At the Dev Summit, Birgit Müller and I will run a session on Growing the
MediaWiki Technical Community. If you're attending, we hope you will
consider joining us.
Everyone (attending the Dev Summit or not) is welcome and encouraged to
participate at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183318 (please comment
there, rather than by email).
We are discussing the following questions:
* What would allow you to develop and plan your software more efficiently?
* What would make software development more fun for you?
* What other Open Source communities do we share interests with?
* How can we change our processes to take technical debt more seriously?
"Develop" means any kind of work on a software system, including design,
documentation, etc.
Our topics are:
* Better processes and project management practices, integrating all
developers and allowing them to work more efficiently
* Building partnerships with other Open Source communities on shared
interests (e.g. translation, audio, video)
* Reducing technical debt
Matt Flaschen
Cross-post.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adam Baso <abaso(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 6:38 AM
Subject: [Input requested] Knowledge as a Service at the Wikimedia
Developer Summit 2018
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Howdy Wikitechnorati,
(And thank you for patience with me cross-posting if you're on other lists.)
I'm writing to invite your input on the following Phabricator task ahead of
next week's Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018 [1] session.
Knowledge as a Service
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183315
The purpose [2] of the Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018 sessions is to
provide guidance for Phase 2 of the Movement Strategic Direction [3] on
buildout of technology capabilities. We'd really love your thoughts to help
set context for our session next week, as Knowledge as a Service is a
primary consideration in the Movement Strategic Direction.
What is Knowledge as a Service? Its essence is about information
architecture approaches and the necessary software that will ultimately
allow content consumption and creation to radiate to new and different
types of interfaces and devices in addition to browser-based approaches. As
you review position papers from attendees [4] you'll notice that the way
they (myself included) think about best solving this is through a heavy
emphasis on technology that makes it easier to better structure information
and its metadata for re-use, remixing, and querying.
What might this mean? Does it mean we should build Wikimedia software in an
API- and metadata-first manner following industry standards compatible with
content structuration? Does it mean weaving our existing structured and
semi-structured data technologies together? How do we build technology that
can ensure successful collaboration between communities on increasingly
structured and interdependent information sources? And how can we ensure
the tech will bolster growth of multilingual and multimedia content
creation and consumption?
I've copied some of the essential material from the Movement Strategic
Direction concerning Knowledge as a Service so you have it here. We would
appreciate your input and hope you will subscribe to the Phabricator task
to contribute and follow along as we explore this topic.
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183315
The following content is copied from https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction :
Knowledge as a service: To serve our users, we will become a platform that
serves open knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities. We
will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free
knowledge beyond Wikimedia. Our infrastructure will enable us and others to
collect and use different forms of free, trusted knowledge.
...
As technology spreads through every aspect of our lives, Wikimedia's
infrastructure needs to be able to communicate easily with other connected
systems.
...
As a platform, we need to transform our structures to support new formats,
new interfaces, and new types of knowledge. We have a strategic opportunity
to go further and offer this platform as a service to other institutions,
beyond Wikimedia. In a world that is becoming more and more connected,
building the infrastructure for knowledge gives others a vested interest in
our success. It is how we ensure our place in the larger network of
knowledge, and become an essential part of it. As a service to users, we
need to build the platform for knowledge or, in jargon, provide knowledge
as a service.
...
Knowledge as a service: A platform that serves open knowledge to the world
across interfaces and communities
Our openness will ensure that our decisions are fair, that we are
accountable to one another, and that we act in the public interest. Our
systems will follow the evolution of technology. We will transform our
platform to work across digital formats, devices, and interfaces. The
distributed structure of our network will help us adapt to local contexts.
...
We will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free
knowledge beyond Wikimedia.
We will continue to build the infrastructure for free knowledge for our
communities. We will go further by offering it as a service to others in
the network of knowledge. We will continue to build the partnerships that
enable us to develop knowledge we can't create ourselves.
...
Our infrastructure will enable us and others to collect and use different
forms of free, trusted knowledge.
We will build the technical infrastructures that enable us to collect free
knowledge in all forms and languages. We will use our position as a leader
in the ecosystem of knowledge to advance our ideals of freedom and
fairness. We will build the technical structures and the social agreements
that enable us to trust the new knowledge we compile. We will focus on
highly structured information to facilitate its exchange and reuse in
multiple contexts.
Thank you.
-Adam
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2018
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_
Summit/2018/Purpose_and_Results
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
movement/2017/Direction
[4] https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/devsummit/index.php/Session:10
Hello mobile Wikimedians,
A minor update for the Wikipedia app for iOS is now available on the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wikipedia/id324715238?ls=1&mt=8
This version fixes minor issues with image loading, particularly when connections are interrupted or the app is backgrounded.
Thanks,
Josh Minor
Product manager, Wikipedia for iOS
Hi all,
We are delighted to announce that our IEG renewal application for the Commons
app <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons>[1] has
been approved! Thank you so much to everyone who supported us – reading
all of the wonderful comments on our proposal has been extremely meaningful
and encouraging for us.
We have been hard at work getting version 2.6 of the app out; there was a
bit of a rocky start with the first few beta iterations, but we finally
have v2.6.5 in production. \o/
Several UI improvements have been made in the current version:
- New login screen
- New design for the list of nearby places that need pictures
- New navigation drawer design with username displayed
- The upload screen has been remodeled to include tooltips for title and
description fields, as well as an explicit copyright declaration and a link
to Commons policies
- Improved media details view with links to the selected license,
categories and image coordinates
Other improvements include:
- Category search - fixed major bugs, improved ordering and filter for
categories
- The "nearby places that need pictures" feature has improved GPS and
refresh handling
- Several privacy improvements - new privacy policy, switched to using
Wikimedia maps server instead of Mapbox, and removed event logging
- Reduced memory leaks and battery usage; fixed multiple other crashes and
bugs
- Various improvements to navigation flow and backstack
- Added option for users to send logs to developers (has to be manually
activated by user)
For more information on the new version, recent screenshots, and
upload/deletion statistics for 2017, please see this blog post
<https://cookiesandcodeblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/commons-app-update-vers…>[2].
Feedback, bug reports, and suggestions are always welcome on our GitHub page
<https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons>[3].
Cheers, and happy holidays. :)
Best regards,
Josephine (@misaochan)
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2]
https://cookiesandcodeblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/commons-app-update-vers…
[3] https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons
Hello,
Now, in the app store, version 5.7.3 of Wikipedia for iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/view
Software?id=324715238&mt=8
In addition to a lot of small bug fixes, this version includes a handful of
appearance improvements:
- New "Black" reading theme, perfect for saving power on OLED devices
- Appearance option to have info boxes open by default (thanks to
volunteer Aclaussen!)
- Hiding of the top navigation bar while reading, to make more
uncluttered reading space
You should also see faster article loading and less data use, thanks to
lazy loading of images and other page loading improvements. Now images are
only downloaded when about to be displayed (or saved). Extra big thanks to
the Readers Web and Android teams who pioneered this change for all our
users. With this release all the mobile Wikipedia experiences share this
great improvement [1].
Extra big thanks to contributors Aclaussen and Onlyrandomness for their
code patches. And our usual thanks to our testers and translators.
Happy holidays,
Josh Minor
PM, Wikipedia for iOS
[1] - For more on this, and the general efforts to consolidate efforts
across platforms check out this great blog post by Stephen
Niedzielski about the Wikimedia Page Library: https://blog.
wikimedia.org/2017/12/06/think-twice-code-once/
Hello all,
Just a quick note to let you know that as of now the trending edits public
end point is no longer available to clients.
On a personal note, I also concur that such a tool is an interesting source
of data that can be applied in various contexts and hope to see work picked
up in the future.
Cheers,
Marko Obrovac, PhD
Senior Services Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
On 12 December 2017 at 22:56, Melody Kramer <mkramer(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> It's an incredibly useful tool for people outside of our existing community
> — who use Wikipedia to determine what's resonating worldwide. I've tweeted
> about it several times and it always gets pickup from journalists:
>
> https://twitter.com/mkramer/status/940676642636206091
>
> Happy to put you in touch if you ever want to do user research interviews.
>
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 3:12 PM, Jon Robson <jdlrobson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > (Volunteer hat on)
> >
> > I'm a little sad we didn't find a place for this in the Wikipedia apps or
> > web products, but I plan to maintain a labs instance going forward:
> > https://wikipedia-trending.wmflabs.org/
> > And a web presentation with a push notification feature (which notified
> be
> > this morning of the death of Ed Lee
> > <https://trending.wmflabs.org/en.wikipedia/Ed%20Lee%20(politician)>):
> > https://trending.wmflabs.org/
> >
> > This is a little inferior to the production version as it is unable to
> use
> > production kafka and if it has any outages it will lose data.
> >
> > I'm hoping to get this onto IFTTT <https://ifttt.com/wikipedia> with
> help
> > from Stephen Laporte in my volunteer time, as I think this feature is a
> > pretty powerful one which has failed to find its use case in the wiki
> > world. As Kaldari points out it's incredibly good at detecting edit wars
> > and I personally have learned a lot about what our editors see as
> important
> > and notable in the world (our editors really seem to like wrestling). I
> > think there are ample and exciting things people could build on top of
> this
> > api.
> >
> > The gadget script is crude (as there is no way to install a service
> worker
> > via a user script) but will continue to work if you want to try it (but
> > Firefox only) - I just updated it to use the new endpoint.
> >
> > I will continue to explore trending's place in the Wikimedia universe :)
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2017 at 10:43 Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > > One interesting thing that I noticed about the trending edits API is
> that
> > > it was fairly useful in identifying articles that were under attack by
> > > vandals or experiencing an edit war. A lot of times a vandal will just
> > sit
> > > on an article and keep reverting back to the vandalized version until
> an
> > > admin shows up, which can sometimes take a while. If you tweak the
> > > parameters passed to the API, you can almost get it to show nothing but
> > > edit wars (high number of edits, low number of editors).
> > >
> > > This makes me think that this API is actually useful, it's just
> targeted
> > to
> > > the wrong use case. If we built something similar, but that just looked
> > for
> > > high numbers of revert/undos (rather than edits), and combined it with
> > > something like Jon Robson's trending edits user script (
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdlrobson/Gadget-trending-edits.js
> ),
> > we
> > > could create a really powerful tool for Wikipedia administrators to
> > > identify problems without having to wait for them to be reported at
> AN/I
> > or
> > > AIV.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 7:25 AM, Corey Floyd <cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just a reminder that this is happening this Thursday. Please update
> any
> > > > tools you have before then. Thanks!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 3:30 PM Corey Floyd <cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi all,
> > > > >
> > > > > The experimental Trending Service[1] will be sunset on December
> 14th,
> > > > 2017.
> > > > >
> > > > > We initially deployed this service to evaluate some real time
> > features
> > > in
> > > > > the mobile apps centered on delivering more timely information to
> > > users.
> > > > > After some research [2], we found that it did not perform well with
> > > users
> > > > > in that use case.
> > > > >
> > > > > At this point there are no further plans to integrate the service
> > into
> > > > our
> > > > > products and so we are going to sunset the service to reduce the
> > > > > maintenance burden for some of our teams.
> > > > >
> > > > > We are going to do this more quickly than we would for a full
> stable
> > > > > production API as the usage of the end point is extremely low and
> > > mostly
> > > > > from our own internal projects. If you this adversely affects any
> of
> > > your
> > > > > work or you have any other concerns, please let the myself or the
> > > Reading
> > > > > Infrastructure team know.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks to all the teams involved with developing, deploying,
> > > researching
> > > > > and maintaining this service.
> > > > >
> > > > > P.S. This service was based off of prototypes Jon Robson had
> > developed
> > > > for
> > > > > detecting trending articles. He will be continuing his work in this
> > > > area. I
> > > > > encourage you to reach out to him if you were interested in this
> > > project.
> > > > >
> > > > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#!/Feed/trendingEdits
> > > > > [2]
> > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Comparing_most_
> > > > read_and_trending_edits_for_Top_Articles_feature
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Corey Floyd
> > > > > Engineering Manager
> > > > > Readers
> > > > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > > cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org
> > > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Corey Floyd
> > > > Engineering Manager
> > > > Readers
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Melody Kramer <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:MKramer_(WMF)>
> Senior Audience Development Manager
> Read a random featured article from Wikipedia!
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomInCategory/Featured_articles>
>
> mkramer(a)wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>