Mozilla Hacks

The new MDN wiki platform is coming soon!

Avatar photo By Eric Shepherd

Posted on June 21, 2012 in Docs, MDN, and Mozilla

Change is coming to the Mozilla Developer Network!

As you probably know, we’ve been using the MindTouch wiki software for several years now, and although it’s a nice package, it has not been a good fit for us. As I hope you also already know, we’ve been working for the last couple of years on a brand new replacement wiki, codenamed Kuma, to replace it.

The time for the switch to Kuma is nearly upon us! On or before July 15, we will throw the switch and have all users on the Kuma wiki platform.

Change can be a little scary, but this is a great thing for us. We will get stability, reliability, performance, and, over time, some kick-ass new features. As it stands, localizers should be pleased with a number of new tools they’ll get with Kuma.

The Kuma launch will happen on or before July 15. That’s not much time at all. We have some ongoing test projects for small groups, and we’ll be announcing tests for larger groups soon.

The important thing I want to get out there is that you’re going to see changes, and we don’t want you to be totally surprised! Future blog posts will share details about what to expect, but you can learn more from our basic Kuma documentation on MDN. It’s sketchy at the moment but I promise it will get better very soon!

Watch this space for further news and details. We’re all very excited about this project, and we think you’re going to love it.

About Eric Shepherd

Back in the early days of my career, I was a coder for computer games; if you search little-known Mac titles published by companies including Interplay/MacPlay, MGM Interactive, and Logicware, you'll see my name. Eventually, that work got old and I became a technical writer. Now I'm the developer documentation team lead at Mozilla.

More articles by Eric Shepherd…

8 comments

  1. John Karahalis

    Want to make the transition as smooth as possible? Have a few moments to spare? Help us by sharing feedback!

    Sharing feedback does not need to take long: You can make a big difference with just minute or two.

    https://wiki.mozilla.org/MDN/Feedback

    June 21st, 2012 at 11:27

  2. Waldir

    YAWN (Yet Another Wiki eNgine): NIH much?

    On a more serious tone: I’m tired of learning a new wiki syntax for every platform that wants to reinvent the wiki concept. I understand that MDN might have some specific needs that no wiki engine currently provide, but the least you could have done is to have mentioned a few benefits of Kuma vs. some of the most popular wiki engines, say, MediaWiki.

    Does it at least use Creole?

    June 21st, 2012 at 11:51

    1. louisremi

      There is not much wiki syntax in MDN (except for templates), it’s mostly WYSIWYG.

      June 22nd, 2012 at 04:47

    2. John Karahalis

      Thanks for the feedback, Waldir.

      I understand how frustrating it can be to learn different wiki syntaxes. This is one of the reasons we chose plain old HTML for marking up Kuma pages. Many MDN editors are already familiar with HTML, and those who are not can use the Kuma WYSIWYG (in fact, this is the default).

      I also understand the concerns about NIH. We chose to replace our current wiki software because it was becoming harder and harder to extend for our requirements. With Kuma, we will be able to address user needs more easily. In fact, we are doing this already. As Sheppy mentions in the original post, localization tools are already a great improvement over what we have now.

      Hope that helps!

      June 22nd, 2012 at 08:30

      1. Waldir

        Thanks, it’s reassuring to know that we won’t have to learn another markup language. Using HTML was quite a neat choice, in fact. It would help if this was mentioned in the post, but maybe it’s just me.

        As for the rest of the tools (l10n, etc), I’ll make sure to offer feedback should I use them an find any rough edges. Keep up the great work!

        June 24th, 2012 at 13:59

  3. Didik Hartono

    I also hope that Kuma will bring better results in the MDN wiki. I still lay on the MDN wiki but I am very pleased with the news of the changes for improvement even though I have no role at all in it.

    June 23rd, 2012 at 00:25

    1. John Karahalis

      Thank you for the kind words, Didik.

      You are welcome to have a role in this process. We are all about our community here at Mozilla. Please see the following page about using the new wiki and sharing your thoughts.

      https://wiki.mozilla.org/MDN/Feedback

      June 23rd, 2012 at 13:50

  4. Anne Gentle

    Will be watching with baited breath – very excited for you guys and happy it’s not yet another asciitext markup to learn. :)

    June 23rd, 2012 at 08:15

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