Pliny, which has been serving up en.wikipedia.org for the last few
days, has been exhibiting disk problems again. This tends to point to
problems in the controller or motherboard rather or in addition to the
drive, since we just replaced the previous aching drive with a shiny
new one.
en.wikipedia.org and boards.wikimedia.org have been moved for now back
to ursula along with the other languages. Since en makes up a lot of
the traffic by itself this is less than ideal; sometimes a surge on en
will briefly block out most access to other wikis, for instance.
Hopefully we can work something out on this soon with another machine
standing in.
Uploaded images from en are current on ursula up through January 24,
but newer updates are still on pliny and can't be copied off due to the
disk errors. If we can't coax it into cooperating remotely, Jason
should be able to reset things when he goes in on Friday and copy them
off then.
We're continuing to optimize the database configuration and smooth out
the hot spots, and sooner or later those new machines should arrive and
we can balance the load more cleanly..
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
projects;
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
projects, the
freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical control by
the Board of Trustees.
I would be interested in any comments. Perhaps we can present it to the
Board of
Trustees for approval soon.
Alex R. (en:user:alex756)
I think we need a separate mailing list for the Wikimedia foundation.
These organizational issues really have little to do with the day to day
workings and policies of Wikipedia. This would also be a place to discuss
possible new projects for the foundation.
I suggest the name foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org instead of wikimedia-l to
avoid typos.
This would have to be set up by Brion or Jason. Alternatively, I can set
up a new forum at http://boards.wikimedia.org.
Regards,
Erik
Great news! You can now reply or post a new message to your favorite
Wikimedia mailing list.
This is by use of the gmane.org web interface.
How does is work;
Go to the gmane.org website. http://gmane.org
Go to "reading" and do a search for "wikipedia" (or "wikimedia" for the
newest lists)
http://news.gmane.org/index.php?prefix=gmane.science.linguistics.wikipediahttp://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=wikimedia
Select a list.
Now you can read the postings. (for options; choose "help" in drop-down menu)
In the drop-down menu you can pick "followup" or "post".
Use the emailadres that you have used to subscribe to that list.
If it is the first time you use gmane to post to that list you will recive
A authorization email that will be sent to you after posting. You have to
reply to that message to confirm that you exist. After you've confirmed
your existence, the message will then be forwarded to the mailing list.
If you are not a list member it will not reach the list.
The posting system is enforcing very strict email netiquette! You will
notice.
This message is send to Wikipedia-l and to most of the list admins the
Wikimedia lists. List admins; please inform you readers about this. You
can include this in the welcome email send to new listmembers. (for
Wikitech-l, Intlwiki-l and WikiNL-l it is ok now)
Greetings,
Walter
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>>Currently, Wikimedia (the umbrella for the Wikipedia and other projects)
>>is organized based on consensus, if you ignore the largely unused
>>dictatorial powers. Consensus is not the same thing as democracy.
>>
>>
>
>Well, to be perfectly clear, the foundation itself is not organized
>based on consensus. It's organized based on me spending tons of money
>for several years to make this all happen, and my effort to carefully
>set this up as a public charity, and dictating how that's to be done
>by selecting board members and a process for member representation.
>
>The projects of the foundation *are* based on consensus, of course,
>and I see no reason for us to contemplate any change to that.
>
>--Jimbo
>
Correction accepted, and the clarity is appreciated. I would still
suggest that consensus is a goal worth striving for in the foundation
itself. Dictation certainly helps to get things started sometimes. But
because of the way humans are, I doubt any dictator can succeed here
unless the dictation is ultimately accepted by a consensus. So I
appreciate your efforts to take other opinions into account and provide
mechanisms for a consensus to develop.
I do agree with Uli that ideally someday "no single person with
superpowers is needed". Unless perhaps you plan to live forever.
--Michael Snow
Somebody on nl.wikipedia.org ran this query:
SELECT user_name, COUNT(*) FROM user, cur, old WHERE
user_name=old_user_text OR user_name=cur_user_text GROUP BY user_id
ORDER BY user_id DESC LIMIT 20
This ran for about 90 minutes before I caught and killed it, and froze
up the entire database in the meantime.
For those not familiar with SQL, the above query will take _every
single_ article and cross-reference it against _every single_ stored
old revision. It will then sort these _many millions_ of rows by user
id and return the first 20. (Obviously that's not the intent, but
that's how the database interprets the request.)
Sysop SQL queries on the database are now disabled. If people have an
urgent need to perform queries and know what they're doing, we may be
able to open up access on an individual basis, but please be aware that
SQL offers many ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Allowing this
access at all is a foolish thing that we do in the spirit of openness
(like letting anyone edit our website ;) but we can't afford to have
the site go down whenever somebody makes a typo.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Re: [Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association
Von:
Ivo Köthnig <koethnig(a)web.de> (by way of Ivo Köthnig <koethnig(a)web.de>)
An:
wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org
Datum:
Heute 02:21:03
> > The actual plan is to call it
> >
> > "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens",
> >
> > that nearly means
> >
> > "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
> >
> > "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but
> > for some reasons not wished by the majority.
>
> I request two things --
>
> 1. Ask the majority to reconsider, and give them good reasons for it.
>
> 2. Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German
> lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications. If you simply MUST
> form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a
> "friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the
> existing foundation.
>
> I am very opposed to the existence of an organization of the name that
> you are favoring, done against my wishes, without my approval, and
> without any time for discussion of what it means and how it will be
> controlled.
I understand, that you are opposed, and since founding that "e.V." dont give
it any rights on the project it can not start as more than a "friends of
Wikipedia". For this reason I also would prefer a name which makes that
clear. Thus the above planed name is no option anymore for me (and I think
for most of us) if we found that e.V. now (or very soon).
There even is a chance to rename the "e.V." later if you change your opinion,
but this would need money and time again. And IMO that also would make sense
only if the "e.V." gets some rights on the project by implementing it later
as chapter in some way...
--Ivo Köthnig
> The consultation can be completely informal and not official advise,
> of course. Surely German lawyers aren't forbidden from chatting with
> me about such things.
>
> Was my message posted on the website so that lots of people will have
> the opportunity to respond?
Yes, its in the red frame now...
--Ivo Köthnig
> > The actual plan is to call it
> >
> > "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens",
> >
> > that nearly means
> >
> > "Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".
> >
> > "Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but
> > for some reasons not wished by the majority.
>
> I request two things --
>
> 1. Ask the majority to reconsider, and give them good reasons for it.
>
> 2. Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German
> lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications. If you simply MUST
> form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a
> "friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the
> existing foundation.
>
> I am very opposed to the existence of an organization of the name that
> you are favoring, done against my wishes, without my approval, and
> without any time for discussion of what it means and how it will be
> controlled.
I understand, that you are opposed, and since founding that "e.V." dont give
it any rights on the project it can not start as more than a "friends of
Wikipedia". For this reason I also would prefer a name which makes that
clear. Thus the above planed name is no option anymore for me (and I think
for most of us) if we found that e.V. now (or very soon).
There even is a chance to rename the "e.V." later if you change your opinion,
but this would need money and time again. And IMO that also would make sense
only if the "e.V." gets some rights on the project by implementing it later
as chapter in some way...
--Ivo Köthnig