Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss about our test wikis. I see the following problems: * No inventory of test wikis exist. There are many and they don't follow any pattern or rule of sort (see appendix). * It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also open to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds ("let's see how sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request one (example real use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to Finnish before deploy on fi.wiki"). * As a result, valuable content and activities are either misplaced and not performed effectively (or at all), or lost forever in the end.
An example of the latter, which seems the worst problem: https://www.mediawiki.org/?oldid=499749#Feature_requests references a feedback page that got deleted in the meanwhile. The future of http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Problem_reports is unclear and the page overlaps with other wikis' purposes, in particular it should be on a permanent wiki and moved to mediawiki.org if only meant for developers/technical users or to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problem_reports if it has the Wikimedia projects' users as audience.
I think that we should work on some sort of general policy for test wikis (very simple) to divide them in categories, avoid fragmentation and ensure we empower people to do all they need. The permanent test wikis at least should be easily discoverable from a central place (I've heard of a Wikimedia Labs automatical home page with index, but we need to focus on what's most urgent). In the meanwhile, it doesn't harm if each of us adds the (current or past) test wikis they remembers to this section I created: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Test_wikis
Nemo
== Appendix == Examples of wikis follow (far from comprehensive): * Main ones are https://test.wikipedia.org , https://test2.wikipedia.org * Now we have http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ and all the related wikis in the form http://af.wiktionary.beta.wmflabs.org but they're not accessible from anywhere, nor explained clearly, nor have an index or any navigation tool. ** Used to be deployment.wmflabs.org ** The situation will get worse with subdomains not following any clear rule like http://education.wmflabs.org * Several Labs wikis have been important for a while, now locked for unclear reasons and with an even more unclear future. ** http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org/ (deleted) * A bunch of prototype wikis exist or has existed at some point. ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/release-en/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/deployment-en and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs-en and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevsde/Hauptseite ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.6/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.3/Main_Page and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/uwd ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/
* labs.wikimedia are the old old old labs/test projects, These are no longer (and any that still wanted -> wmflabs) * prototype.wikimedia are oldish test setups, and most should be moved to wmflabs if still wanted *.wmflabs.org are instances hosted on our Labs setup[1] which is our virtuazlization cluster/project that Ryan setup, Which houses more than just test wikis (Think Toolserver, but yes, with test wikis as well).
In fact most of the old test wikis are going to be replaced by wmflabs wikis. I don't know which rules you want to set. These are test wikis and people are supposed to do tests there. I see no need for any rules.
All test wikis we have which can be accessed are of course useable by regular users, non developers. The deployment site is even recommended to be used by wikimedia users who are developing gadgets and such so that they can test they are going to work in future on production. The deployment site is something like a mirror of production running software we are going to use there in future, while test.wikipedia.org is production like setup which isn't running any new software, but is only supposed to be used as last place to test changes, configuration and sw updates before it's pushed to other sites (in fact it's mostly running same software as other sites), there is no unstable software on test.wikipedia for security reasons.
The deployment site is purposefully separated from production so that it's safe to run unstable and insecure software there (any unreviewed revision might be insecure).
The labs.wikimedia.org sites are likely going to be closed and replaced by wmflabs projects in future just as many of them already was. (Any testing project is not supposed to be hosted on production cluster, excepting test.wikimedia which isn't really testing software but running production stable version)
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 10:33 AM, K. Peachey p858snake@gmail.com wrote:
- labs.wikimedia are the old old old labs/test projects, These are no
longer (and any that still wanted -> wmflabs)
- prototype.wikimedia are oldish test setups, and most should be moved
to wmflabs if still wanted *.wmflabs.org are instances hosted on our Labs setup[1] which is our virtuazlization cluster/project that Ryan setup, Which houses more than just test wikis (Think Toolserver, but yes, with test wikis as well).
[1]. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 12:28 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss about our test wikis. I see the following problems:
- No inventory of test wikis exist. There are many and they don't follow any
pattern or rule of sort (see appendix).
- It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're
permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also open to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds ("let's see how sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request one (example real use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to Finnish before deploy on fi.wiki").
- As a result, valuable content and activities are either misplaced and not
performed effectively (or at all), or lost forever in the end.
An example of the latter, which seems the worst problem: https://www.mediawiki.org/?oldid=499749#Feature_requests references a feedback page that got deleted in the meanwhile. The future of http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Problem_reports is unclear and the page overlaps with other wikis' purposes, in particular it should be on a permanent wiki and moved to mediawiki.org if only meant for developers/technical users or to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problem_reports if it has the Wikimedia projects' users as audience.
I think that we should work on some sort of general policy for test wikis (very simple) to divide them in categories, avoid fragmentation and ensure we empower people to do all they need. The permanent test wikis at least should be easily discoverable from a central place (I've heard of a Wikimedia Labs automatical home page with index, but we need to focus on what's most urgent). In the meanwhile, it doesn't harm if each of us adds the (current or past) test wikis they remembers to this section I created: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Test_wikis
Nemo
== Appendix == Examples of wikis follow (far from comprehensive):
- Main ones are https://test.wikipedia.org , https://test2.wikipedia.org
These wikis are in the production cluster. They are meant as a final test before code is fully launched in production. These wikis are as close to production as possible. test.wikipedia.org runs from NFS and is pre-deployment. test2.wikipedia.org is deployed in a similar way to the rest of the cluster.
- Now we have http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ and all the related
wikis in the form http://af.wiktionary.beta.wmflabs.org but they're not accessible from anywhere, nor explained clearly, nor have an index or any navigation tool. ** Used to be deployment.wmflabs.org
Well, no. It used to be labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org and is now deployment.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org. Labs was a confusing name. Labs is the infrastructure supporting beta. Beta is meant to be a clone of production that hosts wikis in a similar manner. It's meant to be an environment close to production that can be used pre-production (meaning before it hits test or test2).
** The situation will get worse with subdomains not following any clear rule like http://education.wmflabs.org
So, we're looking at models for handling stuff like this...
Education is a project that isn't ready for production. It's in initial development. It needs to be demo'd publicly though. Because of that, we give it a public IP address and a domain name.
Just because it's in labs doesn't mean it's about to go into production. Labs is meant to prototype a *lot* of experimental things. When extensions get closer to being production ready, the current concept is that it'll move into beta to test functionality in a more production like environment.
- Several Labs wikis have been important for a while, now locked for unclear
reasons and with an even more unclear future. ** http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/ ** http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org/ (deleted)
- A bunch of prototype wikis exist or has existed at some point.
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/release-en/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/deployment-en and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs-en and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevsde/Hauptseite ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.6/Main_Page ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.3/Main_Page and so on ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/uwd ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/
All of these are going away. <something>.labs.wikimedia.org have already been closed. I'd *love* to delete them permanently, but we have no reasonable means of doing so in the production cluster.
All of the prototypes are going to go away soon. Beta is the replacement for prototype.
- Ryan
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
All of these are going away. <something>.labs.wikimedia.org have already been closed. I'd *love* to delete them permanently, but we have no reasonable means of doing so in the production cluster.
We have done it before, But that was a private wiki (one of the strategic ones I think)…
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 04:28, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
- It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're
permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also open to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds ("let's see how sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request one (example real use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to Finnish before deploy on fi.wiki").
Indeed. See also: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/28/beta-cluster-test-software-before-deplo...
Just in case someone thinks otherwise, none of my doubts has been addressed. The point is what Helder stressed, and a lot of work is needed to reduce confusion.
Nemo
I made [[mediawiki:Test_wikis]] feel free to improve it and link to that page from everywhere possible where people might be looking for this
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Just in case someone thinks otherwise, none of my doubts has been addressed. The point is what Helder stressed, and a lot of work is needed to reduce confusion.
Nemo
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 04/07/2012 03:28 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss about our test wikis.
Federico did this survey and mentioned it to me, and I asked him to put it somewhere public. So now we have a list of all the test wikis that we know about, so we can make sure to manage them all appropriately (even if that means shutting most of them down, first telling all their users what their new test wiki will be). Thanks for your research, Federico! I really appreciate it.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org