ASSESSING ZTWIKI USEFULNESS
===========================

Launched few years ago, ZTWiki initial goals was to serve as a commonly managed repository of FAQs, tips, tricks, documentation, files, and archives of defunct websites (namely rpVT).

At the time of inception, TikiWiki engine (www.tikiwiki.org) was considered to be the best platform available to fill that purpose. Unfortunately, it turned to be a technology at beta stage in many ways (and still is), resulting in cumbersome, and sometime buggy, editing process. Upgrading to newer versions of TikiWiki did little to improve, and resulted, most of the time, in slower display and upgrade glitches (might as well be caused by poor webhosting and upgrading processes).

I underestimated greatly the technical intricacies and time required to correctly configure and maintain a TikiWiki website on a regular basis. I must, once again, apologize for my lack of commitment over the years in my own initiative, essentially caused by drastic changes in my professional and personal life that occurred in the last three years. Ian kindly took over some ZTWiki management tasks in recent years, as I focused my attention to other urgent matters, but none of us really embraced the full responsability of managing and keeping alive the ZTWiki as we would like to. Simply said, we had little time and technical capabilities to manage a TikiWiki engine. (Thanks Ian BTW).

While I still believe ZTWiki has a potential role for the ZTree community, it is now time to reassess its design and purpose. The truth is that little contributions have been made in last months / years and most users still find our excellent ZTree forum to be the most effective and efficient place to find information.

Now, another imperative is coming on its way. My webhosting provider, NoMonthlyFees, recently changed drastically its offer. To my dismay, renewal fees are this year much higher. I already started moving my other websites elsewhere. Before next August 11, I must decide what to do with ZTWiki account: renew it, cancel it or move it.

ISSUES
=====

There are four issues to consider:

Wiki platform: Is TikiWiki still the best engine for common contribution? Will a move to another webhosting provider improves performance if we keep TikiWiki? Looking for alternatives, I played a bit recently with MediaWiki (www.mediawiki.org, used by Wikipedia). Its potential is high and the engine much cleaner and faster, but tweaks and management are still highly complex and demanding. Does somebody know an easier Wiki engine?

Domain: Is it necessary to host ZTWiki on its own domain? The rational behind having an independent top-level domain name was to avoid dependency from an individual website. Registration of ZTwiki was affordable to me in the first years, but I now question the value of my yearly investment. Would a subdomain serve the same purpose? I can host ZTWiki under one of my own personal websites for free, but it would goes again the initial rational of independency. However, it is easy to do and I am willing to do it. Hosting ZTWiki directly under www.ztw3.com (forum) or www.zedtek.com are other alternatives that would makes sense, but they are bounded to Victor and Kim’s own willingness, as well as their technological and time resources.

Content: Is Wiki-style contribution a necessity?. When I see all the awesome pieces of information collected and managed on ZEST and ZEN static pages by single individuals in a much more efficient way, I must question the efficiency of wiki-style contributions. Perhaps people would contribute more with blog-like individual posts? Or not? (considering it duplicates posts on forum.). Other website engines such as Joomla (www.joomla.org) or Wordpress are faster, friendlier and MUCH easier to maintain (at least for me, as I know Joomla much more), but lacks native wiki-style collaborative contribution. Still, I consider them to be valid options. Joomla technology natively allows any registered user to contributes articles in a much easier way, as no hybrid and ever-changing wiki syntax is required (Joomla uses only HTML), but again, not easily in a wiki-style (no native multiple contributors without editorial reviews and log history of past changes).

Goals: Are the FAQ/Tutorials/tips/etc. still an objective to achieve? The truth is that most ZTree users are already highly knowledgeable of ZTree configuration and use. Needed information can now be easily retrieved from previous posts on the ZTforum, thanks to Victor’s excellent Search engine improvement. Apart the wishlist page, ZTWiki is mostly an incomplete bunch of static pages of technical documentation and files. FAQs and Help are already well-maintained by Kim and John . Tutorials never seemed to be a real necessity. Tips and tricks are shared more efficiently on the forum. And the idea of sharing ZAM/F9 libraries never took off. Therefore, what is ZTWiki *real* usefulness? Would a small, leaner and static website a better alternative?

OPTIONS
=======

Here are my two options at present:

A) Keep TikiWiki the way it is now, move it to another host and try to fix it whenever I have time (or leave it to another more technologically savvy ZTree user (any volunteer?))

B) Hand-migrating TikiWiki content to Joomla technology and move it to another host.

In both cases, I presently consider hosting it under one of my own website (subdomain rather than top-level) for free, essentially for financial considerations, but other options are welcomed.

I do not have other options at present but I started this thread hoping that more options will come out from the discussion.

WHATEVER we choose, NO CONTRIBUTIONS, PAGES or FILES will be lost. All information will be kept and left available to public in some way or another. As a matter of fact, a backup of ZTWiki has been made recently and I even archived a copy of Tom Foote’s ZEST page just in case (his fate is still unknown to us since his brain operation (any news???))

Any idea? input? suggestion?

What’s best for ZTree community?

Comments welcomed.