Difficulties using the forums and the wiki

[freemab]

I have been reading through the forums, getting increasingly frustrated by the difficulty in finding information I'm seeking. There is so much out there that it's hard to find specifically what I want. I have no doubt whatsoever that much of my frustration stems from my own inexperience with these, but that knowledge doesn't alleviate my frustration one whit.

In fact, I find I can find what interests me more easily through a Google search (i.e., with "site:diybookscanner.org" in the Google search box) than by searching through the search function on the website.

However, I am somewhat interested in creating wiki pages to bring more of this info together under relevant topics. To my surprise, I cannot even begin to do this. The wiki does not recognize my login, and I can't even find a way to create a login. Clicking "login" or selecting "Special Pages" > "Login / Create Account" takes one to a login page which bounces the ID I use on the forum and doesn't give me any means of creating an account.

So, am I doing something wrong?

[daniel_reetz]

No, you're not. The forum search sucks - as you mention, it's easier to find stuff via the Google Site Search. This is an inherent problem with PHPBB, the software we use for the boards. If anyone has the requisite skills to fix it, I would happily let them do so.

As for the wiki, we have a half-dozen Wiki administrators, who are operating more-or-less independently. A while back the registration link was disabled. I'm going to make you an account, and spend a little time trying to get that to work again.

Basically, we are all stretched thin and although many people offer to consolidate the forums (which are an ongoing discussion) into the wiki (which is a living document) the reality is that there is not much motivation to do it.

I am aware of how rough it can be and I am interested in suggestions on how to fix it - but for them to work, I feel they have to be less effort than the current system, and they can't rely only on my effort, or the effort of just a few people - we have to find a way to distribute the effort.

[daniel_reetz]

I tried to make account registration public again by setting the "$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;" flag in localsettings.php, but I'm not having much luck getting it to work. Does anyone else have any advice on this?

Edit: try this link http://diybookscanner.org/wiki/index.ph ... ype=signup

[daniel_reetz]

Here's my short fix-list. If anyone can help me with these things I would be extremely grateful.

1. Replace the PHPBB search with Google site-specific search.
2. Fix the wiki registration once and for all.

[Anonymous2]

Are you saying that in your current code, you have this line?

Code: Select all

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;

If so, why not make it true instead of false?

[freemab]

A Google search on using Google searches on a website resulted in the following, which appear interesting:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_can_i_ ... _site.html
http://www.google.com/sitesearch/
http://www.google.com/cse/

I know nothing about the log-in problem, but this showed up on a Google search of "$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;"
http://www.cs.umd.edu/faq/wiki/ (Search "false" on the page to find the relevant text.)
This seems to say the same thing:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Preventing_access (Again, search "false" on the page to find the relevant text.)
...and there are many more such listings, none of which I've taken the time to comprehend...