We (some native languages advocates) want to install a wiki family on AWS EC2 free tier, with languages subdomains (eg en.ourwiki.org, es.ourwiki.org, etc), up to six subdomains, plus a Commons.
The wiki engine we want is Mediawiki, to be installed exactly like Wikisource.org, with it’s core extensions like ProofreadPage, PDF handler, DjVu etc all present.
We had wanted to use a shared hosting but some of the vital Wikisource extensions required specific softwares upload to function, which shared hosting do not permit. We could not afford a dedicated server. We don’t have the technical knowhow to get it up and running either.
We need these wikis so that we could make public domain books available in African languages through collaborative translations by native speakers. Most African languages do not have enough digital materials to encourage reading and writing in them. We hope to tackle this by providing a platform where speakers of these languages can collaborate to produce popular classics in their languages.
We already have a domain name. We want to start with the following languages: Yoruba(yo.ourwiki.org), Akan(ak.ourwiki.com), Zulu(zu.ourwiki.org), Edo (bin.ourwiki.org), Hausa (ha.ourwiki.org) and Igbo(ig.ourwiki.org). We might have to rely on Wikimedia Commons for localising books to these subdomains, rather than install a separate Commons. So the installation will have to take this into account.
(NOTE: ourwiki.org is not the domain name we possess)
We appreciate your help and time.
You can reach us on olunewdex@gmail.com. Thank you.
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Gesteve
OK, many thanks.
duncanhive
Hi there! Just to point out, AWS free tier is unfortunately only free for 12 months. Do you have the funds to host the wikis after the 12 months has expired?
Thanks,
Duncan
Gesteve
Hello, Duncanhive!
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I know it is free for the first 12 months. We should be able to purchase and move to a dedicated server by November (black Friday sales). That is the plan, but we need to start now.
Can you help set this up?
Again, thank you!
Gesteve
Hello, Duncamhive!
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I know it is free for the first 12 months. We should be able to purchase and move to a dedicated server by November (black Friday sales). That is the plan, but we need to start now.
Can you help set this up?
Again, thank you!
duncanhive
Hi there,
Firstly, your goals with this project sound very good. What age people are you aiming this at? Is it school kids, adults? I’d love to hear more.
In terms of the products, to be honest it’s not something that I’ve ever tried to set up before, but I’d be more than happy to give it a go – that’s pretty much what my day job consists of! I would run through this on my local machine first before needing any AWS account setting up, but once I had a good enough idea of what is involved, I would ask you to set up an AWS account and share the login details with me, and to share details of your DNS provider that you registered your domain name with, but as I say there’s no need to do this straight away.
What I would need from you upon starting work is a full list of the plugins that you would require installing – I know that you have mentioned some but I don’t know if this is the full list or not.
It seems like you have a really good idea of how to use this product and also how to use Commons as well, so once I had some instances set up for each language, I would probably hand over to you to do the administration of the wikis, if that is OK?
In terms of timescales, it doesn’t sound like this would take too long to set up, but I’ll be doing it in my spare time, so if you don’t have a tight deadline for this then that should be fine 🙂
Many thanks,
Duncan
Gesteve
Thanks for offering to help! Thank you very much!
To answer your question about the age group we are aiming at – mostly literate, internet-savvy people, with internet-enabled devices (17 or 18 and above, really). We would be translating books for kids too.
The list of extensions needed for the wikis:
1. ProofRead Page, the main extension (https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Proofread_Page)
2. A native DjVu handler, DjVulibre (https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:How_to_use_DjVu_with_MediaWiki).
3. All the extensions listed under the “Requirements and Recommendations” of ProofRead Page link in (1) above: LabeledSectionTransclusion, Poem, Cite, PdfHandler, PagedTiffHandler and ParserFunctions.
4. If it’s possible to install and integrate the Translate extension with ProofRead Page, then Translate extension ( https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate).
5. We would want to have no more than 6 wikis for a start, comprising the main English wiki (ourwiki.org, through which the sub domains would be listed and accessed, in addition to serving languages without dedicated wikis), 4 languages sub domains (yo.ourwiki.org, ig.ourwiki.org, ak.ourwiki.org and ha.ourwiki.org) and a commons (commons.ourwiki.org). We don’t want to have too much on our plates for a start. A single login details by a user to be able to access all the wikis will be great (for multilingual users).
Yes, once the installations are done, I will be able to take on the administration of the wikis just fine.
This will run completely at your own timing and convenience. We appreciate your time! I’ll be ready to set up the AWS account and provide DNS info of registered domain whenever you request them.
Thanks!
Kolade.
Duncan Watson
OK no problem! I have a presentation to prepare for for Tuesday but after that I will focus on this in my spare time. Hopefully it won’t be too tricky to set up!
I will bid to join this project now.
Thanks,
Duncan