227 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
227 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Documenting With MediaWiki"
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description: "Setting up MediaWiki to efficiently write quality documentation"
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author: Amolith
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cover: /assets/pngs/mediawiki.png
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date: 2020-06-04T12:23:34-04:00
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categories:
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- Technology
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tags:
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- MediaWiki
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- Documentation
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- Writing
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- Efficiency
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- 100 Days To Offload
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toc: true
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---
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Much to my chagrin, I've hardly posted anything at all the past couple
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of weeks. This is partly due to university summer classes starting and
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partly due to me putting some work into [NixNet's
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documentation.](https://docs.nixnet.services) After listening to
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[Episode 4 of 2.5 Admins,](https://2.5admins.com/2-5-admins-04/) I
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decided to change some things up with my infrastructure planning and,
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instead of automating all the things, document it first. Only after
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writing extensive documentation will I look into automating *portions*
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my setup, like hardening a server directly following installation. To
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that end, I've decided to use
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[MediaWiki.](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki)
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After [downloading](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download) and
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[installing](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_guide)
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MediaWiki, a very straightforward process,[^1] the next step is
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configuring it. There is of course [a
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guide](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:System_administration) but
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I think it can be useful to see someone else's configuration to get
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ideas from as well, especially considering how many extensions there
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are. I won't go through *all* of the settings, just the maybe less
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obvious ones.
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## URLs
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The first thing in `LocalSettings.php` is `$wgScriptPath`. Different wikis take vastly different approaches for this. Some fill that variable with `"/w"` (default), some with `"/view"`, and some with something entirely different. [Wikipedia](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki) and all of its children use `"/wiki"`. While well and good, the default configuration will have your URLs appearing as `example.com/wiki/index.php?title=<page>` and this is bad practise for SEO; if you want your pages easily discoverable, the URLs need to be a bit shorter. The easiest way I've found to do this is add all of six lines to my NGINX config and set `$wgScriptPath` to `""` (an empty string).
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```text
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location / {
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try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;
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}
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location @rewrite {
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rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?title=$1&$args;
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}
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```
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The snippet above tells NGINX to rewrite all of your site's base URLs
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and remove `index.php?title=` from them. This is a similar approach to
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what [Mozilla](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Main_Page) has done. The result
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is cleaner URLs that comply with SEO best practises and a setup that
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avoids [moving MediaWiki to the site's
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root.](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Wiki_in_site_root_directory)
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## Mobile view
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I see a *lot* of MediaWiki instances without a good mobile version and,
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other than keeping the number of extensions down, I don't really
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understand why. Setting it up is incredibly easy and gives everyone a
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*much* better experience. The [Minerva
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Neue](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Minerva_Neue)
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skin is designed specifically for use on mobile devices and is also much
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more aggressive about optimisation. Though editing is a terrible
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experience, it also looks great on desktop. The
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[MobileFrontend](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend)
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extension is used to detect the reader's device and serve them either
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the configured desktop skin or Minerva Neue. You *could* serve a
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different skin on mobile but I've found that Minerva Neue looks the best
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by far.
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To set them up, you'll need to download [the
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skin](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:SkinDistributor/MinervaNeue)
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and [the
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extension.](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/MobileFrontend)
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From there, you'll need to add a few lines to your config file. On a
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side note, I love how dynamic MediaWiki can be, especially with
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downloads; providing a copy/paste extraction command that doesn't use
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wildcards and puts it in the correct directory is *awesome*.
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``` php
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# I recommend putting this with the rest of your extensions
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wfLoadExtension( 'MobileFrontend' );
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# These can go wherever you want but together is better
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$wgMFDefaultSkinClass = 'SkinMinerva';
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$wgMFAutodetectMobileView = true;
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```
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With the skin and extension in place and those lines in your config,
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save and reload and there should be a link at the bottom of your wiki
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called `Mobile view`. Click it and you'll see Minerva! On a phone,
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MobileFrontend will automatically serve it but you can force your
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default theme by clicking `Desktop view` in the same location.
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## Discussion pages
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The default discussion page for MediaWiki works but, unless you're
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already used to it, it can be quite odd for new people. That's where the
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[StructuredDiscussions](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Structured_Discussions)
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extension comes in. Here's a comparison of before and after enabling it.
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As I said, the left works but most people wouldn't know what to do when
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given the default MediaWiki editor and it raises the barrier for entry.
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The right is *much* more user-friendly and works exactly how one would
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expect. StructuredDiscussions does have a few dependencies but they're
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easy to add. [Echo](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Echo) is
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for notifications and the others are included by default. After
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[installing
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it,](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/Echo)
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and
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[StructuredDiscussions,](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/Flow)
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add the following lines to your `LocalSettings.php`.
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``` php
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# With the rest of your extensions
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wfLoadExtension( 'Echo' );
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wfLoadExtension( 'Flow' );
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```
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Running the following commands is necessary because MediaWiki's database
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needs modification to support the extension. General talk pages are
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`--ns=1` and `User:Talk` pages are `--ns=3`. If you only want Structured
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Discussions enabled for one of them, only run that one. I personally
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recommend doing it for all.
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``` text
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=1 --table=revision
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=1 --table=archive
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=1 --table=page
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=3 --table=revision
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=3 --table=archive
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php maintenance/populateContentModel.php --wiki=somewiki --ns=3 --table=page
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```
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After that, add these to actually enable the extension. To temporarily
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disable it, you can comment them out but I don't know how that will
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affect talk pages that already exist.
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``` php
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# Flow (discussions) configuration
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$wgNamespaceContentModels[NS_TALK] = 'flow-board';
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$wgNamespaceContentModels[NS_USER_TALK] = 'flow-board';
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```
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## Subpages
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One of the features I'll be making heavy use of for my [Privacy
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Policies](https://docs.nixnet.services/Category:Privacy_policies) and
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[Terms of
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Service](https://docs.nixnet.services/Category:Terms_of_Service) pages
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is [Subpages.](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Subpages) This allows
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you to create pages entitled `Parent/Child` and the child automatically
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links back to the parent at the top. This can be seen in
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[Mozilla](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Apps/Security/Other) and [Arch
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Linux's](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox/Privacy) wikis
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right under the header and [in mine as
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well.](https://docs.nixnet.services/DNS/Privacy) Enabling it is quite
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simple; just add the following line to your config.
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``` php
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## Enable subpages for all namespaces
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$wgNamespacesWithSubpages[NS_MAIN] = true;
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```
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## Syntax highlighting
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The final configuration change I've made (so far) has been to enable
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syntax highlighting in the default editor with
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[CodeMirror.](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror) After
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[installing
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it,](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ExtensionDistributor/CodeMirror)
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add these lines to your config and you're done!
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``` php
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# Place with the other extensions as always
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wfLoadExtension( 'CodeMirror' );
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# Enables it by default but allows users to disable it
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$wgDefaultUserOptions['usecodemirror'] = 1;
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```
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## Editing in Vim
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The final tip I have is that you can edit pretty much *any* MediaWiki
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instance in Vim, including Wikipedia itself, with [a simple
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plugin.](https://github.com/aquach/vim-mediawiki-editor) The only
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drawback I've found is that, unless you store your password in your
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config, you'll have to enter it every time you close and reopen Vim. You
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can also give Vim [Wikitext syntax
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highlighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Text_editor_support#Vim)
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for creating MediaWiki pages when offline. A few days ago, my wiki was
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completely offline while taking a disk image backup but I still wrote
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the majority of the [libvirt](https://docs.nixnet.services/Libvirt) and
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[Debian](https://docs.nixnet.services/Debian) pages while I waited and
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the highlighting was really nice.
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---
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This was posted as part of
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[#100DaysToOffload,](https://100daystooffload.com/) an [awesome
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idea](https://fosstodon.org/@kev/104053977554016690) from [Kev
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Quirk.](https://kevq.uk/) If you want to participate, just write
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something every day for 100 days and post a link on social media with
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the hashtag!
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[^1]: If you're having issues, feel free to contact me and I'll help
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where I can.
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