cost should be < $1K year, as I think you’ll likely lose several days on doing any sort of conversion. 

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B0078U8W14

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 10:24 AM, Dave Clements <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Scott,

We are in the process of migrating the Galaxy Wiki from MoinMoin to a GitHub hosted pseudo-wiki (still looking for a good term). The content will be in GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) plus YAML for metadata and structured content.  We'll then use MetalSmith (http://www.metalsmith.io/) to generate the actual web site, and it's MetalSmith that will process the YAML.

Editors will be able to edit local copies of the doc and generate the website locally, as well as edit doc directly in GitHub.  This model will fully leverage the power of GitHub.

Moving GMOD.org to straight github would also leverage that power and community involvement.

However, I think this would be tremendously difficult, and the advantages of moving from MediaWiki to GitHub are far less than moving from MoinMoin to GitHub.

1) MediaWiki supports a ton of extensions such as Templates, Categories, and Extensions.  GFM does not support any of that.  A lot of content on GMOD.org would have to be disentangled.

2) GFM is deliberately crippled.  The theory (I think) is that you should be using CSS for formatting instead of markup.  I like that goal, but the current GMOD.org is chock full of MediaWiki / HTML hacks to achieve formatting (I put a lot of it there). Translating that to pure GFM / CSS would be a nightmare.  

GFM does support directly using HTML, but it does not support mixing the two in many circumstances.  For example, tables are all GFM or all HTML.  And GFM tables are painfully limited. Only the simplest tables can be translated to GFM.  If you want row headers, or colspans or rowspans, or right or center alignment in a cell, or ... you have to translate the whole table to HTML.  And that defeats the whole purpose of having a wiki.

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I've CC'd Dannon Baker who is also working the Galaxy Wiki move. He's not familiar with the current GMOD.org implementation, but he knows about migrating wikis to GitHub.  He may have more to add (and might even contradict me :-). 

And, we've been running our wiki on AWS for years.  We've been very happy with it.

My 98¢

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Nathan Dunn <[hidden email]> wrote:

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Main, Doreen]

Hi Scott,

The AWS seems to be the easiest option for you. If needed, for the next 3 years  my program can cover the cost if it's only about $1K per year.

Cheers

Dorrie

Dorrie Main, PhD
Professor of Bioinformatics
Department of Horticulture
Washington State University
45 Johnson Hall
Pullman, WA 99164-6414

Tel: [phone] (office)
Email: [hidden email]
URL: www.bioinfo.wsu.edu

---

From: Nathan Dunn [[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2016 10:43 AM
To: Dave Clements
Cc: Dannon Baker; [hidden email]; gmod-devel; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Gmod-tripal] Migrating gmod.org advice/RFC

Dave, 

I wasn’t advocating using only GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), all of which I agree with your points on.  

GH Pages (https://pages.github.com/) can either use straight HTML or use Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/ it is basically metalsmith.io on Ruby ), which can use either GFM or HTML, which provides a pretty rich UI and multiple integrations (http://www.jekyll-plugins.com/) and still allows direct editing of content within GitHub. 

Any who, I agree that the easiest option is to grab an AWS instance off of the Amazon Market Place to save yourself some time and the cost should be < $1K year, as I think you’ll likely lose several days on doing any sort of conversion. 

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B0078U8W14

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 10:24 AM, Dave Clements <clements@...> wrote:

Hi Scott,

We are in the process of migrating the Galaxy Wiki from MoinMoin to a GitHub hosted pseudo-wiki (still looking for a good term). The content will be in GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) plus YAML for metadata and structured content.  We'll then use MetalSmith (http://www.metalsmith.io/) to generate the actual web site, and it's MetalSmith that will process the YAML.

Editors will be able to edit local copies of the doc and generate the website locally, as well as edit doc directly in GitHub.  This model will fully leverage the power of GitHub.

Moving GMOD.org to straight github would also leverage that power and community involvement.

However, I think this would be tremendously difficult, and the advantages of moving from MediaWiki to GitHub are far less than moving from MoinMoin to GitHub.

1) MediaWiki supports a ton of extensions such as Templates, Categories, and Extensions.  GFM does not support any of that.  A lot of content on GMOD.org would have to be disentangled.

2) GFM is deliberately crippled.  The theory (I think) is that you should be using CSS for formatting instead of markup.  I like that goal, but the current GMOD.org is chock full of MediaWiki / HTML hacks to achieve formatting (I put a lot of it there). Translating that to pure GFM / CSS would be a nightmare.  

GFM does support directly using HTML, but it does not support mixing the two in many circumstances.  For example, tables are all GFM or all HTML.  And GFM tables are painfully limited. Only the simplest tables can be translated to GFM.  If you want row headers, or colspans or rowspans, or right or center alignment in a cell, or ... you have to translate the whole table to HTML.  And that defeats the whole purpose of having a wiki.

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I've CC'd Dannon Baker who is also working the Galaxy Wiki move. He's not familiar with the current GMOD.org implementation, but he knows about migrating wikis to GitHub.  He may have more to add (and might even contradict me :-). 

And, we've been running our wiki on AWS for years.  We've been very happy with it.

My 98¢

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Nathan Dunn <nathandunn@...> wrote:

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <scott@...> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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GMOD Coordinator (http://gmod.org/)                     216-392-3087
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

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[Dave Clements-3]

Hi Nathan,

I was only vaguely aware of Jekyll and thanks for the extra information.  I know a lot of projects use Jekyll in combination with GitHub so that is certainly well-trod territory.

But I would like to, um emphasize that moving from MediaWiki is very different from moving from MoinMoin.  MoinMoin does not support inline HTML and this greatly reduced the number of instances where we had to deal with what are corner cases for GFM.  GMOD.org is chock full of inline HTML and I think the translation effort would collapse under the diversity of hacks.

My (discounted!) 2¢,

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Nathan Dunn <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dave, 

I wasn’t advocating using only GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), all of which I agree with your points on.  

GH Pages (https://pages.github.com/) can either use straight HTML or use Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/ it is basically metalsmith.io on Ruby ), which can use either GFM or HTML, which provides a pretty rich UI and multiple integrations (http://www.jekyll-plugins.com/) and still allows direct editing of content within GitHub. 

Any who, I agree that the easiest option is to grab an AWS instance off of the Amazon Market Place to save yourself some time and the cost should be < $1K year, as I think you’ll likely lose several days on doing any sort of conversion. 

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B0078U8W14

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 10:24 AM, Dave Clements <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Scott,

We are in the process of migrating the Galaxy Wiki from MoinMoin to a GitHub hosted pseudo-wiki (still looking for a good term). The content will be in GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) plus YAML for metadata and structured content.  We'll then use MetalSmith (http://www.metalsmith.io/) to generate the actual web site, and it's MetalSmith that will process the YAML.

Editors will be able to edit local copies of the doc and generate the website locally, as well as edit doc directly in GitHub.  This model will fully leverage the power of GitHub.

Moving GMOD.org to straight github would also leverage that power and community involvement.

However, I think this would be tremendously difficult, and the advantages of moving from MediaWiki to GitHub are far less than moving from MoinMoin to GitHub.

1) MediaWiki supports a ton of extensions such as Templates, Categories, and Extensions.  GFM does not support any of that.  A lot of content on GMOD.org would have to be disentangled.

2) GFM is deliberately crippled.  The theory (I think) is that you should be using CSS for formatting instead of markup.  I like that goal, but the current GMOD.org is chock full of MediaWiki / HTML hacks to achieve formatting (I put a lot of it there). Translating that to pure GFM / CSS would be a nightmare.  

GFM does support directly using HTML, but it does not support mixing the two in many circumstances.  For example, tables are all GFM or all HTML.  And GFM tables are painfully limited. Only the simplest tables can be translated to GFM.  If you want row headers, or colspans or rowspans, or right or center alignment in a cell, or ... you have to translate the whole table to HTML.  And that defeats the whole purpose of having a wiki.

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I've CC'd Dannon Baker who is also working the Galaxy Wiki move. He's not familiar with the current GMOD.org implementation, but he knows about migrating wikis to GitHub.  He may have more to add (and might even contradict me :-). 

And, we've been running our wiki on AWS for years.  We've been very happy with it.

My 98¢

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Nathan Dunn <[hidden email]> wrote:

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Scott Cain]

Dave, 

This is good stuff and brought up points I hadn't thought about--thank you!

Do you happen to know what the instance size of the Galaxy wiki server is?  I suspect that the Galaxy wiki gets more traffic than the GMOD wiki, but they might be at least roughly comparable.

Thanks,

Scott

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Dave Clements <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Scott,

We are in the process of migrating the Galaxy Wiki from MoinMoin to a GitHub hosted pseudo-wiki (still looking for a good term). The content will be in GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) plus YAML for metadata and structured content.  We'll then use MetalSmith (http://www.metalsmith.io/) to generate the actual web site, and it's MetalSmith that will process the YAML.

Editors will be able to edit local copies of the doc and generate the website locally, as well as edit doc directly in GitHub.  This model will fully leverage the power of GitHub.

Moving GMOD.org to straight github would also leverage that power and community involvement.

However, I think this would be tremendously difficult, and the advantages of moving from MediaWiki to GitHub are far less than moving from MoinMoin to GitHub.

1) MediaWiki supports a ton of extensions such as Templates, Categories, and Extensions.  GFM does not support any of that.  A lot of content on GMOD.org would have to be disentangled.

2) GFM is deliberately crippled.  The theory (I think) is that you should be using CSS for formatting instead of markup.  I like that goal, but the current GMOD.org is chock full of MediaWiki / HTML hacks to achieve formatting (I put a lot of it there). Translating that to pure GFM / CSS would be a nightmare.  

GFM does support directly using HTML, but it does not support mixing the two in many circumstances.  For example, tables are all GFM or all HTML.  And GFM tables are painfully limited. Only the simplest tables can be translated to GFM.  If you want row headers, or colspans or rowspans, or right or center alignment in a cell, or ... you have to translate the whole table to HTML.  And that defeats the whole purpose of having a wiki.

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I've CC'd Dannon Baker who is also working the Galaxy Wiki move. He's not familiar with the current GMOD.org implementation, but he knows about migrating wikis to GitHub.  He may have more to add (and might even contradict me :-). 

And, we've been running our wiki on AWS for years.  We've been very happy with it.

My 98¢

Dave C

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Nathan Dunn <[hidden email]> wrote:

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Raymond Wan-2]

Hi Scott,


On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 11:46 PM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing
> lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org
> is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.
> One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will
> require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know
> won't be fun.


Though you've received many good opinions already, I'm not sure if I
can add more information.

But I don't think moving a MediaWiki instance from the current server
to a new virtual machine is very difficult.  The backup and restore
steps are fairly clear -- I've applied them a few times before.  If
the two versions of MediaWiki are the same (i.e., upgrade the old one
before performing the backup), I don't think you should have many
problems.

In terms of time, I think it would be faster than moving to GitHub.
Moving to GitHub would be nice, but "moving servers" + "moving
software" seems to be a lot in one go.  Maybe it's better to move
things one step at a time?


> There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the
> content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds
> appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also
> considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work
> as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long
> run.


Like Dave, I'm happy with AWS but I do have some strange days where my
VM should be idle but the load is incredibly high.  I did look around
and it's probably because another VM on the same server is over-using
resources?  (I'm not too sure ... don't take my word for it!)  It
might be because I'm on the absolute lowest AWS tier...

In any case, it is true that both OICR and AWS are VMs, but in terms
of ease of finding someone to solve some particular problem, I would
think it is easier with OICR than AWS?  Of course, I don't know the
difference in costs between the two...

Ray

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[Fields, Christopher J]

Yep, this is essentially what the Bio* groups did when our AWS server went down.  

chris

From: Nathan Dunn
Date: Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 10:58 AM
To: Scott Cain
Cc: gmod-devel, Dave Clements, "[hidden email]", "[hidden email]"
Subject: Re: [Gmod-ajax] [Gmod-tripal] Migrating gmod.org advice/RFC

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Fields, Christopher J]

… I should add, it might be worth discussing some of the migration issues w/ Peter Cock and Brian Osborne (cc’d), who were instrumental in moving BioPerl and Biopython’s MW to Github Pages; they can probably gives pointers on what worked best.

chris

On Sep 2, 2016, at 9:30 AM, Fields, Christopher J <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yep, this is essentially what the Bio* groups did when our AWS server went down.  

chris

From: Nathan Dunn
Date: Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 10:58 AM
To: Scott Cain
Cc: gmod-devel, Dave Clements, "[hidden email]", "[hidden email]"
Subject: Re: [Gmod-ajax] [Gmod-tripal] Migrating gmod.org advice/RFC

Scott,

I would advocate moving to GH pages just for the long-term ease of use, permission management, and cost.   There is no server to setup, but you’ll have to configure a Jekyll theme (http://jekyllthemes.org/) and add the content, which is a PITA unless you create a single-page app (which I don’t advocate).  

My guess is that actually converting the content will be easier (and I’m sure folks in the community will be glad to help).  

https://github.com/philipashlock/mediawiki-to-markdown

Nathan

On Sep 1, 2016, at 8:46 AM, Scott Cain <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm addressing this to a few of the more heavily trafficked GMOD mailing lists in hopes of getting some good advice.  The server that runs gmod.org is being retired at the end of the month, so I have to find it a new home.  One option includes leaving it at OICR on a new virtual machine, but it will require me to port the existing MediaWiki instance, which I already know won't be fun.

There are other alternatives though--it was suggested recently that the content in gmod.org could be migrated to GitHub pages, which sounds appealing but I have no idea how much work would be involved.  I've also considered migrating to AWS, which I think will be a similar amount of work as the internal migration at OICR but would likely be cheaper in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Scott

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[Scott Cain]

Hi Hilmar,

Definitely true--I made one attempt at moving the gmod wiki a few months ago, and found 1) that just taking everything wholesale and putting it in the right place didn't work, even though I tried to replicate versions as best I could, and 2) when I updated MediaWiki as minimally as possible, I still lost one of the extensions I like best (the tag cloud one) and it will likely have to be replaced with something I like less.

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Hilmar Lapp <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Sep 1, 2016, at 1:24 PM, Dave Clements <[hidden email]> wrote:

So, my vote is stick with MediaWiki.  I don't think there is any hope of migrating to GFM without seriously mangling 90%+ of the pages.

I’d mostly agree with that. I think in general the pains of migrating a MediaWiki are often overestimated, perhaps because most people you speak to have never done it (or have never had to). I’ve brought up 5 from dumps over the last couple of months. If you follow the instructions, it usually works.

That said, the one factor that in my experience can complicate things (and explode time needed) tremendously may well apply to the GMOD wiki, and that’s use of a lot of extensions. Extensions often don’t keep up with the main MediaWiki version and so aren’t available, or are buggy for the latest MediaWiki version. Even when they still are available and current, they sometime have changed their markup rules. Accommodating all that can be a real pain.

  -hilmar 

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Hilmar Lapp -:- lappland.io

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