On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 06:22:57PM -0500, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> 
> We should have a design that looks as good as the genocide content.
> And people who know how to maintain the design, and have access to do so.

And who would this be?  And who would replace such persons when they
inevitably move on?

> Do we have the sysadmin resources for that when a simple restore took months?

I think if it were a simple restore, it wouldn't have taken months.

> We'll also need admins to do lockouts and reverts of vandalism. 

And again, who would this be?

> On the other hand, put the genocide site into darcs and we have the
> design already done, no wiki-design-aware people who have to climb the
> learning curve and then stick around for when we need them again,
> simple backups, far fewer vandalism worries (an entire security layer
> less to be concerned about), no new admin procedures, designers
> probably won't need shell access or test environment, very few
> software updates to worry about. We're up in weeks, not months.

I fail to see how using darcs to version control a custom PHP based web
site is any simpler or easier to maintain than any publicly available
content management system, whether that is a Wiki, Zope, or some other
software.  Ultimately, someone or several people must have shell access
and a test environment, maintain the software updates, and administrate
the web site.

> Doing sustainable design of internet systems is not a matter of
> throwing a wiki on the wall and seeing if it sticks unless we
> really truly can't get it done any other way.

I've never advocated "throwing a wiki on the wall" to see if it sticks.