WH Questions of Wiki

Hey, fellow NITCians and anyone browsing through cyberspace Below, I'll be answering major WH questions, including what, why, and how Wiki exists, as well as much more.

What is Wiki NITC?

You might have used Wikipedia at some point in your life. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that contains a vast number of articles about everything under and above the sun. The community that develops and maintains Wikipedia and its related projects is called the Wikimedia Foundation. The software used to power Wikipedia is called MediaWiki. It is a highly customizable and extensible web application built with PHP. It comes as an easily self-hostable setup and uses MySQL/MariaDB to store all the data in a database.

Think of MediaWiki as a genie who sits at a desk, and the database as a book they have with them. You can share your knowledge with the genie, and they'll write it down and edit existing entries, and anyone else searching for information will be able to receive it through the genie.

NITC Wiki is our own genie that we have set up so that users like you can find anything and everything related to NITC here, and if something is missing, you can add it to the register.

Who is behind Wiki NITC?

We are also just students like you who came before you and had our stories take shape on the campus we all call our second home. The community is volunteer-based, and we encourage more of you to be active participants in the effort to keep Wiki NITC a safe and nurturing space.

When did Wiki NITC start?

The software was deployed in January 2024, and we began going public within a few weeks. We have held wiki sprints and wiki marathons to engage the community and encourage detailed contributions about the campus. We hope that this platform will continue for many years to come and remain an active resource with information useful to those who seek it.

Where is Wiki NITC Hosted?

In terms of the technical side of things, the MediaWiki service is currently running in an Oracle VM on a free tier. The setup is mostly containerized, and we are in the process of fully making it reproducible so that you can deploy it anywhere with minimal steps. Feel free to check out self-hostable tools to know more about setting up your own software in the cloud, and we might need your help going forward to keep the project online.

Why does Wiki NITC exist?

Knowingly or unknowingly, I have already hinted at the answer to this question in previous responses. The project started as an effort to archive and preserve the legacy of FOSSCell and its flagship event, FOSSMeet. FOSSMeet is one of India’s longest-running FOSS-themed community gatherings. It began in 2005, and you can find more details about it here. The story of FOSSMeet is still largely preserved thanks to the blogs and articles of people who attended the event. We realized that the same could be said about the rich history of NITC and the REC that existed before NITC. The rich legacy of our campus and the people who have been part of it should not be forgotten, and the purpose of Wiki NITC is to ensure that we hold on to the memories of those who came before us.

How can I help?

So the platform was completely open until a while ago. Anyone was allowed to write or edit any articles without any need for signups or logins. But to make the community a healthier and safer space for everyone, we have restricted the account generation to NITC email. We will be implementing the NITC lockdown ASAP, and you'll be able to write and edit articles about the things you love. Browse through, read, and edit—that's the best way you could support us. If you want to actively help with the platform in other ways, do reach out to us.

And with that, I hope you have a general idea about the platform. As of now, the platform is more leaning towards a "search and you shall find" model. We are working hard to bring more and more interesting articles to you easily.