Thanks Lukasz! An April 30th deadline sounds much more reasonable. I would also suggest being flexible to extend it further based on needs expressed by the community in response to posting notices wider.
As mentioned, I posted on the Phabricator task ( https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T415237) with a suggested notice to send to non-technical editors: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Etherpad#Etherpad_wipe/deletion/clean_slate_proposal At this point, anyone who is interested in helping work on the wording of that notice should feel free. I would also welcome suggestions on where the "canonical" version of the notice should live, though I think the current talk page for the Etherpad instance itself isn't too awful. Additionally, ideas, on specific email lists and wiki pages to notify and link to the notice, are very welcome! Thanks, -Travis On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 5:00 AM Lukasz Sobanski via Wikitech-l < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > Speaking on behalf of the SRE team that owns Etherpad I wanted to chime in > here. > > The arguments for extending the deadline and broader communication are > reasonable. > - We can extend the deadline to April 30th, if there are still migration > projects in progress at that point then we can revisit the date on a case > by case basis. > - I will follow up internally to identify the right groups to notify, if > you have suggestions please send them directly to me (I already saw a > proposed posting on a Village Pump in the related Phabricator task). > > I also agree that any planned future clean up should be communicated in > advance. > > As for backing up information, after identifying the pads they can be > exported in txt or html using appropriate public endpoints: > - http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/<pad_title>/export/txt > - http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/<pad_title>/export/html > > On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 10:57 AM Strainu via Wikitech-l < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello Jetlo, >> >> I want to support the idea expressed by my fellow volunteers that this >> decision does not adequately support the community's use-cases. I fully >> understand that Etherpad was designed as a temporary collaboration tool, >> but: >> * it is not only used by the tech community, so such an announcement >> *must* go out as widely as possible, especially on the lists dedicated >> to conference organizers and wikimedia-l >> * *17 days is not enough* heads up for the community to organize and >> sort/backup decades of meeting minutes. I believe that for the first >> cleanup, *3 months* would a more realistic timeline >> * future purges should also have a *predictable schedule and be >> announced* at least a month in advance, to allow people to save their >> work >> >> I hope your team will reconsider their decision to cater for the needs of >> the wider community. >> >> Best, >> Strainu >> >> În mar., 10 feb. 2026 la 14:57, Jelto Wodstrcil via Wikitech-l < >> [email protected]> a scris: >> >>> Hello everyone >>> >>> If you don't use etherpad, you can ignore this message. >>> >>> We will *delete all pads after 1st March 2026*! If you need any of your >>> pads, please make a local backup. We will not be able to recover the data >>> after 1st March. >>> >>> The pad cleanup helps to reduce the size of the database and the >>> footprint on our infrastructure. After the cleanup, etherpad can still be >>> used for real-time collaboration but please do not expect long term >>> storage. Additional cleanups might happen after that unannounced. >>> >>> See also https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T415237 for more information. >>> >>> Greetings and thank you >>> >>> Jelto >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] >>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >>> >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/ > > > > -- > Lukasz > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
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