CUNY Academic Commons

Hi Matt - I am confirming your suspicions - I couldn't get the plugin to work either, and had the same issue with it switching to wiki/ folder.

I checked the plugin's documentation at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-wiki/ and found some pretty scathing comments, including "low quality," "works really badly," "hesitant to try," used to work but now doesn't, screws up my pages, would not recommend...

We are currently using version 1.0 of the plugin. I know I always steered away from this plugin because it made the "WIKI INC" plugin not work.

Oy. I think we need to delete this plugin. Boone, do you agree? The sticky point is that we don't know who is using it (do we?). On the other hand, how can anyone be using it if it is so broken?

I used to use it and had no problems with it -- it worked very well.

Oy. Thanks for your work on this, Boone.

I ran some tests on my local machine, and the situation is not very good.

The plugin was recently upgraded to use custom post types for data storage. The problem is that the upgrade script included in the plugin does not appear to work correctly. I ran it on a blog where I knew that the plugin was in use, but it didn't properly move over any content to the new data type. Moveover, since the plugin was upgraded (many months ago, I think), the front-end editor wouldn't have worked anyway, unless users had manually run the upgrader (which no one appears to have done).

I browsed through the sites where the plugin is active, and none of them seem to have wiki pages in active use. So here is my suggestion for a solution: we simply remove the plugin. No content will be removed, because they are stored as regular WP pages/posts. Revision history will also be maintained. They just won't be editable in a wiki way anymore (from the front end).

We can research a different solution for wiki-type editing on WP blogs.

Feedback?

Thanks for your work on this, Boone. I do want to note that the fact none of the sites with the plugin activated seem to be using it is a symptom of the break-down of plugin functionality. I can tell you, for instance, that I had activated and used the plugin on at least one blog. Here, for example, is a post that used to use it: http://digitalword.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2009/06/05/june-5-planning-meeting-notes/ (a note about that blog -- the theme on it appears to have been changed with one of our site upgrades. I can't remember what it used to use, but I know it wasn't TwentyTen.). So, in this case, at least, the plugin was in active use until it stopped working.

For this reason, I think that it might be worth contacting bloggers using the plugin to tell them about the situation and our proposed resolution. As you note, posts that used to have wiki functionality are now just regular posts, so it doesn't appear that any data will be lost -- just functionality that doesn't work anyway. But I do think that we should give people a heads-up on this, and I also think that this is the kind of thing we really should note on the Dev blog.

What I meant by "none of them seem to have wiki pages in active use" is that none of the blogs using the plugin seem to have been updated in many months or even several years. On those blogs, it's unlikely that anyone has noticed, or will notice, that the pages are no longer editable in a wiki-like fashion.

Here is a draft of the language.

Dear Commons blogger,

We have recently discovered problems with one of the WordPress plugins that you have used on the CUNY Academic Commons. Called WordPress Wiki, the plugin allowed front-end editing of blog posts in a wiki-like fashion. The plugin is currently activated on your blog [url].

The WordPress Wiki plugin has recently stopped working properly, and the Commons Dev Team has decided that it will be removed from the site. Here's what this means for you.

No content will be lost. Existing wiki pages on your blog will retain their content, as well as their revision history. These pages will still be available for reading, through the same URLs as before. The only change is that they will no longer be editable through the front end; all editing, and all browsing of the revision history, must happen through your blog's Dashboard.

We're sorry for any inconvenience that this change might cause. In the upcoming months, we'll be researching ways to bring back this wiki-like functionality to WordPress blogs on the Commons. To keep up on news related to development on the CUNY Academic Commons, visit http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu.

Also, I don't really understand the point about the blog theme. The blog you linked to does not use Twenty Ten, but a theme called PrimePress. If there is a real problem with unexpected blog theme switching, please open a new ticket with details.

That's great, Boone. Thanks so much. Here's a slight re-draft to emphasize that the "stopped working properly" is not something that is our fault. Please feel free to re-edit. Man, we should have used BP Docs for this!! (though, actually, what we probably should have used is the "Documents" function here on Redmine)

Dear Commons blogger,

We have recently discovered problems with one of the WordPress plugins that you have used on the CUNY Academic Commons. Called WordPress Wiki, the plugin allowed front-end editing of blog posts in a wiki-like fashion. The plugin is currently activated on your blog [url].

The WordPress Wiki plugin no longer functions on current versions of WordPress, and its creators have halted development of it. Since the plugin isn't working and won't be updated, the Commons Development Team has decided to remove it from the site.

Here's what this means for you:

None of your content will be lost. Existing wiki pages on your blog will retain their content, as well as their revision history. These pages will still be available for reading, through the same URLs as before. The only change is that they will no longer be editable through the front end; all editing, and all browsing of the revision history, must happen through the Dashboard of your blog.

We're sorry for any inconvenience that this change might cause and we encourage you to get in touch if you and questions or concerns about this. In the upcoming months, we'll be researching ways to bring back this wiki-like functionality to WordPress blogs on the Commons. To keep up on news related to development on the CUNY Academic Commons, visit http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu.

okay -- let's forget the blog-theme switching thing. Maybe my memory on that is wrong.

The only problem with your changes is that they are not true. It doesn't really look like the plugin has been abandoned, or that it doesn't work on current WP versions. It's just that it's not very good.

Okay. So, then, let's leave your original note as is. I made some minor stylistic changes that you can feel free to take or leave.

Where do you want the email to come from? Do we have a Commons address? Seems funny to send it from my gmail address. Or perhaps I could send it as a private message through the Commons?

Yes, we have a Commons email account. Probably best to use that. Can you contact Sarah for the login credentials? Don't have time to look up password at the moment.

Awesome. Thank you.