Smelling like a wiki
Writing
In a wiki, writers become contributors, shifting the understanding of what writing can be from a traditional understanding of an individual (genius) author, towards someone contributing to a distributed practice of writing text.
This text is written in a wiki with 546 pages, made through 5,417 edits, written by 35 contributors, of which 0 are considered active, and in the middle of 267 uploaded files. We're writing in the WikiEditor, which is the simple text editor that is enabled by default when you install a new MediaWiki instance. I had to check the Special:Version page to find the name of this text editor.
Who else has been around on this wiki recently?
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- This edit created a new page (also see list of new pages)
- m
- This is a minor edit
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- This edit was performed by a bot
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- The page size changed by this number of bytes
14 January 2026
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15:51 | Server migration 3 changes history +182 [Manetta (3×)] | |||
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15:51 (cur | prev) +35 Manetta talk contribs (→Server migration) | ||||
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15:50 (cur | prev) +82 Manetta talk contribs (→Server migration) | ||||
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15:30 (cur | prev) +65 Manetta talk contribs | ||||
| 15:26 | Services on CC diffhist −138 Manetta talk contribs (→wiki-to-print) | ||||
| 15:25 | How to install wiki-to-print? diffhist −6 Manetta talk contribs (→To install wiki-to-print) | ||||
Who else has an account?
- Aldmilne talk contribs
- Chavezheras talk contribs
- Christianvonand talk contribs
- CodaMarooned talk contribs
- Crichlow talk contribs
- Decentral1se talk contribs
- Femke talk contribs
- Freja Kir talk contribs
- Geoffcox talk contribs
- Ingaluchs talk contribs
- Integloerich talk contribs
- Jack talk contribs
- JackWilson talk contribs
- Jung-Ah talk contribs
- Klb talk contribs
- Magda talk contribs
- Manetta talk contribs
- Mara talk contribs
- Mateus talk contribs
- MediaWiki default talk contribs
- Menotti talk contribs
- NWess talk contribs
- Nnsshh talk contribs
- Ooooo talk contribs
- Pold talk contribs
- RRA talk contribs
- Sandy talk contribs
- Sfoerster talk contribs
- Shusha talk contribs
- Simoon talk contribs
- Siusoon talk contribs
- Teodora sinziana talk contribs
- Teodorasinziana talk contribs
- Timcowlishaw talk contribs
- Xenodata talk contribs
- Xenodata-A talk contribs
What were the latest pages that were made?
- 15:19, 14 January 2026 Wiki-to-print/Installation log/Servpub (hist | edit) [55,717 bytes] Manetta (talk | contribs) (Created page with "<pre> Install day 13 Dec 2023 https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/wiki-to-print https://cc.vvvvvvaria.org/wiki/Running_wiki-to-print_on_the_server https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/wiki2print requirements - mediawiki - localsettings: https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/wiki-to-print/src/branch/master/wiki-to-print.LocalSettings.php.example - common.css: https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/wiki-to-print/src/branch/master/wiki-to-print.Common.css.example - com...")
- 14:10, 14 January 2026 How to install wiki-to-print? (hist | edit) [4,736 bytes] Manetta (talk | contribs) (Created page with " ==To install wiki-to-print== # <code>make setup</code>: make a virtual environment and install all the requirements # edit <code>config.json</code>: to configure the Flask application # run the Flask application ## on your computer: <code>make local</code> ## on a server: <code>make server</code> (it uses Gunicorn, as we work with a subdirectory in the wiki-to-print URL on CC, with https://cc.vvvvvvaria.org/wiki-to-print/ as the root of the Flask application) # add a p...")
- 14:04, 14 January 2026 Server migration (hist | edit) [1,242 bytes] Manetta (talk | contribs) (Created page with " ==Server migration== Notes here: Services on CC * migrate etherpad ** ✅ install etherpad (<code>/opt/etherpad/</code>) ** ✅ configure nginx ** ✅ set etherpad up as a systemd background process ** ✅ test migration of database ** migrate the database * ✅ install mediawiki (<code>/var/www/wiki/</code>, version 1.45) ** ✅ configure nginx ** ✅ install php + php-fpm + mariadb ** ✅ migrate the extensions ** ✅ <del>re-download all extensions</del> not n...")
- 15:32, 17 December 2025 MySQL (hist | edit) [754 bytes] Manetta (talk | contribs) (Created page with " Login $ mariadb -u USERNAME -p Create user CREATE USER 'wiki'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'wikipassword'; Permissions GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'user'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION; Check permissions SHOW GRANTS FOR 'user'@'localhost'; Create database CREATE DATABASE database_name; Delete database DROP DATABASE database_name; Inspect database use DATABASE show tables; desc TABLE; (displays the properties of the table) show keys from TABLE; dump sql f...")
- 21:26, 11 December 2025 Install Mediawiki (hist | edit) [1,188 bytes] Manetta (talk | contribs) (Created page with " sudo su apt install mariadb-server mysql CREATE USER 'wiki'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'INSERTPASSWORDHERE'; CREATE DATABASE wikidb; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wikidb.* TO 'wiki'@'localhost'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT; apt install php php-fpm php-mysql php-xml php-intl php-mbstring php-gd php-curl chown -R www-data:www-data /opt/wiki/ chmod -R 755 /opt/wiki/ Left the installation at: * /opt/wiki/ is configured, and the nginx alias works * php is not worki...")
Which are pages yet to be made?
What are the 5 last files that have been uploaded?
| Date | Name | Thumbnail | Size | User | Description | Versions |
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| 09:45, 17 December 2025 | Rsn-cover.png (file) |  |
64 KB | Manetta | 1 | |
| 14:02, 3 December 2025 | So-you-decided-to-make-a-zine-in-octomode.pdf (file) |  |
1,003 KB | Manetta | 1 | |
| 16:21, 25 November 2025 | Varia-darktimes-sticker-on-laptop.jpeg (file) |  |
303 KB | Simoon | 1 | |
| 16:20, 25 November 2025 | Varia-darktimes-sticker-sheet.jpeg (file) |  |
327 KB | Simoon | 1 | |
| 17:34, 14 November 2025 | Dandelion-octomode.svg (file) |  |
279 KB | Simoon | 1 |
And who contributed to this page?
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Rendering layout
Wiki-to-print as a practice
Wiki-to-print is part of a broader interest in making publications using code and layout engines, instead of canvas and GUI based tools, as it allows us to work in collective modes and explore what this means, while being entangled with other communities of practice through the open standards (HTML and CSS) and tools (Mediawiki, Paged.js) we use. This means that books are being generated through scripts, newspapers rendered from multiple networked sources, or zines written HTML and CSS.
Using a wiki as an editing-design environment shifts multiple things around. What we currently refer to as wiki-to-print or wiki-layouting [i think we need a cute catchy name!] is actually a genealogy of practices of generating publications through a wiki. The trail includes work done at Constant in Brussels, Open Source Publishing in Brussels, the making of the book Volumetric Regimes in between Barcelona-Brussels-London-Rotterdam by Possible Bodies and Manetta Berends, the setup at The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI) by Femke Snelting and Martino Morandi in Brussels, the book Making Matters made by Hackers & Designers in Amsterdam, the making of the research newspapers Toward a Minor Tech and Content/Form with Geoff Cox, Christian Ulrikson, Winnie Soon and Varia/CC represented by Simon Browne and Manetta Berends in London-Rotterdam-Berlin. In all these occasions, wiki is used as a shared place for materials, editorial work and the making of the layout. Writing and design work can happen in a non-linear way and evolve parallel to each other, which invites to rethink editorial production workflows. Publications can be re-rendered over time, embracing the changes and transformations that might have emerged in between now and the previous edition. The versioning tracker and features like transclusion challenge traditional notions of authorship and modes of writing. Often a wiki becomes a rich messy archive and plays an important role as community infrastructure.