On 19/04/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
While the main folks are fixing things (I assume they
are very busy now),
could somebody else point me at documentation about the setup?
To someone who is still an outsider when it comes to the operating
part of Wikimedia, I think half the problem a lot of the time is a
lack of proper internal documentation. On a project where you have a
lot of volunteer staff doing things ad hoc some of the time, it's
essential that things are documented; so that if Domas or Mark aren't
available, then Brion and Jens could bring up the squids without
needing to have been the people who did the configuration [random
example there].
No doubt people will be quick to point out the existence of
http://wikitech.leuskman.com, which I counter with the argument that
at least some of that information has to be out of date, and some of
it is marked as such. I understand there is a private mailing list
where discussion of core issues (and sensitive ones, I assume) takes
place, but basics ought to be documented somewhere, and there's a lack
of it.
The entire project at large suffers from a lack of documentation; some
of the MediaWiki documentation, such as it is, is still stuck on Meta,
and needs shifting across to
MediaWiki.org. Vast quantities of pages
need to be audited and brought up to date with what is current.
We're talking about a group of people volunteering their skills from
all over the globe; at different levels and in different fields. We've
got Aussies, and we've got Europeans and Californians. Those people
can't always be available to communicate exactly what they're doing. I
see no reason Wikimedia's cluster can't continue in this vein. I see
every reason why it's going to become even more unmanageable than it
is now without some more organisation.
This rant isn't directed at the staff so much as the system as a whole.
Rob Church