James, these were avoidable issues. Had anyone reviewed the timetable with
me, or asked for my assistance, based on my experience as the primary user
of GWT, I would have suggested how to avoid these foreseeable potholes.

Fae
On 12 May 2015 21:56, "James Heald" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Brian,
>
> Yes,  https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T98734 was one of the requests;
> others were https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T98744 and
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T98733
>
> These all related to a two-day workshop session organised at the British
> Library, at significant expense to the BL, to get to grips with GlamWiki
> Toolset.
>
> The aim on day 1 was to introduce the capabilities of the GWT, Commons,
> categories etc; and then on day 2 to practically work through some sample
> image sets.
>
> It was a learning experience for us on the Wikimedia side as well, but one
> of the very clear messages of the day is the whole set of processes that
> need to be gone through before one can get started with the GWT appear to
> be needlessly convoluted, obstructionist and time-wasting.
>
>
> GWT is supposed to be the preferred path for GLAMs to upload their
> content, with maximum metadata capture and reliability.
>
> For a major GLAM like the British Library, it ought to be a complete
> triviality for the head of their Labs group to get their main domain
> whitelisted.  (And actually, even for the smallest minor GLAM while we're
> on the subject).  The song-and-dance they got put through is utterly
> pointless and self-defeating.
>
> By the end of the second day of the workshop, their main domain
>   *.bl.uk  had still not been whitelisted, because somebody took it upon
> themselves to quibble about the quality of some of the images in a test set.
>
> The domain  acms.sl.nsw.gov.au  for a visiting participant from the State
> Library of New South Wales was only cleared at 4pm in the afternoon, as the
> workshop was closing -- after quibbling about the metadata
>
> Luckily the domain  www.jacar.go.jp  for some Japanese prints was cleared
> in time, so there was at least one dataset that the tool could actually be
> used on (rather than what should have been five).  Even that was only
> because some passing admin had over-ruled an initial quibble.
>
>
> Apparently:
> * getting a domain approved requires the main system config file to be
> changed.
> * this can only take effect at 4pm or midnight BST
> * requests will only be considered on San Francisco time
> * any request will get at least one gratuitous knock back.
>
>
> This is simply not good enough.  When the whole of Flickr is wide-open for
> use by the GW upload tool, this obstructionism is absurd.
>
> We had five very experienced Commons users in the room today, all of them
> in good standing with thousands of uploads to their name, and none of them
> could do anything to move the process forward.
>
>
> This ought to be reviewed urgently, and the GWT whitelist should be
> divorced from the central system config files as soon as possible, and
> instead be placed somewhere where any admin can update it with immediate
> effect, without any of the runaround on Phabricator, which for the GLAM
> people trying to learn how to do things for themselves at the workshop
> yesterday and today was an utterly confusing and unnecessary extra
> complexity.
>
> And the next time somebody asks for content upload to be made possible
> from one of the great libraries in the world, please everyone let's not
> waste people's time with petty quibbling.
>
>   -- James.
>
>
> On 12/05/2015 20:06, Brian Wolff wrote:
>
>> On May 12, 2015 6:36 AM, "Ally Crockford" <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> Training is progressing well here at the BL, and there are several
>>>
>> curators with XML files who would like to test uploads on Beta but are
>> still waiting to have the requested domains whitelisted.
>>
>>>
>>> The requests have been logged on Phabricator - I was wondering if there's
>>>
>> anyone on the list and currently awake/available to approve the
>> whitelisting?
>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Ally
>>> ----
>>>
>>> Dr Ally Crockford
>>> E-mail: [email protected]
>>> Departmental Profile
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Would that be https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T98734 ? There was a
>> comment by  Dereckson that nobody has responded to.
>>
>> --bawolff
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Glamtools mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glamtools
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Glamtools mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glamtools
>
_______________________________________________
Glamtools mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glamtools

Reply via email to