Project Foundation Stages

The development of Wikijump should follow the deployment plan, or the ill-defined lack of a final state will result in endless development without a serious feeling of progress towards migration or effective prioritization.

This plan devises “stages”, which are groupings of releases which are targeted towards bringing the platform to a particular state. When a set of requirements are met, a stage can begin, and a set of changes in access patterns and platform migration can take place.

There are a number of features which are already full or partially implemented in the project, but are not currently expressed in the UI or usable. The goal of this setup is to organize remaining necessary work in such a way that higher priority items are focused on, and that there is centralized tracking for filling in missing holes throughout the project.

Each stage’s “requirements” section lists the code changes that need to occur in order for that stage to be completed, and the “platform” sections lists all non-code changes, such as policy that needs to be written.

Please note that later stages are more likely to be incomplete as planning the exact scope of what makes sense to achieve there cannot be properly known until the project itself is closer to that point in time.

Stage 0 / Pre-Pre-Alpha

This is the first project stage. It is primarily a label rather than a deployment target, but will be notable for having an associated announcement. The announcement post will explain this plan and how we intended to roll out each stage and the associated deployment steps.

At the time of writing this, almost all the requirements here are already met. So this stage will be cleaning things up and getting them into a release-ready state.

Requirements

• Usable local deployment
• Usable dev deployment
• Support for users as a concept
• Support for sites, categories, and pages as concepts
• UI to view and edit user profile data
• UI to view and edit pages (e.g. adding revisions)

Pre-Alpha

This project stage is marked by having a more complete set of actions available on users and pages, but which is overall still very non-comprehensive. This will also be the start of basic settings panels, which are expected to be in flux until designs and requirements stabilize. And, the foundations of solid international support should be ensured.

Like with the Pre-Alpha stage (and every stage after), there will be an associated announcement.

Requirements

• All UI available so far is properly localized (i.e. no UNTRANSLATED)
• All infrastructure is available through IPv6
• Platform info page
• Support for page locks
• UI for creating or removing page locks
• UI for displaying current and historical locks
• User sessions
• Users are able to log in and log out
• Session information is passed and processed in Framerail and DEEPWELL
• Site actions require session data and perform authentication
• User creation UI
• Temporary support for passcode to limit user creation
• Basic platform settings UI
• Able to set free creation or requiring a passcode
• Basic site settings UI
• Able to set a site’s slug, name, and header information
• Able to set a site’s default home page slug
• Basic user settings UI
• Able to set a user’s preferred language(s)
• Able to modify a user’s email and password

Platform

• Only developers may create users on the dev deploy

Alpha

This project stage is marked by having a more complete basic feature set. Most core operations on Wikidot are supported, and the project has a sufficient base to enable future changes to be made. This will be a longer stage than the Pre-Alpha, and marks the transition to larger stages with periodic intermediate releases.

Requirements

• The page editor has basic functionality
• The assumption is that this editor will be Sheaf or a modification of it, but ultimately what is called for is a usable editor which is more than just a basic HTML textarea.
• Support for file operations (uploads, edits, deletes, all with corresponding file revisions)
• Support for [[html]] blocks being exposed via URL
• Support for [[code]] blocks being exposed via URL
• CSS support in rendered pages
• Support for attribution metadata
• Stabilize/persist dev deployment
• New database schema changes will require new migrations rather than migration amendments

Platform

• Recruitment drive for active developers and contributors

Closed Beta

This project stage will be the first large stage, and is marked by implementing most of Wikidot’s primary feature set.

Requirements

• Early platform database backup and recovery system. Basic infrastructure should be in place to export and import platform data.
• Usable prod deployment
• ftml should be capable of processing most Wikidot wikitext
• Particularly, previously-filed issues regarding production inadequacies must be addressed during this stage.
• Plan for modules and extended syntax begun
• Code blocks have syntax highlighting
• Tested procedure for importing/migrating sites from backup data
• Page editor is usable and stable
• ListPages support
• Sufficient moderation tooling in place
• Platform should support creating, modifying, and automated enforcement of filters

Platform

• Begin drafting proposals for social questions surrounding Wikijump as a platform. How it is governed, buy-in and ideas from various stakeholders, and beginning to compose a final list of site participants.
• Formal terms of service (TOS) are drafted and ratified
• Formal legal structure of the platform is determined and implemented
• Platform is checked for GDPR compliance
• Platform staff is organized and able to handle basic activity

Open Beta

This will also be a large stage, and is primarily marked by interactions and dialogue with users to understand needs and prioritize and fix platform shortcomings. There will not be a stable “production” during this time, instead it will be used to ensure that users are able to perform the work they are accustomed to.

Requirements:

• Complete platform database backup and recovery system. It should be thoroughly tested, and a schedule for regular backup checks and recovery dry runs (on dev) should be set up.
• Determine if any extra Wikidot information needs capturing (e.g. admin settings)
• Users should be able to activate imported Wikidot accounts
• ftml should be capable of processing all Wikidot wikitext
•  

Platform

• Enable the general userbase to create new accounts and link their Wikidot accounts
• A site migration order should be agreed on for the Gamma stages
• Platform staff is organized and able to handle day-to-day activity

Early Gamma

Unlike “alpha” and “beta”, the word “gamma” is not often used in release terminology. Here it will refer to the migration period for the platform, that is, when Wikidot sites start moving over for real to use Wikijump as their new permanent home. It is expected that this will come with a number of operational and logistical difficulties, so it will start with smaller sites and those with fewer requirements. The stage will be marked with dialogue and work with these early platforms to ensure their workflows and needs are accounted for.

Requirements

• Assess all open issues to determine prioritization
• Discuss extension projects like Cogwork

Platform

Main Gamma

After all the early kinks are worked out, this release stage will be the bulk of the migration effort. Most of the large and heavily used sites will be migrated during this stage, and there will be a significant but gradual period as the bulk of Wikidot site activity begins moving over.

Requirements

Platform

Final Gamma

This stage consists of the remaining sites being migrated, after most of the issues have been resolved and continued movements are incremental. Focus will be on cleanup, preparing for the Delta period, and ensuring that all of the site participants are safely off of Wikidot without any remaining data.

Requirements

Platform

• All sites are migrated to Wikijump

Delta

Like “gamma”, this word is not often used as a release word. You can think of this period as meaning “stability”, where we work to pay down collected bug and operational issues, and determine priority for new feature work.

Following this point, a new release system should be decided on to track continued development and migration work. For instance, a month-duration sprint system could be put in place in Jira to group each set of changes.

Platform

• Monitor sites and platform administration for issues
• Develop and ratify new release / stage cycle for continual maintenance and development