September 11 wiki - Wikimedia-l - lists.wikimedia.org

Nathan

21 Nov 21 Nov

12:36 a.m.

I think it would be better to reformulate it into book format and make it available as an e-book, for free download either directly from Wikimedia or other outlets like iTunes or Amazon. That would be searchable, and I don't know that hosting it in wiki form provides any benefits. Certainly as a wiki it will never be rescued from permanent obscurity. On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a memorial website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a searchable format. Today, searching the web for phrases in contributed memorial pages brings up only ancient, presumably unmaintained Wikipedia mirrors, such as these: http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/da/Daniel_Brandhorst http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Daniel_Brandhorst/ In time, those will disappear from the web, as all other copies have done. Thus, relatives of the deceased will have no way to discover that these pages ever existed. In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years. The data is still on our servers. I propose bringing the wiki back up, in read only mode, and leaving it like that either until such time as there is interest from a non-profit or government organisation in taking over the responsibility of indefinite hosting. It would only take an hour or so of ops work. It could stay like that for decades without needing any further maintenance. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Reply

Victor Grigas

4:09 a.m.

Tim, You could start an indiegogo or a kickstarter campaign for this. I'm sure you'd find funding and volunteers to keep it online. There is also a museum on the ground zero site that you may want to get in touch with about such an effort : http://www.911memorial.org/ They may be interested in telling the story of the Sept11wiki, and possibly keeping it online. When WP was new and still finding it's character, such efforts like what you propose were not outside WP's potential scope. I just don't feel that WP is the place for it currently or in the future. On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 9:55 PM, Yann Forget <yannfo(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hello, 2013/11/21 Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>

I think it would be better to reformulate it into book format and make it available as an e-book, for free download either directly from Wikimedia

or

other outlets like iTunes or Amazon. That would be searchable, and I

don't

know that hosting it in wiki form provides any benefits. Certainly as a wiki it will never be rescued from permanent obscurity.

I think that would be the best. I am sure many people could easily offer a copy that way. Regards, Yann _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- *Victor Grigas* Storyteller <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTVAmstteM> Wikimedia Foundation vgrigas(a)wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/

Reply

Erik Moeller

12:52 a.m.

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 4:38 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:

...

We provide a dump of the September 11 wiki's contents here: <http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backups-of-old-wikis.html>. Memorial sites, while depressing and touching, are completely outside the scope of Wikimedia's mission. I don't believe Wikimedia has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to host this content in an Internet searchable format in perpetuity. Anyone, including non-profits and government organizations, can use the dump we provide as they see fit. Deciding to host this site again would be a mistake and one that we happen to have already made once.

+1. sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo already redirects to the IA copy, as well. Anything else is a distraction and a waste of time, sorry. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

Reply

Tim Starling

3:23 a.m.

On 21/11/13 11:38, MZMcBride wrote:

...

Tim Starling wrote:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a memorial website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a searchable format.

I think there's general agreement that setting up this wiki was a mistake. This isn't said out of callousness or indifference, it's just the historical reality. Wikipedia was only eight months old when these attacks took place. No subsequent major world event (e.g., the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami) has had its own Wikimedia memorial wiki established and it's very unlikely that we would ever set up another.

Sure, but you can't undo it, once it is done. Maybe it was stupid to take on this responsibility, but deleting the site is not an ethical way to rectify the mistake. -- Tim Starling

Reply

MZMcBride

5:12 a.m.

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 7:23 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Sure, but you can't undo it, once it is done. Maybe it was stupid to take on this responsibility, but deleting the site is not an ethical way to rectify the mistake.

If you _really really_ want to take this on, please consider just creating a static HTML dump without the MediaWiki skin in a subdirectory of dumps.wm.o (mebbe http://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/static_html_dumps/ ), with robots.txt rules to allow for indexing, rather than returning it to its previous undead status.

Yes, this. BTW, <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/7932>. ;-) MZMcBride

Reply

MZMcBride

6:31 a.m.

Tim Starling wrote:

...

On 21/11/13 11:38, MZMcBride wrote:

No subsequent major world event (e.g., the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami) has had its own Wikimedia memorial wiki established and it's very unlikely that we would ever set up another.

Sure, but you can't undo it, once it is done. Maybe it was stupid to take on this responsibility, but deleting the site is not an ethical way to rectify the mistake.

Your comments reminded me of one of my favorite quotes (immortalized as a quip in our Bugzilla installation at <https://bugs.wikimedia.org/>): "creating a wiki is like creating a baby: yes you should have a good reason to create one, but if you don't for whatever reason, you should have an _extra_ good reason for killing one." :-) MZMcBride

Reply

Matthew Flaschen

1:23 a.m.

On 11/20/2013 07:09 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

...

In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years.

It is still accessible at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (http://wayback.archive.org/web/20060111221201/http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wi…) (if I try a later year, it seems to redirect to sep11memories.org). Considering it will not be opened for editing again, that and the dumps should be enough. Matt Flaschen

Reply

phoebe ayers

6:19 p.m.

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:23 PM, Matthew Flaschen < matthew.flaschen(a)gatech.edu> wrote:

...

On 11/20/2013 07:09 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years.

It is still accessible at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine ( http://wayback.archive.org/web/20060111221201/http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wi…) (if I try a later year, it seems to redirect to sep11memories.org).

It would be ideal to find an organization -- someone who has been collecting Sept 11 archives, perhaps -- who would be interested in taking on curation of the site. Something like the http://911digitalarchive.org/would be perfect, though it seems they are no longer actively working on the project. The U.S. Library of Congress has a big archive too, though I don't know if they can add currently-offline materials to it: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/lcwa/html/sept11/sept11-overview.html The IA might be willing to add to its archive, as well. Anyway, perhaps this is worth pursuing. -- Phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *

Reply

Lodewijk

7:52 p.m.

Contacting a museum/foundation dedicated to the topic seems to me most ideal. They still would like to have an html dump probably - no need for it to be editable I guess. Setting up a special organization for it seems a bit too much effort imho if there's an easier way. If WMNYC perhaps in contact with a relevant organization at Ground Zero? Lodewijk 2013/11/21 Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada <emijrp(a)gmail.com>

...

If September 11 wiki is a finished work and has a free license, perhaps it can be included in Wikisource. I tried in the past to include Nupedia articles in Wikisource but they were rejected because they are not free. The irony. 2013/11/21 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a memorial website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a searchable format. Today, searching the web for phrases in contributed memorial pages brings up only ancient, presumably unmaintained Wikipedia mirrors, such as these: http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/da/Daniel_Brandhorst http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Daniel_Brandhorst/ In time, those will disappear from the web, as all other copies have done. Thus, relatives of the deceased will have no way to discover that these pages ever existed. In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years. The data is still on our servers. I propose bringing the wiki back up, in read only mode, and leaving it like that either until such time as there is interest from a non-profit or government organisation in taking over the responsibility of indefinite hosting. It would only take an hour or so of ops work. It could stay like that for decades without needing any further maintenance. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Reply

Pharos

10:57 p.m.

I think Wikimedia NYC could host this archive, given the very high relevance to our region, perhaps at sep11.nycwiki.org Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos) On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I was thinking this also. There is a museum: http://www.911memorial.org/museum I don't know anyone there personally, but, I do have many colleagues in the GLAM sector in NYC and most likely have a connection to someone at the museum. I'm also totally comfortable cold calling them. I'll do that work if others want to draft and prepare a game plan on how they see this information being preserved and useful. This museum isn't open yet, and opening a museum surely isn't easy, so I can't guarantee a timely response. Connecting with folks in the digital humanities is a good idea, or perhaps even the Computer History Museum. (I know the head curator there) -Sarah -Sarah On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>wrote;wrote:

Contacting a museum/foundation dedicated to the topic seems to me most ideal. They still would like to have an html dump probably - no need for it to be editable I guess. Setting up a special organization for it seems a bit too much effort imho if there's an easier way. If WMNYC perhaps in contact with a relevant organization at Ground Zero? Lodewijk 2013/11/21 Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada <emijrp(a)gmail.com>

If September 11 wiki is a finished work and has a free license, perhaps

it

can be included in Wikisource. I tried in the past to include Nupedia articles in Wikisource but they

were

rejected because they are not free. The irony. 2013/11/21 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a memorial website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a searchable format. Today, searching the web for phrases in contributed memorial pages brings up only ancient, presumably unmaintained Wikipedia mirrors, such as these: http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/da/Daniel_Brandhorst http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Daniel_Brandhorst/ In time, those will disappear from the web, as all other copies have done. Thus, relatives of the deceased will have no way to discover that these pages ever existed. In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years. The data is still on our servers. I propose bringing the wiki back up, in read only mode, and leaving it like that either until such time as there is interest from a non-profit or government organisation in taking over the responsibility of indefinite hosting. It would only take an hour or so of ops work. It could stay like that for decades without needing any further maintenance. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Reply

Pharos

11:41 p.m.

Yes, it would be great if we could help with the tech, and they could perhaps help with any added curatorial, enhancing the historical context. Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos) On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I think that's an awesome idea. And then perhaps ping the folks at the museum to let them know. -Sarah On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

I think Wikimedia NYC could host this archive, given the very high relevance to our region, perhaps at sep11.nycwiki.org Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos) On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I was thinking this also. There is a museum: http://www.911memorial.org/museum I don't know anyone there personally, but, I do have many colleagues in

the

GLAM sector in NYC and most likely have a connection to someone at the museum. I'm also totally comfortable cold calling them. I'll do that work if others want to draft and prepare a game plan on how they see this information being preserved and useful. This museum isn't open yet, and opening a museum surely isn't easy, so I can't guarantee a timely response. Connecting with folks in the digital humanities is a good idea, or

perhaps

even the Computer History Museum. (I know the head curator there) -Sarah -Sarah On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org wrote: > Contacting a museum/foundation dedicated to the topic seems to me most > ideal. They still would like to have an html dump probably - no need

for it

> to be editable I guess. Setting up a special organization for it seems a > bit too much effort imho if there's an easier way. > > If WMNYC perhaps in contact with a relevant organization at Ground Zero? > > Lodewijk > > > 2013/11/21 Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada <emijrp(a)gmail.com> > > > If September 11 wiki is a finished work and has a free license,

perhaps

> it > > can be included in Wikisource. > > > > I tried in the past to include Nupedia articles in Wikisource but they > were > > rejected because they are not free. The irony. > > > > > > 2013/11/21 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki > > > > > > I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a

memorial

> > > website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a > > > searchable format. > > > > > > Today, searching the web for phrases in contributed memorial pages > > > brings up only ancient, presumably unmaintained Wikipedia mirrors, > > > such as these: > > > > > > http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/da/Daniel_Brandhorst > > > http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Daniel_Brandhorst/ > > > > > > In time, those will disappear from the web, as all other copies have > > > done. Thus, relatives of the deceased will have no way to discover > > > that these pages ever existed. > > > > > > In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site, > > > evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve > > > that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years. > > > > > > The data is still on our servers. I propose bringing the wiki back

up,

> > > in read only mode, and leaving it like that either until such time

as

> > > there is interest from a non-profit or government organisation in > > > taking over the responsibility of indefinite hosting. It would only > > > take an hour or so of ops work. It could stay like that for decades > > > without needing any further maintenance. > > > > > > -- Tim Starling > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,

> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org

?subject=unsubscribe>

> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

,

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