> until now I had the impression that we (you, the authors, and me) fight > together against WMF and WMDE for keeping the Toolserver and against Labs. > Some mails and discussion in the last days gives me now the impression that > this was wrong and (at least some of) you are eager to leave the toolserver as > soon as possible. > There is no point to beg the WMDE for new hardware and to invest much more > time if 2 weeks after Labs is "ready" the toolserver will be empty. For this > reason I created a survey at [1] that starts at midnight. Please take a moment > of your time and place your nick in the section that suits you.

> Sincerely, > DaB.

> [1] https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Labs-Moving-Survey

I wish there were an option saying "move when XXX and YYY features are available and / or provided better on Labs".

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 3:53 AM, DaB. <WP(a)daniel.baur4.info> wrote: I wish there were an option saying "move when XXX and YYY features are available and / or provided better on Labs".

I'm confused. I thought we were all here to support the readers, editors, researchers and developers of the Wikimedia projects? If the toolserver is empty because Labs is accomplishing the goal, isn't that a good thing? I've asked this before: why not help with Labs, rather than fighting everyone? Let's work as a team

Hey folks, I usually steer clear of these sort of battles, but it looks like it's time to state the obvious: *we need to work together better*. We're wiki people, damn it. We're the people[1] who figured out how to build an encyclopedia through (effectively) an anonymous system when those with less imagination were skeptical what it could even work at all. Now, we're fighting against ourselves about technology to support our wiki work and it is only wasting time, energy and social capitol. DaB, I don't follow toolserver-l as well as I should. What can I do to help make sure that the Toolserver cluster is well supplied *at least* until labs meets 99.9% of tool developers needs. Do I need to lobby the WMF? WMDE? Ryan, I'm sure it was not out of some sort of malicious intent, but a large number of toolserver users and especially DaB are getting a raw deal. At some point, someone seems to have suggested that WMF Labs ought to replace the Toolserver. This is painful because, while Labs is not yet ready for us, the Toolserver is already being phased out. It's not fair to just say, "Come on over to Labs and help us." I don't see how jumping ship before the next one shows up is a good idea. The majority of us are doing our work as volunteers. We can't just manifest extra maintainer hours in order to spend developer time on Labs. We're already spending more time dealing with Toolserver issues than we normally would. Finally, the Toolserver isn't just a resource. It's our community. A community is far more valuable than technology. If we don't preserve our community, we'll all lose. So please, when we're fighting each other, our first thought should be how to not need to fight anymore. So here we are. Today was wasted arguing about who was wronged. How do we work together better tomorrow? -Aaron On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 9:05 AM, DaB. <WP(a)daniel.baur4.info> wrote: _______________________________________________ Toolserver-l mailing list (Toolserver-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/toolserver-l Posting guidelines for this list: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette

Hey folks, I usually steer clear of these sort of battles, but it looks like it's time to state the obvious: *we need to work together better*. We're wiki people, damn it. We're the people[1] who figured out how to build an encyclopedia through (effectively) an anonymous system when those with less imagination were skeptical what it could even work at all. Now, we're fighting against ourselves about technology to support our wiki work and it is only wasting time, energy and social capitol. DaB, I don't follow toolserver-l as well as I should. What can I do to help make sure that the Toolserver cluster is well supplied *at least* until labs meets 99.9% of tool developers needs. Do I need to lobby the WMF? WMDE?

number of toolserver users and especially DaB are getting a raw deal. At some point, someone seems to have suggested that WMF Labs ought to replace the Toolserver. This is painful because, while Labs is not yet ready for us, the Toolserver is already being phased out. It's not fair to just say, "Come on over to Labs and help us." I don't see how jumping ship before the next one shows up is a good idea. The majority of us are doing our work as volunteers. We can't just manifest extra maintainer hours in order to spend developer time on Labs. We're already spending more time dealing with Toolserver issues than we normally would.

Finally, the Toolserver isn't just a resource. It's our community. A community is far more valuable than technology. If we don't preserve our community, we'll all lose. So please, when we're fighting each other, our first thought should be how to not need to fight anymore.

Even if "labs being ready" happens in 2018? "ready" will vary for each tool, but I foresee a process like this: 1. labs provides all the resources needed for $TOOL 2. $AUTHOR signs up in labs, gets added to the projects, etc. 3. $AUTHOR tests (benchmarks) labs and finds it acceptable for $TOOL 4. $AUTHOR learns all the labs-specific details. 5. $AUTHOR allocates some time for installing $TOOL in labs 6. Fix bugs in $TOOL when run in labs (aka. adapt $TOOL to labs) 7. (Optional) Redirect toolserver/$TOOL to labs/$TOOL For the majority of tools, we haven't reached #1 yet. Once labs provides (almost) everything available at toolserver, you can start talking about when to stop supporting TS. But doing otherwise is premature. #2 is the only step that could take place before #1. Then there is the 'lazy factor' for #2-7, although it is also known as "too busy to fix this program which works ok in TS" Some people may skip #3, while others will want to be damn sure that it will work correctly. The time required by #4 can be reduced making labs very similar to toolserver. If labs environment for the programs is very different, such as needing to do the joins manually inside the program, that will increase #6 a lot.