[Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

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Sean Whitton

27 Jul 2008 27 Jul '08

11:08 p.m.

Hello all, I'm writing to update you on some exciting changes in Wikimedia's IRC situation. Firstly, Ryan Postlethwaite organised a meeting on IRC this evening to discuss the problems we've been having of late. It went very well: I had a chance to explain the situation and clear up any potential misconceptions, and users pointed out that James and I are not fantastic at *appearing* active as lots of stuff happens in the dark. You can read a log of the meeting at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Surgeries/July 2008/Log>, but I'll summarise my explanation of the situation. Basically, freenode realised in January that our paperwork for our group contact status is badly out of date and in some cases simply missing. So I was told that I could only set wikimedia/ cloaks (which I have been doing in the usual batches since I learnt I could set these), and just this week we learnt that James can set wikipedia/ cloaks. While we continue to wait for freenode to redo our paperwork (no idea of an ETA, we poke the right person every few weeks as a reminder though), we are now setting wikimedia/ and wikipedia/ cloaks. Other cloaks will remain in the system and will get set as soon as we are able to. There was much other discussion about the role of the contacts but it would be better to read the log if you want to know about it: I wouldn't do the discussion justice by summarising it here. Secondly, the huge backlog of wikipedia/ cloaks have now been set where possible (some users seem to have dropped their nick registration while the requests have been waiting). Woohoo! This was because we finally learnt this week that James can still set cloaks in this namespace. Thirdly, it was decided we should hold such meetings more often. And as noted above, people asked for more transparency with contact actions. So I present a raft of new pages on meta: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Log> -- log of cloaks and access changes <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Surgeries> -- surgery planning and logs <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Noticeboard> -- status updates rather like this e-mail. I hope you'll join in with my excitement at all this. Sean Whitton for the IRC Group Contacts

Show replies by date

Luna

27 Jul 27 Jul

11:14 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Thanks again to all who attended, especially Ryan, Sean, and James. It's excellent to see this being implemented so quickly. One question I neglected to ask, earlier: is there anything we as individual users can do to be more helpful, with this whole situation? -Luna

Sean Whitton

28 Jul 28 Jul

12:21 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 22:14, Luna <lunasantin(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

One question I neglected to ask, earlier: is there anything we as individual users can do to be more helpful, with this whole situation?

Not really, no: there is very little James and I can do ourselves except poke freenode every few weeks. The thing I would ask is that information like that which was given out at the meeting is spread to stop people ending up with different views about what can and can't be done. That's why I set up the pages on meta, to try and clear up these misconceptions. On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 00:48, mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Are bot cloaks being done now that you can do Wikipedia and Wikimedia cloaks?

Yes, I intend to do a run of these this morning. On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 03:28, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

"no idea of an ETA" doesn't sound too good. Wikia has been waiting 6 months just for freenode to recognise a new group contact. Has there been any discussion about moving to a new network?

The discussions were had, but the issue is that actually, we get a heck of a lot out of freenode. The network is well run in terms of routing and sysadminship (as freenode staff I have nothing to do with that area but we have a very skilled team who do) and freenode also allow us special exemptions: Wikimedians can request the ability to join more than twenty channels, we have bots that are allowed exemption from flood protection, and the toolserver has a higher connection limit. It is important to remember that the only thing freenode have got wrong is their group contact system, but in my experience what generally happens is suddenly, everything will happen. That's what happened when NickServ and ChanServ were recently changed over to (much better) software, and I predict this will end up happening with the groups system too. Eventually.

mike.lifeguard

1:48 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Are bot cloaks being done now that you can do Wikipedia and Wikimedia cloaks? Mike -----Original Message----- From: Sean Whitton [mailto:sean@silentflame.com] Sent: July 27, 2008 6:08 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening,cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay) Hello all, I'm writing to update you on some exciting changes in Wikimedia's IRC situation. Firstly, Ryan Postlethwaite organised a meeting on IRC this evening to discuss the problems we've been having of late. It went very well: I had a chance to explain the situation and clear up any potential misconceptions, and users pointed out that James and I are not fantastic at *appearing* active as lots of stuff happens in the dark. You can read a log of the meeting at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Surgeries/July 2008/Log>, but I'll summarise my explanation of the situation. Basically, freenode realised in January that our paperwork for our group contact status is badly out of date and in some cases simply missing. So I was told that I could only set wikimedia/ cloaks (which I have been doing in the usual batches since I learnt I could set these), and just this week we learnt that James can set wikipedia/ cloaks. While we continue to wait for freenode to redo our paperwork (no idea of an ETA, we poke the right person every few weeks as a reminder though), we are now setting wikimedia/ and wikipedia/ cloaks. Other cloaks will remain in the system and will get set as soon as we are able to. There was much other discussion about the role of the contacts but it would be better to read the log if you want to know about it: I wouldn't do the discussion justice by summarising it here. Secondly, the huge backlog of wikipedia/ cloaks have now been set where possible (some users seem to have dropped their nick registration while the requests have been waiting). Woohoo! This was because we finally learnt this week that James can still set cloaks in this namespace. Thirdly, it was decided we should hold such meetings more often. And as noted above, people asked for more transparency with contact actions. So I present a raft of new pages on meta: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Log> -- log of cloaks and access changes <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Surgeries> -- surgery planning and logs <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts/Noticeboard> -- status updates rather like this e-mail. I hope you'll join in with my excitement at all this. Sean Whitton for the IRC Group Contacts

Angela

4:28 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 7:08 AM, Sean Whitton <sean(a)silentflame.com> wrote:

...

While we continue to wait for freenode to redo our paperwork (no idea of an ETA, we poke the right person every few weeks as a reminder though), we are now setting wikimedia/ and wikipedia/ cloaks. Other cloaks will remain in the system and will get set as soon as we are able to.

"no idea of an ETA" doesn't sound too good. Wikia has been waiting 6 months just for freenode to recognise a new group contact. Has there been any discussion about moving to a new network? Angela

Joe Szilagyi

7:23 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Is there legitimate reason it would not be more beneficial and easier to simply set up something like irc.wikimedia.org and host it in-house? - Joe

Jon

7:25 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Szilagyi wrote:

...

Is there legitimate reason it would not be more beneficial and easier to simply set up something like irc.wikimedia.org and host it in-house? - Joe _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Bandwidth cost money. Lets allow Freenode PDPC to be gracious enough to donate it. For that I am thankful. - -- Best, Jon [User:NonvocalScream]

...PGP SIGNATURE...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkiNWEsACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtXLyACfQ1dSUik/8ycBukvDw4lwCLG2 PrkAnjWNb39lIcU10+njqGURXUoIvR1C =2de+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Dan Rosenthal

8:52 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Yes, but setting up IRC channels on many networks that are more accessible than Freenode, (and have better policies to control trolling and spamming,) is easy and free, and even if we were to set up IRC on our own domain, it takes a miniscule amount of bandwidth. -Dan On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:25 AM, Jon <scream(a)datascreamer.com> wrote:

...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Szilagyi wrote:

Bandwidth cost money. Lets allow Freenode PDPC to be gracious enough to donate it. For that I am thankful. - -- Best, Jon [User:NonvocalScream]

...PGP SIGNATURE...

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

-- Dan Rosenthal

mike.lifeguard

11:49 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held thisevening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

I think the real issue is that we'd need someone to manage it, and our sysadmins have been explicit that they do not enjoy managing the channels we already have (RC feeds) and do not want to manage more. Whether or not someone else from the community could do it, I don't know. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Dan Rosenthal [mailto:swatjester@gmail.com] Sent: July 28, 2008 3:52 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held thisevening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay) Yes, but setting up IRC channels on many networks that are more accessible than Freenode, (and have better policies to control trolling and spamming,) is easy and free, and even if we were to set up IRC on our own domain, it takes a miniscule amount of bandwidth. -Dan On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:25 AM, Jon <scream(a)datascreamer.com> wrote:

...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Szilagyi wrote:

Bandwidth cost money. Lets allow Freenode PDPC to be gracious enough to donate it. For that I am thankful. - -- Best, Jon [User:NonvocalScream]

...PGP SIGNATURE...

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

-- Dan Rosenthal

Waerth

12:17 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Yes they control spamming by blocking whole countries out. Many networks simply do not allow you on with a Thai IP address. This might also be the case for other countries. Also people need to register their nicks again. Which might be taken on other networks already. Moving over after all of these years is not something to consider lightly. Waerth http://fi.ndit.at

...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Joe Szilagyi wrote:

Bandwidth cost money. Lets allow Freenode PDPC to be gracious enough to donate it. For that I am thankful. - -- Best, Jon [User:NonvocalScream]

...PGP SIGNATURE...

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

Gregory Maxwell

4:57 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:25 AM, Jon <scream(a)datascreamer.com> wrote:

...

I made a suggestion that we change networks or run our own during the meeting. The bandwidth requirements would be infinitesimal and it could could be placed where Wikimedia's traffic is the least costly if bandwidth were really an issue. There would be a couple of interesting possible benefits: * Long term login integration with SUL: Have Wikimedia SUL logins function as IRC logins. ** Automatic permissions, we could overlay the existing wiki permissions onto IRC lowering the amount of special IRC management required. Adminship on enwp would permit you ops in #wikipedia-en ** Possibilities of extending IP blocks on projects automatically to IRC. ;) ** Other integration: Things like chanserv telling you that you have new talk page messages.. etc. * More consistent handling of private data: Even if you have a freenode cloak anyone can get your IP if you use freenode by doing a /whois on you at the moment you connect. This could be resolved by obscuring the IP. * Improved reliability: In the decade or so that I've used freenode it has *always* been the least reliable IRC network that I use. I still see netsplits multiple times per week on good weeks, and multiple times per day on bad weeks.. It's not so bad as to be debilitating, as seanw put it, but it's obnoxious. Wikimedia's datacenter interconnectivity is better than this, and the more limited scope of a Wikimedia IRC would make scaling somewhat easier. I see three downsides: * IRC goes down when the Wikimedia network is down. At a minimum the tech folks will probably need to maintain a presence on another IRC network. I expect that the tech folks are far more likely to have other channels of interest on other networks than general Wikimedia contributors.. All modern irc clients support multiple networks easily. * It's another possible distraction for the tech team. More software to maintain. ... although not much of one since we already run a limited IRC server for the RC feeds. * It's another service that Wikimedia would be offering, carrying its own possible overheads though I expect that these would be small, easy to avoid, and mostly fold into the overheads of the projects.

effe iets anders

8:34 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

Another problem I see, but not sure how important it is, is that this would make Wikimedia possibly responsible (legally speaking) for the communication through IRC etc, which might not be wanted. Nowadays we can just point to freenode, which handles it all, and will be taking action when required. Besides that, I don't think that the extra software maintaining will cost developers the most time, but that the nagging users will. Users that come for small issues to the developers because sean and/or james are for a while away, and (disaster!) the cloaks can't be set for a while. now people turn to Freenode, which is perfectly able to handle it, doing nothing else practically, either by fixing either by telling them to have patience. When Wikimedia developers have technical control over the channels and nicks etc, this would mean mainly an additional workload on that behalf, would be my expectation. with kind regards, Lodewijk 2008/7/28 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:25 AM, Jon <scream(a)datascreamer.com> wrote:

Sean Whitton

11:09 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 19:34, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

This is the number one reason, at the end of the day, why we wouldn't want to do it. IRC is not something WMF really wants on its list of legal concerns - the wikis are bad enough ;)

...

Besides that, I don't think that the extra software maintaining will cost developers the most time, but that the nagging users will. Users that come for small issues to the developers because sean and/or james are for a while away, and (disaster!) the cloaks can't be set for a while. now people turn to Freenode, which is perfectly able to handle it, doing nothing else practically, either by fixing either by telling them to have patience. When Wikimedia developers have technical control over the channels and nicks etc, this would mean mainly an additional workload on that behalf, would be my expectation.

Indeed, freenode staff are very good (although I'm biased of course) at dealing with people's issues. We've reset hundreds of passwords, we've helped with hundreds of ChanServ problems. It seems silly to abandon that service.

David Gerard

29 Jul 29 Jul

12:12 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

2008/7/28 Sean Whitton <sean(a)silentflame.com>om>:

...

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 19:34, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> Another problem I see, but not sure how important it is, is that this > would make Wikimedia possibly responsible (legally speaking) for the > communication through IRC etc, which might not be wanted. Nowadays we > can just point to freenode, which handles it all, and will be taking > action when required.

...

This is the number one reason, at the end of the day, why we wouldn't want to do it. IRC is not something WMF really wants on its list of legal concerns - the wikis are bad enough ;)

[...]

...

Yuh. Running an IRC network is useful insofar as it directly advances the mission statement. That is to say, not very. The Foundation has made donations to Freenode before in recognition of the benefit it gets from IRC, but Freenode are much better at running an IRC network than the Foundation ever really wants to bother becoming. Outsourcing can be a very good idea at times. I mean, it's possible it's worth the effort of doing it in-house - Greg thinks it wouldn't be overwhelming - but I still can't say I'm personally convinced. - d.

Al Tally

28 Jul 28 Jul

8:40 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

I can imagine the anti-IRC users on the wiki wouldn't like the idea of an IRC run by Wikimedia. -- Al Tally (User:Majorly)

Gregory Maxwell

8:46 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

...

I can imagine the anti-IRC users on the wiki wouldn't like the idea of an IRC run by Wikimedia.

Too late for that I'm afraid! irc.wikimedia.org ;) Though perhaps such a change would be an opportunity to address some of the complaints they have about IRC. (like, perhaps, running automatic public logs of all the public channels or whatever the community decides on..)

geni

2:32 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

2008/7/28 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Is there legitimate reason it would not be more beneficial and easier to simply set up something like irc.wikimedia.org and host it in-house? - Joe

Plausible deniability. As long as the channels stay on freenode nothing that happens there can be blamed on the foundation. -- geni

Delphine Ménard

2:53 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] First IRC Group Contacts 'surgery' held this evening, cloak backlog (almost) cleared (yay)

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 14:32, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2008/7/28 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi(a)gmail.com>om>:

Is there legitimate reason it would not be more beneficial and easier to simply set up something like irc.wikimedia.org and host it in-house? - Joe

Plausible deniability. As long as the channels stay on freenode nothing that happens there can be blamed on the foundation.

And also, I suppose: As long as the wikimedia-related channels stay on 3rd party servers our human resources are not scattered trying to fix irc while the site is down. Delphine -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. For Wikimedia related correspondence, use my dmenard(at)wikimedia(point)org address. Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org

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participants (14)

Al Tally
Angela
Dan Rosenthal
David Gerard
Delphine Ménard
effe iets anders
geni
Gregory Maxwell
Joe Szilagyi
Jon
Luna
mike.lifeguard
Sean Whitton
Waerth