Basically, currently the process for creating a new wiki involves logging in to a server, running a lot of commands, and changin. It takes at least several days and can be done by only a handful of people who have the permissions and the required knowledge. (I recently heard a brilliant talk by WMF engineer Yuvi Panda about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEyqVXzCJJc ; he calls this "command line tax".)
Because it's so manual, it's pretty error-prone—despite the best intentions, and the people's professionalism, I often find things to fix after the wiki is already created. So even reducing the number of manual steps that the tech operations people have to run would already an improvement, because it will save time (often it's volunteers' time), and reduce mistakes. Making it so easy to do that it doesn't require any coding or running commands, but just going to a page like meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateWiki (don't click it, I just made it up), typing in the language code and pushing a button would be better yet, but it's totally OK if it doesn't happen next week. Who would have the permission to actually run it? LangCom members, stewards, somebody else? I don't care very much to be honest, as long as it's actually done with as few bugs as possible, and no silly unnecessary projects are created. Miloš is better at political thought than me :) -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore 2017-02-22 10:48 GMT+02:00 Oliver Stegen <[email protected]>: > To be honest, I don't know what you're talking about. Deploy commits? Run > scripts? Pybal? > If you think that it's not a big deal for LangCom to "have that button" > ... I don't know. > > Fwiw, > Oliver > > On 22-Feb-17 07:48, Milos Rancic wrote: > > I was talking with Tim Starling about the automation of the wiki creation, > renaming (locking, removing). In theory, this should be the first and the > most important step. > > I am in favor of giving the button to stewards, as LangCom should stay > clearly a non-executive body in relation to the Wikimedia web projects. > However, it shouldn't be a big deal if we have the button, as well. > > I would like to know what do you think, as well as what do stewards think > (so, MF-Warburg, may you talk with stewards about that and give us their > opinion). After we articulate our own opinions, this should be put on Meta > for wider community discussion and decision. > > At this moment we don't have ETA for the application, but I suppose > something between the next couple of months and the end of the year should > be reasonable to expect, as Tim has taken that to do. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: tstarling <[email protected]> > Date: Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 4:51 AM > Subject: [Maniphest] [Created] T158730: Automate WMF wiki creation > To: [email protected] > > > tstarling created this task. > tstarling added projects: Services, Release-Engineering-Team, > MediaWiki-Configuration. > Herald added a subscriber: Aklapper. > *TASK DESCRIPTION* > > Wiki creation is quite an involved process, documented on wikitech > <https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Add_a_wiki>. I think, at least for > certain common cases, the task could be almost completely automated. > > For uncomplicated creation of new language editions under existing > projects, with default configuration, the following tasks need to be done, > none of which require complex human decision-making: > > - Reconfigure many services by pushing configuration changes to > Gerrit, and deploy those commits > - mediawiki-config: wikiversions, *.dblist > - WikimediaMessages > - DNS > - RESTBase > - Parsoid > - Analytics refinery > - cxserver > - Labs dnsrecursor > - Run addWiki.php. This script aims to automate all tasks which can be > executed with the privileges of a MW maintenance script. > - Run Wikidata's populateSitesTable.php. It should probably be > incorporated into addWiki.php. > - Run labsdb maintain-views > - Update wikistats labs > > So at a minimum, you need to write and deploy commits to 8 different > projects, run three scripts, and manually insert some rows into a DB in a > labs instance. > > Despite there being no human decision making in this process, the > documentation requires that you involve people from approximately four > different teams (services, ops, wikidata, analytics). > > In my opinion, something is going wrong here in terms of development > policy. The problem is getting progressively worse. In July 2004, I fully > automated wiki creation and provided a web interface allowing people to > create wikis. Now, it is unthinkable. > > Obviously services are the main culprits. Is it possible for in-house > services to follow pybal's example, by polling a central HTTP configuration > service for their wiki lists? As with pybal, the service could just be a > collection of static files on a webserver. Even MediaWiki could profitably > use such a central service for its dblists, with APC caching. > > So let's suppose we could get the procedure down to: > > 1. Commit/review/deploy the DNS update > 2. Commit/review/deploy a configuration change to the new central > config service. > 3. Run addWiki.php > > Labs instances needing to know about the change would either poll the > config service, or be notified by addWiki.php. WikimediaMessages could be > updated in advance via translatewiki.net. > > (Thanks to Milos Rancic for raising this issue with me.) > > *TASK DETAIL* > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T158730 > > *EMAIL PREFERENCES* > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/settings/panel/emailpreferences/ > > *To: *tstarling > *Cc: *mobrovac, Reedy, demon, millosh, tstarling, Aklapper, Liudvikas, > Luke081515, Eevans, Hardikj, zeljkofilipin, Jay8g, Krenair, Legoktm, greg > > > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing > [email protected]https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > >
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