Please, WE NEED help here because this is one of the most important lists of information along with ../MoinMission.

For those who have not had the chance to participate in the building of a S.W.O.T. yet, just think of this as list of important/critical info which will end up enlighten us for further objectives, plans, etc. regarding actions to be taken so Moin can get very well known in the solutions market.

In order to ease the discussion process, please consider using 1, 2, 3 listings

Strengths

• MoinMoin

  1. has a very good access control system (HelpOnAccessControlLists)

  2. is a FreeSoftware project

  3. is already used in a bunch of bug companies and organisations / has a growing user base
  4. Admins can easily and simply manage Moin sites/farms.
  5. it can be accessed using many web browsers and different platforms.
  6. is an international project whith documentation in many different languages
  7. has a site where the documentation can be updated daily.
  8. Volunteers from different countries, social backgrounds, cultures, and interests.

  9. Based on PythonLanguage, which attracts a good crowd of programmers (it also helps that the Python wiki runs Moin, and keeps up with the latest version).

Weaknesses

1. Release management does not guarantee stable enough builds. There is no real stable branch that is still cared for.
2. To do a good setup on a web server you have to have root access (for upgrades,etc. )
3. Moin CGI is slow

   • CGI is slow, there is no big difference between moin versions using CGI, all are slow, just like any cgi out there using Python. See MoinBenchmarks. Current development code (1.3 patch-933) run just as fast (or slow) as 1.2.4, or faster.

   • Most of the time is in CGI is related to Python startup and loading of library modules. More sloppy code will make moin little slower, better code will make it run little faster, there is no way to make CGI much faster.

4. All the long running servers become much slower in 1.3. 1.3.5 is still much slower compared to 1.2. See MoinBenchmarks

5. Setup is complicated
   • Its less complicated then in the past, will be better in next release.

   • We could use an install script (web-based and/or command line). This could set up Apache (general & site specific)

6. The GUI editor is still not good enough
7. We still do not have a better internal search engine.
8. Lack of a professional multidisciplinary Work Team.
   • Yeah, we need more volunteers.
9. Error messages can be very ugly and confusing for non-developers. If they are not major bugs, they should rather be hidden or hidable. Nicer to send Mail to Wiki admin if necessary.
   • I think they are often more helpful than in other websites. So I consider this not a relative weekness

Opportunities

1. Become a good alternative for the CMS solution market.
   • A wiki is generally more free than a CMS. If you really want to replace CMS in the open market, you need to offer particular workflow features.
2. Schools and similar because educational institutions all need to quickly share knowledge and contents.
   • Maybe we can contact Python's Edu-SIG.
3. Designing a business model may help introduce Moin in companies that value the quick access to information.
   • Why do you want to design a business model? You should float a business if you have finished a model. I do not see the usage of a business model.

   • MoinMoin is not a business currently, its a free software project.

4. Better quality.
   • Define testing procedures, like:

     • Look into TitleIndex before release.

     • Check all translation files for recursive calls :-).
     • For major releases, test the docs about installation for every OS.
   • Any feature should be tested, no code should be accepted without working tests.
     • Yeah, and do not ship it when tests are broken. Rather disable them etc.
5. Feedback - what are the problems of our users? We should better work on stuff that both developers and users want to have, and do not work on stuff that nobody wants.
   • We should make it easy for users to ask for features and report problems, in a way which is easy to sort and discuss.
     • I think our bugs system is quite good now, maybe missing some smart searching abilities, like a way to set priorities and see how many bugs we have, sorted by proiority, developers etc. We can add similar system for features reqeusts or ideas.
6. Better documentation. Current documatation tends to help people who do not need help. We need to make the basic stuff much more accesiable, in few major pages, and have esoteric stuff in more advanced sub pages.
7. Richer interface:

   • A simple way to create nice looking pages for FrontPage or major pages of the wiki, see WikiPedia Frontpage. We need a simple way to do columns, float pictures within articales, more compact TOC, etc.

   • More consistent design, generated stuff should have a constant look vs editable stuff.
   • Improved sidebar theme - Modern theme is compact and useful, but the tabs are filled very quickly.
8. Facets browsing - a way to browse the wiki contents quickly.

9. Better output - a way to export pages to hight quality pdf files, with perfect pagination, unlike the output you get from html printed to pdf. See MoinOfficeSuite

Threats

1. Competitors

   • Mostly MediaWiki and TWiki seem to compete in markets that are interesting for MoinMoin. See MoinMarketing for a list of reasons why companies might not choose MoinMoin.

   • Commercial wikis : Mainly JotSpot and Socialtext (which is based on Kwiki)

   • software companies adopting the Wiki idea (in Content Management Systems, etc.) as a feature.
2. Most people don't have any idea what is a wiki.

   • WikiMedia is doing good job for us with its WikiPedia and other projects.

   • Aspell does not know the word wiki

3. Acceptance of FreeSoftware and OpenSource concepts by comanies and individuals.

If needed, General discussion

You know my opinion. We should discuss these areas via #moin but if you prefer to wiki your opinions, here's the place.