One of the reoccurring questions I hear from new DokuWiki users again and again is "How do I add some automatic navigation?" //

Fixed Navigation

I believe, for a new wiki, you're better off with no automatic navigation at all. In fact it may be counterproductive to the nature of a wiki.

The beauty of a wiki is the interconnection of the various topics. Linking might be the main property of a wiki. //

Here's how you do it. You simply create a page named "sidebar" and put a list of links in it. Of course you can also use headlines or other formatting to make it more accessible. You can influence the order of your links by reordering your list and of course you can give each link an individual name. It's all standard wiki syntax. No magic and all under your control. //

A somewhat better approach would be the navi plugin. It it allows you maintain a central list of links (using the standard list and link syntax). It outputs that list's sub lists collapsed or opened based on what page you're currently on.

You still fully control the order and titles of your links and it's still very wiki like.

The Template Approach

An alternative approach to make the navigation a bit more dynamic while maintaining full control over its content is to use a template that offers some more sophisticated navigation mechanisms.

One example would be the sprintdoc template. Again, the navigation is created using a sidebar page as described in the fixed approach above. This time however, headlines in the sidebar are treated special and automatically create collapsible sections. It even lets you add icons to make the sections more recognizable. //

Automated Listings

So what if you really need an automatic list of pages in a namespace? I would recommend looking at the simplenavi plugin. As the name suggests, it's really simple. It creates a nested list of links to the pages it found.

I would recommend not using it as the main navigation, but to combine it with the fixed navigation approach and only use it in the sidebar of deeper namespaces.

Alternatively the nslist plugin is a good way to add list of sub pages in the current namespace. This could be used to create automatic indexes on a namespace start page.

Cool URIs don’t change n’est plus respecté. Cette idée qu’une URL ne change jamais est géniale. Un contenu, accessible une fois, est accessible toujours. Et s’il change d’adresse, une redirection correcte est faite pour ne pas déranger les internautes.

C’est une bonne pratique que j’applique pour les sites d’organisations que je gère. Mais je ne me vois plus l’appliquer sur mon blog personnel.

De toutes façon, les moteurs de recherche s’en fichent pas mal de mes pages. Et la «valeur» n’en est plus une. Franchement, je ne me vois pas faire ce genre d’effort pour Google et compagnie.

Quant aux internautes, il y a plein de possibilités de conserver un contenu qui serait important:

une sauvegarde simple de la page complète par son navigateur
une sauvegarde par son agrégateur de flux RSS et Atom (par exemple Inoreader)
une sauvegarde dans la fameuse WayBack Machine (je conseille de créer un compte et d’installer une extension de navigateur ou une application)
Certes j’ai cassé un contrat, mais tout existe pour que cela ne pose pas de problème. J’assume, même si ce choix m’a fait cogiter un certain temps. Tout est sauvegardé et je peux toujours fournir un contenu précis sur simple demande. Il n’est pas impossible que je remette en ligne certaines pages utiles.

Le vrai problème, c’est que plein d’autres contrats ne sont plus respectés, par des entreprises bien plus importantes que ce bon vieux Nicolas Friedli.

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Songs of Praise
Robert Prizeman
Songs of Praise. Toccata For Organ

Remember my article about AWS deleting my 10-year account? The one where support gaslit me for 20 days while claiming my data was “terminated”?

Here’s the plot twist: My data is back. Not because of viral pressure. Not because of bad PR. But because one human being inside AWS decided to give a damn.

This is that story.

I’d done everything right. Vault encryption keys stored separately from my main infrastructure. Defense in depth. Zero trust architecture. The works.

My security posture was textbook—protect against compromise by ensuring no single failure could take down everything. What I hadn’t protected against? AWS itself being the single point of failure.

I built a hardened bunker with multiple escape routes, only to have AWS drop a nuke on the entire complex. //

You might be thinking, “What are the odds they target me?” But that’s the wrong question. I thought the same thing—with my level of exposure and contributions, surely they could just write my name down and not bother me with stupid verification requests about whether I exist.

But you’re not being targeted—you’re being algorithmically categorized. And if the algorithm decides you’re disposable, you’re gone. //

After 20 days of appeals, AWS support finally responded with this gem: “Because verification wasn’t completed by the due date, your resources were terminated.”

But here’s the dilemma they’ve created: What if you have petabytes of data? How do you backup a backup? What happens when that backup contains HIPAA-protected information or client data? The whole promise of cloud computing collapses into complexity.

This isn’t a system failure. The architecture and promises are sound. AWS doesn’t lose data—they have backups of backups of backups, stored in vaults that last far longer than the stated 90 days, where no rogue AI script can reach.

What’s happening here is simpler: teams in MENA are trying to cover up a massive fuck-up. Restoring data from those deep vaults would require explanations. Incident reports. Post-mortems. “Why did we have to open the vaults?”

Their entire communication strategy screams: “He’s nobody. He’ll give up soon. We won’t have to report this up the chain.” //

Lessons Learned¶

1. Never trust a single provider—no matter how many regions you replicate across
2. “Best practices” mean nothing when the provider goes rogue
3. Document everything—screenshots, emails, correspondence timestamps
4. The support theater is real—they literally cannot help you
5. Have an exit strategy executable in hours, not days

AWS won’t admit their mistake. They won’t acknowledge the rogue proof of concept. They won’t explain why MENA operates differently. They won’t even answer whether your data exists.

But they will ask you to rate their support 5 stars.

The cloud isn’t your friend. It’s a business. And when their business needs conflict with your data’s existence, guess which one wins?

Plan accordingly.

The Trilogy Nobody Wanted¶

Let me be real about what this three-part series documents:

Part 1: A cloud provider deletes a decade of work because of a broken verification process and a Java parameter parsing quirk. Support gaslights the customer for 20 days.

Part 2: One human inside the machine fights the bureaucracy, escalates to the CEO, and restores the account. Hope restored. Faith in humanity renewed.

Part 3: That human gets fired. The systemic issues remain unfixed. The machine continues.

This is the arc of modern tech. The system breaks. A human fixes it despite the system. The system removes the human. Repeat.
The Real Lesson¶

In Part 2, I wrote: “My trust isn’t fully restored. What is restored is my faith that even in massive corporations, one person can make a difference.”

I still believe that. But I’ll add a corollary: the difference that person makes is often inversely proportional to how long the corporation keeps them around.

The people who challenge broken systems, who go off-script, who escalate when the template says “close the ticket”. Those people are threats to institutional inertia. They’re expensive. They’re inconvenient. They make leadership answer uncomfortable questions.

And eventually, they get optimized away. Just like a “low-activity” AWS account.
A Note to AWS¶

You don’t need me to tell you this, but I will anyway: Tarus Balog was worth more to your reputation than any GenAI keynote. Every developer who read my story and thought “maybe AWS isn’t so bad after all”? That was because of him. Not your PR team. Not your marketing budget. One human being who decided to do the right thing.

You’ll replace him with someone who hits KPIs and doesn’t ask uncomfortable questions. And you’ll wonder why developers keep building exit strategies from your platform. //

To AWS: You had a human circuit breaker. You removed it. Good luck with the next cascade failure.

To everyone else: Keep your backups distributed. Keep your exit strategies current. And if you find a Tarus inside your cloud provider, thank them before the system optimizes them away.

Halleluja on "Es ist uns ein Kind geboren", Kantate BWV 142 from Infinite Games. Concerto No. 1 For Piano, Vibraphone And String Orchestra
Arash Safaian