proxy70

From: "Tom Copley" <tcopley@sonic.net>
To: <gopher@complete.org>
Subject: [gopher] Re: basic newb info
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 14:04:18 -0700
Message-ID: <DHEDIDHLDBLKCEGLCNLGGEILDBAA.tcopley@sonic.net>
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> Just following up on this -- has anyone out there set up a Gopher wiki,
> or should I go ahead and do so?

John, I want to contribute to a gopher wiki.  In fact I was going to lay 
out around 100 Euros to a Dutch gentleman who agreed to host a mediawiki
on his server for a year.  For further info about mediawiki, see

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

There was some debate on this list about how best to implement a wiki.  
Some people thought it meant using a gopher-based wiki.  
This could turn out to be a serious programming task. 

I remember you suggested using TikiWiki. There were kind offers 
from one or two others who were willing to set up wiki programs.  
Of course someone, somehow needs to let the other shoe drop.

I just want to dust off my old content from the 1994 Gopher-it
Workshop and see if I can't bring some of it back to life.  
There are many people who still LOVE gopher and long for those good 
ol' text-ty pre-WWW-days.

There may be excellent untapped value in gopher.  For example,
Rich Roberts points out the potentially superior accessibility of
gopher.  He sez "it all seems so much cleaner...screen readers love 
it,..text is easily magnified /contrasted etc."

He posts "[Gopher is] an ordered, text based interface, so screen 
readers will find it easier to parse then a cluttered web page, even when 
viewed through Lynx.  As to contrast, and magnification, a text only 
interface copes much more gracefully with this sort of shenanigans 
than a page full of flash"

This is a great insight from Rich, and one I'd love to shout from the 
rooftops if anyone is listening.

It doesn't matter to me how the job gets done.  If you are willing to
set up a TikiWiki, MediaWiki or GopherWiki, I'd be thrilled and will 
definitely become a contributor to it.

Tom
tcopley@sonic.net