Please join us for the following tech talk:
*Tech Talk**:* The state of Team Health across Wikimedia Engineering
*Presenter:* Kristen Lans
*Date:* April 14th
*Time:* 1900 UTC
<http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Tech+talk%3A+The+s…>
Link to live YouTube stream <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfkxpJTuY4>
*IRC channel for questions/discussion:* #wikimedia-office
Google+ page
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/103470172168784626509/events/crrengrbtbca8ncn…>,
another
place for questions
*Talk description: *The WMF’s Team Practices Group (TPG) believes that
healthy teams reliably deliver customer value and innovative products. Over
the past six months, the TPG has been engaging with WMF Engineering teams
to pilot a Team Health check survey to establish a baseline of health for
individual teams and across Engineering. This talk will provide a brief
overview of the health check and the health check process, focusing on what
we have learned to date and the next steps. There will be time for
discussion and questions.
Dear list members,
I read with interest the article on `Great canon'; and, as an immediate
stop-gap measure, recommend:
Policy: Advise every Wikipedia user to install `HTTPS Everywhere'.
Reference: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS_Everywhere>.
Sincerely Yours,
Kent
On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 8:01 AM, <wikitech-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Send Wikitech-l mailing list submissions to
> wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikitech-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wikitech-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikitech-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Another reason to consider forcing https (Ryan Lane)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:27:13 -0700
> From: Ryan Lane <rlane32(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Another reason to consider forcing https
> Message-ID:
> <CALKgCA2u2qWuNK9J7sPSN56_=Cpne_TKNUP_FFe=
> XmNmOdS8BQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Brian Wolff <bawolff(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 11, 2015 1:18 PM, "Pine W" <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/
> > >
> > > Pine
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> > A surprisingly bold move on China's part.
> >
> > Im not sure if what is talked about applies directly to Wikipedia. Seems
> > the goal was to try to compel github to remove specific content "hostile"
> > to China's censorship interests, without china itself getting blocked,
> > which might happen if DDOS was comming entirely from China IPs (since
> > blocking github angers local programmers). To do that they needed to
> > intercept connections inbound to servers in China, which doesn't apply to
> > us as our servers are mostly in US (and despite various abuses of the NSA
> > so often talked about, it is hard to imagine the US would ever consider
> so
> > blatently misusing other people's computers in a ddos-via-mitm-js
> attack).
> > Of course one never knows if future attacks might target outbound
> > connections from China, or if some other group might try to do something
> > similar (again hard to imagine, and it seems like there are very few
> > entities other than China who could get away with this, but im still kind
> > of shocked that China did this)
> >
> > -
> >
> > The most interesting aspect of the report (imo) from the context of
> > Wikipedia is, to quote:
> >
> > "The attack on GitHub specifically targeted these repositories, possibly
> in
> > an attempt to compel GitHub to remove these resources. GitHub encrypts
> all
> > traffic using TLS, preventing a censor from only blocking access to
> > specific GitHub pages. In the past, China attempted to block Github, but
> > the block was lifted within two days, following significant negative
> > reaction from local programmers."
> >
> > So because github encrypted everything with https (and thus blocking is
> an
> > all or nothing afair), and because it was very popular, China was
> unwilling
> > to block it entirely despite a small portion being objectionable.
> >
> > I don't really know what the status of wikipedia in China is, or how
> > popular it is, but its conceivable that we could be in a similar
> position.
> > Food for thought.
> >
> >
> The only reason we remain unblocked is because we don't force SSL.
> Wikipedia is relatively unused in China. If it was blocked, there'd be no
> major public outcry.
>
> - Ryan
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
> End of Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 141, Issue 24
> *******************************************
>
I sent this message to MediaWiki-l but as I am yet to receive a reply
despite sending it about a day ago I have decided to forward it here.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Math extension, errors that may be Windows-related
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2015 14:42:43 +1000
From: Brenton Horne <brentonhorne77(a)gmail.com>
To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list
<mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi,
I have a local Wiki that I have been trying to install the Math
extension on. In LocalSettings.php I have the following lines for the
extension:
> require_once("extensions/Math/math.php");
>
> $wgUseTeX = true;
> $wgTexvc = "/extensions/Math/math/texvc.exe";
texvc was installed via following instructions here [1
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Texvc#Windows>]. I have a texvc.exe file
in the directory extensions/Math/math/ created via following these
instructions. I also have LaTeX installed on my PC via MiKTeX, currently
my path variable points to C:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64 (where
latex.exe and dvipng.exe files exist). Despite this inserting an
equation via <math></math> into a Wiki page gives the error:
> *Failed to parse (Missing <code>texvc</code> executable. Please see
> math/README to configure.):*
Thanks for your time,
Brenton
Sorry, are you experiencing the same problem than me accessing to the
Italian Wikipedia?
Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.
Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.
(Cannot access the database: Too many connections (10.64.32.30))
--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario>
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch
Hello!
The analytics team has been working in getting a *rough *estimate on the
percentage of pageviews we get for browsers with Javascript disabled. We
though we should be able to provide a pretty good rough estimate using the
data our hadoop cluster has as we have every single request to bits, text
and mobile. The hardest part is filtering robots/spiders (from changes we
hope to deploy this week this identification should be a lot easier).
Our rough estimate is that *about 3% of our pageviews come from clients
with **no Javacript support. *Note that some of those are browsers we do
not support javascript-wise (like IE6) and others are browsers without
Javascript support to speak off (Opera Mini).
Details and caveats of the methodology used:
*https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Reports/Clients_without_JavaScript
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Reports/Clients_without_JavaScript>*
Thanks,
Nuria
Hi,
Flow has a new namespace: Topic. It has an even namespace number by
default: 2600.
Talk pages till now have had odd numbers, and some scripts relied on that.
For example, a project to analyze usage of Hebrew online used this, um,
feature to identify whether the page being analyzed is in a content
namespace or a talking namespace.
I'd argue that it's wrong to do it in the first place, because pages like
Village Pump are in an even-numbered namespace, and their content is closer
to talk pages than to content pages. Also, a program that wants to handle
Flow posts will probably need APIs and queries that are different from
those that are needed for handling old-style wiki pages in any case.
But still, I'll ask to be on the safe side: Does anybody know how prevalent
that is? Is anybody else familiar with scripts, gadgets or extensions that
rely on this?
(No, this is not an April fools joke. Really, it isn't. Yes, I admit that
it sounds a lot like xkcd 1172. And like WP:BEANS. But no, it's not an
April fools joke.)
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Hey all,
We've got a dozen or so branches that were migrated from SVN.
Can we delete and/or migrate these accordingly?
Nowadays these would likely live in a personal sandbox, or in a (stack of) Gerrit changes that can be iterated upon.
I've made a list at mediawiki.org <http://mediawiki.org/>:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Krinkle/Old_branches <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Krinkle/Old_branches>
API_Versioning:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.21
• Active: December 2012
• Commits ahead: 0 (never diverged)
Wikidata:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.21
• Active: October 2012
• Users: Daniel Kinzler (brightbyte)
• Commits ahead: 0 (merged into master)
chinese-collation:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.21
• Active: March 2012 - February 2013
• Commits ahead: 14
• Users: Liangent, Tim Starling
iwtransclusion:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.17
• Active: March 2012
• Commits ahead: 1
• Users: Sam Reed (reedy)
make-collapsible-custom:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.18
• Active: October 2011
• Commits ahead: 5
• Users: Liangent
mobilefrontend-core-merge:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.20
• Active: May 2012 - June 2012
• Commits ahead: 7
• Users: Arthur Richards (awjrichards)
password-hashing:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.20
• Active: March 2012 - August 2012
• Commits ahead: 22
• Users: Daniel Friesen (dantman)
wikidata-wmfphase1beta:
• Branch point: MediaWiki 1.21
• Active: September 2012
• Commits ahead: 0 (merged into master)
• Users: Daniel Kinzler (brightbyte)
— Krinkle
=SMWCon Spring 2015 Final Call for Contributions=
This is a reminder that the deadline for contributions to SMWCon is Wednesday, April 22nd.
We are inviting you to submit your contributions to help collect and put together the conference program. We’ve started to rough in our schedule and would love to have a diverse group of speakers. Submit your proposed talk today!
==Call for Contributions==
Talks could be about anything related to semantics, wikis, or yes semantic wikis! We welcome new contributions on the use of semantic wikis in different industries and the development and proposal of new tools in and around the semantic wiki community.
You can propose your contributions on the conference website (http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Spring_2015) in form of regular talks or short lightning talks. All submitted proposals will be reviewed and we will do our best to consider your proposal in the conference program. If you've already announced your talk it's now time to expand its description.
We are also looking for folks to help us with our tutorial day. We’re looking for presentations on the basics of Semantic MediaWiki and related extensions. The deadline is April 22nd, but we encourage submissions, even in a draft form, as soon as possible to help with planning.
Please note that all tutorials and presentations will be video and audio recorded and made available for others after the conference.
Please add yourself to the informal list of attendees if you’d like to attend.
==Important Facts==
*Submission Deadline is April 22nd (please contact the organizers if you need more time)
*SMWCon is from Wednesday, May 6th to Friday, May 8th 2015
*T-Rex (http://downtowntrex.com), 911 Washington Ave., St. Louis, MO, USA
*Conference site: http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Spring_2015
*Participants: Everybody interested in semantic wikis, especially in Semantic MediaWiki, e.g. administrators, developers, wiki users, consultants, business representatives and researchers.
==List of Topics==
Here are some suggestions. All submissions are welcome.
Use of wikis in
*Academia
*Business
*Entertainment
*Research
*Sciences
*Social Services
Use of wikis for
*Knowledge Management
*Community Building
*Project Managmeent
*Personal Wikis
*Emergency Response
*Event Planning
Extending Semantic MediaWiki
*Extensions
*Integration with other services (databases, external APIs, etc)
*Visualization and reporting tools
Developments around Semantic MediaWiki
*Community building
*Feature wish lists
*SMW and related extensions roadmaps
*Improving the experience using semantic wikis
*How to contribute to SMW and related projects
*Multilingual support
*Access control
==Registration==
Tickets can be purchased at http://smwcons2015.eventbrite.com
Your registration fee includes:
*3-day Conference Pass (including the tutorial day)
*Breakfast for all three days
*Lunch on the first and 3rd day
*Coffee, snacks
*Evening social event with hors d'oeuvres and drinks
Please note that the registration fee does not cover accommodation or travel expenses.
===Academic Pricing===
Attendees from education organizations can purchase a discounted ticket. Proof of affiliation may be requested.
==Organizing Committee==
*Chris Koerner [Local Chair]
*Paul Boal [Program Chair]
==Sponsors==
*Mercy (http://mercy.net)
*SNPedia (http://www.snpedia.org)
This electronic mail and any attached documents are intended solely for the named addressee(s) and contain confidential information. If you are not an addressee, or responsible for delivering this email to an addressee, you have received this email in error and are notified that reading, copying, or disclosing this email is prohibited. If you received this email in error, immediately reply to the sender and delete the message completely from your computer system.