Question about online encyclopedias

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Ferra
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Question about online encyclopedias

Post by Ferra »

Firstly, if I may welcome myself to your community, I am a business owner (former coder). I've been greatly disappointed by the "expert" advice offered by so-called gurus and thus I've taken an active approach to truly understand the tech-side of my company, so I apologize if my questions are rudimentary and ask that you graciously bare with me (I'm a very quick learner).

I have a copious amount of information from decades of research that I need placed onto the internet in the form of an online encyclopedia accessible by anyone at very high speeds, under heavy traffic with supreme reliability. From my own personal research, a MySQL database scripted by PHP on a dedicated Linux server is my best option (using Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia as reliable examples). This much I know.

The following is what I don't know. I'm presented with three options:

(a) have a developer write a custom, light-weight PHP script that does exactly what I need
(b) use the proven MediaWiki, the PHP-based software powering Wikipedia
(c) use some other off-the-shelf PHP-written program

I've gotten nothing but conflicting advice. I know that I want to use MySQL and I'm confident with PHP's capabilities. What does PHPDN recommend for me?
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s.dot
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Post by s.dot »

Given that you need reliability, custom made code or off-the-shelf (as you put it) code, may "break", wilt under stress from traffic, or need tweaked.

In the end it's your choice, but I would go with the proven solutions.
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
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califdon
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Post by califdon »

Sure, I agree with scottay. If your goal is to get the encyclopedia up and running efficiently and reliably, use proven software, even if you need to make small compromises in form or utility. If you want to learn MySQL and PHP, that's fine, but don't do it by committing to a critical project. Hiring a truly competent developer wouldn't be inexpensive and you would have to make judgments about who is qualified to deliver the product that you want. You might want to consider a hybrid approach: hire an experienced developer who already knows the available software market, just for his help in selecting and installing the software, but not to build an application from scratch.
Ferra
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Post by Ferra »

Can you recommend some proven solutions?
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

mediawiki has been well broken in, it's pretty reliable and is available on many hosts as a "one click install"

If you're not satisfied with it you can always hire a developer from there
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