WRC Wiki?

[ac3r]

I stumbled upon a post this morning from a UW grad student looking for information on all high rises built along the LRT line after 2010. Someone suggested they check here. I got to thinking, while this forum is a great resource as it is and provides a wonderful space for discussion, due to the forum format finding specific information about projects, infrastructure or the region itself it can be tricky to find information if you've got a thread with dozens or even hundreds of pages.

So I started thinking, would it be possible to put an install of MediaWiki on here that could allow us to provide up to date information on everything in the city from transit, buildings, parks, politics, recreation facilities and so on? All you really need is the MediaWiki software, PHP, some form of SQL database (not sure which versions) and an image thumbnailing plugin. It could allow for a nice way to disseminate information, provide photographs, citations and all sorts of detailed information on things here. It would make updating information on projects as it changes very straightforward. Perhaps it would need to be moderated for accuracy, but that would be easy enough.

[kalis0490]

Ive been building a map of all new high-highrises in kw if anyone wants to look at https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1...sp=sharing

[bgb_ca]

I stumbled upon a post this morning from a UW grad student looking for information on all high rises built along the LRT line after 2010. Someone suggested they check here. I got to thinking, while this forum is a great resource as it is and provides a wonderful space for discussion, due to the forum format finding specific information about projects, infrastructure or the region itself it can be tricky to find information if you've got a thread with dozens or even hundreds of pages.

So I started thinking, would it be possible to put an install of MediaWiki on here that could allow us to provide up to date information on everything in the city from transit, buildings, parks, politics, recreation facilities and so on? All you really need is the MediaWiki software, PHP, some form of SQL database (not sure which versions) and an image thumbnailing plugin. It could allow for a nice way to disseminate information, provide photographs, citations and all sorts of detailed information on things here. It would make updating information on projects as it changes very straightforward. Perhaps it would need to be moderated for accuracy, but that would be easy enough.

Well, if Spokes is onboard, I would be more then happy to help get this off the ground. (maybe a wiki.waterlooregionconnected.com site?). It's been a while, but I have set up that software once before.

[Spokes]

Ya I'm definitely on board. Send me a PM. I like the idea of setting up a subdomain.

Im just trying to picture what it would look like?

[ac3r]

There are various MediaWiki skins you can install. Though by default, it would just look like Wikipedia does but with your own logo of choice (I guess that would be the WR on the top left?) it would at least be branded WRC. Otherwise, I think the skins are just basic CSS so you could customize it to be as close to the website as possible if you were good with CSS.

[nms]

From the user side (since I know nothing about setting up a wiki) here are couple of thoughts:
1. A search function with the ability to input a street address (in the case of a development) would be the most useful. Including a map in the search function (similar to Google's "What's Here?" search option) would be useful if the street address is unknown (or perhaps is renumbered during development in cases where three or four street addresses become one).
2.Similarly if a map were an option, some sort of slider that allowed you to isolated time periods (ie all development post 2010) or to overlay other data (ie transit route changes over time).
3. To tie back to WRC, linking a particular article/subject back to the forum would allow a user to read background material on the various topics.

All this being said, I'm sure that the Region of Waterloo datasets might provide some data to fill in missing gaps.

[kalis0490]

I can help in the project  map and the development database as I have had past expertise and some data

[tomh009]

From the user side (since I know nothing about setting up a wiki) here are couple of thoughts:
1. A search function with the ability to input a street address (in the case of a development) would be the most useful. Including a map in the search function (similar to Google's "What's Here?" search option) would be useful if the street address is unknown (or perhaps is renumbered during development in cases where three or four street addresses become one).
2.Similarly if a map were an option, some sort of slider that allowed you to isolated time periods (ie all development post 2010) or to overlay other data (ie transit route changes over time). 
3. To tie back to WRC, linking a particular article/subject back to the forum would allow a user to read background material on the various topics.

All this being said, I'm sure that the Region of Waterloo datasets might provide some data to fill in missing gaps.

Those are nice functions but definitely beyond what a wiki can do (think of a wiki mostly as a collection of Word documents on a web site, with links between them -- it's really not very dynamic). Maybe there is some open-source software out there to do this -- or else someone would need to write some code for this.

[Spokes]

I stumbled upon a post this morning from a UW grad student looking for information on all high rises built along the LRT line after 2010. Someone suggested they check here. I got to thinking, while this forum is a great resource as it is and provides a wonderful space for discussion, due to the forum format finding specific information about projects, infrastructure or the region itself it can be tricky to find information if you've got a thread with dozens or even hundreds of pages.

So I started thinking, would it be possible to put an install of MediaWiki on here that could allow us to provide up to date information on everything in the city from transit, buildings, parks, politics, recreation facilities and so on? All you really need is the MediaWiki software, PHP, some form of SQL database (not sure which versions) and an image thumbnailing plugin. It could allow for a nice way to disseminate information, provide photographs, citations and all sorts of detailed information on things here. It would make updating information on projects as it changes very straightforward. Perhaps it would need to be moderated for accuracy, but that would be easy enough.

Well, if Spokes is onboard, I would be more then happy to help get this off the ground. (maybe a wiki.waterlooregionconnected.com site?). It's been a while, but I have set up that software once before.

I tried replying to you a couple of times before realizing you have Private messaging turned off.

[bgb_ca]

Well, if Spokes is onboard, I would be more then happy to help get this off the ground. (maybe a wiki.waterlooregionconnected.com site?). It's been a while, but I have set up that software once before.

I tried replying to you a couple of times before realizing you have Private messaging turned off.

Ugh. Let me fix that

edit: Should be enabled now. Didn't even know there was an option to turn them off