[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia blog moving to WordPress.com

[Neil Harris]

On 05/09/13 13:37, MZMcBride wrote:
> Hi.
>
> The recent draft privacy policy mentions that the Wikimedia blog
> (<https://blog.wikimedia.org>) will soon be hosted by WordPress.com.
>
> Was this discussed anywhere? If so, where?
>
> What is the proposed URL structure of a blog hosted by WordPress.com? I
> think there's a reasonable expectation that when a user visits
> *.wikimedia.org, we don't simply send his or her browser info to a third
> party without his or her consent. This has come up previously with Jobvite
> and iframes. It's also come up with the use of tracking tools such as
> Google Analytics, which not only affect one-time visitors, but aim to
> persist client-side.
>
> How will the blog be backed up? Relying on an external service means not
> being in control of the data. Will there be regular backups made to ensure
> that if WordPress.com goes away, we won't lose all of our posts?
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>

I agree: this does seem to be a curious decision, at odds with the WMF's 
general policy of self-hosting as much as possible in order to maintain 
maximum independence from outside entities, particularly in the context 
of the recent concerns about privacy. I would have thought that 
maintaining a WordPress installation would be well within the WMF's 
capabilities.

Neil