Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Regarding the IA: they have a significant interest in working with the Wikimedia projects, a lot more experience than the Wikimedia projects have caching absolutely tremendous quantities of data, a willinness to handle a degree of legal risk that would be inappropriate for the Wikimedia projects to take on, and a willingness to adapt their services to better fit our needs (even when it rquires engineering time ) A large chunk of the infrastructure needed to do something like this is already in place on their end, and they're willing to work with Wikimedia projects to ensure it is actively useful for us. Because of the source of their financing and mission, they're pretty much guaranteed to stay around for the long term, which is certainly important in us considering a partner. I've spoken with them about various Wikimedia-collaborations before (including meetings at WMF's offices,) and would be more than happy to either act as a liaison with them about this or to simply make appropriate introductions. To me, at first glance at least, partnering with an established organization that has the financing, desire, technical skills to pull this off without much of a hitch, and has already built out much of the required infrastucture, seems likely to be a better idea than trying to establish the capability ourselves from the ground up (especially when the total amount of storage this will need is _greater_ than the total amount of storage than toolserver, across all projects, had.) Best, Kevin Gorman On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 1:06 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 4 July 2014 01:00, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think it's a donation if you're getting something (a survey) in return. How could the Foundation possibly not benefit from understanding contributors' opinions about general strategic goals for improving participation? I also want development of accuracy review. If there are any reasons that the Foundation would not benefit from that, the survey, or a reflinks cache which includes enough room to fit a category adjacency map in, then please bring them to my attention. The survey *again*? Oh, dear. It was a bad idea before, and it's still a bad idea when we're bribed into agreeing to it with hardware donations. James, this is getting a bit sad to see. You've raised this idea of a political issues survey a dozen or more times on the mailing list over a couple of years, and the responses tend to be along the lines of no, that's inappropriate or no, that's irrelevant, both from the community and from Foundation staffers; at least one person honestly seemed to think it was satirical! I don't think these responses were particularly ambiguous, so it's a bit odd that you seem to think that people haven't clearly explained why it's a bad idea. See, eg, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070583.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/070937.html Almost every issue on that political survey is irrelevant to most of our work - I suppose you could make a case for metropolitan broadband, which might be relevant - and irrelevant to the specific question of volunteer participation. To take a straw poll on whether a few people in the community prefer steeply progressive taxation to school class size reduction, and then use that as justification to divert resources into one or the other those topics, is frankly insulting to our donors and volunteers, who have signed up to support something entirely different and nothing to do with either of them. It also arrogantly presumes a lot about other people's political and economic beliefs which I find somewhat disquieting - why are you so confident that Wikipedians are *for* all of these things? Wikimedia has a goal we have chosen to adopt and a general method we have developed to try and achieve it. That method does not involve engineering massive external changes in order to produce long-term second or third-order effects that *might*, in some undefined fashion, lead to incidental benefits towards the goal in a decade or three. Those changes may be *good* in and of themselves - in most cases, I'd agree they would be, and I think our community would broadly tend to agree as well - but bringing them about is simply not what Wikimedia was set up to do and it's not what people have given money and time to support. Why not throw WMF's efforts at cancer treatment or clean-air programs? Or climate-change campaigns? All great things and need all the support they can get, and they'd probably have as much effect on user activity as data-centre energy efficiency... which is to say, very little direct impact. Put it from the other perspective: we should try and work on (or at least identify!) things which might directly affect the problem of participation, rather than trying to solve all the world's political and economic
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 07/03/2014 02:21 PM, John wrote: I'm in the process of working with Dispenser to get said proposal written and the ball rolling. However this process will take some time Said proposal from Dispenser/Betacommand has been posted at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Caching_References for comments and discussion. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 4 July 2014 01:00, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think it's a donation if you're getting something (a survey) in return. How could the Foundation possibly not benefit from understanding contributors' opinions about general strategic goals for improving participation? I also want development of accuracy review. If there are any reasons that the Foundation would not benefit from that, the survey, or a reflinks cache which includes enough room to fit a category adjacency map in, then please bring them to my attention. The survey *again*? Oh, dear. It was a bad idea before, and it's still a bad idea when we're bribed into agreeing to it with hardware donations. James, this is getting a bit sad to see. You've raised this idea of a political issues survey a dozen or more times on the mailing list over a couple of years, and the responses tend to be along the lines of no, that's inappropriate or no, that's irrelevant, both from the community and from Foundation staffers; at least one person honestly seemed to think it was satirical! I don't think these responses were particularly ambiguous, so it's a bit odd that you seem to think that people haven't clearly explained why it's a bad idea. See, eg, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070583.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/070937.html Almost every issue on that political survey is irrelevant to most of our work - I suppose you could make a case for metropolitan broadband, which might be relevant - and irrelevant to the specific question of volunteer participation. To take a straw poll on whether a few people in the community prefer steeply progressive taxation to school class size reduction, and then use that as justification to divert resources into one or the other those topics, is frankly insulting to our donors and volunteers, who have signed up to support something entirely different and nothing to do with either of them. It also arrogantly presumes a lot about other people's political and economic beliefs which I find somewhat disquieting - why are you so confident that Wikipedians are *for* all of these things? Wikimedia has a goal we have chosen to adopt and a general method we have developed to try and achieve it. That method does not involve engineering massive external changes in order to produce long-term second or third-order effects that *might*, in some undefined fashion, lead to incidental benefits towards the goal in a decade or three. Those changes may be *good* in and of themselves - in most cases, I'd agree they would be, and I think our community would broadly tend to agree as well - but bringing them about is simply not what Wikimedia was set up to do and it's not what people have given money and time to support. Why not throw WMF's efforts at cancer treatment or clean-air programs? Or climate-change campaigns? All great things and need all the support they can get, and they'd probably have as much effect on user activity as data-centre energy efficiency... which is to say, very little direct impact. Put it from the other perspective: we should try and work on (or at least identify!) things which might directly affect the problem of participation, rather than trying to solve all the world's political and economic issues and hoping our original problem will be a bit easier afterwards. And, finally - the more you argue for this tangential idea, the more people are going to ignore any other (reasonable) suggestion you make. I hope this (sadly lengthy) email constitutes bringing some minor objections to your attention. Andrew. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
2014-07-03 14:12 GMT+03:00 James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? Context please? Strainu ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 3 Jul 2014, at 12:14, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote: 2014-07-03 14:12 GMT+03:00 James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? Context please? There's been a discussion of this topic going on at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Reflinks_is_dead Thanks, Mike ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Im mobile right now, do this will be short. He is throwing a tantrum because WMF won't give him 24TB of storage for a project that has legal questionablity. So he is using his existing tools as leverage aka hostages to force the issue. I find that very bad behavior on his part On Thursday, July 3, 2014, Strainu strain...@gmail.com wrote: 2014-07-03 14:12 GMT+03:00 James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com javascript:;: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? Context please? Strainu ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
throwing a tantrum because WMF won't give him 24TB of storage for a project that has legal questionablity If society depended on lawyers for determining the parameters of their inverted indices, you would all be using WAIS for the last five years of corporate press releases for your reference needs. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Probably something better suited for a technical mailing list. Not really something we can help with on Wikimedia-l as very few of us have the technical skills to know what's going on... Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 3 July 2014 13:20, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: throwing a tantrum because WMF won't give him 24TB of storage for a project that has legal questionablity If society depended on lawyers for determining the parameters of their inverted indices, you would all be using WAIS for the last five years of corporate press releases for your reference needs. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 07/03/2014 07:12 AM, James Salsman wrote: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? To make matters a bit clearer, Dispenser's current Reflinks tool (and all his others) do not need 24T of storage (nor would toolserver have had that storage to give him, even if it were possible). His demands for the storage are for a new version of the tool he is yet to write that is meant to actually cache the external link's webpages - a request he has yet to actually make to WMF Engineering. He was never told no; he was told (by me, inter alia) that he'd need to make a proposal with explanation and rationale before we would commit several thousand dollars of resources towards an unspecified, future project of his (especially one that is likely to need Legal to look into). That he has not in fact moved his existing tools to Tool Labs is unrelated to this; there is no technical impediment to him running his tools in Labs today if he chooses to. Also, 24T is a significant chunk of the space available to Labs in general; storage is nowhere near as inexpensive in our context as would be with off-the-shelf customer-grade disks. There's nothing that prevents us from allocating significant resources to a project that needs it (to wit: open street maps tile generator) but we're not going to do that site unseen and without supervision. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
That all seems logical, appropriate, and aligned with our current procedures. So..what's the problem? -greg aka varnent On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:49 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 07/03/2014 07:12 AM, James Salsman wrote: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? To make matters a bit clearer, Dispenser's current Reflinks tool (and all his others) do not need 24T of storage (nor would toolserver have had that storage to give him, even if it were possible). His demands for the storage are for a new version of the tool he is yet to write that is meant to actually cache the external link's webpages - a request he has yet to actually make to WMF Engineering. He was never told no; he was told (by me, inter alia) that he'd need to make a proposal with explanation and rationale before we would commit several thousand dollars of resources towards an unspecified, future project of his (especially one that is likely to need Legal to look into). That he has not in fact moved his existing tools to Tool Labs is unrelated to this; there is no technical impediment to him running his tools in Labs today if he chooses to. Also, 24T is a significant chunk of the space available to Labs in general; storage is nowhere near as inexpensive in our context as would be with off-the-shelf customer-grade disks. There's nothing that prevents us from allocating significant resources to a project that needs it (to wit: open street maps tile generator) but we're not going to do that site unseen and without supervision. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
I'm in the process of working with Dispenser to get said proposal written and the ball rolling. However this process will take some time On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Gregory Varnum gregory.var...@gmail.com wrote: That all seems logical, appropriate, and aligned with our current procedures. So..what's the problem? -greg aka varnent On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:49 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 07/03/2014 07:12 AM, James Salsman wrote: Can someone please explain to me why the Foundation can't give User:Dispenser 24 TB on Tool Labs? To make matters a bit clearer, Dispenser's current Reflinks tool (and all his others) do not need 24T of storage (nor would toolserver have had that storage to give him, even if it were possible). His demands for the storage are for a new version of the tool he is yet to write that is meant to actually cache the external link's webpages - a request he has yet to actually make to WMF Engineering. He was never told no; he was told (by me, inter alia) that he'd need to make a proposal with explanation and rationale before we would commit several thousand dollars of resources towards an unspecified, future project of his (especially one that is likely to need Legal to look into). That he has not in fact moved his existing tools to Tool Labs is unrelated to this; there is no technical impediment to him running his tools in Labs today if he chooses to. Also, 24T is a significant chunk of the space available to Labs in general; storage is nowhere near as inexpensive in our context as would be with off-the-shelf customer-grade disks. There's nothing that prevents us from allocating significant resources to a project that needs it (to wit: open street maps tile generator) but we're not going to do that site unseen and without supervision. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
... His demands for the storage are for a new version of the tool he is yet to write that is meant to actually cache the external link's webpages...likely to need Legal to look into Just like any search engine keeps a reconstructable representation of the indexed text. There is absolutely no question that there would be any legal impediments involved. a request he has yet to actually make to WMF Engineering. WMF Engineering staff has known about the need for weeks to months. he'd need to make a proposal with explanation and rationale before we would commit several thousand dollars of resources How much exactly would it cost the Foundation to provide 24 TB on Tool Labs? Why does the Foundation need a proposal to do that? Where is that requirement documented? Shouldn't someone of User:Dispenser's stature, track record, not to mention the person-centuries he has already saved editors be given sufficient resources to experiment with different software architectures for addressing the kinds of problems he sees as community needs? Why do we need to impose a new layer of bureaucracy on that? That he has not in fact moved his existing tools to Tool Labs is unrelated to this Completely absurd. He owns his code, and since the Foundation has demonstrated that they apparently have no interest in helping him create expanded capabilities for it, he has every right to rescind his permission for the Foundation to use his code. There's nothing that prevents us from allocating significant resources ... but we're not going to do that site unseen and without supervision. So now developers have to fill out permission slips and obtain a Foundation staff supervisor? Where are these requirements documented? The community needs to start publishing measurements of individual Foundation employees by how much their decisions help or hinder the editor community. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:14 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: Why does the Foundation need a proposal to do that? Where is that requirement documented? I work in a research institute that has 20 Petabyte of spinning disk. If I need 20TB of server-grade storage, I have to make a formal request, and provide a rationale. And I work there. I don't know on what happy planet you live where that much hardware grows on trees so that it can be given out on a whim, but as someone who both has a lot of tools running on Labs, and who gives money to WMF on a regular basis, I am glad that there is at least some sanity checking for endeavours of this size. Cheers, Magnus ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
... I am glad that there is at least some sanity checking On my happy planet, sanity means taking historical progress into account when telling people that they have to fill out a form and wait for committee review when making a reasonable request for an obvious need. There is so much more that the Foundation could accomplish. When will interest in responding to the requests from those who have proven they are able to make good use of resources overtake defining scope, a euphemism for censorship, and building hierarchical fiefdoms? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
And imagine what I could do with a space rocket and a nuclear reactor! Wikipedia Mars mission! ANYONE can run tools on Labs for free! It's just when you ask for a huge chunk of hardware that someone dares to ask what you plan to do with it, once you get it for free. Calling that censorship if trolling, pure and simple. /me not feeding anymore On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:38 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: ... I am glad that there is at least some sanity checking On my happy planet, sanity means taking historical progress into account when telling people that they have to fill out a form and wait for committee review when making a reasonable request for an obvious need. There is so much more that the Foundation could accomplish. When will interest in responding to the requests from those who have proven they are able to make good use of resources overtake defining scope, a euphemism for censorship, and building hierarchical fiefdoms? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- undefined ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 3 July 2014 19:16, Gregory Varnum gregory.var...@gmail.com wrote: That all seems logical, appropriate, and aligned with our current procedures. So..what's the problem? Left hand not talking to the right hand I think. I was gobsmacked to find that the reflinks tool had not been carefully transitioned and no plan for it was in place, considering how much time was available to discuss this. It is one of the more brilliant tools for productive Wikipedians. I used to use it all the time and without it will happily leave bare URLs in references as these used to be handled rather well without wasting my volunteer time hacking around filling in parameters of the template and my assumption is that one way, or another, this sort of service will become available again. The ball was definitely dropped on this one. The way forward is clearly to identify the requirements for the specific tools. Hosting on WMFlabs can have any rules that the WMF thinks are sensible, but this is not the only way of hosting a tool if the policies don't fit, especially if the intention is to get something back up and working in an interim state, while people debate its future in the background. The concepts are not that complex that volunteers or paid developers could not put together an open source alternative fairly quickly, given sufficient motivation. A discussion that could have been had a year ago with the user community. 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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 3:58 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: I was gobsmacked to find that the reflinks tool had not been carefully transitioned and no plan for it was in place, Me too, to the extent I'm gobsmacked by anything these days. My students love this tool, it's one of the primary things that help make the crucial transition from I'm a newbie to I can take care of my own needs as a writer on Wikipedia. The way forward is clearly to identify the requirements for the specific tools. Hosting on WMFlabs can have any rules It seemed to me that one of the legacy problems that was supposed to be addressed by the transition from toolserver to WMFlabs was to ensure that source code is freely licensed and available. So this leads me to a question, maybe others in this discussion know the answer, but I don't: Is Reftools FOSS? Is the source code available? If so, why isn't somebody else just migrating it to WMFlabs, and what can be done to help that happen? And if not, maybe we'd be better off if we found a way to build a replacement tool under a FOSS license? -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
[Calling] when you ask for a huge chunk of hardware [and] someone dares to ask what you plan to do with it, once you get it for free ... censorship is trolling I was not complaining about the question, I was sincerely complaining about the answer. We need Foundation staff with the capability to recognize the value of contributors' work without stalling them or giving them the runaround. We need to be as respectful of our colleagues' time as we expect them to be of ours. To prove my sincerity, I offer to pay the full cost of the 24 TB equipment and installation, reserving the right to pass the hat, if and only if the Foundation matches my donation by surveying contributors' opinions about new and existing strategic goals for improving participation and providing the headcount and resources to develop accuracy review: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_review Is that a fair deal? Best regards, James Salsman ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Is Reftools FOSS? Is the source code available? If so, why isn't somebody else just migrating it to WMFlabs, and what can be done to help that happen? I may be missing something, but Dispenser's tools appear to be migrated at: http://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Main_Page -- Douglas [[User:Microchip08]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 07/03/2014 07:03 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote: Is Reftools FOSS? Is the source code available? If so, why isn't somebody else just migrating it to WMFlabs, and what can be done to help that happen? No, it is not, and Dispenser has explicitly stated that nobody was allowed to run it. In particular, someone already /had/ moved it (I am told about 30m of work) but Dispenser requested it disabled. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Dispenser's tools appear to be migrated at: http://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Main_Page This page was last modified on 24 July 2012 at 04:01 (UTC) https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/cgi-bin/categorder.py/Category:All_articles_with_improper_non-free_content is still down. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dispenser/Toolserver_migrationdiff=prevoldid=615356734 My offer stands. Sincerely, James Salsman ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
You say 'if only the Foundation matches my donation'... I don't want to sound daft, but from a financial viewpoint, I don't think it's a donation if you're getting something (a survey) in return. On 4 Jul 2014 00:18, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: [Calling] when you ask for a huge chunk of hardware [and] someone dares to ask what you plan to do with it, once you get it for free ... censorship is trolling I was not complaining about the question, I was sincerely complaining about the answer. We need Foundation staff with the capability to recognize the value of contributors' work without stalling them or giving them the runaround. We need to be as respectful of our colleagues' time as we expect them to be of ours. To prove my sincerity, I offer to pay the full cost of the 24 TB equipment and installation, reserving the right to pass the hat, if and only if the Foundation matches my donation by surveying contributors' opinions about new and existing strategic goals for improving participation and providing the headcount and resources to develop accuracy review: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_review Is that a fair deal? Best regards, James Salsman ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
I don't think it's a donation if you're getting something (a survey) in return. How could the Foundation possibly not benefit from understanding contributors' opinions about general strategic goals for improving participation? I also want development of accuracy review. If there are any reasons that the Foundation would not benefit from that, the survey, or a reflinks cache which includes enough room to fit a category adjacency map in, then please bring them to my attention. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 5:20 AM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: throwing a tantrum because WMF won't give him 24TB of storage for a project that has legal questionablity If society depended on lawyers for determining the parameters of their inverted indices, you would all be using WAIS for the last five years of corporate press releases for your reference needs. The issue here is not merely a legal one -- there's a philosophical/mission question as well. Personally, I very much support the idea of doing something, somewhere, to archive links used as references. But should that be hosted (in a big way) on Wikimedia servers? We recently had an extensive deliberation about whether to host non-free content (in that case, video formats) on Wikimedia servers, and the resulting decision was a strong consensus against doing so. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video So at the very least, the contention that we should consider this project (to host copyrighted content on Wikimedia servers) an *obvious* yes is wrong. From what I'm seeing here, Marc's insistence on a more formal proposal, and a deliberative process of some kind to evaluate it, is absolutely correct. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Ill be blunt here, Dispenser's existing tools do not need more than a few hundred megabytes of space for storage. He however does have an idea for a set of tools (or one super massive depending on your perspective) which is a resource hog and will need a consult with WMF legal to OK it. Up until today Dispenser failed to articulate what his idea was or what resources he needed for his idea. I did some basic math and your looking at about 15 thousand dollars US as a starting point for the project. Dispenser falls into the standard category of a programmer who doesnt work well with non-programmers and sucks at writing specs/documentation. However I spent some time with him and chiseled out a few things, have a grasp on exactly what Dispenser wants to accomplish and the resources necessary to do it. (probably upwards of 25-30k dollars) I wrote up a rough outline and both shorter term and longer term goals of the project. I have already forwarded it to Coren for review, feedback and comments. I suspect something more official will be announced after a quick sanity check by the legal team. At which point I suspect it will be thrown up for community discussion, and legal will be doing a more in depth review behinds the scene. On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:00 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: I don't think it's a donation if you're getting something (a survey) in return. How could the Foundation possibly not benefit from understanding contributors' opinions about general strategic goals for improving participation? I also want development of accuracy review. If there are any reasons that the Foundation would not benefit from that, the survey, or a reflinks cache which includes enough room to fit a category adjacency map in, then please bring them to my attention. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
Hello John, On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:39 PM, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: However I spent some time with him and chiseled out a few things, have a grasp on exactly what Dispenser wants to accomplish and the resources necessary to do it. (probably upwards of 25-30k dollars) I wrote up a rough outline and both shorter term and longer term goals of the project. I have already forwarded it to Coren for review, feedback and comments. Thank you for doing this. Would you mind publishing this on one of the wikis as well? I suspect something more official will be announced after a quick sanity check by the legal team. I think the main question is whether these new tools are a significant step forward for improving our knowledgebase, and worth this investment compared with related work that might achieve similar results. If yes, then together we should make it happen. The questions of which individuals and groups host, maintain, and accept associated legal risk are secondary: many organizations share our mission, some (like IA) quite eager to push the boundaries of the law in ways that improve global access to information. Sam ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
As I said I'm waiting for feedback first. What I sent to Coren is just a rough draft. It will be posted to a wiki and more input will be requested. On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:56 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Hello John, On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:39 PM, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: However I spent some time with him and chiseled out a few things, have a grasp on exactly what Dispenser wants to accomplish and the resources necessary to do it. (probably upwards of 25-30k dollars) I wrote up a rough outline and both shorter term and longer term goals of the project. I have already forwarded it to Coren for review, feedback and comments. Thank you for doing this. Would you mind publishing this on one of the wikis as well? I suspect something more official will be announced after a quick sanity check by the legal team. I think the main question is whether these new tools are a significant step forward for improving our knowledgebase, and worth this investment compared with related work that might achieve similar results. If yes, then together we should make it happen. The questions of which individuals and groups host, maintain, and accept associated legal risk are secondary: many organizations share our mission, some (like IA) quite eager to push the boundaries of the law in ways that improve global access to information. Sam ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 07/03/2014 07:03 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote: Is Reftools FOSS? No, it is not, Thanks Marc. It seems to me that the problem is very simple, in that case: how to come up with a free/libre tool, to be hosted on WMFlabs, that replicates the functionality of the previously-existing RefTools? I'm willing to donate a little money and help spread the word. If there's a developer capable of doing that, who could estimate how much it would cost, please get in touch with me. I could also offer some help in putting together a WMF grant proposal if that's a preferred avenue. Let's leave all these questions about *additional* functionality aside, and take care of the clear current problem. And please, let's not devote too much of our limited bandwidth to non-free software. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
... the standard category of a programmer who doesn't work well with non-programmers and sucks at writing specs/documentation. That is an extremely rude way to characterize a volunteer who has single-handedly saved volunteer-centuries of time and then taken a principled, non-zero sum stand to offer agreement to the FOSS release requirement on Wikimedia Labs in return for the resources necessary to build new systems. Without the ability to experiment in an unfettered manner, Labs should be renamed Unpaid Intern Server Farm. the resources necessary to do it. (probably upwards of 25-30k dollars) Could we please see an itemization? Is Dell's surveillance-compatible premium hardware still being purchased by the Foundation? What is the current state of the art at the Foundation for redundant arrays of supposedly inexpensive disks comprising network attached storage at present, and how much does the Foundation spend for it? many organizations share our mission, some (like IA) quite eager to push the boundaries of the law in ways that improve global access to information For values of push the boundaries equivalent to conform as closely as possible to both the letter and the spirit and quickly respond to legal requests for abridgement when requested. Oblique suggestions that IA has any more legal risk than the Foundation are not productive. See _Field vs Google,_ US District Court, District of Nevada, CV-S-04-0413-RCJ-LRL. The Foundation has repeatedly failed to support IA, webcitation.org, and the like, even though our volunteers depend heavily on them for conscientious improvements. ... insistence on a more formal proposal, and a deliberative process of some kind to evaluate it, is absolutely correct. The insistence was on hierarchical supervision and a demand for examination of the finished product in advance. Where was the request for a formal proposal? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
John: thank you again. James Salsman writes: suggestions that IA has any more legal risk than the Foundation Of course they do. The Wayback Machine alone is the largest publicly-accessible archive of copyrighted material in the world. The only other archives that come within magnitudes of that effort are state-sponsored and -protected, such as Norway's Nasjonalbiblioteket. Pete Forsyth wrote: Is Reftools FOSS? No, it is not, It seems to me that the problem is very simple, in that case: how to come up with a free/libre tool, to be hosted on WMFlabs Last I checked, Labs requires OSI-approved licenses. I believe the context is that Dispenser (the developer) would adopt such a license. Sam ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 24 TB for User:Dispenser on Tool Labs please
On 7/3/2014 8:33 PM, James Salsman wrote: a volunteer who has single-handedly saved volunteer-centuries of time and then taken a principled, non-zero sum stand to offer agreement to the FOSS release requirement on Wikimedia Labs in return for the resources necessary to build new systems. If that's an accurate characterization of his position, it sounds like he doesn't actually want to be a volunteer, he wants to be compensated. While I know nothing of his qualifications, there are certainly openings that might be considered if that's the case. But there are also tradeoffs involved in that, notably that one's work becomes subject to the direction of others, instead of just doing whatever one wants. Without the ability to experiment in an unfettered manner, Labs should be renamed Unpaid Intern Server Farm. Allowing unfettered experimentation is highly irresponsible, as highlighted by the recent furor over Facebook's practices. There should always be some minimum level of oversight; after all, much of the premise behind our massively collaborative projects is that your work is subject to review at any time. The posture that's apparently being taken is also not especially conducive to fostering trust, which is needed if the prospect of closer supervision is objectionable for some reason. --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
