I spent some time between projects today exploring the idea of progressive
image decoding using the VP9 video codec -- sort of a mashup of progressive
JPEG and WebP.
Like a progressive JPEG, each resolution step (a separate frame of the
"video") encodes only the differences from the previous resolution step.
Like WebP, it's more space-efficient than the ancient JPEG codec.
This sort of technique might be useful for lazy-loading images in our
modern internet, where screen densities keep going up and network speeds
can vary by a factor of thousands. On a slow network the user sees
immediate feedback during load, and on a fast network they can reach full
resolution quickly, still in less bandwidth than a JPEG. And since JS would
have control of loading, we can halt cleanly if the image scrolls
offscreen, or pick a maximum resolution based on actual network speed.
Detail notes on my blog:
https://brionv.com/log/2016/06/14/exploring-vp9-as-a-progressive-still-imag…
Sample page if you just want to look at some decoded images at various
resolutions (loading not optimized for slow networks yet!):
https://media-streaming.wmflabs.org/pic9/
It looks plausible, and should be able to use native VP9 decoding in
Firefox, Chrome, and eventually MS Edge in some configurations with a
JavaScript fallback for Safari/etc. Currently my demo just plops all the
frames into a single .webm, but to avoid loading unneeded high-resolution
frames they should eventually be in separate files.
-- brion
People are now working to conclude the "Code of Conduct/Cases" part of
the draft Code of Conduct:
* Section:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Page:_Code_of_Conduct.…
* Talk:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft
* Alternatively, you can provide anonymous feedback to
conduct-discussion at wikimedia.org .
This is the best time to make any final necessary changes to this
section (and explain why, in edit summaries and/or talk) and discuss it
on the talk page.
After this last call, I will send out another email seeking approval,
like before.
Thanks,
Matt Flaschen
Hello,
The Discovery Portal team would like to add Wikipedia app
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps> download badges near the
bottom of the wikipedia.org <https://www.wikipedia.org> portal page and
we're looking for your feedback.
These new app badges will link to a free download of the Wikipedia app for
Android and iOS mobile platforms and will be displayed just to those
visitors to the wikipedia.org portal page that are using a mobile device.
We hope that the app badges will provide an introduction to our visitors
who are interested in, or might prefer to use, the platform-native mobile
apps. It's an update that makes sense to the Portal team, but we wanted to
ask the community for feedback and suggestions.
If you're interested in finding out more, please visit this page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_add_mobile_app_badges> to
read more details and view the draft mocks. Constructive feedback, thoughts
and ideas can be added and discussed on the talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia.org_add_mobile_app_badges>;
and additional information about the portal can be found here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_Portal>.
Cheers,
Deb
--
Deb Tankersley
Product Manager, Discovery
IRC: debt
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello!
We would like to announce http://analytics.wikimedia.org the domain where
the analytics team hopes to consolidate dashboards and data downloads (a
work in progress)
We have two dashboards to announce with data we hope you find interesting:
1. The new traffic reports with browser data for mobile and desktop domains:
*http://tinyurl.com/zqqr3zd <http://tinyurl.com/zqqr3zd>*
2. The vital signs dashboard that displays several metrics that are of
interest like Pageviews and Unique Devices:
*http://tinyurl.com/jr4oou3 <http://tinyurl.com/jr4oou3>*
Thanks,
Nuria
We have had some good feedback for the new shared tabular data feature, and
we are getting ready to deploy it in production. It would be amazing if you
can give it a final look-over to see if there are any blockers left.
The first stage will be to enable Data:*.tab pages on Commons, and allow
all other wikis direct access to it via Lua code and Graph extension. All
data at this point must be licensed under CC0. More licensing options are
still under discussion, and can be easily added later.
In line with the "release early, release often", we will not have any
elaborate data editing interface beyond the raw JSON code editor for the
first release. Our initial target audience is the more experienced users
who will evaluate and test the new technology. Once the underlying tech is
stable and prooven, we will work on making it more accessible to the
general audience.
Links:
* Task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T134426
* Demo: http://data.wmflabs.org
* Technical: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:JsonConfig/Tabular
* Discussion:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Tabular_d…
* Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/997545366959961/
Hi everyone,
Something I've been looking for, and eventually realized doesn't
exist, is a simple timeline of technology on Wikimedia wikis. I think
it'd be very useful to have a simple list, to give editors a chance to
understand how the wikis have developed over the years.
I've started one here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Johan_(WMF)/Timeline
If you think the format works, feel free to add things you're familiar with.
//Johan Jönsson
--
Out of curiosity I've started filling
https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/projects/201 for MediaWiki
(core) in this Linux Foundation project on best practices for FLOSS.
I got the feeling that the criteria still need to be exposed to a bigger
variety of projects: they don't seem focused, for instance, for web
applications, multilingual userbases and openness/transparency/community
health.
I was able to confirm 79 % of the criteria; I've had some troubles with:
issue reporting SLA, test coverage evolution, static/dynamic analysis
and cryptography. I suggest that the current status be documented on the
relevant mediawiki.org pages, as other people may have the same
questions. Hopefully it's then easy enough to update the "badges" (and
if not, I see a big delete button).
Nemo