The Future of the QL Wiki

[dilwyn]

* drink beer;

Strange, I recognise these from most of the organisations I belong to

Not sure if the 1% beer counts here

#qlforum celebrating propper strong beer

[NormanDunbar]

Looks like I need to add a mail server to the site before it sends out emails.
Something to do in a spare evening I suspect, I'm not able to access the "install software" pages from work.

Cheers,
Norm.

[NormanDunbar]

Sigh! It seems that free hosting at Byethost is limited in what can be emailed out. Due to spammers signing up for free sites, and then using the email to spam the world, the mail allowed by the free hosting sites is limited now to "welcome" emails from certain installed Blogs etc. Sadly, it seems that DokuWiki isn't allowed to use email.

So:

• do I import every current user and give a default password? Not secure because a nefarious user could hijack someone else's account to trash or otherwise abuse the Wiki; or
• do I just leave everyone to register themselves again? This would get rid of inactive users but would also leave us open to abuse as bots register lots of users for other nefarious purposes - like hitting the Wiki with spam comments etc.

I suggest the latter as the least bad option.

This of course leads to the awkward question of who among us, gets administrator rights? Currently, on the existing Wiki run by Rich, only he has admin. But this is/will be a community effort, so who else should be able to do admin?

Questions questions!

Onwards!

The existing Wiki has the following:

• 989 separate pages.
• 910 pages linked to, but not existing. (Wanted pages.) A page that's missing, but linked to by 5 pages, counts as 5 wanted pages.
• 74 pages which exist but have nothing linking to them. (Orphan pages.)
• 2960 links to other pages. (Linked pages.) If a page is linked to by 5 other pages, then that counts as 5 separate links.

These figures are, of course, subject to change as I amend the translation code/data to create pages better, or work out links etc better.

Cheers,
Norm.

[Dave]

Suggestion:

Manually reset the passwords for those of us interested in contributing who request it, and do not allow automatic signups.

I would request it. I think our emails are part of our profiles?

[NormanDunbar]

Morning Dave,

I agree with your suggestion. I've kept self-registration turned off on my own Wiki as I was hacked by bots back in 2013, my blog suffered a similar attack, so that's no longer a self registration either.

The current Wiki profile does indeed have every registered users email, or at least, an email, including Dilwyn's which is currently incorrect!


Cheers,
Norm.

[dilwyn]

Morning Dave,

I agree with your suggestion. I've kept self-registration turned off on my own Wiki as I was hacked by bots back in 2013, my blog suffered a similar attack, so that's no longer a self registration either.

The current Wiki profile does indeed have every registered users email, or at least, an email, including Dilwyn's which is currently incorrect!


Cheers,
Norm.

The email address for QL Wiki should still be valid. Admittedly, it's an old one and I can't send from it these days, but I can still receive (well, I get junk emails through it, let's put it like that). I'll PM you a new one to set using my domain, I've changed it in Rich's original QL Wiki.

[NormanDunbar]

Afternoon All,

a short lunchtime update. This is what I've done today:

• Uploaded a whole new version with fewer missing pages, fewer non-working links etc. The pages were never missing, just the file names didn't always match the expected one, They mostly do now. There are still a few pages missing, but these are, so far, definitely missing as the page is not to be found in the old Wiki SQL database.
• Imported all the old Wiki's registered users. The passwords are auto-generated by the new Wiki, so I don't know them and cannot find out either, Normally an email is sent to the email address given, but that's not happening on the hosting system. See below.
• Edited a few pages which had double headings. (ie the same or similar, headings twice at the start of the page.)

Hopefully the new Wiki looks better now and, as mentioned above, there are fewer missing pages.

Right, registered users, anyone on this list, who was registered with the old Wiki, who wishes to contribute to the new one, should PM me with your username and email address. I'll set you up with a random password and when you get a DM reply from me, you will be able to login and change your password - drop down the top right image of a "person" and select "update Profile". Don't forget to click SAVE!

Dilwyn, I've changed your email to the one requested.

Rich. Your user has admin rights as before.

Dave. You are also now registered as you requested.

The following are the newly registered users:

• AxelP87
• Cybergigi
• David
• Jimmy
• MarcelK
• Mentore
• MikeJamesMedia
• MrT
• Mr_Navigator
• Pippos
• QLObi
• QLvsJAGUAR
• RickCB
• Sandy
• Sciere
• SimonG
• Sparrowhawk
• TheSmog
• WoMue
• XorA
• badaman
• bloater
• bnemitz
• ch_merlin
• ciggy
• davefilms
• derek
• dilwyn
• erik.guttman
• guvur
• igorstellar
• jack_free
• jpeps71
• kfrank
• klausfrank
• klfr
• langph
• merlin_ch
• michajoke
• ordins
• plasticuser
• polluks
• programandala.net
• rajesh
• ralf
• rwap
• sasounet
• schombi
• sinqlair
• sky4055
• stigd
• stuartm
• swensont
• tim99uk
• tofro
• tonyfirshman
• tordan
• twellys
• vanpeebles
• vperlik
• wl

Cheers,
Norm.

[RWAP]

I am glad to see all of this positive progress with regards the QL Wiki - a permanent home still needs to be found for it however - whilst the current placeholder is fine, it needs to be easier to find with a simpler url.

I also still have all of the microdrive cartridges relating to my abandoned software preservation project. To give an idea of how many cartridges we are talking about - Simone still has about 300 of my microdrive cartridges from the USA, and my box of loose cartridges weighs around 5KG I would guess.

These all need to be gone through so that there is a set of original software (rather than 100 copies of Quill etc) and the rest either re-formatted, or disposed of. I had offered these to Quanta along with the preservation folders on DropBox (as that is probably the best place for it), but have still not received any official offer for them. So feel free to contact me if anyone is interested in acquiring these.

I am still looking for someone to take on the Z88 Forums - http://www.z88world.com and the ZX80 / ZX81 forums - http://www.sinclairzxworld.com before the end of this year.

[XorA]

I had offered these to Quanta along with the preservation folders on DropBox (as that is probably the best place for it), but have still not received any official offer for them. So feel free to contact me if anyone is interested in acquiring these.

archive.org has special permissions for storing preserved software, might be worth one of the preservation team investigating. I have already (with Dilwyns's persmission) backed up the QL Homepage to there.

[NormanDunbar]

I cannot help you with the MD Cartridges Rich - I sent you my last microdrive drives many years ago when I removed them from all my QLs. You've probably sold them since then!


Cheers,
Norm.