While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers, etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every time you tried to submit something.
So... whoever is keeping things smooth as butter, thanks! Its a bad paradox of tech support that if your work is really good it is actually quite transparent, but I wanted to just say that, upon reflection, it is quite impressive indeed.
FF
On 4/11/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers, etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every time you tried to submit something.
You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime of other similarly-popular websites.
Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers, etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every time you tried to submit something.
You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime of other similarly-popular websites.
Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
Steve
Just to put things in context, WP is currently #17 in Alexa's rankings.
Its nearest neighbors in the rankings are:
#14 microsoft.com #15 yahoo.com.cn #16 google.co.uk ... #18 google.co.jp #19 blogger.com (ie, Google again) #20 bbc.co.uk
Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
I'm sure that the current engineering team could achieve similar levels of reliability, given access to an IT budget similar to those available to these companies.
-- Neil
Neil Harris wrote:
#20 bbc.co.uk
Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
Just for informational purposes, 3% of the BBC's income due to the licence fee goes towards bbc.co.uk[1]. In 2005, the BBC took in £2940 million from the licence fee[2]. That gives just less than £90 million annually.
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/ 2. http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/annreport/report05/94-135.txt
Chris
At 14:26 +0100 11/4/06, Chris Jenkinson wrote:
Neil Harris wrote:
#20 bbc.co.uk
Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
Just for informational purposes, 3% of the BBC's income due to the licence fee goes towards bbc.co.uk[1]. In 2005, the BBC took in £2940 million from the licence fee[2]. That gives just less than £90 million annually.
Chris
-- Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org
"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
In the future, non UK users of BBC websites will be charged.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,,1745320,00.html
"The BBC is to charge overseas users of its websites and will borrow £350m for global expansion. Evidence, argues Emily Bell, that it is preparing to be self-sufficient ..."
BTW, there are stacks of BBC News Online servers in Telehouse New York. Who pays for those?
Gordo
On 4/11/06, Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
Each of these WP "competitors" is run by an organization with a multi-billion-dollar annual turnover.
I'm sure that the current engineering team could achieve similar levels of reliability, given access to an IT budget similar to those available to these companies.
I'm not sure if you were agreeing with me or disagreeing with me. My point was simply that WP reliability is "very good", and if you consider their budget, "outstanding". It is not, quite obviously, as reliable as other top 20 websites, for the simple fact that they have money to burn that we could only dream of.
Steve
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers, etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every time you tried to submit something.
You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime of other similarly-popular websites.
Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
It's really an issue of context. A year or so ago things were pretty bad. Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison. It's true, how quickly we forget.
Guettarda wrote:
It's really an issue of context. A year or so ago things were pretty bad. Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison. It's true, how quickly we forget.
I couldn't agree more, things are a lot better than this time last year. A quick trawl through the archives at http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status should show people how bad it was last year. I add my weight to the subject header.
Steve block
That's really all I'm saying. About a year ago it was so bad that it almost wasn't worth even trying -- you could never predict when things would just give up on you completely, and there was no end of it in sight, for months on end. Sure, there are hiccups now, but they are pretty minimal, at least in my experience, and nothing like the "bad old days" of the server problems.
FF
On 4/11/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/11/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
While we're praising things... I just wanted to say that the other day my internet connection was bad and I had a hard time reaching the 'pedia and I remembered that less than a year ago there were almost constant technical problems relating to hardware, databases, servers, etc. I can't remember the last time there was even protracted time of server downtime or really annoying "experiencing difficulties" every time you tried to submit something.
You and I are using different Wikipedias, or at different times of day :) I'm not complaining at all about what the tech people get done with very limited resources, but you couldn't compare it to the 0% downtime of other similarly-popular websites.
Though I have to say the most common problem for me is not being able to save changes to a page, and having to retry several times, which probably doesn't affect casual browsers.
It's really an issue of context. A year or so ago things were pretty bad. Now, while there are problems, they are trivial in comparison. It's true, how quickly we forget. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l