Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strategic planning for conferences

[Pine W]

Hi Alex,

I hope that your 2019 is starting well. You may remember this thread from
Wikimedia-l that I started near the end of September. Would you please
provide an update regarding strategic planning for conferences? I realize
that you may have several projects on your agenda including hiring a new
staff member, so perhaps this thread got lost in the shuffle.

Thanks,
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )


On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 4:59 PM Marti Johnson  wrote:

> Hi Pine,
>
> The Program Officer for Conference Grants does serve as a single point of
> contact for conference funding at the Wikimedia Foundation.  However, that
> position has been open for last several months and we've been undergoing a
> hiring process to fill it.
>
> I'm copying in Alex Wang, who oversees that position so she can respond to
> your questions.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Marti
>
>
>
>
> *Marti Johnson*
>
> *Pronouns: she/her/hersProgram Officer*
> *Individual Grants*
> *Wikimedia Foundation *
> *1 Montgomery, Ste. 1600*
> *San Francisco, CA  94104*
> +1 415-839-6885
> Skype: Mjohnson_WMF
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
>  in the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make
> it
> a reality!
> Support Wikimedia
> 
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Risker]

Without in any way suggesting that David's and Fae's question is
inappropriateI suspect that the people most likely to have used/tested
the backups are not people who follow this list; they're much more likely
to participate on technical lists.

It's actually a pretty good question, and Ariel Glenn of the WMF may be the
best person to ask since they seem to be managing the process of making the
files available.

Risker/Anne

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 06:44, Fæ  wrote:

> Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
> /non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
> planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
> matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
> are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
> reasons, Peru.
>
> What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
> dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
> blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
> that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
> host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
> whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
> due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
> off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
> "emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
> globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
> should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
> any professional business actuary would advise.
>
> As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
> my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
> last test putting up a copy of the sites from
> the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
> it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
> WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
> >
> > Hi Fae,
> >
> > I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
> > Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
> > Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
> > resurgence?
> >
> > Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd worry
> > about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> > welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the other
> > side of the Great Firewall.
> >
> > Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand
> what
> > island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from
> the
> > vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
> >
> > The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each case, I
> > believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
> > Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
> > glaringly public flaws.
> >
> > To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is
> > maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> > unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of
> Wikipedia.
> >
> > Nathan
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> > > following,
> > >
> > > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> > > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> > > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> > > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> > > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> > > politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> > > inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> > > inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> > > decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> > > virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
> > >
> > > The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> > > switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> > > continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
> > > has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
> > > and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
> > > and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.
> > >
> > > However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
> > > B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
> > > hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
> > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Ariel Glenn WMF]

The files made available as 'Wikimedia dumps' are not intended to be a full
backup. And indeed that is not their purpose. People do set up mirrors
using these dumps from time to time, though I have not done so recently.

Actual honest-to-goodness backups (database snapshots) are another thing
altogether and one of the Wikimedia DBAs may want to talk about that.

Ariel

On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 4:52 PM Risker  wrote:

> Without in any way suggesting that David's and Fae's question is
> inappropriateI suspect that the people most likely to have used/tested
> the backups are not people who follow this list; they're much more likely
> to participate on technical lists.
>
> It's actually a pretty good question, and Ariel Glenn of the WMF may be the
> best person to ask since they seem to be managing the process of making the
> files available.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 06:44, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
> > /non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
> > planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
> > matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
> > are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
> > reasons, Peru.
> >
> > What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
> > dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
> > blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
> > that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
> > host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
> > whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
> > due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
> > off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
> > "emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
> > globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
> > should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
> > any professional business actuary would advise.
> >
> > As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
> > my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
> > last test putting up a copy of the sites from
> > the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
> > it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
> > WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Fae,
> > >
> > > I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
> > > Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
> > > Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
> > > resurgence?
> > >
> > > Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd
> worry
> > > about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> > > welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the
> other
> > > side of the Great Firewall.
> > >
> > > Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand
> > what
> > > island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from
> > the
> > > vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
> > >
> > > The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each
> case, I
> > > believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
> > > Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
> > > glaringly public flaws.
> > >
> > > To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is
> > > maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> > > unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of
> > Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Nathan
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> > > > following,
> > > >
> > > > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely
> alarming
> > > > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> > > > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> > > > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> > > > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> > > > politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> > > > inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is
> not
> > > > inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> > > > decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> > > > virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
> > > >
> > > > The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Fæ]

Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
/non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
reasons, Peru.

What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
"emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
any professional business actuary would advise.

As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
last test putting up a copy of the sites from
the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.

Thanks,
Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae,
>
> I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
> Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
> Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
> resurgence?
>
> Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd worry
> about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the other
> side of the Great Firewall.
>
> Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand what
> island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from the
> vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
>
> The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each case, I
> believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
> Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
> glaringly public flaws.
>
> To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is
> maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of Wikipedia.
>
> Nathan
>
> On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> > following,
> >
> > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> > politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> > inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> > inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> > decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> > virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
> >
> > The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> > switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> > continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
> > has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
> > and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
> > and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.
> >
> > However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
> > B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
> > hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
> > government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet
> > our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of
> > political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government
> > started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published
> > plan would be a realistic response. If they tried doing it, we could
> > simply power off our servers in the USA, rather than compromise our
> > content.
> >
> > If anyone knows of committed investment in a practical WMF Plan B, it
> > would be reassuring to share it more widely at this time. If not, more
> > of us should be asking about it, politely, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Blocks which appear to demonstrate prejudice against minorities

[Amir Sarabadani]

Here's my 2c:
Calling gay people "subhuman" is so vile that needs direct action from
outside of the wiki but IMO this is a symptom of a larger issue.

The issue is that different wikis are disconnected and don't have proper
oversight by a central (volunteer-based) authority.
This sometimes lead to different languages having biases that are related
to the culture and this is sorta okay-ish specially if the wiki is big
enough to balance the differences. Let me give you several examples:
* In Arabic Wikipedia name of the water body south of Iran/North of UAE is
"Arabian gulf" but in Persian Wikipedia is "Persian gulf". This basically
means different versioning of the same entity. I don't like this because
what makes Wikipedia great is that you don't get personalized articles,
like article of "Abortion" in English Wikipedia is the same regardless of
what your stand on this matter is. This differentiates Wikipedia from
facebook and twitter that put people in bubbles.
* In smaller wikis the issue gets worse. What bothered me for a very long
time was that article of "Mohammad" was "Mohammad peace be upon him" [1]
until 27 March of 2018 [2]. When the title is so biased towards the
religious point of view, how neutral the article itself is?
* The issue can different shapes too. I can find lots of
copyright-violating pictures in small wikis. Most of these pictures are
copyright violation [3] We have global sysops and SWMT but it's more of a
reactionary mentality.
* Language barrier makes things even harder. Just imagine how harder it
would be to react if the above discussion happened in Amharic instead of
English.

Maybe it's more a feature than a bug. For example, in Persian Wikipedia
several articles in controversial topics that are featured (homosexuality,
and some articles about Baha'i's faith) are not being used in the main page
to avoid controversy and blockade of Wikipedia in Iran. As the person who
wrote most of one of those articles, I disagree but I understand and
respect the community's decision.

I just want to point out to the issue and I have no solutions. Stewards
seem like a good fit to apply fleet-side norms like no discrimination
policy.

Also, I don't have anything against mzn and urwikis, these are happen to
languages that I have basic understanding of.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_be_upon_him
[2]:
https://ur.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5:%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B4%D8%AA%DB%81=%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF+%D8%A8%D9%86+%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF+%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%DB%81=en
[3]:
https://mzn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B4%D8%A7:%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B1_%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF

Sorry for the long email.

On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:53 PM Vi to  wrote:

> By the way, please do not intervene en masse. They (the user involved) have
> a strong tendency towards using "colonialism" as a general purpose excuse
> for their action, as I experienced myself a bunch of months ago, along with
> a series of references to Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
> This kind of excuse is easily is fed by this kind of intervention. Talkpage
> contents is a trivial matter compared to insults and abuse of
> administrative privileges. While the latter one is solved the first one is
> yet to be handled.
>
> Vito
>
> Il giorno lun 7 gen 2019 alle ore 15:56 James Heilman 
> ha
> scritto:
>
> > While we give individual languages / projects a great deal of autonomy,
> > they are not completely autonomous and remain accountable to our global
> > norms. We have a shared brand to uphold. Glad to see a strong position
> has
> > been taken by the community against discrimination based on sexual
> > orientation.
> >
> > My 2 cents
> > James
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:39 AM Ariel Glenn WMF 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > A note that the user's talk page
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A3%E1%88%8D_%E1%8B%8D%E1%8B%AD%E1%8B%AD%E1%89%B5:Codex_Sinaiticus
> > > may or may not reflect all of the comments made at any given moment,
> > since
> > > the user has been engaged in deleting large parts of the discussion.
> > You'll
> > > want to double-check the history to see what's been written.
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > 
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > James Heilman
> > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Vi to]

AFAIR CODFW can serve as a complete (tested) backup for EQIAD. If the same
would be implemented (though it's not a 5 minutes task) to ESAMS that would
be a first step towards a more distributed infrastructure.

Vito

Il giorno mar 8 gen 2019 alle ore 18:17 Fæ  ha scritto:

> Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> following,
>
> For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
>
> The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from other countries
> has been raised on this list several times over many years. The WMF
> and its employees are heavily invested in staying in Silicon Valley,
> and that will stay true unless external risks become extreme.
>
> However, there has never been a rationale to avoid investing in a Plan
> B. A robust plan, where the WMF can switch operations over to a
> hosting country with a sufficiently welcoming with stable national
> government and legislation, that our projects could continue to meet
> our open knowledge goals virtually uninterrupted and without risk of
> political control. A Plan B would ensure that if the US Government
> started to discuss controlling Wikipedia, then at least that published
> plan would be a realistic response. If they tried doing it, we could
> simply power off our servers in the USA, rather than compromise our
> content.
>
> If anyone knows of committed investment in a practical WMF Plan B, it
> would be reassuring to share it more widely at this time. If not, more
> of us should be asking about it, politely, persistently but perhaps
> less patiently than indefinitely. :-)
>
> Links:
> 1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46739180
> 2. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/research/updates/populism
> 3.
> https://www.cnet.com/news/obama-signs-order-outlining-emergency-internet-control
> "... this order was designed to empower certain governmental agencies
> with control over telecommunications and the Web during natural
> disasters and security emergencies."
> 4.
> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418
> "The president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic, impeding
> access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return
> pro-Trump content as the top results."
> 5. Bizarro, as used in the title of this email:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[WereSpielChequers]

I would suggest Iceland. But there are several other possibilities, Ireland
and New Zealand for starters.

But Iceland is a nice green location for server farms. Cheap cooling, green
electricity a small enough economy that they wouldn't want to upset the WMF
if it located there, and a government that doesn't hesitate to defend its
economic interests even if technically they don't have armed forces.

As others have pointed out there are worse choices we could make than the
US, but there are also much better choices.

WSC


>
>
> --
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2019 09:52:41 -0500
> From: Risker 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a
> choice to make
> Message-ID:
>  n6p1y9xs...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Without in any way suggesting that David's and Fae's question is
> inappropriateI suspect that the people most likely to have used/tested
> the backups are not people who follow this list; they're much more likely
> to participate on technical lists.
>
> It's actually a pretty good question, and Ariel Glenn of the WMF may be the
> best person to ask since they seem to be managing the process of making the
> files available.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 06:44, Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
> > /non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
> > planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
> > matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
> > are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
> > reasons, Peru.
> >
> > What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
> > dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
> > blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
> > that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
> > host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
> > whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
> > due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
> > off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
> > "emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
> > globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
> > should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
> > any professional business actuary would advise.
> >
> > As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
> > my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
> > last test putting up a copy of the sites from
> > the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
> > it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
> > WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> > --
> > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Fae,
> > >
> > > I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
> > > Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
> > > Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
> > > resurgence?
> > >
> > > Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd
> worry
> > > about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> > > welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the
> other
> > > side of the Great Firewall.
> > >
> > > Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand
> > what
> > > island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe from
> > the
> > > vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
> > >
> > > The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each
> case, I
> > > believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
> > > Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
> > > glaringly public flaws.
> > >
> > > To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia is
> > > maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> > > unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of
> > Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Nathan
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> > > > following,
> > > >
> > > > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely
> alarming
> > > > to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> > > > reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> > > > whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> > > > voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Vi to]

>
> I would suggest Iceland. But there are several other possibilities, Ireland
> and New Zealand for starters.
>

An alternative to be solid should be technically and economically feasible.
Ireland may be ok though I suspect is less cheap than Netherlands or
Germany, I suspect Iceland is even more expensive, while New Zeland is
"far" from most of our audience.

I suppose in Italy we'd worry
> about Beppe and criminal libel statutes,


Their allies from lega nord are even worse.

Vito
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] ABUSE OF THE SYSTEM

[Jeremy Lee-Jenkins]

You can contact a steward via their group email to request Global IP
block exemption or unblocking of your IP address. Make sure to include
exact details.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_IP_block_exemptions
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards

J.

On 1/8/19, 80hnhtv4agou--- via Wikimedia-l
 wrote:
>
> I have just been IP globally blocked as an ip;
>
> based on a series of misunderstanding.
>
> coming from page stalking on talk pages and watching list edit tools.
>
> and the fact that anybody can go to the  Steward
> requests/Global
>
> page and ask for a block with out any text
> what so ever
>
> and no notice to the ip user, and that one stewards can
> come
>
> by without any evidence  and
> grant all postings at once.
>
> and yes i have filled out the form and sent the stewards
> e-mail.
>
> also with this abuse going on on individual wiki’s I
> have tried
>
> to contact trust and safety with no reply ever, on
> e-mail or
>
> there talk pages.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 


-- 
Warm Regards

Jeremy Lee-Jenkins

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
May I remind you again that at the time the Vrije Universiteit was testing
in a grid how the performance of a MediaWiki based on peer to peer
technology would cope.. The guy who ran the computing department is known
for MINIX.. it was his development.

Why not run p2p and the central server systems in paralel. It may do some
things for us in places like Turkey
Thanks,
 GerardM

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 16:00, Ariel Glenn WMF  wrote:

> The files made available as 'Wikimedia dumps' are not intended to be a full
> backup. And indeed that is not their purpose. People do set up mirrors
> using these dumps from time to time, though I have not done so recently.
>
> Actual honest-to-goodness backups (database snapshots) are another thing
> altogether and one of the Wikimedia DBAs may want to talk about that.
>
> Ariel
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 4:52 PM Risker  wrote:
>
> > Without in any way suggesting that David's and Fae's question is
> > inappropriateI suspect that the people most likely to have
> used/tested
> > the backups are not people who follow this list; they're much more likely
> > to participate on technical lists.
> >
> > It's actually a pretty good question, and Ariel Glenn of the WMF may be
> the
> > best person to ask since they seem to be managing the process of making
> the
> > files available.
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> >
> > On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 06:44, Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > > Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
> > > /non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
> > > planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
> > > matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
> > > are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
> > > reasons, Peru.
> > >
> > > What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
> > > dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
> > > blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
> > > that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
> > > host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
> > > whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
> > > due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
> > > off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
> > > "emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
> > > globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
> > > should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
> > > any professional business actuary would advise.
> > >
> > > As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
> > > my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
> > > last test putting up a copy of the sites from
> > > the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
> > > it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
> > > WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Fae
> > > --
> > > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> > >
> > > On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Fae,
> > > >
> > > > I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is
> it
> > > > Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National?
> Perhaps
> > > > Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent
> right-wing
> > > > resurgence?
> > > >
> > > > Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd
> > worry
> > > > about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
> > > > welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the
> > other
> > > > side of the Great Firewall.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand
> > > what
> > > > island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe
> from
> > > the
> > > > vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.
> > > >
> > > > The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each
> > case, I
> > > > believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other
> alternative.
> > > > Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them
> by
> > > > glaringly public flaws.
> > > >
> > > > To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia
> is
> > > > maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
> > > > unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of
> > > Wikipedia.
> > > >
> > > > Nathan
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder
> the
> > > > > following,
> > > > >
> > > > > For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely
> > alarming
> > > > > to see highly respected US government 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] America may go bizarro, but Wikipedia has a choice to make

[RonnieV]

Hi All,

Location might be a tangent, if we should go for just two locations. The 
change of unwanted things happening in one location is a too high risk 
for an organisation of our importance. The change of unwanted things 
happening in two, quit remote, locations happening at the same time, 
might be acceptable. But what if we go for three? San Fra (well, we are 
there), Amsterdam has great internet connectivity (Amsterdam Internet 
Exchange), and Switzerland (or Sweden or Australia) as a third location? 
The distribution of the data could be a burden, but if San Fra (for the 
time being) is used as main point and information is distributed to the 
other two locations with a reasonable delay, we should, in case of a 
real disaster, only loose a couple of minutes of saved work if San Fra 
would be shut down.


Tests with switching between (the) two locations have been done in the 
last year, it was an inconvenience that editing was not possible for 
less than an hour, but I found it acceptable. The loss of all our work 
is of a really other scale, and definitely not anywhere on the scale of 
acceptability.


Greetings,
RonnieV


Fæ schreef op 2019-01-09 12:44:

Location: This is a tangent, one that has been raised before as a
/non-answer/ to the issue of actually getting on with contingency
planning. Realistically I would start by looking at the potential
matches of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands (where servers already
are used for WMF operations), or lastly and for very different
reasons, Peru.

What I find weird, or bizarro, is that the responses so far are vague
dismissals for non-good fantastic reasons, at the level of "let magic
blockchain technology solve it for free", rather than taking on board
that preparing a hot switch for Wikimedia operations in a welcoming
host country, is a highly cost effective disaster contingency plan,
whether due to natural disasters in San Fran / Florida / Amsterdam, or
due to national government using its legal authority to freeze, switch
off or tamper with content due to politically inflated "security" or
"emergency" issues. The risks are real and predictable, and as a
globally recognized charity with plenty of money in the bank, the WMF
should have contingency plans to ensure its continued existence, as
any professional business actuary would advise.

As a past IT auditor, what also made the hairs prick up on the back of
my neck, was David Gerard's sensible question "So ... when did someone
last test putting up a copy of the sites from
the backups" - Could someone give a real answer to that please? If
it's never, then wow, we all have to ask some hard questions of the
WMF Board of exactly how they hold senior management to account.

Thanks,
Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Tue, 8 Jan 2019 at 23:05, Nathan  wrote:


Hi Fae,

I'm curious what nation you have in mind for your stable Plan B. Is it
Brexit Britain? France of the Yellow Vests and Front National? Perhaps
Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, or Germany with its recent right-wing
resurgence?

Maybe you'd prefer Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? I suppose in Italy we'd 
worry

about Beppe and criminal libel statutes, while BJP would hardly seem
welcoming in India and I can't imagine you'd suggest a home on the 
other

side of the Great Firewall.

Maybe you're hinting at Canada, but otherwise, I'd love to understand 
what
island of liberal stability and legal safeguards you think is safe 
from the

vagaries of electoral politics or rigid authoritarianism.

The countries I list above have their own flaws (although in each 
case, I

believe, many desirable traits as well) as does any other alternative.
Anyone could reasonably argue it's unfair to stigmatize any of them by
glaringly public flaws.

To my mind Steve Walling has it right - the very nature of Wikipedia 
is

maybe the best protection there could be, even against the absurdly
unlikely circumstance of a United States government takeover of 
Wikipedia.


Nathan

On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:17 PM Fæ  wrote:

> Dear fellow Wikimedians, please sit back for a moment and ponder the
> following,
>
> For those of us not resident in the US, it has been genuinely alarming
> to see highly respected US government archives vanish overnight,
> reference websites go down, and US legislation appear to drift to
> whatever commercial interests have the loudest current political
> voices. Sadly "populism" is happening now, and dominates American
> politics, driving changes of all sorts in response to politically
> inflated and vague rhetoric about "security" and "fakenews". It is not
> inconceivable that a popularist current or future US Government could
> decide to introduce emergency controls over websites like Wikipedia,
> virtually overnight.[1][2][3][4]
>
> The question of whether the Wikimedia Foundation should have a hot
> switch option, so that if a "disaster" strikes in America, we could
> continue running Wikipedia and Wikimedia 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] ABUSE OF THE SYSTEM

[80hnhtv4agou--- via Wikimedia-l]

And yes I have done all that with no reply,
 
1.  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contact/Stewards
 
2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global
 
3.  stewards wikimedia.org
 
only meta stewards can grant global blocks and stewards can also 
request
 
one, and they do for each other, with out regards of any evidence  
or
 
due proses. and they look for people to block by trolling talk pages 
and
 
forums. The system is put in place for me to put on my meta page the
 
{{unblock| your 
reason for requesting an unblock here }}
 
template. but clever abusive stewards know how to get around that by 
blocking 
 
meta and my meta talk page which cuts me off from appeal. 
 
From: Jeremy 
Lee-Jenkins
Sent: Tuesday, January 8, 2019 10:15 AM
To: 80hnhtv4a...@bk.ru ;  Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] ABUSE OF THE SYSTEM
 
You 
can contact a steward via their group email to request Global IP
block 
exemption or unblocking of your IP address. Make sure to include
exact 
details.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_IP_block_exemptions

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards
  Warm 
Regards
Jeremy Lee-Jenkins

J.

On 1/8/19, 80hnhtv4agou--- via 
Wikimedia-l

< wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > wrote:
>
>  I have been IP globally blocked as an ip 
editor;
>
>  based on a series of 
misunderstanding   coming from uninvolved
>
>  administrators  reading what i have  said on talk pages and in forums
>
>  and the fact that anybody can go to the  Steward, 
requests/Global
>
>  block page and ask for a block on anybody with out any text 
what
>
> 
so ever
and 
no notice to the ip user, and that one steward can come
>
> 
by without any evidence  and  grant all postings at once and yes I 
>
> 
have filled out the form and sent to stewards@, also with this type 
>
> 
of administrator abuse going on I have tried 
to 
contact trust and safety 
>
> 
with no reply ever, on e-mail or 
there 
talk pages.
 


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Commons-l] Structured data - file captions coming this week (January 2019)

[Keegan Peterzell]

On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 3:42 PM Pine W via Commons-l <
common...@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thanks for the news, Keegan. I'm cross-posting the info to other lists
> with the date boldly corrected.
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
> ---
>
> Hi all, following up on last month's announcement... [0]
>
> Multilingual file captions will be released this week, on either
> Wednesday, 9 January or Thursday, 10 January 2019. Captions are a feature
> to add short, translatable descriptions to files. Here's some links you
> might want to look follow before the release, if you haven't already:
>
> * Read over the help page for using captions - I wrote the page on
> mediawiki.org because captions are available for any MediaWiki user, feel
> free to host/modify a copy of the page here on Commons. [1]
> * Test out using captions on Beta Commons. [2]
> * Leave feedback about the test on the captions test talk page, if you
> have anything you'd like to say prior to release. [3]
>
> Additionally, there will be an IRC office hour on Thursday, 10 January
> with the Structured Data team to talk about file captions, as well as
> anything else the community may be interested in. Date/time conversion, as
> well as a link to join, are on Meta. [4]
>
> Thanks for your time, I look forward to seeing those who can make it to
> the IRC office hour on Thursday. I'll reply to this post once I confirm
> exactly what day file captions will be released to Commons.
>
> 0.
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Village_pump=331569911#Structured_data_-_Multilingual_captions_beta_testing
> 1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:File_captions
> 2. https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/
> 3.
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Structured_data/Beta_captions_testing
> 4. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours
>
> ___
> Commons-l mailing list
> common...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

Captions are scheduled to go live tomorrow, Thursday 10 January, between
15:00 and 16:00 UTC. The time window may change at the last minute, and the
team my hold the deployment (or roll it back) if last minute problems
occur. Should that happen I will keep you all informed, and I'll see you
all at the IRC office hour tomorrow.
-- 
Keegan Peterzell
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
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