More stupid Rocknerd breakage.

[reddragdiva]

There have been two stories on Rocknerd since the John Peel one ... but they don't seem to show up when you aren't logged in.

*headdesk*

How feasible would it be to pour the data out of Slash and into a CMS that doesn't suck as much? At least as a static copy. I know blarglefiend despises Slash with every fibre of his being that bothers remembering, and I deeply regret ever pushing Slash as a solution. Mind you, Zope was worse.

(Possibly with a new domain name owned by someone other than Ben Butler, who has been AWOL for a coupla years.)

(Note that the question is not "what CMS has a pretty skin and a whiz-bang interface" but "what CMS has a backend that's not shit and as a bonus could meaningfully use data from Slash?")

Comments

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

You could try YAWNS - a lightweight Slash clone which I wrote for ukfetish.info and which skx forked for debian-administration.org (use his version (http://www.debian-administration.org/Code/), it's shinier).

[reddragdiva]

Yes, I remember you mentioning that last time I asked ;-) The BIG question is if anything can be done with the current data other than locking it as a static copy somewhere.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Should be easy enough to get the articles from one db schema to another, I would have thought... I'd be willing to try to help write a Perl script to do it.

[reddragdiva]

We'll see what Matt thinks. Slash appears to be tentacles all the way down.

I'm increasingly realising the truth of Brooks' assertion that the schema is all. "Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious." Jeremy Nixon is fiddling with home-rolled photo gallery software, and is starting with the schema — because if that's right, then the rest really is a SMOP: smart data structures allow simple code.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I have contributed code to Slash in the past, although not for some time... it doesn't scare me, tentacles or no :)

It's interesting seeing the different approaches that are emerging for web devel frameworks lately, with some taking the data as their lead... I quite like the concept, but it seems to be coupled with a lack of flexilibity in other areas so far.

[reddragdiva]

As the problem becomes better-understood, people have a much better idea what to put into the schema. Gallery 1.x to Gallery 2.x was mostly because their original schema was inadequate, for example.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

You could use WordPress, I suppose, if you don't mind it looking like a blog. It seems to be fairly un-baroque.

Also, I've heard good things about Bricolage. The Register use that, apparently, and have had a good experience with it.

Do WikiMedia have any CMS-ish software/plug-ins/add-ons?

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

...there are CMSs that don't suck?

[reddragdiva]

... as much. Edited.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Extracting articles should be simple enough, it's just mysql. Where it would get hairy would be if you want to retain all the comments and journals. I had previously raised the idea of migrating away from Slash and that extra stuff was the big objection.

My problem with Slash isn't that it's tentacular, it's that there wasn't anything remotely resembling a "stable" release (maybe there has been since I was last following the slash lists) and the update process is kinda-sorta OK if you track the bleeding edge but if you leave it for a while it's a right pain in the arse.

And yeah, guess it'll need a new domain. Ben seems to be uncontactable (short of someone sending the boys 'round) and while I control the nameservers it doesn't help with that whole "the domain is about to expire and Ben doesn't care" problem.

Dunno about less-painful CMSes thoough. Everything I've been doing of late has just used a wiki.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I've got a host in Canadia we could use for it, if you want. Hasn't crapped out on me in the six or so months I've been using it, unlike whatever it is you're using for reddragdiva.co.uk.

[reddragdiva]

"unlike whatever it is you're using for reddragdiva.co.uk."

*headdesk 2*

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I'd like to put in a word for DreamHost if you want personal hosting at good rates and with geek-friendly features and service. You don't get root but you get just about everything else, up to and including a dropdown for "experience level" on the support request form that has an option for "Honestly, I know more about this than you." And if you send in a support request that consists of "apt-get install libperl-foo-bar libperl-baz-quux" the usual response is "done!" within 24 hours. Though I only do that for things that are recalcitrant as installing as CPAN modules under my $HOME, like Apache-related stuff, or whatever.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm paying $19.95 US/month for more than I could ever need in the way of domain hosting, mysql, bandwidth, disk space, etc. Downtime has been negligable.

Use this link (http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?67174) or tell them that skud@infotrope.net sent you and I'll get a small referral bonus ;)

[reddragdiva]

The problem would be finding something conceptually compatible - where the meaning of items in Slash's schema translates 1-1 enough to the meaning of items in the other schema. Not sure what to do with the journals - I always thought blogging was really bolted on the side. And as for URL stability ...

I have contemplated an Australian rock wiki ;-) Not sure I'd bother at present, my volunteer energies are soaked up in Wikipedia at present. The dickheads flock to a non-technical wiki in a remarkably rapid timeframe.

[heliumbreath.livejournal.com]

You did at least finally somehow manage to get the NS records changed. I did a WHOIS just now wondering if I'd see the name of the server whose carcass is in a pile in my back hallway one last time, but no such luck. Hopefully "the boys" didn't have to exert too much pressure.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

I convinced the registry that I had control over at least one of the name servers so they changed it for me.

So no, got no help from Ben at all. On the one hand, it's nice we were able to work around him, on the other it's pretty clear it'd be easy to hijack.

[reddragdiva]

That would be Wrong, of course.

It's nice to know he's alive and well, but jeez, what's wrong with answering the fundamental question of "wtf dude".

[juliann.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know how long ago you used Zope, but that means you know how to upgrade mine, busted! :) I have my wiki and podcasts all running on Plone which runs on Zope and have no complaints other than the sheer lack of documentation of everything. But they are small sites generally so I have no experience with larger ones. Scuttlebutt amongst my friends recommends Xoops as a popular flavour of late but bah what do they know! :)

[reddragdiva]

I plead ignorance, I never administered it ;-p I just found it to be crashy shite. With bad or absent documentation.

[juliann.livejournal.com]

Well there are huge differences between zopes 1, 2 and 3. I'm about to upgrade to 2.9 or 2.10 which both incorporate most of the features of 3. Gotta love open-source numbers. ;) So one may be more suited to whatever your needs than others. As I said my sites are small but NASA is running plone+zope for their mars rover images site so I know it's fairly robust now but two years ago it was not so good. Neither Plone nor Zope have crashed on me in the year and a half I have been running them. I use plone because it's the only 100% accessible cms and as I'm running a site about chronic illness it would look atrocious if my site wasn't accessible. So alas I don't have any experience with other cms except from the user perspective. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Ben

[maxcelcat]

Ben Butler is still floating around this town somewhere... I'll ask around... Get him to hand over the domain registration.

Also had good experiences with wordpress, especially in its current iteration. It's used to good effect on places like Left Writes and indeed my site (when I finish tweaking it).

An Aussie Music Wiki would be great! Let me know if you want a hand setting it up. Will also get the infamous Ms. 45 involved.

Re: Ben

[reddragdiva]

If you could just get Ben to answer his email, that would be nice ...

I'm sure Ms. 45 would be right in there.