Re: [Foundation-l] 2008 Annual Fundraiser - Going into Phas e 2
Casey Brown wrote: On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:57 PM, effe iets anders effeietsand...@gmail.com wrote: Hm, btw, where was again that list with all incoming donations? Lodewijk There are many statistics pages, see the Contributions/Fundraiser section on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:SpecialPages. This is somewhat of a tangent, but from there I find Special:ContributionStatistics, which seems to have some wonky stats in its Currency Totals table. It says that the largest donation in any currency was 5,000 USD, donated in USD. But the Monthly Totals table shows lots over that, up to $262,000. The Currency Totals table also shows a $740.64 average USD contribution, but if you divide its total by its number of contributions, you get a more plausible $48.57 instead. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: I have submitted a new project proposal, at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Soviet_Repressions_Memorial Isn't this the sort of thing we've been in the business of slowly getting out of, with the move offsite of the September 11 memorial wiki? The consensus from that move seemed to be that notable victims of the September 11 attacks get an article on the regular encyclopedia projects (what constitutes notable being a different debate), and non-notable ones are either redirects to a larger article discussing them or not there at all, but that in either case we shouldn't be in the business of hosting victim memorials. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
It works and isn't terribly invasive, and realistically financial difficulty will find sympathy right now. I think it's brilliant. -Original Message- From: Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org Subj: Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal Date: Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:00 pm Size: 3K To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org 2008/12/23 effe iets anders effeietsand...@gmail.com: Up to now, I kinda liked the fundraiser. Although they are very shouty for what I'm used to (I dislike the red button for instance and the somewhat agressive tone), I think this last change in message could use a *little* step back. Please use a slightly smaller font, an slightly less shouty text. To me it really reads like wow, now we're really desperate, PLEASE COME READ THIS ** APPEAL. I would really appreciate it if this last banner would be done a little less in a way that comes to me (justified or not) as typical American... Within the last 24 hours, we've raised a total of $283,859. That's more than 10 times as much as we made during a typical weekday in the last few days of the fundraiser, and the single highest day on record for community gifts. We don't know yet how steep the inevitable drop-off will be, but it's obvious that the appeal is working beyond everyone's expectations. I think it's worth noting that this tenfold increase has been possible without the use of additional pixel real estate, without scrolling marquees, interstitials, or other serious interruptions of the Wikipedia reader/editor experience. All it took were less than 60 characters of text on each page in a highly visible font, linking to a personal appeal that makes our case in more detail. We should ask ourselves why it is that based on the previous sitenotices, 9 in 10 people who would be clearly willing to give to us, did not do so. There seem to be at least three principal reasons for that: * The previous messages were below the visibility threshold for most people: They considered them to be an unimportant part of the page that should be ignored. * The previous messages did not, clearly enough, make a case for giving. They appealed to people who instantly get the non-profit donation model, but not to those for whom Wikipedia is essentially the same as any other website. The appeal directly addresses this distinction, to the satisfaction of a great number of people. * Because it's a personal appeal, rather than an impersonal donation message, the letter seems more likely to resonate with people. Regardless of how the numbers will hold up, it's clear that these are important lessons to take away: The appeal, compared to some of our other site-notices, was trivial to implement. It's more important to communicate clearly and in a personal manner what we're trying to do than to focus on widgets designs. Yes, more so than before, this appeal communicates a sense of urgency. As it should: We still have a revenue gap of $1.75M to just cover our expenses for the fiscal year (let alone increase our reserve). We're in the middle of the worst financial crisis in our lifetime; companies are failing or laying off staff around us. If people's reaction is I don't want Wikipedia to go away - I better donate, that's not a bad thing. Obviously we should try to work out any remaining display glitches. And I'm sure over time we'll find a happy medium when it comes to aspects like font size, color, etc. But more importantly, we should try to translate this appeal into as many languages as possible, as it's currently just running in the English language wikis. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l --- message truncated --- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Within the last 24 hours, we've raised a total of $283,859. That's more than 10 times as much as we made during a typical weekday in the last few days of the fundraiser, and the single highest day on record for community gifts. We don't know yet how steep the inevitable drop-off will be, but it's obvious that the appeal is working beyond everyone's expectations. I think it's worth noting that this tenfold increase has been possible without the use of additional pixel real estate, without scrolling marquees, interstitials, or other serious interruptions of the Wikipedia reader/editor experience. All it took were less than 60 characters of text on each page in a highly visible font, linking to a personal appeal that makes our case in more detail. We should ask ourselves why it is that based on the previous sitenotices, 9 in 10 people who would be clearly willing to give to us, did not do so. There seem to be at least three principal reasons for that: * The previous messages were below the visibility threshold for most people: They considered them to be an unimportant part of the page that should be ignored. * The previous messages did not, clearly enough, make a case for giving. They appealed to people who instantly get the non-profit donation model, but not to those for whom Wikipedia is essentially the same as any other website. The appeal directly addresses this distinction, to the satisfaction of a great number of people. * Because it's a personal appeal, rather than an impersonal donation message, the letter seems more likely to resonate with people. snip I would opine that points 2 and 3 are the core characteristics, with 2 somewhat ahead of 3. Most of the banners are quite visible, and so I think 1 is negligible factor. Or perhaps more directly, I think most of the banners are visible to the point that people notice them, but after reading them many fail to care about that message they offer. For example, both the donation bar and the scales graphic starkly standout on the page, and yet they are no where near as successful. (I also suspect that the ability to extract gains by making the message more visibile has already been saturated, and one could probably reduce the height of the banner by 1/3 or so with little marginal change in the response rate.) So, if not visibility, then what is really going on. In my opinion, if you want someone to read something, personalizing it is a very good idea. I think describing it as a personal message and putting a face to it, provides engagement and gets people to pay attention. That Jimbo has excellent name recognition helps (if it were Sue or Michael Snow, for example, I don't think it would do as well). But ultimately, once one captures eyeballs, I think the biggest factor in getting people to hit the big red button is message. We tend to forget that among the 100s of millions of people that occasionally use Wikipedia, a substantial fraction don't really understand our operation or our goals. Saying we are a non-profit or a similar banner-sized message doesn't capture who we are in the way the longer text can. I suspect that simply providing the larger community with more information about what-the-hell-Wikipedia-is goes a long way to encouraging donations. It also suggests that the current donations landing page could probably be improved by providing more of that information. If I am right that the new message captures a larger number of people with only a casual familiarity with Wikipedia, then one might also guess that the donations early in the drive tended to come more from hard-core Wiki supporters who were already well acquainted with who we are and how we work. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] The new iteration
If the list is dead, it is because there is nothing to discuss at this time. This isn't a forum. Someone will bring a new topic in as appropriate, which is far preferable to trying to keep this list active and clog our inboxes with less relevant discussions, surely? Milos Rancic wrote: Anybody alive? The iteration goes like: * I start to talk about low activity on the list. * Erik mentions that new step toward license migration has been happened. * Others get some idea to talk about. * The new iteration of discussion begins. So, let's try: This list became dead once again! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
2008/12/24 Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com: So, if not visibility, then what is really going on. In my opinion, if you want someone to read something, personalizing it is a very good idea. I think describing it as a personal message and putting a face to it, provides engagement and gets people to pay attention. That Jimbo has excellent name recognition helps (if it were Sue or Michael Snow, for example, I don't think it would do as well). Jimbo applying his rock star factor is one of his most useful jobs for WMF :-) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
On Wednesday 24 December 2008 03:10, Delirium wrote: Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: I have submitted a new project proposal, at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Soviet_Repressions_Memorial Isn't this the sort of thing we've been in the business of slowly getting out of, with the move offsite of the September 11 memorial wiki? The consensus from that move seemed to be that notable victims of the September 11 attacks get an article on the regular encyclopedia projects (what constitutes notable being a different debate), and non-notable ones are either redirects to a larger article discussing them or not there at all, but that in either case we shouldn't be in the business of hosting victim memorials. In the proposal, I make my case as to how this is essential to fulfilling the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation. -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings
Hoi, Given that some of our Betawiki localisers have not provided us with their e-mail address and given that this is an open call to contribute to our end of your localisation effort, I forward this mail to you all. Help us to end 2008 with a bang and in the process you can help yourself or the Wikimedia Foundation to some bucks.. Thanks and happy holidays, GerardM -- Forwarded message -- From: Siebrand Mazeland Date: 2008/12/24 Subject: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings To: mediawiki-i...@lists.wikimedia.org, translator...@lists.wikimedia.org Dear translators, developers, and other subscribers, As Betawiki staff we would like to thank you very much for your continued support making MediaWiki projects succeed, and hope on good health for you and your loved ones, and your continued contributions for 2009. End of December 2007 Siebrand formulated localisation goals for MediaWiki For 2008[1]. They were ambitious. Really ambitious, and it looks like the four goals that were set are not going to be met. However, us Betawiki staff do not give up without a fight. There is still one more week left before the year ends, and because of that we would like to give you an incentive. == 1,000 Euro bounty == Together with Stichting Open Progress[2] we are able to make available 1,000 Euro, to be divided between all translators that will make 500 or more new translations for MediaWiki or its extensions before the end of the year. In the past week there have been 5 users that made more than 500 translations, so that is quite an incentive, we think! If you are eligible to claim your share of the bounty, please do that at the designated page[3]. Please note if you would like to receive your cut, have us donate it to the Wikimedia Foundation on your behalf, or if you do not claim it, in which case Stichting Open Progress will repurpose it. We wish you happy and productive holidays and hope to see you (re)visit Betawiki often! Betawiki Staff[4] [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html [2] http://openprogress.org/Stichting_Open_Progress [3] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project/500claim [4] http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:ListUsersgroup=staff ___ Mediawiki-i18n mailing list mediawiki-i...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-i18n ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Europeana
2008/12/24 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) is working again. I think that it has a lot of useful (PD) materials. Looks like it *could* be an interesting project. Any pointers to good places to start looking? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
On Wednesday 24 December 2008 11:02, David Gerard wrote: Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would do for a start. See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example. Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest. I still don't see how it's outside the WMF's scope, nor do I see how presenting a strong POV is necessarily bad. The WMF's mission is essentially educational, correct? And I submit that to be truly educated about such an event as this, one needs to see perhaps a more emotional presentation, to truly understand what it actually did to people. One would not say that the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., is non-educational, though it presents a strong POV and is focused more on presenting the human effects of the Holocaust than simple factual information. This is basically the same thing. It fulfills an essential part of the Foundation's educational mission that to now has been neglected. -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
On 12/24/08, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc. No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every repression (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had better none, in my opinion. (Yes, in other cases I argued and would argue that it is better to have something than nothing, but in this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it) Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would do for a start. See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example. Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest. Oh, surely. There are also genuine academic projects 'off-wiki' that have such aims - it just doesn't fit with my personal vision of the Wikimedia Foundation. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Europeana
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, 24/12/2008 21:12: Interesting material, definitely. But PD; I think not... Europeana is only a portal and metadata search engine: content is actually in other sites (e.g.: http://www.photo.rmn.fr/cf/htm/CPicZ.aspx?E=2C6NU045OU4Q), which terms of use is relevant only. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since May 2008. The reports have been generated on the new wikistats server Bayes, which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+ wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available, results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports will be published. Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/ Happy holidays everyone. Erik Zachte ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Thank you Erik! Erik Zachte wrote: New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since May 2008. The reports have been generated on the new wikistats server ‘Bayes’, which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+ wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available, results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports will be published. Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/ Happy holidays everyone. Erik Zachte ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklSxlMACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtWCZACdEbLR7W/nU5Q9hmgR9BYcziB3 HtYAoIKTbslx9ooSFOvyFbH671DyEaOM =tGOu -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
John: For the Page Views data on some projects, the May data looks unusually lower than the June data; could it be that the May data isn't a complete month for some projects? Yes, that is indeed the case. I will omit the incomplete month on subsequent reports. Erik Zachte ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump is the main bottleneck. Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major resource drain. Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads). This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on major platforms over the years. Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error recovery. Erik Zachte I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case: 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data in, we cannot get it all back out. 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct hardware has still not been purchased. I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ? Cheers, Brian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
Also, I wonder if these folks have been consulted for their expertise in compressing wikipedia data: http://prize.hutter1.net/ On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward: 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you on a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge. Cheers, On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.comwrote: Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump is the main bottleneck. Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major resource drain. Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads). This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on major platforms over the years. Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error recovery. Erik Zachte I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case: 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data in, we cannot get it all back out. 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct hardware has still not been purchased. I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ? Cheers, Brian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- (Not sent from my iPhone) -- (Not sent from my iPhone) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:12:25 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc. No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every repression (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had better none, in my opinion. (Yes, in other cases I argued and would argue that it is better to have something than nothing, but in this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it) Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would do for a start. See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example. Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest. - d. I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian repression, is to be repressed and not readily available. Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. And what, in principle, is wrong with that? -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
2008/12/25 Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.com: Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump is the main bottleneck. Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major resource drain. Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads). This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on major platforms over the years. Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error recovery. 7zip is readily available as free software for Unixlike platforms, though it's pretty much never installed by default. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. And what, in principle, is wrong with that? Kurt, et al... In principle, it does not scale well. I can understand a Wikipedia article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial project? The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:free_content or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement. The Wikipedia article on the tragedy would appear to better meet this mission statement, as opposed to a memorial wiki. And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that. Best, Jon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS1sUACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtU2dwCgg+cSXaOPuWY7mA8Mik2dubPN raYAoLP+Lt7VMy5KACm2eiodRZTv6S3+ =/sfR -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that it is not generally permitted to have a political purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any repression, genocide etc, would appear to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that construction. From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:12:25 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc. No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every repression (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had better none, in my opinion. (Yes, in other cases I argued and would argue that it is better to have something than nothing, but in this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it) Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would do for a start. See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example. Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest. - d. I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian repression, is to be repressed and not readily available. Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.0/1862 - Release Date: 23/12/2008 12:08 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote: Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that it is not generally permitted to have a political purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any repression, genocide etc, would appear to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that construction. I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and telling their stories constitutes taking partisan sides in political disputes. It's educating people about the impact of these events, plain and simple. I don't think it is something we should focus on. Let us focus on our existing projects, perfect them. Reference my earlier rationale. Jon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS4QcACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtVkBACaAn4abhVGuxGKrmy138cTarWH ahsAn3ClsocopZ59oQdr89NI+oLW7Qi1 =gMRp -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote: Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that it is not generally permitted to have a political purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any repression, genocide etc, would appear to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that construction. I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and telling their stories constitutes taking partisan sides in political disputes. It's educating people about the impact of these events, plain and simple. -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us That would be fine, up to a point. On the other hand, putting all that under a POV title within the WMF umbrealls is quite a different issue, and not one, I think, which would be palatable to the WMF, for reasons I've already outlined. Kurt, as you now should realise, politics at any level is a subtle and complex business, and my personal opinion is that you should stick to marching bands. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward: 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you on a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge. I would estimate a complete, uncompressed enwiki dump in the present format at ~3 TB in size. ruwiki, which has about 5% as many revisions as enwiki, has a 187 GB uncompressed dump. At 3 TB, virtually any mechanism of distributing an uncompressed dump would be very problematic. 7zip currently achieves greater than 99% size reduction. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:25, Jon wrote: I don't think it is something we should focus on. Let us focus on our existing projects, perfect them. Reference my earlier rationale. Given that these are all volunteer projects, those more interested in improving existing projects will do so regardless. This provides an opportunity for those not inclined to work on those projects (or more inclined to work on this one), to still have an opportunity to help fulfill an essential part of the WMF's mission. I posit that the memorial project is not essential. I think it would drain resources from our mission. Jon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS560ACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtXD0QCdEmWaYcsB/5T8wwD3MLVgwCyw cbYAnAuZWdYQZAWgkeYskzZ5oovHzMGq =epHh -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. And what, in principle, is wrong with that? Kurt, et al... In principle, it does not scale well. I can understand a Wikipedia article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial project? The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:free_content or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement. The Wikipedia article on the tragedy would appear to better meet this mission statement, as opposed to a memorial wiki. And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that. Best, Jon It would be quite educational. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Fred Bauder wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. And what, in principle, is wrong with that? Kurt, et al... In principle, it does not scale well. I can understand a Wikipedia article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial project? The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:free_content or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement. The Wikipedia article on the tragedy would appear to better meet this mission statement, as opposed to a memorial wiki. And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that. Best, Jon It would be quite educational. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Could you expand a bit more on that... in what way would it be more educational than say, the article? In a very neutral, factual, referenced way? Jon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS5/gACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtUF6wCcC9RFtDtYhiffj9gdV3YAa/5C 1HYAn2oSId/WEbpth8In+ttro26H5J7K =YCn5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:25, Jon wrote: I don't think it is something we should focus on. Let us focus on our existing projects, perfect them. Reference my earlier rationale. Given that these are all volunteer projects, those more interested in improving existing projects will do so regardless. This provides an opportunity for those not inclined to work on those projects (or more inclined to work on this one), to still have an opportunity to help fulfill an essential part of the WMF's mission. I posit that the memorial project is not essential. I think it would drain resources from our mission. Jon If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:free_content or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement. The Wikipedia article on the tragedy would appear to better meet this mission statement, as opposed to a memorial wiki. It would be quite educational. Fred Could you expand a bit more on that... in what way would it be more educational than say, the article? In a very neutral, factual, referenced way? Jon Each of the millions who were starved, imprisoned, tortured, or killed has a unique story. Each story is more significant and educational than a Wikipedia article on Hitler or Stalin. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate. You mean, taking a particular political position? I don't see that in the mission. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Each of the millions who were starved, imprisoned, tortured, or killed has a unique story. Each story is more significant and educational than a Wikipedia article on Hitler or Stalin. The same applies to the Sep11 wiki. Why was that moved offsite? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc, We would not need to mess with small time killers like Osama bin Ladin. Fred From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian repression, is to be repressed and not readily available. Fred Bauder ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
Hi Robert, I'm not sure I agree with you.. (3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a few days. The only cost is bandwidth. On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:46 PM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward: 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you on a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge. I would estimate a complete, uncompressed enwiki dump in the present format at ~3 TB in size. ruwiki, which has about 5% as many revisions as enwiki, has a 187 GB uncompressed dump. At 3 TB, virtually any mechanism of distributing an uncompressed dump would be very problematic. 7zip currently achieves greater than 99% size reduction. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- (Not sent from my iPhone) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 David Gerard wrote: 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate. You mean, taking a particular political position? I don't see that in the mission. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l I must agree with Mr Gerard, and taking that position, or any position by the Foundation is a road I don't want to see WMF go down. I don't want WMF to alienate anyone... anyone. The information must be free, and global. For everyone. Please don't intrepet this message as my defending any group, I'm not. I'm against oppression. However, I don't think the WMF should be for or against anything, politically. Jon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS6qwACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtVTYgCeM5mpWOqqYcd8z38lfRXxHINL gyMAniYpb1MQu1kRigoFOM2M9EA05ULf =EhRk -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Oh, but we are, just by what we do. And the mass murders of the twentieth century would have made short work of us. In fact, in the last regime controlled by them Wikipedia is blocked. Controlled by the Soviets, who I understand were the subject of the proposed wiki? I believe you have conflated two Communist dictatorships that hadn't been on particularly good terms since the 1960s. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc, What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without really meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests? Shaka's conquests? They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india. Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china. Nanking Massacre. Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post independence Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Hi Robert, I'm not sure I agree with you.. (3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a few days. The only cost is bandwidth. While you might be correct, most connections are reported as megaBITS per second. For example, ATT's highest grade of residential DSL service is 6 Mbps, which would result in 46 day download. Comcast goes up to 16 Mbps, which is 17 days. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 geni wrote: 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc, What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without really meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests? Shaka's conquests? They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india. Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china. Nanking Massacre. Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post independence Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff. I agree. I just don't think we have the resources to make this technically plausible, aside from the political implications that I am concerned with, as I have referenced. Jon- -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS7cMACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtWxlACePSVnhUpRDenNqhPwP/W3LJUs R/IAn2QGyTux9DDM3sAxomCUt9mRFWRl =Lut5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Oh, but we are, just by what we do. And the mass murders of the twentieth century would have made short work of us. In fact, in the last regime controlled by them Wikipedia is blocked. Controlled by the Soviets, who I understand were the subject of the proposed wiki? I believe you have conflated two Communist dictatorships that hadn't been on particularly good terms since the 1960s. - d. Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point. I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
2008/12/25 geni geni...@gmail.com: 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives behind this proposal. I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc, What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without really meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests? Shaka's conquests? They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india. Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china. Nanking Massacre. Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post independence Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff. I submit that a wiki that could almost have been custom-designed to attract the worst of the interminable ethnic arguments of en:wp would have limited ability to produce educational content, but would be of vast educational use for sociological study. I'm not sure that *entirely* squares with the mission either. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
2008/12/25 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people who want this can't be 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API I guess. Maybe we can run a sneakernet of DLTs. The Florida sysadmins run off a stack of tapes, they send those to someone to run off copies of and distribute to the next layer, and so on ... - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:29 PM, Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I'm also curious, what is the estimated amount of time to decompress this thing? Somewhere around 1 week, I'd guesstimate. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
2008/12/25 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: 2008/12/25 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people who want this can't be 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API I guess. Maybe we can run a sneakernet of DLTs. The Florida sysadmins run off a stack of tapes, they send those to someone to run off copies of and distribute to the next layer, and so on ... - d. I'd more be thinking of handing over a stack of hard drives to wikimedia chapter reps at wikimania . -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
On Wednesday 24 December 2008 20:30, David Gerard wrote: 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point. I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs. Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're not going away. I fail to see how your conclusion follows from your premises. And as economics shifts to information, we have credibility to the skies. Information wants to be free means it leaks like a gas and running a Great Firewall is like trying to carry air in a bucket. What does this have to do with anything? Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make direct sense) would be a disaster. Why? I don't deny its usefulness and appropriateness for SPECIFIC PROJECTS, but why must it be universal across all WMF projects? -- Kurt Weber http://blog.kurtweber.us k...@kurtweber.us ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 20:30, David Gerard wrote: 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net: Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point. I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs. Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're not going away. I fail to see how your conclusion follows from your premises. And as economics shifts to information, we have credibility to the skies. Information wants to be free means it leaks like a gas and running a Great Firewall is like trying to carry air in a bucket. What does this have to do with anything? Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make direct sense) would be a disaster. Why? I don't deny its usefulness and appropriateness for SPECIFIC PROJECTS, but why must it be universal across all WMF projects? ? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
Hoi, It is not one either. It has been said repeatedly that the process of a straightforward back up is something that is done on a regular basis. This however includes a lot of information that we do not allow to be included in the data export that is made available to the public. So never mind what database is used, special purpose software is needed to provide the functionality needed. This functionality needs more redesign and programming. It is a process that impacts the usability of the English language Wikipedia and as such may benefit from the Stanton gift.. then again it does not impact the usability of people new to Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM 2008/12/25 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu Nice work Erik! I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case: 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data in, we cannot get it all back out. 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct hardware has still not been purchased. I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ? Cheers, Brian On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Erik Zachte erikzac...@infodisiac.com wrote: New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since May 2008. The reports have been generated on the new wikistats server 'Bayes', which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+ wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available, results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports will be published. Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/ Happy holidays everyone. Erik Zachte ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- (Not sent from my iPhone) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial
I agree. As I said before, where would this stop? Memorial sites for specific incidents will lead to more and more requests. If we have one for an event, we must have one for all. From: Jon scr...@datascreamer.com To: k...@kurtweber.us; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:13:17 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote: On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:53, you wrote: I posit that the memorial project is not essential. I think it would drain resources from our mission. Jon As I explained in the proposal (again, did you read the proposal?) it is an essential part of the WMF's mission. I did read it... and I jsut read it again at meta to be sure I understand again. The mission... ...empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. I question how a POV memorial is educational content. I also question alignments that could be generated by such memorials. I question scalability... They have a memorial, why can't I. You don't think [insert event here] is important enough? I just won't support WMF anymore. With the above, when groups become alienated, I question our ability to effectively disseminate the core projects (wikipedia, and others) effectively and globally. I question the technical strain on our resources. All of these memorials. I question the political implications of having a worded memorial, polarizing an otherwise neutral foundation, or the public perception of the foundation. These are only a few of the things I began to question when I first read the proposal. Jon- -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAklS+kgACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtW1RwCfRsGX2219PSOjvJ/4WciUxj10 L+YAn3KSSmLGWUW1UXV7H4MwU6pQaIS2 =GeSm -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
