Wikitech-l January 2003

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45 participants
143 discussions

Linux Journal and wikipedia
by Jimmy Wales 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

I was contacted by someone at Linux Journal interested in mentioning us. They were concerned about our performance and concerned about "slashdotting" us, so to speak. I told them that we'll have all the performance issues fixed soon, and suggested that I'd like to volunteer to write an article about the project for LJ. There's no firm response yet, but it seemed to be a favorably received suggestion. This fellow said he would ask someone else what sort of article might be wanted. If they are interested, it might be good to have a couple of articles. I could write about our history and culture and ideals, and someone else could write an article about the software. That second article, done properly, could be a great recruiting tool for more developers. The LJ's subscribers would be a great place for us to get development help. Who would be interested in writing such an article? (Note, I'm just raising the idea, there's no guarantee that they would be interested.)

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

>It would help if you would read the arguments instead of constantly >repeating yourself. Sorry for annoying you and the rest of everyone. I read the arguments and I don't disagree with that. I think you thought I didn't read your arugment because I didn't post a mail arguing against your point. Also, you have to notice that the fact is you believe wiki might not help, and I believe it might. Then what do we do?. Do I always have to convice you to try something new? Consensus? Can we always reach the sole agreement? Actually this is why I hate to partipate in the debate, which is always endless and counterproductive. See Biography standard in English wikipedia.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

>> 1. The current meta-wiki is dead. > >No it is not. Look at the Recent Changes. If you are missing something >there, start a new page, hope that enough people (able to speak the >language you choose)are interrested in the topic, and see what happens. >Maybe announce it on one of the mailing lists. Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of meta-wiki? I am the one who advocates it. Meta-wikipedia can be better, of course. Actually both of I and you are right and wrong. This is the exactly same discussion about some say usenet is dead, some say no usenet has still good stuff and can have. Saying meta-wikipedia is dead, I don't want to mean dismissing the motivation of meta-wikipedia. I agree with the idea that we need the place. To make my arguments clear, I advocate proposals below. 1. Let's make discussion about policy in its native language wikipedia. (What if there is no corresponding wikipedia? It would be a problem. I don't know about such a case) If a discussion takes place in the meta but it is not in English, the problem is the same thing. Putting discussion together really doesn't mean reflecting their voices. 2. Quit sourceforge. Objections? 3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it editable just like wikipedia articles. I don't know if this works but we can try. Probably the first step is publishing "language.php"s and probably sysop applies them. >Yes, there is a lot of crap. If something really annoys you, start a >page [[Pages that should be deleted]] and explain it there or ask on the >talk page for deletion. > > The name meta.wikipedia sounds good to me. Where is the problem? Because if meta is the place for development and administration, the name like admin, develop should make more sense. Don't you think? >> 3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate the >> majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making. > >So everything should be discussed in the English Wikipedia:- namespace? No, no no at all. Discussion about the policy should occur in the native language. >The majority of users just aren't interrested in the software >developement and administration. Everybody who is can subscribe to our >lists and/or go to meta. Probably. If meta is the place only for those who are interested in development and administration, I would like to participate in meta.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

>> 3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it editable >> just like wikipedia articles. >> >> I don't know if this works but we can try. > >Source is fragile enough that I'd be very wary of this. That, and I >really do want a better editor than Mozilla when working with code. ;) > >> Probably the >> first step is publishing "language.php"s and probably sysop >> applies them. > >The current format of those files (a bunch of arrays and a class >definition in a PHP source file!) is horrible, arcane, and very very >fragile. (About half the updates I get submitted to me ends up with a >missing comma, an extra quotation mark, whatever, and hence syntax >error. And that includes the ones I make myself!) > >What we need is a human-friendly interface for editing the messages, >being able to compare all or selected language versions of each one >side-by-side. The ability to incrementally and safely update 99% of this >stuff without waiting for a developer's intervention will be a big help >for newer language sections being established. I totally agree with that. Then why don't we employ wiki to improve the sourcecode? Also, I don't know if it will work. Then why don't we try?

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

>On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 09:38:36PM -0600, Takuya Murata wrote: >> 2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it >> cannot be. >> >> I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has contents >> written in several languages. Sure, technologically >> speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is it >> really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who >> will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the bunch >> of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one >> languages. That is for sure. The discussion >> >> So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site, >> hence there is no reason to separate English discussion from >> the English-edition wikipedia. > >[en] >Because Japanese Wikipedia is small now and there aren't many >people who can understand Japanese here, it's not good idea to use >Japanese on meta. But there's nothing special about English, >and any language understood by sufficient number of Wikipedians is ok. >And so will be Japanese in the future. > > .... > >(yes, i know that my japanese is no good) No, it is good. I am impressed really. (Nihongo jyuzu desu ne) Truely the linguistic diversity of wikipedia is great. Anyway, I don't mean the discussion in non-English language is meaningless, but I meant it doesn't make sense that the same discussion conducted in more than one language unless the participants are generally bilingual. You may say Japanese speakers discuss in Japanese. Polish speakers discuss in Polish (Polska?). But if discussions occur in different language, why do we need to put them together? The number doesn't matter. Do you really believe debate in more than one lanugage makes sense? UseNet, SlashDot, .... I don't see any successful forum dedicated to discussion in more than one language. SlashDot in Japanese is active, but it is seprated from English SlashDot.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

I have to reply this, though we should move this discussion to wikipedia-l. It is because Brion, you got a wrong idea. >Are you saying that discussion about the site should be hidden away on a >secret "hackers-only" wiki where people can't find it instead of the >open-to-everyone meta wiki? 1. The current meta-wiki is dead. I certainly understand the initial motivation of meta- wikipedia.org. We should talk about development, management, or policy in the different place than English-edition wikipedia or meta?? (It seems apparent that the site should be renamed) But what kind of contents are there? There is almost anything but inproper in the main wikipedia. There are haiku, september 11, .... As the saying goes, bad eats good (Forgive me. I can't remember phrase). Weird (at least to most of people) stuff , including non-English contents just makes meta-wikipedia look anything but the place to conduct decent discussion. What if I submited a Japanese essay? It is acceptable in the current policy, but it aggregate the situation because no one can review it. As I said, if we decided to change the policy of meta- wikipedia, I certain second it. But otherwise, meta- wikipedia seems dead or going to be dead. Buried on the English Wikipedia where >people coming from other languages won't have a *clue* how to find >things, and people who don't speak English don't have a chance of having >their voices heard? Oh, that is great! I can type even Japanese (I tried. See SandBox) Anyway, 2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it cannot be. I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has contents written in several languages. Sure, technologically speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is it really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the bunch of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one languages. That is for sure. The discussion So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site, hence there is no reason to separate English discussion from the English-edition wikipedia. 3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate the majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making. What is now happing is decision-making occurs in the place that most of people don't see. The recent changes in English- edition wikipedia is the critical place where most of people notice even minor changes. In the reality, meta-wikipedia practically separate people to express their voices. You can speak, but only if you go to travel to Alaska. It is not democratic. The discussion about the policies should take place in where people are actually living. >I say NO to that. Closing meta would be undemocratic, bigoted, and wrong >in every way. Closing meta means nothing because meta means nothing.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

>But if you mean "democratic" as in voting, then no, we don't do that. I didn't mean that. I don't believe in voting. Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians, if not totally. First, simply really few people subscribe this mailing list. Second, changes are somewhat invisible. Basically there is no announcement about the changes. For example, new text for new pages. (Forget the talk pages or Village pump. They exist for conversation not for announcement) I don't want to mean people who have access to CVS should speak more (I am implying Brion). I am saying we should make the management (including decision-making) more visible and closer to oridanly wikipedians. Sure, now people dicuss in Village pump or some send direct message to Brion personally in his talk page. But it is not the democracy in the essence. Wikipedia is great because not only it is free, open-content but also because it is democratic. People made decision in their own. People go where they want to go without discussion. The important distinction is wikipedia is the place where not the rulers listen to people's demands but all of people rule. Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way. Developing wikipedia system in wiki? I don't know. Sure, it is usuall that the system of the site changes suddenly. Think of amazon.com or google. They are not democratic. But we can do better. Oh, anyway, can we set up the wikipedia for developing? Like hacker.wikipedia.org I like to document more information about the wikipedia software and also it would be nice if there is the place the developers find the tasks wikipedias want and exchange brainstorms. (Well, there is sourceforge. But no one is using it anyway. Most of stuff in sourceforge seems outdated like bug reports several months ago) Again, I don't want to blame anyone. I just hope the system of wikipedia is as good as the articles of wikipedia. (Sorry pieter. I prefer hacker to developer. hehe)

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Re: [Wikitech-l] "View user page" edit links on anon talk pages
by Takuya Murata 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

>> Also, I was wondering where such a decision was made. > >The new Talk code was requested both on Village Pump and on the mailing >list repeatedly. The user page stuff was simply a side effect of that. I mean is there someone who made the final decision? (probably one who has a right to submit a code to CVS) For example, in Linux after all Linus decided to apply a patch or not. Of course, he listen to people's opinion but he made a decision. >However, if you want to keep up with the latest changes and possibly have >some influence, check out the code and start hacking. > >http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_Wikipedia_hac ker Yeah, thanks. I don't think I can have influence though.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] mimi-wikipedia
by Takuya Murata 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

>Hi Taku, > >we *know* that the site is slow. And we *know* that it's not because our >server is too small. Our problems are database/lock related, and putting >stuff on an even bigger server will not help much when dealing with O(n^x) >problems. What we need to figure out is: > >- When are our tables/rows locked and why (this behavior has changed >drastically with the recent update to InnoDB). >- When are our queries using indices and when are they not, and why (MySQL >index behavior can be very hard to predict). > >Solving these two problems should make Wikipedia very fast. If we cannot >optimize some queries, we need to think about making them simpler, or >caching them. (Also note that MySQL now supports subqueries, which we >don't use yet.) We are dealing with *particular* queries in *particular* >situations that make Wikipedia slow. Oh, I see. But are you only talking about searching? I don't think MySQL can be bottleneck of simple displaying pages. Without simply extending server capacity, is it possible to sustain the increase of traffic? (Fortunettely or unfortunettley? the wikipedia seems still to grow.) >Not practical. Too many queries require access to a single centralized >article database, even an index alone won't suffice. Think of stuff like >Most wanted, Orphaned pages etc. Besides, it won't make things any faster >because our problem is not a too small server. I am not sure I understand you. Whatever algorithm is too stupid, the increase of capacity always makes the site fast, if not . Think of brute-force algorithm. I am not talking about adding just 2 or 3 more servers but possibly hundereds of servers. Maybe I am wrong because I am still not sure how to implement my idea. Surely we can't have the server that Google or Amazon has. The strength of wikipedia is its democratic structure. Why don't we employ it for hosting too? Maybe my idea is not practical. Then can you tell me how so?

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LinkCache Prefill
by Magnus Manske 30 Jan '03

30 Jan '03

I am working on the replaceInternalLinks function, trying to improve speed. Tracking the "does this article exist" mechanism, I ended up at the preFill function in LinkCache.php, which reads all existing links for a page in a single query, avoiding zillions of queries later. Now my question: Is there a reason why it doesn't pre-fill the "bad links" array as well? That would save some time on all pages with more than one broken link, would it not? Magnus

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Wikitech-l January 2003