Hi,
On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 3:36 PM, David Strine <dstrine(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> We will be holding this brownbag in 25 minutes. The Bluejeans link has
> changed:
>
> https://bluejeans.com/396234560
I'm not familiar with bluejeans and maybe have missed a transition
because I wasn't paying enough attention. is this some kind of
experiment? have all meetings transitioned to this service?
anyway, my immediate question at the moment is how do you join without
sharing your microphone and camera?
am I correct thinking that this is an entirely proprietary stack
that's neither gratis nor libre and has no on-premise (not cloud)
hosting option? are we paying for this?
-Jeremy
Hello,
can someone to update list https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P10500 which
contains repositories which haven't mediawiki/mediawiki-codesniffer.
I found in list that much repositories are empty, and repositories which
aren't available on Gerrit.
So, can someone please update this list of repositories (in
mediawiki/extensions) which haven't mediawiki/mediawiki-codesniffer, but at
least, contains one PHP file. or to provide me command with which I can
update list when I want, so I don't need to request it every time.
Best regards,
Zoran.
P. S.: Happy weekend! :)
Hi all!
Since the new Stable Interface Policy[1] has come into effect, there has been
some confusion about when and how the deprecation process can be accelerated or
bypassed. I started a discussion about this issue on the talk page[2], and now
I'm writing this email in the hope of gathering more perspectives.
tl;dr: the key question is:
Can we shorten or even entirely skip the deprecation process,
if we have removed all usages of the obsolete code from public
extensions?
If you are affected by the answer to this question, or you otherwise have
opinions about it, please read on (ok ok, this mail is massive - at least read
the proposed new wording of the policy). I'm especially interested in the
opinions of extension developers.
So, let's dive in. On the one hand, the new (and old) policy states:
Code MUST emit hard deprecation notices for at least one major
MediaWiki version before being removed. It is RECOMMENDED to emit
hard deprecation notices for at least two major MediaWiki
versions. EXCEPTIONS to this are listed in the section "Removal
without deprecation" below.
This means that code that starts to emit a deprecation warning in version N can
only be removed in version N+1, better even N+2. This effectively recommends
that obsolete code be kept around for at least half a year, with a preference
for a full year and more. However, we now have this exception in place:
The deprecation process may be bypassed for code that is unused
within the MediaWiki ecosystem. The ecosystem is defined to
consist of all actively maintained code residing in repositories
owned by the Wikimedia foundation, and can be searched using the
code search tool.
When TechCom added this section[3][4], we were thinking of the case where a
method becomes obsolete, but is unused. In that case, why go through all the
hassle of deprecation, if nobody uses it anyway?
However, what does this mean for obsolete code that *is* used? Can we just go
ahead and remove the usages, and then remove the code without deprecation? That
seems to be the logical consequence.
The result is a much tighter timeline from soft deprecation to removal, reducing
the amount of deprecated code we have to drag along and keep functional. This is
would be helpful particularly when code was refactored to remove undesirable
dependencies, since the dependency will not actually go away until the
deprecated code has been removed.
So, if we put in the work to remove usages, can we skip the deprecation process?
After all, if the code is truly unused, this would not do any harm, right? And
being able to make breaking changes without the need to wait a year for them to
become effective would greatly improve the speed at which we can modernize the
code base.
However, even skipping soft deprecation and going directly to hard deprecation
of the construction of the Revision class raised concerns, see for instance
<https://www.mail-archive.com/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg92871.html>.
The key concern is that we can only know about usages in repositories in our
"ecosystem", a concept introduced into the policy by the section quoted above. I
will go into the implications of this further below. But first, let me propose a
change to the policy, to clarify when deprecation is or is not needed.
I propose that the policy should read:
Obsolete code MAY be removed without deprecation if it is unused (or
appropriately gated) by any code in the MediaWiki ecosystem. Such
removal must be recorded in the release notes as a breaking change
without deprecation, and must be announced on the appropriate
mailing lists.
Obsolete code that is still used within the ecosystem MAY be
removed if it has been emitting deprecation warnings in AT LEAST
one major version release, and a best effort has been made to
remove any remaining usages in the MediaWiki ecosystem. Obsolete
code SHOULD be removed when it has been emitting deprecation
warnings for two releases, even if it is still used.
And further:
The person, team, or organization that deprecates code SHOULD
drive the removal of usages in a timely manner. For code not under
the control of this person, team, or organization, appropriate
changes SHOULD be proposed to the maintainers, and guidance SHOULD
be provided when needed.
Compared to the old process, this puts more focus on removing usages of obsolete
code. Previously, we'd often just wait and hope that usages of deprecated
methods would vanish eventually. Which may take a long time, we still have code
in MediaWiki that was deprecated in 1.24. Of course, every now and then someone
fixes a bunch of usages of deprecated code, but this is a sporadic occurrence,
not designed into the process.
With the change I am proposing, whoever deprecates a function also commits to
removing usages of it asap. For extension developers, this means that they will
get patches and support, but they may see their code broken if they do not
follow up.
Now, my proposal hinges on the idea that we somehow know all relevant code that
needs fixing. How can that work?
When TechCom introduced the idea of the "MediaWiki ecosystem" into the policy,
our reasoning was that we want to support primarily extension developers who
contribute their extensions back to the ecosystem, by making them available to
the public. We found it fair to say that if people develop extensions solely for
their own use, it is up to them to read the release notes. We do not need to go
out of our way to protect them from changes to the code base.
Effectively, with the proposed change to the policy, maintainers of public
extensions will get more support keeping their extensions compatible, while
maintainers of private extensions will receive less consideration.
It seems desirable and fair to me to allow for "fast track" removal of obsolete
code, but only if we create a clear process for making an extensions "official".
How exactly would an extension developer make sure that we know their extension,
and consider it part of the ecosystem? In practice, "known code" is code
accessible via codesearch[5]. But how does one get an extension into the
codesearch index? There is currently no clear process for this.
Ideally, it would be sufficient to:
* create a page on mediawiki.org using the {{Extension}} infobox,
* setting the status to "stable" (and maybe "beta"),
* and linking to a public git repository.
It should be simple enough to create a script that feeds these repos into
codesearch. A quick look at Category:Extensions_by_status category tells me that
there are about a thousand such extensions.
So, my question to you is: do you support the change I am proposing to the
policy? If not, why not? And if you do, why do you think it's helpful?
-- daniel
PS: This proposal has not yet been vetted with TechCom, it's just my personal
take. It will become an RFC if needed. This is intended to start a conversation.
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Stable_interface_policy
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Vrwr9aloe6y1bi2v
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193613
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T255803
[5] https://codesearch.wmcloud.org/search/
--
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Software Engineer, Core Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
[crosspost from Maps-l]
Today the Wikimedia Foundation is announcing the deprecation of the public
API for Wikimedia map tiles. Around mid October the Foundation will end
support for the Wikimedia Maps Service API [1]. This change affects people
using Wikimedia maps on their own website or app. Maps on the Wikimedia
sites, in Wikimedia-hosted tools and gadgets, and on maps.wikimedia.org
won't be affected.
This decision was made based on recent outage incidents, primarily due to
spikes in third party usage, along with an analysis showing that more than
a third of maps provided are to non-Wikimedia services (including many to
for-profit organizations).
After the most recent incident [2], the service was limited so that only
cached maps tiles would be available. While this protected the servers, it
made the service unpredictable and highlighted the unsustainability of our
tile service. So, we have made the decision to discontinue the maps APIs
for non-Wikimedia users.
This change will allow our teams working on Maps to focus on the
sustainability of the maps used within Wikimedia projects.
You can follow the implementation of this change on Phabricator [3].
Best,
Erica Litrenta
[1] https://maps.wikimedia.org/osm-intl/
[2] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation/20200204-maps
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261424
--
Erica Litrenta
Manager, Community Relations Specialists
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elitre_(WMF)
Hello,
Recently, I stumbled upon a technical writing course which I found very
useful and I wanted to share it and thought of sending an email to
wikitech-l recommending it. Also, I've been looking for a resource about
VueJS with not much luck and wanted to send an email asking if anyone knows
any.
Instead, I have this idea to have a virtual library for developers so they
can share useful resources with each other. You go to a wiki page and see
list of courses, books, conference videos, on each topic and different
people recommanding them. You can also request a resource for a topic and
people respond to you. If the wiki page grows too big, we can split them to
sub pages based on topics, and so on.
I started the page in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Ladsgroup/Library
but I'm planning to move it to the main namespace if no one objects. Please
take a look, add more recommandations, co-sign, request for a resource,
respond to a request for a resource, etc.
What do you think? Please let me know if you think it's a horrible idea or
you have feedback on details (mediawiki.org? maybe we should move it to
wikitech.wikimedia.org?)
Hope that'd be useful.
Best
--
Amir (he/him)
It does the same as the @ operator, except that it takes care to prevent a
very bad bug that existed before PHP 7. Details at
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T253461
If there are other issues or benefits, please write them on the task. The
overhead of AtEase is prerty minor, so really any benefit at all is likely
to tip the balance toward keeping it. But, in the event that there isn't
any, then perhaps we should slowly phase it out.
Best,
-- Timo
Hello,
Due to the current situation, there are more and more collaborations
happening online instead. and now you can see Wikimedia-related discussion
groups in Slack, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, and many more. Besides being
scattered and inaccessible to people who don't have accounts in those
platforms (for privacy reasons for example), these platforms use
proprietary and closed-source software, are outside Wikimedia
infrastructure and some harvest our personal data for profit.
IRC on freenode is a good alternative but it lacks basic functionalities of
a modern chat platform. So we created Wikimedia Chat, a mattermost instance
in Wikimedia Cloud. Compared to IRC, you have:
* Ability to scrollback and read messages when you were offline
* Push notification and email notification
* You don't need to get a cloak to hide your IP from others
* Proper support for sharing media
* Two factor authentication
* A proper mobile app support
* Ability to add custom emojis (yes, it's extremely important)
* Profile pictures
* Ability to ping everyone with @here
* much much more.
You can use Wikimedia Chat by going to https://chat.wmcloud.org, anyone can
make an account. This is part of Wikimedia Social suite [1], the oher
similar project is "Wikimedia Meet". [2]
Some notes:
* This is done in my volunteer capacity and has been maintained by a group
of volunteers. If you're willing to join the team (either technical or
enforcing CoC, kicking out spammers, other daily work), drop me a message.
* Privacy policy of Wikimedia Cloud applies: https://w.wiki/aQW
* As a result, all messages older than 90 days get automatically deleted.
* As a Wikimedia Cloud project, all of discussions, private and public are
covered by Code of conduct in technical spaces: https://w.wiki/AK$
Hope that would be useful for you, if you encounter any technical issues,
file a bug in the phabricator.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Social_Suite
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
Best
--
Amir (he/him)
Hello,
The current logo of MediaWiki was adapted slightly more than fifteen years
ago and hasn’t changed since. This logo despite having the nice concept of
sunflower, is old. The sunflower represents the diversity, the constant
growth and also the wildness.
Among its biggest issues I can point out that it’s a bitmap picture so it’s
unusable in large sizes (like large posters) and it’s too realistic making
it unusable in small sizes.
Most, virtually all, software products use a simpler and more abstract
form. For example, docker, kubernetes, Ubuntu, VueJs, React, Apache Kafka,
and many more. It’s a good time for MediaWiki to follow suit.
My request is for changing the logo of MediaWiki and I have no plans or
interest in changing logo of any other project.
Please show your support, oppose or your comments in the discussion page.
You can also add more suggestions.
The discussion page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_mediaw…
Best
--
Amir (he/him)
Hi all!
If you've never created a repo or fork on the Wikimedia GitHub
organization you can skip this email.
I know that some repos are developed on our GitHub org for reasons.
What is developed on our GitHub org? How many things are actively
being developed on GitHub org? I have no idea :)
I recently realized that there's not a great way to figure this
out[0], but I've been able to narrow the scope a bit. Now I have a
list of repos that are (a) in our GitHub org and (b) not in our Gerrit
that I could use some help sorting through[1].
== Help, please ==
* Look through repos on The List™[1]
If your repos are on the list, for each of your repos either:
* Archive or Delete it if it's no longer maintained or empty/useless,
respectively (and remove them from the list on mw.org)[2]
Or:
* put a "{{tick}}" in the "Active" column on the list on mw.org
== Why==
In a more perfect future we could add the "mirror"[3] tag to repos on
GitHub that are mirrored from Gerrit (with a link to their canonical
repo locations; for example, gnome-deskop has this[4] and I'm very
jealous).
Hopefully, this will help folks wanting to contribute -- either a
Wikimedia GitHub repo is a mirror (in which case there's a link to
Gerrit in the description) or it's actively being developed on GitHub.
<3
-- Tyler
[0]: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T237470#6407509>
[1]: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit/GitHub#Projects_on_GitHub>
[2]: <https://docs.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositori…>
[3]: <https://docs.github.com/en/github/getting-started-with-github/finding-ways-…>
[4]: <https://github.com/GNOME/gnome-desktop>