I have a very popular site that consists entirely of Ani DiFranco lyrics. I’ve been maintaining this site since 1996. People send me lyrics corrections; i adjust the lyrics, etc. Each page is a simple HTML page. This is sooo the ideal case for a wiki. Only, the idea of converting everything to Wiki format, getting rid of all basic HTML and losing all of my URL addresses does not appeal to me. Right now, an ideal tool would let me list all HTML pages that should be converted into a Wiki and it would retain everything that it knows about the page while simultaneously wiki-ifying it and not losing the pages and thus pagerank.
Why not use my editthispagephp.sourceforge.net — all you need to do is install a single include file, and then install a “stub” for each file you want to have user editable. Then just page in your HTML from your old pages.
To keep your old file names, you may need to coerce your apache into running PHP on HTML files first, then you can use .html rather then .php. If want more details on how I did this on my apache server, let me know.
BTW, EditThisPagePHP also optionally supports RSS, comments, and trackbacks.
Some mod-rewrite voodoo in your .htaccess file should take care of your URLs, if your Wiki is worth its salt. (Yes, I’m pretty sure that sentence was English.)
Why don’t you ask your readers to transfer the site step by step to the wiki? This might be the easiest and fastest way.
Why don’t you ask your readers to transfer the site step by step to the wiki? This might be the easiest and fastest way.
There’s a Perl HTML to Wiki converter on CPAN:
http://search.cpan.org/~diberri/HTML-WikiConverter-0.17/
Just be sure to keep a backup non-wiki, in case spammers replace some lyrics with various unsavory URLs.
I’ve a friend who read your site everyday single day during her last breakup. I remember trying to cook dinner at her house one night and every 15 minutes she called me over to read me more lyrics that she thought said what she felt.
I’ve other friends who don’t read the site so often, but simply love it.
I think they’d all love the chance to do some input, if the input method was easy. I’m not sure what Wiki you’re thinking of, but most would be way over the head of many of my friends. The friend I mention above only recently learned how to copy and paste text.
Lawrence – most of my Ani readers email me with corrections (which i always look into, even if it takes me a month). There are about 8 people who do high-end corrections, send me new lyrics and are uber uber helpful in keeping that site accurate. It’d be more for them and anyone who would want to learn. But i’d still take on emails. Still thinking about how to do it best…
Create redirects for the old HTML URLs to their new wiki versions, see:
http://wsabstract.com/howto/htaccess7.shtml
Re-directs are one of the easist ways to cut down 404s. Old URLs are preserved, requests from them are transparently bopped to the new address, and decent robots are able to communicate the change.
A less elegant way would be to first make a backup copy of all your old HTML files, and edit each one to contains a simple “this page as been moved to a cool new wiki” and use a META REFRESH tag to bounce to the new URL.
does ani want to submit some poetry to our magazine in nyc? we are going to have an arts magazine titled sousavaillence put out. it would be a special edition of gathering of the tribes
I sent you an email about a similar event at union square and if you find it interesting, please post it.
stef
NeuroWiki, Really.
NeuroWiki is yet another example of how wikis are transforming how humans collaborate and share information. Wikis are being used for everything, including: music, gmail, business and education. While wikipedia is perhaps the best public example of the…
NeuroWiki
NeuroWiki is yet another example of how wikis are transforming how humans collaborate and share information. Wikis are being used for everything, including: music, gmail, business and education. While wikipedia is perhaps the best public example of the…
NeuroWiki, Really.
NeuroWiki is yet another example of how wikis are transforming how humans collaborate and share information. Wikis are being used for everything, including: music, gmail, business and education. While wikipedia is perhaps the best public example of the…