Date: 2008-08-14 00:15:00
wiki with a git backend

I was chatting with [info]teferi the other day:

<gregh> wikipedia needs a 'bisect' operation
<teferi> gregh: gitipedia :)
<gregh> oh, bah. you made me look.
<teferi> nah, it would be a great idea, though
<teferi> don't like what a page says? fork it!
<Nugget> heh
<teferi> an end to edit wars
<teferi> hm
<teferi> I should actually DO this.
<teferi> wiki backed by git repositories

And why not? After all, what is a source control system? It's a way of tracking revisions made by multiple collaborators to a set of text files representing source code. What is a wiki? It's a way of tracking revisions made by multiple collaborators to a set of text files representing web pages. Why do most of the wiki engines reimplement source control?

After a bit of searching, I found ikiwiki which looks like it might be exactly what we are looking for. By setting it up with an SCM as the storage backend, you can edit the wiki offline, or edit it using your favourite text editor, or use your SCM features like branch, merge, blame, etc. Must investigate further and set up an ikiwiki to try.

(anonymous) : git-wiki, et. al.
2008-08-13T13:13:27Z
There's also git-wiki (and associated forks):
http://github.com/sr/git-wiki/tree/master

and others, from a brief search of github.
[info]ghewgill : Re: git-wiki, et. al.
2008-08-13T19:35:12Z
I also found git-wiki but it didn't seem to be as mature as ikiwiki. It could also be worth a further look in any case.
(anonymous) : Re: git-wiki, et. al.
2008-08-14T12:52:58Z
Fair enough; I didn't look at them in detail, just played around with git-wiki. (But some of the forks (especially al3x's) seem better maintained. How mature they are I don't know.) I didn't use ikiwiki because it seemed a little too disconnected between the wiki and the RCS.

[info]teferi
2008-08-13T15:23:47Z
If it doesn't have a git backend, we should write one. I'll be around this evening (my time).
[info]ghewgill
2008-08-13T19:33:10Z
Oh, it does support git. That's the point. :)
Greg Hewgill <greg@hewgill.com>