My latest little experiment

[the_pm]

Understanding that in the future a move to vB may be imminent, I'm nevertheless embarking on a little journey. I will be installing a second phpBB and skinning it down to its absolute barest components. Observe how the remaining bits come together:

1. Forums = Article Categories - there will be no descriptions, no icons, just words that denote a category, and a number next to each category that states the number of articles contained within each one.

2. Threads = Articles - core IWDN members will be able to write and publish articles within each category. They will contain nothing more than the submitters' names and article titles. Again, no icons.

3. Posts = Comments - all other registered visitors will be able to comment on articles. Core members will be able to respond, and will be able to edit/update article as well.

4. The articles database and the forums database will tie in to the same user tables, meaning one username will get you privileges in both areas, and they will share a session ID, so you don't have to continuously login everytime you switch between them.

And that's it. There will be a search feature, and maybe another little bit of functionality or two, but that's it. This is as much a learning exercise for me as anything, given the learning curve necessary to create something like this from the ground up. If you have any thoughts or comments on this little scheme of mine, please do speak up. But I think it will work, and if it does, I'll pass it along to phpBB and make it available for others as well.

[Jamie]

Sounds good Paul. I look forward to it. :)

[the_pm]

Thank you Jamie. And now that you're awake for the day in foggy England, it's time for me to turn in. 'night 'night!

[Pauly]

Sounds good Paul, good luck :)

[BigBison]

3. Posts = Comments - all other registered visitors will be able to comment on articles. Core members will be able to respond, and will be able to edit/update article as well.

Don't misinterpret this as pulling against your success, as I do wish you luck with this project and it will be interesting to see if:

A: You succeed, or:

B: You'll run smack-dab into the problems which led to my decision to develop a ground-up solution.

You may also run smack-dab into the problems which led to the creation of wiki software.

The problem, IMNSHO, with phpBB and most everything else out there, is they were developed with far too rigid focus. I've stated many times, that this is why forum software grafted onto a CMS exists but nobody can point to a successful forum using such a solution, for instance. Making a forum function like a wiki or vice-versa is likely to be a less-than-satisfying boondoggle, spoken from experience here.

Having several moderators with privileges to edit forum posts is of course typical. However, the software was designed with the mindset that such an edit would be rare, if not a one-time event. How many forum posts have you seen which were edited more than once by a moderator? Rare. Since that's a safe assumption, how then do we handle the problem of two moderators simultaneously editing a post?

We don't. (I'm not familiar with phpBB -- for the last time!) Forum software tends to "lock" the file for editing as soon as one person has begun editing. Now, picture a large article that I want to edit. Do you really want to lock the article to everyone else for the half-hour that might take me? No. This is another reason why wikis are designed to accept edits in a completely different way than forums.

Of course, now you have the additional problem of what happens when edits are submitted simultaneously, which not all wikis even know how to deal with properly. In addition to the obvious uses, this is another reason why there's a "history" functionality included in any wiki worth its salt. You have to be able to roll back edits. Again, not an issue with forum software, is it?

Now for the big problem! By combining wiki functionality for some with forum functionality for others, you will have one document with two sets of permissions. Thus began my latest CMS project. :)

This is why some wiki pages have a "tab" labeled "discussion" linking to a forum-like thread discussing the article. This is also presumably why point 4 in your OP is in boldface. ;)

[the_pm]

Good questions all, Eric. I think the answer is to try it and see what happens - experiment with putting a page in Edit and seeing what happens to posts in the meanwhile. My experience leads me to believe the DB collects the replies and allows the edits to the post as separate functions. But if not, it wouldn't kill an article to lock out commenting while it's being edited, as this would make it so that someone making comments would be doing so in light of the updated article.

Dunno...it's all just an experiment after all...one in which I have no idea what I'm doing. Hopefully I'll learn along the way :)

[BigBison]

Which is what I'm hoping for, then you can contribute to my project because you'll understand exactly what I'm driving at.

Your experiment could very well succeed, my point is you're unlikely to be happy with it if it does, or else it might only work for small projects and crack under high user loads. Prove me wrong! I won't mind.

[BigBison]

It also would help both of us to not lose sight of the fact that Mambo and TikiWiki (amongst others) already do all of this, and more. What scares me about those, are their sizes! Plus, like Mambo's forum module, no one can point me to a decent example of a forum implemented with TikiWiki, either.

[the_pm]

:ot: One day I'm going to research the source from which all of these names are derived.

God willing, we'll have the chance to test high user loads! I'm getting to know phpBB reasonably well - I can even piece together what it's doing in its PHP scripted pages (though I doubt I could write/modify my own code at this point). I'll keep tabs on what's happening, and I'll share any information that might be useful for you and anyone else!