For most statistical analysis projects this would likely be non-contentious and a WikiStats@Home toolset could prove very useful. It raises a number of challenges that would need resolved. * Development of the client/server software * Promotion of the project to get enough machines to make it useful * Potential conflict with the privacy policy in some cases * Structuring of analysis projects for distributed processing The first one is - I suspect - the biggest stumbling block. If wholly developed by Foundation staff you would likely spend more money than the price of a couple of high-powered servers to "lend" to people carrying out statistical analysis. Were it possible to delegate the work to volunteer developers this cost could possibly be avoided. Perhaps some enthusiastic student could carry this out as part of their PhD. I'd like to think there's still a lot of mileage in researching distributed computing models that could make this worth someone's while. The last point is where this approach places a significant burden on the person attempting the analysis. Not all problems can be resolved in a parcelled-out distributed manner. Some analyses just require huge gobs of memory and the application of brute force. Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Damian Finol Sent: 26 March 2008 21:32 To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 48, Issue 198 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 From: Brion Vibber <brion(a)wikimedia.org> | Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Projects Growth Animated | To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List | <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> | Message-ID: <47EA8364.7030104(a)wikimedia.org> | Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 | | Brian wrote: |> PS: Why doesn't the Foundation readily give Erik a server that he can use |> whenever he needs to? From my own memory at Wikimanias he has been promised |> by both Jimbo and Sue, and yet he has still never gotten one. | | We don't have a machine dedicated to stats generation yet; core | operations still take priority, and old machines aren't suitable for a | script that apparently needs massive amounts of memory to process its data. | | I should note that it would probably be useful to ensure that stats | generation scripts are available in the public source repository. | | -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) Probably talking crazy here, but why don't we develop something alike SETI@HOME?. I would run something that will process a segment of data like SETI@HOME no problems in my PC and every PC at work ;). Regards, Damian. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l