A hosting problem

[77topaz]

Hello everyone, there's a problem with my website, Explorerbase, with which I need some help.
For some reason, Wikispaces (the host service for Explorerbase) is threatening to delete all wikis which are not "educational "or upgraded to a special premium account (i.e. for a relatively large amount of money), so I need to transfer the data from Explorerbase (http://explorerbase.wikispaces.com/) to a new host. Do you know of any better host services for this? I've managed to download all the data from the site as a single PDF, but, since there is quite a large number of individual pages on Explorerbase, is there any more efficient way to copy all the data from Explorerbase to a new website than just copy-pasting each individual page (and fixing all the links)?

 

[tjoneslo]

I would, with great hesitation, suggest (but not recommend) wikia. I know there are others, but all will suffer from either having advertising on your pages or require payment.

It looks like WikiSpaces is using mediawiki as a base for their wiki (like Wikia). If true, they should be able to provide you an export (an XML file) with all your data in it which you can load into another MediaWiki instance. You may have access to the option as the wiki administrator, or may need to contact Wikispaces support.

If you end up at a wiki host which does not use MediaWiki, or if Wikispaces isn't using MediaWiki, you will need to cut/paste the entries.

 

[77topaz]

I would, with great hesitation, suggest (but not recommend) wikia. I know there are others, but all will suffer from either having advertising on your pages or require payment.

It looks like WikiSpaces is using mediawiki as a base for their wiki (like Wikia). If true, they should be able to provide you an export (an XML file) with all your data in it which you can load into another MediaWiki instance. You may have access to the option as the wiki administrator, or may need to contact Wikispaces support.

If you end up at a wiki host which does not use MediaWiki, or if Wikispaces isn't using MediaWiki, you will need to cut/paste the entries.

I'm a bit dubious about Wikia, considering what happened with the Traveller Wiki there... :nonono:
Wikispaces seems to have three possible types of exports: a PDF of the wiki as a whole, and zip-folders of the individual pages in Chrome HTML and "WikiText" formats.

 

[77topaz]

Joshua Bell recommended Google Sites or WordPress to me. Google Sites would be directly tied to all my other Google-related accounts, so I'm not sure about that one. WordPress does seem like an interesting option, with a lot of free features, though obviously it doesn't use MediaWiki and I haven't quite figured out how the coding for WordPress works.

 

[tjoneslo]

Wordpress is a website creation platform, for creating websites and blogs. Creating a wiki using their software is possible, but there isn't any specific support for doing so. You'll end up creating a wiki-like set of web pages that only you, or a few people, can edit.

I've used Google sites for another project. Unless they've significantly upgraded it since I last looked at it, it is the most minimal implementation of "wiki" you can have.

The other site I hear about, but have never used is WikiDot. This is a full wiki, but doesn't use MediaWiki. They look like they have a full tech team and should be able to assist with the conversion process.

There are a few others listed on Wikipedia, but that list has gotten much shorter since I last looked at it.

Another option is to set up a Campaign section here on the Traveller Wiki.

 

[77topaz]

Wordpress is a website creation platform, for creating websites and blogs. Creating a wiki using their software is possible, but there isn't any specific support for doing so. You'll end up creating a wiki-like set of web pages that only you, or a few people, can edit.

I've used Google sites for another project. Unless they've significantly upgraded it since I last looked at it, it is the most minimal implementation of "wiki" you can have.

The other site I hear about, but have never used is WikiDot. This is a full wiki, but doesn't use MediaWiki. They look like they have a full tech team and should be able to assist with the conversion process.

There are a few others listed on Wikipedia, but that list has gotten much shorter since I last looked at it.

Another option is to set up a Campaign section here on the Traveller Wiki.

In the case of WordPress, only a few people being able to edit the pages themselves wouldn't be that big of a problem in this case, considering Explorerbase hosts the write-ups and sectors made by me, and one wouldn't want it to get vandalised, considering it is the source database for these sectors, which are used by the Traveller Map, the Traveller Wiki etc. The Wikispaces Explorerbase site is protected from editing by unregistered IPs as well.
And anyone could comment on the pages, of course.

WikiDot could be an useful possibility similar to Wikispaces. I'll have to look into that one.

I'm not sure if hosting Explorerbase on the Traveller Wiki itself would be a good idea, since some of the mainspace articles of the Traveller Wiki actually reference Explorerbase pages, and the site using itself as a reference/source would be a bit strange/tautological.