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  • We've successfully migrated and preserved a huge amount of content (over a decade's worth) and brought it over to Apache.
  • The CMS mechanism allows us to quickly push out page changes to the website, including site-wide template changes.   The most common site-wide changes can be made efficiently, without touching every page, an important consideration for a website of this size.
  • MediaWiki user interface is well-known and accepted by its users.
  • Our websites have many backlinks and has high PageRank.  Our content is authoritative and is well-placed in search engine results for most relevant user queries.
  • Site-wide integration of Google Analytics has enabled us to track how our sites are being used and provides concrete data for decision making.

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Challenges

  • Redundancy of services, in particular the multiple wikis and websites.  This fragments content, causes confusion and increases maintenance effort.
  • UI inconsistency between our web properties.
  • Inconsistency within individual properties, e.g., within the www.openoffice.org website, especially with the NL websites.
  • Inconsistency at the markup level as to what HTML version is being targeted, what encodings are used, whether document is even well-formed. In other words, all the liabilities of human-authored HTML.
  • In general lack of a consistent information taxonomy that allows the user (or the content author) to know where a given topic belongs on the website(s).
  • Perception that website is "tired" and lacks freshness and modern appeal.
  • Large amounts of outdated content on website and wiki.
  • Lack of consistent, documented best practices and techniques for maintaining NL websites.  What is translated and how?
  • Skill mismatch between what translators know and what is actually needed to maintain an NL website.  (Translators are not HTML designers and certainly not CMS experts)
  • Similar for potential content authors, the skill level needed to maintain an HTML-based website with the CMS exceeds that of most potential volunteers.
  • Sustainability concerns due to our use of unsupported applications (from Apache Infra perspective), including phpBB and MWiki and reliance on a very small number of system admins.

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