Cross-posting, as an FYI.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:08 PM
Subject: Editor engagement experiments deploy: a new extension and updates
To: WMF Editor Engagement Team <ee(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
[For new folks to this list: we regularly make announcements about the
weekly software deployments by features teams, especially the editor
engagement group.]
First up, Matt Flaschen deployed a new extension which I'm very excited
about: Guided Tour. There will be a blog post tomorrow, but for an idea of
what it's all about, see the project page at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Guided_tours or visit
https://en.wikipedia.org?tour=test to see a meta-tour. (There are some
redlinks we're still filling in there).
Next updates for Guided Tour are to deploy outside of English Wikipedia -
likely French, German, and Dutch first - and enable an automatic tour for
all users who accept tasks at Special:GettingStarted. You can see it by
visiting one of those articles while logged in, and appending
?tour=gettingstarted.
Associated with this change, we updated several other extensions. In
particular, we removed the orange tooltip which points new editors to the
MoodBar feature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_editor_feedback MoodBar
is a great feature, but the tooltip first appeared when you viewed the edit
window. We do want to make sure newbies know they can leave feedback via
that feature, but we don't want to interrupt people who've clicked edit,
especially for the first time.
Last but not least: congrats to Matt for deploying a ton of work. Adding a
new extension and updating four others is no small feat.
--
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
--
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Hello,
we plan to change the way AbuseFilter filter hits are logged
fundamentally.
Feel free to skip to "Actual impact to end users" in case you're not
interested in or don't understand the technical background.
Some technical background:
We have a AbuseFilterVariableHolder object that contains all variables
usable by the filters. Some of these variables are stored as AFPData
objects and some as AFComputedVariable objects. The values of the
AFPData ones are already known while the values of the
AFComputedVariable ones are computed when needed (lazy load variables).
Right now AbuseFilter is logging filter hits by saving a serialized
version of an AbuseFilterVariableHolder object without any of the lazy
load variables computed. That object, as explained above, includes
several AFComputedVariable objects which hold information on how the
value for a lazy load variable can be computed (eg. parameters and a
method for AFComputedVariable::compute). That has several technical
downsides like it's not very forward compatible so that we will never be
able to change the method names or the way methods in
AFComputedVariable::compute work as we always have to expect that an old
log entry calls the methods with the old parameters. That's an even
bigger problem with the hooks in that function as those have to stay
backwards compatible as well. Furthermore this means we're saving a lot
unneeded data to the database.
What we're going to change now is that we will no longer log
AbuseFilterVariableHolder objects in serialized form to the database but
a serialized array with only native data types (which is much more
robust). Lazy load variables will be logged only if they have been
computed before the logging occurs. This furthermore implies that we
will no longer log any lazy load accessor information to the database.
Actual impact to end users:
The actual impact to the users will be very little as the logging page
(Special:AbuseLog) will still hold all non lazy load variables (like
page title, page namespace, user name, ...) and the lazy load variables
used by the filter(s) tested. Due to this all the relevant data for the
current log action will still be there (while irrelevant data might not
be available). In some cases this might even make it easier to spot
information relevant to a filter hit as data not involved in this filter
hit is no longer logged forcibly.
This change will make it much simpler to make more data available for
filters without having to face the headaches of the current logging
format.
I hope you agree with me that this change makes sense so that we finally
can move forward with the AbuseFilter extension!
Gerrit change: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/42501
Note: This was cross-posted to wikitech-ambassadors
Cheers,
Marius Hoch (hoo)
Hi, now it's confirmed and ready for distribution:
Next week we are going to focus on testing VisualEditor in conjunction
with non-Latin scripts: العربية, Ελληνικά, 한국어, हिन्दी, עברית , 日本
語, Русский, 中文 and more.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Testing_Non-Latin_Characters_In…
The testing will be done at the English Wikipedia (primarily in User
pages), where VisualEditor can be enabled. Any editor can contribute,
regardless of testing / technical experience and even knowledge of
languages in those scripts. For instance, copying texts from
http://ru.wikipedia.org/ or http://ja.wikipedia.org/ and playing with
them in your User page is also a good starting point.
Of course we welcome the participation of editors from projects based on
non-Latin scripts. Your help as ambassadors connecting with your
communities is especially needed! A main incentive is that good testing
coverage of VisualEditor in a specific script plus good community
involvement might lead to its inclusion in the related Wikipedia(s) for
broader testing.
If you have any questions or feedback please comment at
Talk:VisualEditor/Testing Non-Latin Characters Input and Behavior or
send me an email. Thank you!
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Op 24 jan. 2013 om 22:37 heeft "Dhaval S. Vyas" <dsvyas(a)gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:
> Hi Quim/Siebrand,
>
> It is indeed a fantastic move. I tried to test, but seems the visual editor is not compatible with IE10. Tried it on Firefox 18.0.1 where it seems to be working well. Do you want me to file a bug for IE10 or you'll take it from here?
Thanks for walking in front of the parade, Dhaval! Please do file a bug in bugzilla.wikimedia.org for the product Visual Editor[1]. Please be as specific as you can describing your found issue. If you keep this in mind, you usually make your bug reports rock!
1. Provide a brief summary and a one paragraph description of the problem you identified.
2. Describe the tools you used encounter the problem. These are most probably: your operating system, browser name, exact browser version, a wiki name, and if you can, the version mentioned on [[special:version]]. Add more information if you think it may be relevant. Tia could be if you were logged in, as which user, what your user interface language was set to, etc.
3. Describe numbered steps to reproduce the problem. Use as many steps as you need. Describe the quickest way to reproduce the problem. Be very specific. Add screenshots if it cannot be avoided or clarifies things.
4. Describe your observation that differs from your expectation. Use a screenshot if you think it clarifies the problem description. Mind you: this should be an observation that can be made after following the steps from 3.
5. Describe your expectation. This allows the person dealing with your report to assess if your expectation was in line with their specification or expected outcome. If you cannot describe this, note that, and please be prepared to further interact on the issue, the one dealing with it, will most probably propose an expected outcome and ask,your feedback on it.
6. Add additional information if it is relevant. You may for example have also tested on another operating system, or using one or more other browsers. Note at least if the outcome of the steps from 3 differed for what was described in 4, or was the same.
All this information will make it a lot easier for a developer to zoom into your problem, and fix it. It looks like a lot to report, but I guarantee you the once you start reporting issues like this, you will be getting then responded to much quicker and the resolve rate will also increase, simply because the information you provide is much more actionable.
Again, thanks for being pro-active and spread the word.
[1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=VisualEditor
Cheers!
Siebrand
A heads up to wikitech ambassadors and other people in your communities
with technical ideas in mind. You might get help funding the
implementation of those ideas using the new Individual Engagement Grants.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Fwd: Announcing the Individual Engagement Grants program
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:41:20 -0800
From: Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org>
Organization: Wikimedia Foundation
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
On 01/16/2013 09:48 AM, Quim Gil wrote:
> Hi, next week I will have a casual chat with Siko about the new
> Wikimedia Individual Engagement Grants and how MediaWiki contributors
> could theoretically benefit from them.
I just had that chat. Very interesting!
Individual Engagement Grants also apply to software development and
technical activities
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG
Proposals accepted: 15 Jan ‑ 15 Feb!!!! The next round will be 6 months
later.
Individual or team of up to 4 individuals.
Scoped to 6 months, with potential to renew for 6 more if need is shown.
Maximum request USD 30,000. No minimum.
Having an idea and willing to get community feedback before / while
converting it in a full fledged proposal? Submit it at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing the
> Individual Engagement Grants program
> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:03:42 -0800
> From: Siko Bouterse <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org>
> Reply-To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> *Hi all,
> Im pleased to announce the launch of a new grantmaking program at the
> Wikimedia Foundation: Individual Engagement Grants. These grants will
> support Wikimedians as individuals or small teams to complete projects that
> benefit the Wikimedia movement, lead to online impact, and serve the
> mission, community, and strategic priorities. This new program is intended
> to complement WMFs other grantmaking programs as well as the grants that
> chapters and affiliate organizations provide.
>
> The first round of proposals will be accepted from now until 15 February
> 2013. Were also seeking committee members to help select the first round
> of grantees. Please help spread the word to other lists!
>
> To get involved, share your thoughts, submit a proposal, or join the
> committee:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG
>
> For more information on all of WMFs grantmaking programs:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start
>
> Best wishes,*
> Siko
>
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Hi, this is a call specific to editors of non-Latin languages.
It refers to a VisualEditor test sprint we are planning to hold next week:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Testing_Non-Latin_Characters_In…
Things are still flowing and might change, but I thought you would be
interested to know already. Your questions and feedback are welcome in
the discussion page.
As soon as the page is ready we would love to have your help promoting
it in non-Latin Wikipedias so we can get more testers from a more
diverse collection of languages. Thank you!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: please review: VE test event wiki page
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:55:09 -0800
From: Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org>
Organization: Wikimedia Foundation
On 01/18/2013 12:26 PM, Chris McMahon wrote:
>
>
> I whipped up a draft, comments/edits welcome:
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_Editor_Test
This is now
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Testing_Non-Latin_Characters_In…
Notes:
* It's "VisualEditor" :)
* I have left plenty of comments in the page. Please remove them as you
provide the details (or resolve that no changes are needed).
* Look at the language examples added at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Testing_Non-Latin_Characters_In…
I just took the most popular & diverse languages. Edit according to
your priorities.
* Since this is mostly a DIY activity, instead of some briefing session
I'm proposing a blog post agreed with guillom and published next Monday.
* Do we have an actual sprint on January 30? Discuss:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:VisualEditor/Testing_Non-Latin_Characte…
The page is kind of decent already now (after removing my comments).
With a bit of work it could be ready by the end of tomorrow.
What I wonder is how we can use CentralNotice to promote the sprint at
the top targeted Wikipedias. The first question is: what are the top
targeted languages?
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
Hi,
As we announced a few days ago, we expect some technical disruption next
week on all Wikimedia sites due to our migration to a new data center.
There will be some times when the sites will be in read-only mode, and
there may be full outages.
I'm about to launch the global message delivery about this, to make sure
that all wikis are notified, but I wanted to share the full announcement
with you.
I would particularly like to request your help as ambassadors with the
following:
* Once the message is posted on your wiki, please help to translate it so
that your fellow Wikimedians can understand it.
* Please spread the word on your wiki using the usual channels ("News"
template, or community portal, etc.)
* Next week, please continue to explain what is happening to your fellow
Wikimedians, and if appropriate, let us know if your wiki encounters
durable issues: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_maintenance_notice
I appreciate your help, and I'm available to answer your comments or
questions.
Thank you!
Guillaume
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Posted today on the Wikimedia Tech Blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-…
Wikimedia sites to move to primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia
Next week, the Wikimedia Foundation will transition its main technical
operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA. This is intended
to improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia
sites, including Wikipedia.
Engineering teams have been preparing for the migration to minimize
inconvenience to our users, but major service disruption is still expected
during the transition. Our sites will be in read-only mode for some time,
and may be intermittently inaccessible. Users are advised to be patient
during those interruptions, and share
information<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_maintenance_notice>in
case of continued outage or loss of functionality.
The current target windows for the migration are January 22nd, 23rd and
24th, 2013, from 17:00 to 01:00 UTC (see other
timezones<http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Wikimedia+data+cen…>on
timeanddate.com).
Wikimedia sites have been hosted in our main data center in Tampa, Florida,
since 2004; before that, the couple of servers powering Wikipedia were in
San Diego, California. Ashburn is the third and newest primary data center
to host Wikimedia sites.
A major reason for choosing Tampa, Florida as the location of the primary
data center in 2004 was its proximity to founder Jimmy Wales’ home, at a
time when he was much more involved in the technical operations of the
site. In 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Technical Operations team started
to look<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/07/wmf-needs-additional-datacenter-space/>for
other locations with better network connectivity and more clement
weather. Located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Ashburn offers
faster and more reliable connectivity than Tampa, and usually fewer
hurricanes.
The Operations team started to plan and prepare for the Virginia data
center in Summer 2010. The actual build-out and racking of servers at the
colocation facility started in February 2011, and was followed by a long
period of hardware, system and software configuration. Traffic started to
be served to users from the Ashburn data center in November 2011, in the
form of CSS and JavaScript assets (served from “bits.wikimedia.org“).
We reached a major milestone in February 2012, when caching servers were
set up to handle read-only requests for Wikipedia and Wikimedia content,
which represent most of the traffic to Wikipedia and its sister sites. In
April 2012, the Ashburn data center also started to serve media files (from
“upload.wikimedia.org“).
Cacheable requests represent about 90 percent of our traffic, leaving 10
percent that requires interaction with our web (Apache) and database
(MySQL) servers, which are still being hosted in Tampa. Until now, every
edit made to a Wikipedia page has been handled by the servers in Tampa.
This dependency on our Tampa data center was responsible for the site
outage in August
2012<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/06/wikimedia-site-outage-6-august-2012/>,
when a fiber cut severed the connection between our two locations.
Starting next week, the new servers in Ashburn will take on that role as
well, and all our sites will be able to function fully without relying on
the servers in Florida. The legacy data center in Tampa will continue to be
maintained, and will serve as a secondary “hot failover” data center:
servers will be in standby mode to take over, should the primary site
experiences an outage. Server configuration and data will be synchronized
between the two locations to ensure a transition as smooth as possible in
case of technical difficulties in Ashburn.
Besides just installing newer hardware, setting up the data center in
Ashburn has also been an opportunity for architecture overhauls, like
incremental improvements of the text storage
system<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/11/18/nobody-notices-when-its-not-broken-ne…>,
and the move to an entirely new media storage
system<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/02/09/scaling-media-storage-at-wikimedia-wi…>to
keep up with the growth of the content generated and curated by our
contributors.
Wikimedia’s technical infrastructure aims to be as open and collaborative
as the sites it powers. Most of the configuration of our
servers<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/19/ever-wondered-how-the-wikimedia-serve…>is
publicly accessible, and the Wikimedia
Labs <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/16/introduction-to-wikimedia-labs/>initiative
allows contributors to test and submit improvements to the
sites’ configuration files.
The Wikimedia Foundation currently operates a total of about 885 servers,
and serves about 20 billion page views a month, on a non-profit budget that
relies almost entirely on donations from readers.
--
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
https://donate.wikimedia.org
Steven Walling, 20/01/2013 23:34:
> Following up on this...
>
> The Editor Engagement Experiments team had the first one of these with Erik
> and Sue last Tuesday (the 15th). Tilman was there to take notes, and I
> published our slide deck, so there is a transcript and PDF to review for
> those interested at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r…
>
> Erik will likely share some notes soon on how he and Sue want to rejigger
> the meeting structure based on this first try. Overall it was helpful for
> all parties, but obviously in a meeting this long and covering this kind of
> material, adjustments can and should be made.
Thanks, I think it's useful as a summary of the past activities (among
other things).
I asked a question on talk: maybe the answer is already in Erik's
keyboard (Howie's summary partially answered me), or maybe not.
Nemo
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ct Woo <ctwoo(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:07 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Update on Ashburn data center switchover /
migration – target date is week of 1/22/13
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Development
and Operations Engineers <engineering(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
All,
The Migration team is in the last lap on completing the remaining tasks to
ready our software stack and Ashburn infrastructure for the big switchover
day.
Per my last update,<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-October/063668.html>
with the Fundraising activity behind us now, the team has scheduled the *week
of 22nd January*, 2013 to perform the switchover. We are going to block a
8-hour migration window on the *22nd, 23rd and 24**th*. During those
periods, *17:00 UTC to 01:00 UTC hours (9am to 5pm PST*), there will be
intermittent blackouts and they will be treated as 'planned' outages. You
can follow the migration on irc.freenode.org in the #wikimedia-operations
channel.
The team is putting the finishing touches to the last few tasks and we will
make the final Go/No decision on 18th Jan, 2013. An update will send out
then. For those interested in tracking the progress, the meeting notes are
captured on this wikitech
page<http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Eqiad_Migration_Planning#Improving_Switc…>
.
*Please note that we will be restricting code deployment during that week,
allowing only emergency and critical ones only.*
Thanks.
CT Woo
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Meet the Echo development team on Jan 8 and learn about the upcoming
notifications framework for Wikipedia & MediaWiki. More details at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Engineering] Echo IRC office hours for developers
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:14:15 -0800
From: Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>
To: engineering(a)wikimedia.org <engineering(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, WMF Editor
Engagement Team <ee(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
The Editor Engagement team will be holding a special Echo IRC office
hours specifically for developers next Tuesday. We would like to let the
other developers know what we're up to and allow them to ask any
questions they may have about the Echo Notifications system. Since Echo
is designed to be utilized by other extensions, we also hope to provide
some guidance on how to accomplish this. Hope to see you there!
The meeting will be in #wikimedia-tech on Tuesday, January 8th at 11am
PST (19:00 UTC).
Ryan Kaldari
_______________________________________________
Engineering mailing list
Engineering(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/engineering