Kate Turner wrote:
Dan100 wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical:
Can I ask that developers use LiveJournal - http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/ - to keep people informed about problems on the Wikimedia servers and what's being tried to fix it.
I was under the impression that we were all incompetent and had no idea how the site works. What possible information could we provide to other people apart from meaningless rambling about our wild guesses and fumbling around in the dark that somehow, by chance create a vague resemblance to an almost-working website?
Or more to the point, why should I waste my time writing up status reports and trying to let you know what's going on when you have nothing better to do than throw it back in my face peppered with utterly uninformed and unhelpful remarks about how worthless I am and how we should all be fired, and without so much as lifting a finger to try to help? You have no right to ask us to do anything at all, or talk about what you "need".
I created the wikitech LJ to try to let people know what we are doing, and maybe even to let them offer some suggestions on how to help. I understand that a broken site is frustrating; we've all been there, WP is hardly the first unreliable service ever created. If I can offer some insight into why it's like that, maybe it helps people to understand. But if all you're going to do is read it and offer snide remarks, why should I bother? I don't recall ever seeing you idle in #mediawiki, let alone try to offer any ideas about what we're doing so wrongly. Maybe we should just let the site rot and see how much better it works.
I don't want sympathy or "oh well, they aren't getting paid for it." Obviously not paying doesn't magically make something good. But when you have no clue at all about what's actually going on to keep the site running, you have no room to lay blame about where the problem is.
Kate.
Kate and all others, Considering that everything is done on such a LOW budget it is sheer magic. I am one of those people that "lurks in the background" offering little or no advice. What people do not realise is that in a "professional" setting solutions are often bought. You buy the latest doda, you hire that magic expert who comes to do his trick again. With the current budget you have a lot on your plate not only PHP but also Apache, not only Apache but also Squid, not only Squid but also MySQL, not only MySQL but also ..
As you all are not waiting for generalisations from me about how to run a datacentre, I keep quiet. I am honestly amazed at how well it works and how well lessons are learned. Live journal is a great initiative and I thank you for it.
What I appreciate is that knowing the problem is 50% of the solution but many people think that the symptoms IS the problem. The server running slowly or not at all is a symptom and its cause is often not clear. With hindsight, symptoms can be explained in terms of understanding a problem. When symptoms are known to a greater (knowledgable) audience there is a chance that someone has seen them and can make "choclate" out of it (IT is a dark art). There will also be a trade-off between spending time on reporting and working on a situation. There is also the group of people that see it (again with hindsight) as being SOOO obvious. They are trolls and they deserve a hot place in hell
When technology is done on a shoestring, you do push the enveloppe you max out what is in machines, software and people. This is technology at its best, it is not necessarily always the best performance and availability, but it leads to the best solution given people, software and hardware.
Finally blaming is a loose loose situation. You do not get better service and you piss off the people that you want this service from. It is much better to analyse the symptoms of a previous and see what can be learned from it. Then again you only find time and have the inclination to do that when the situation is tranquil and often at such a time you need a breather. So I wish us all tranquil times and lots of fun.
Thanks, GerardM