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[AWAMember]

Can you tell when to expect the Advanced Hosting to be available again? I wanted to recommend it for one wiki but you are currently not accepting the applications. 

[Wikkii]

There is no ETA on this I'm afraid. We're just trying to focus more on the farm right now. Is the farm not suitable for you?

[samuelmichaels]

There is no ETA on this I'm afraid. We're just trying to focus more on the farm right now. Is the farm not suitable for you?

For my own wikis -- farmer is fine, except for no practical way to back up.
If AWB or some other mechanism worked with farmer wikis to export all the pages, farmer would be quite sufficient (again, speaking only for myself).

[AWAMember]

There is no ETA on this I'm afraid. We're just trying to focus more on the farm right now. Is the farm not suitable for you?

Advanced Hosting is a great choice.
If one want to have full control of its Wiki, he should move to a distinct server. That will include some spends (registration).
But with Advanced Hosting there is no need to pay and you still get complete unrestricted wiki control

Farmer Wikia on the other have more limitations sich as:
1) Dump size limitation (If your dump is over 2.1 MB, you must apply for advanced hosting, and install MediaWiki yourself  http://wikkii.com/forums/index.php?topic=499.0). With FTP access you do`nt have to worry about the dump size.

2) API disabled ? (http://wikkii.com/forums/index.php?topic=482.msg1608#msg1608)

3) Obviously no Cpanel/FTP access.

4) No ability to change Manual:$wgSitename as no access to LocalSettings.php and this is why http://awa.wikkii.com/ has <title>Anti-Wikia Alliance - AntiWikiaSkinAlliance</title> not <title>Anti-Wikia Alliance - Anti Wikia Skin Alliance</title>.

In fact - farmer wikia are not for a exacting users

[Fanra]

For my own wikis -- farmer is fine, except for no practical way to back up.
If AWB or some other mechanism worked with farmer wikis to export all the pages, farmer would be quite sufficient (again, speaking only for myself).

I found that using Special:Export works pretty well to back up the pages of the wiki.  It is true that it does not back up your images and certain other things.  But it does back up most of the content of your wiki.

To avoid having to go to Special:AllPages, highlight them all, copy and then paste them into Special:Export, I just assigned every content page on my wiki to a category.  Then I put in the category and export it all.  I even made a link to save me having to type in the category.

The following link:

http://everquest.wikkii.net/w/index.php?title=Special:Export&addcat&catname=EverQuest

takes me to the Special:Export page and enters the category name "EverQuest".  I usually just check the box "Include templates" and click Export.  I also have another link:

http://everquest.wikkii.net/w/index.php?title=Special:Export&addcat&catname=Backup

for the Category:Backup, which covers some pages not in category EverQuest.

I do have Advanced Hosting and I am able to use FTP to copy everything for a backup.  But I still use the links for quick and easy backup of just the content.  It is a waste of time and bandwidth for me to FTP the entire setup every day, when using those links does 99% of what I need. 

So I only FTP everything when needed, like when I just upgraded from MediaWiki 1.16.4 to 1.16.5.  Or like a monthly back up.  The rest of the time I use Special:Export.

[samuelmichaels]

I found that using Special:Export works pretty well to back up the pages of the wiki.  It is true that it does not back up your images and certain other things.  But it does back up most of the content of your wiki.

To avoid having to go to Special:AllPages, highlight them all, copy and then paste them into Special:Export, I just assigned every content page on my wiki to a category.  Then I put in the category and export it all.  I even made a link to save me having to type in the category.

Yep, that would work.  The problem is I have to go to every existing page and add the category.  That would be quite tedious, unless I had something like AutoWikiBrowser, which alas doesn't work with farmer wikis. :-(

[Fanra]

Yep, that would work.  The problem is I have to go to every existing page and add the category.  That would be quite tedious, unless I had something like AutoWikiBrowser, which alas doesn't work with farmer wikis. :-(

I'm not sure why Special:AllPages combined with Special:Export doesn't work for you.  Yes, you do have to do some extra steps but it should work. 

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Export goes into how to do this as well.

It is clumsy and takes a bunch of extra work but until you can get Advanced Hosting going, it should help.

[samuelmichaels]

I'm not sure why Special:AllPages combined with Special:Export doesn't work for you.  Yes, you do have to do some extra steps but it should work. 

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Export goes into how to do this as well.

It is clumsy and takes a bunch of extra work but until you can get Advanced Hosting going, it should help.

Mainly it's tedious.  I have to copy and paste multiple pages (one for each namespace, plus for split pages when they don't all fit), then post-process them from multiple columns to one list.

After that, the export is easy.

[Sasha Ehrenstein]

Creating a backup category is very good.  Even with full access to the wiki, I still use it.  Mine is called Category:Data, which has every single page, including redirects.  I did notice that it doesn't seem to work well with the MediaWiki namespace pages, so I leave them out.

You can use a createbox and a template to preload content into new pages, so what I do is add the Data category to every creation template, and even have createboxes for redirect pages.  I always set this up as the first thing I create on a new wiki.

If you don't have such a system set up, then you're going to have to add the category to every page manually, which is really difficult since a lot of categorized pages don't show up as uncategorized, and categorized pages not in the data category don't show up on any lists either.  I had to do it the hard way my first time.  Probably the best way is to look at the total number of pages, subtract the number of MediaWiki pages, and keep adding until there's that many pages in your backup category.