Mass Networking Wiki Upgrade

Suggestions and ideas for the Mass Networking Wiki upgrade.

= New features by default in the new version =

Upgrading Mediawiki will provide new features to enhance our Mass Networking Wiki. The biggest advantage is that there's many useful extensions for the latest version, that can be installed after the upgrade.

The actual configuration can also be changed to allow members to monitor the Mass Network wiki by e-mail:
 * Allow users to receive an e-mail whenever a watched page is changed
 * Allow users to receive an e-mail whenever their talk page is changed
 * Allow users to send e-mails to other users using Mediawiki online form Special:Emailuser/Username
 * Allow uploads with this file formats:
 * png, gif, jpg, jpeg, mid, ogg, ogv, oga, svg, tif, tiff, odt, ods, odp, html, css, js,
 * mp3, pdf, swf, fla, flv, xml
 * zip (We can upload anything inside a .zip),
 * doc, xls, ppt

= New features implemented through extensions =

Here are some proposals that were tested in Mediawiki 1.15.1. Ask me (Osvaldo) if you need a bundle with all the required extensions. I just have to create a zip from one of my websites.

Inserting RSS feeds in pages
With this feature it will be possible to insert in our wiki pages lists of pages point too:
 * Sections from the Greenpeace websites (news, blogs, podcast...)
 * Google News searches
 * Blog searches
 * Twitter searches
 * Twitter accounts
 * Blogs
 * Flicker accounts, groups, searches
 * Any Friendfeed content (Content from almost any social network)
 * Shared items in Google Reader

Extension: RSS (Used in Wikia)

A good tool bar
Experient Mediawiki users know wiki-syntax from memory. A good tool bar helps users that are not so familiar with Mediawiki syntax. It also can preform some useful tasks like converting html to wiki-syntax.

OPT1 - Extension: Gadgets and wikiEd gadget. Toolbar is optional for logged users - each user selects it in it's preferences page. (Used in Wikipedia)

OPT2 - Sitewide: wikiEd will be available to all users. No extension is necessary.

Graphics
It will be possible to generate graphics trough Mediawiki:


 * Bar
 * Line
 * Pie
 * Scatter
 * Radar
 * Bubble

Extension: pchart4mw

Collaborative maps
It will be possible to insert maps on pages and people can collaborate on them.

Extension: Google Maps (Used in Wikia)

Inserting videos on pages
It will be possible to insert videos from Youtube and many other video sites. It will also be possible to upload video (.ogv format) or use .flv videos hosted in the wiki or other sites.

Extension: Widgets (Used in Apropedia and Second Life Wiki) Extension2: Ogg handler (Used in Wikipedia) Extension3: An FLV player?

Widgets
The widgets extension will allow you to add the MN pages many widgets. Administrators can choose which widgets to add. Security and functionality should be considered before adding the possibility to use a new widget.

It's also possible to build new widgets easily.

Examples of widgets:
 * All Google Gadgets
 * Google Street View
 * Google Calendar
 * Google Books
 * Google Documents
 * Spreadsheet
 * Spreadsheet form
 * Presentation
 * Picasa photo album widget
 * All Widgetbox
 * Flickr Search widget
 * Flickr Slideshow widget
 * SurveyMonkey widget
 * Ohloh.net widgets:
 * LinkedIn profile and company
 * SlideShare slideshow
 * Scribd
 * Wikipedia article embedding widget

Extension: Widgets (Used in Apropedia and Second Life Wiki)

Dynamic page lists
It allows you to insert in the MNW pages scripts that generate lists of other pages. Useful to organize the wiki.

Extension: Dynamic Page List (Used in Wikimedia Wikinews)

Semantic MediaWiki extensions
A bundle of cool extensions which make the wiki work more like a database engine. See http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki

LDAP integration
No more special logins. And no more timing out of login sessions after 30 minutes or so aaaaaargh! :-)

= Redesign =


 * Redesign of the main page  (Done) 
 * Redesign of the Mass Networking category  (Done) 
 * Help pages with examples that you can copy-paste

= Timeline =