Domas says about Anthony:
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How was that budgeted? Which year? Can you point me at that unspent software development budget number?
...
You are trolling and you're piggy-backing. We have dedicated resources for that, paid out of donations, yes.
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I would consider it equally "trolling" to assume or pretend that an unfortunate financial situation did not happen, just because you haven't taken the time or effort to pay attention to when these issues have been discussed in numerous, varied forums across the Internet. Here are at least a dozen for you, Domas:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22%241.7+million%22+t...
Greg
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Gregory Kohs thekohser@gmail.com wrote:
I would consider it equally "trolling" to assume or pretend that an unfortunate financial situation did not happen, just because you haven't taken the time or effort to pay attention to when these issues have been discussed in numerous, varied forums across the Internet. Here are at least a dozen for you, Domas:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22%241.7+million%22+t...
I wouldn't consider any of those dozen to be credible or reliable sources. Nobody has a responsibility to monitor the entirety of the internet to follow various discussion minutia or unfounded rumors, and it's not trolling to not assume that responsibility for oneself.
--Andrew Whitworth
Gregory,
Here are at least a dozen for you, Domas: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22%241.7+million%22+t...
Oh wow, I got my chance to read Valleywag, probably that should be the major point of insight for all the efficient non-profit governance, right, Gregory?
Now, for those who fail at reading comprehension, let me point out to the report from ED to board: "a desire to defer equipment purchases while various donations and sponsorship deals were under negotiation"
We had major sponsorship deals pending, which didn't happen because, dear oh dear, bad economy. Thats why we stretched a bit, and were doing hardware acquisitions next FY.
If you think it wasn't worth getting to those talks and trying to get free hardware (or second datacenter, or multi-petabyte storage expansion, or ...), you seem to be one in the mood of wasting money. Oh well, we also did some optimization work (volunteers mostly ;-) that allowed us to grow a bit longer.
Do note, our major capacity benchmark is September-October season, summer season allows us to restructure lots of stuff.
Yes, we could've done hiring faster, and more aggressively I guess - which we discussed at the board level (especially at October 3-5 meeting in 2008).
Yes, you certainly wouldn't want to click the first returned result: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Foundation_report_to_the_Board,_May_2008
Thats second to me, first is Valleywag.
Cheers, Domas
I always read Domas's posts, because they raise my spirits :)
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Now, for those who fail at reading comprehension, let me point out to the report from ED to board: "a desire to defer equipment purchases while various donations and sponsorship deals were under negotiation"
We had major sponsorship deals pending, which didn't happen because, dear oh dear, bad economy. Thats why we stretched a bit, and were doing hardware acquisitions next FY.
If you think it wasn't worth getting to those talks and trying to get free hardware (or second datacenter, or multi-petabyte storage expansion, or ...), you seem to be one in the mood of wasting money. Oh well, we also did some optimization work (volunteers mostly ;-) that allowed us to grow a bit longer.
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Putting aside the unnecessary bad faith and challenges to the foundation's integrity: I find this all exciting - planning for significant tech budget support, possible major sponsorships (I've always hoped we would one day find multiple sources for long-term in-kind support of servers and bandwidth), &c. I would simply like to see more open discussion of what our perfect-world tech dreams are, and how to pursue what sorts of sponsorships.
We're going to get into a lot of these issues as a community, during the Strategic Planning process this year, so it will be especially helpful if people who've worked on Plans and related prioritizing + analysis are willing to share their knowledge of how the planning process currently works.
Measuring project health, and being able to compare monthly or quarterly projections against actual measures, would be helpful for all sorts of feedback within the projects.
Do note, our major capacity benchmark is September-October season, summer season allows us to restructure lots of stuff.
Cool; what's the best way to observe the high water mark, and how the systems are holding up?
SJ
Cool; what's the best way to observe the high water mark, and how the systems are holding up?
it isn't 2007 or 2006 ;-)
http://wiki.wikked.net/wiki/Wikimedia_statistics/Yearly
Domas
Looks like a Nov spike, but such a steady rise in year to year traffic that the next Jan is already higher... was that similar last year?
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Cool; what's the best way to observe the high water mark, and how the systems are holding up?
it isn't 2007 or 2006 ;-)
http://wiki.wikked.net/wiki/Wikimedia_statistics/Yearly
Domas
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On Sep 16, 2009, at 6:23 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
Looks like a Nov spike, but such a steady rise in year to year traffic that the next Jan is already higher... was that similar last year?
yes, no, perhaps. always treat those graphs with grain of salt, it could be simply additional objects be added, more content, more images, etc (and the spike this summer was software bug)
Domas
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Because there isn't enough data on the mistakes that are being made today. 15 months ago, there was "oh, the dumps will be fixed real soon now" and "that money which wasn't spent will be spent in 2008-09". But today we know "no, 15 months later they still aren't fixed" and "no, that money will get rolled into the general budget where it won't even be spent".
And there's not even an acknowledgment by the board that it made a huge mistake.
Maybe there's an acknowledgment privately. There is some evidence of that. I don't know. I tend to take people at their word when they say publicly that everyone is doing a great job. I tend to take people at their word when they say publicly that they want foundation decisions discussed publicly. Maybe I should just chalk it up as a bunch of lies. But then, there's really little incentive for me to do that.
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Because there isn't enough data on the mistakes that are being made today. 15 months ago, there was "oh, the dumps will be fixed real soon now" and "that money which wasn't spent will be spent in 2008-09". But today we know "no, 15 months later they still aren't fixed" and "no, that money will get rolled into the general budget where it won't even be spent".
Have you not read people's replies to this? All dumps are working except for the full enwiki history. That's certainly a lot better than before, when pretty much every dump was failing. They've got all but one dump for one wiki working, and that's still being worked on too. What more would you ask?
-Chad
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Because there isn't enough data on the mistakes that are being made
today.
15 months ago, there was "oh, the dumps will be fixed real soon now" and "that money which wasn't spent will be spent in 2008-09". But today we
know
"no, 15 months later they still aren't fixed" and "no, that money will
get
rolled into the general budget where it won't even be spent".
Have you not read people's replies to this? All dumps are working except for the full enwiki history. That's certainly a lot better than before, when pretty much every dump was failing. They've got all but one dump for one wiki working, and that's still being worked on too. What more would you ask?
I don't think you've been following the dump situation for the past three years. Maybe there are others on this list who also don't understand the situation. During the last three years or so, all dumps have been produced, albeit intermittently, except the full history en.wikipedia. In order to "get all but one dump for one wiki working", the "solution" was primarily to 1) throw more hardware at the problem and 2) stop even trying to produce the en.wikipedia full history dump.
What more I would ask for is to fix the actual problem. That means redesigning the dump system, which was not designed for such large amounts of data, and needed to be rewritten three years ago (when the WMF plan was to simply throw more hardware at the situation, which they didn't even do). One or more people are apparently working on this. I haven't seen any redesign plans or progress reports though, so I have my doubts, not that one or more people aren't actually working on this, but as to whether or not it's going to get done.
Maybe if we could get a report on the status of the redesign, the plans for the redesign, etc., at least those doubts might be allayed, and this would become an example of a past mistake. But it still would be worth talking about.
Hoi, Your argument about the "mistakes made today" is so wrong. If we want to move forward in a positive way, we have to particularly acknowledge what does go well. That motivates people. The incessant carping about the past does not help at all. Insisting on acknowledgement of mistakes only serves in offending and alienating people. Calling something a mistake is problematic in the first place.
There are people who want the WMF to build huge reserves and there are people who consider that the operations of the WMF are woefully underfunded. There are people who want more funding for other languages and there are people who consider that it is sufficient to develop for English. <grin> that still allows me to pitch for for instance subtitling so that the English Wikipedia can use video that was recorded in oher languages </grin>
However you slice it, the least that you can say is that the WMF is putting in a best effort. This does not mean that you are always happy with their choices and it does not mean that you have to be happy withthe results of all the choices . In the end you do not have to be happy because it is always robbing Peter to pay Paul. Thanks, GerardM
2009/9/16 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Because there isn't enough data on the mistakes that are being made today. 15 months ago, there was "oh, the dumps will be fixed real soon now" and "that money which wasn't spent will be spent in 2008-09". But today we know "no, 15 months later they still aren't fixed" and "no, that money will get rolled into the general budget where it won't even be spent".
And there's not even an acknowledgment by the board that it made a huge mistake.
Maybe there's an acknowledgment privately. There is some evidence of that. I don't know. I tend to take people at their word when they say publicly that everyone is doing a great job. I tend to take people at their word when they say publicly that they want foundation decisions discussed publicly. Maybe I should just chalk it up as a bunch of lies. But then, there's really little incentive for me to do that. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Samuel Klein wrote:
Why are we revisiting something from 2007-08 financial planning two years after it happened and 15 months after the final report?
Planning with 20/20 hindsight is always soooo much more accurate? ;-)
Ec
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