Thank you Eric, Axel, Sandra F., and Wikimedia
Sweden for leading in this
area, even though we recognize it does fall out of the scope of the formal
Content Partnerships Hub project.
A few thoughts ahead of the meeting:
1. As mentioned previously, I have tried to put down some aggregated
thoughts and experiences in this document on meta which anyone is welcome
to edit/add/share:
2. If nothing else, I encourage folks to add ideas (raw ideas are
definitely fine) to the section "New approaches"
3. Please consider "manifesto" as sounding more scary or threatening than
it should be - it was simply the word we had been talking about for a
while, as the goal was: How do we explain the current GLAM wiki state of
affairs to someone new to this space, whether it is a new WMF employee, an
outsider who doesn't know about cultural or heritage partnerships?
Thanks all,
-Andrew
On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 9:54 AM Eric Luth <eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
Hi all,
The meeting will take place at 16:00 UTC tomorrow on this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81455808411
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81455808411&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1677422345273437&usg=AOvVaw2PGvR3NmIQDqmPoiv_h3mv>
André and I will join on behalf of Wikimedia Sverige and the Content
Partnerships Hub initiative. Feel free to share the link with anyone you
think might be good to bring to the call.
André and I will get back to you with an agenda as soon as possible, but
the main part is of course to listen in and understand the situation, and
discuss the priorities, as per Axel's previous email.
Best
*Eric Luth*
Projektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and
Advocacy
Wikimedia Sverige
eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se
+46 (0) 765 55 50 95
Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.se
Den mån 20 feb. 2023 kl 17:23 skrev Axel Pettersson <
axel.pettersson(a)wikimedia.se>gt;:
> Hi again,
> Thanks for all the replies to the Doodle, the winner is Wednesday
> February 22, 17.00-18.00 (GMT+1).
>
> @Eric Luth <eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se> will send out a calendar invite
> with a meeting link and agenda tomorrow.
>
> Bästa hälsningar,
> /axel
>
> ====================================
> Axel Pettersson (han/honom)
> Projektledare GLAM/Outreach
> Wikimedia Sverige
>
> +46 (0)733 96 55 65
> axel.pettersson(a)wikimedia.se
>
> Twitter: @Haxpett <https://twitter.com/haxpett>
>
> Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
> Läs mer på *wikimedia.se/sv/blimedlem
> <http://wikimedia.se/sv/blimedlem>*
>
>
> Den tors 16 feb. 2023 kl 13:48 skrev Axel Pettersson <
> axel.pettersson(a)wikimedia.se>gt;:
>
>> Hi all,
>> (Sent on behalf of the helpdesk.)
>>
>> Andrew also sent a request to the Content Partnerships Hub helpdesk
>> about this issue. We very much hear everyone’s concerns. Though the
>> Helpdesk typically deals with content uploads, we do have another part of
>> the hub initiative that is preparing for better (strategic) tools support
>> in the upcoming year(s).[1]
>>
>> Our current capacity is however very limited, and we are still not
>> sure what funding we will receive for our future work. Also, we currently
>> lack manpower and skills for this type of immediate fire-fighting, so if we
>> were to work on this, it would be at the expense of other prioritized
>> software development.
>>
>> As a response to the Helpdesk request, we would therefore suggest
>> setting up a meeting with all interested people on this thread, with the
>> goal to share perspectives and to brainstorm an approach and capture your
>> thoughts on priorities.
>>
>> Please provide your availability in this Doodle:
>>
https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/dLZwmRWa (With excuses for
>> being Europe/America friendly over other time zones.)
>>
>> Please note that Sandra Fauconnier (who works as Product Strategist)
>> will be absent from February 15 for at least a month (due to surgery +
>> recovery period). During her absence, André Costa (
>> andre.costa(a)wikimedia.se) from WMSE will represent the Content
>> Partnerships Hub on this topic.
>>
>>
>> [1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Content_Partnerships_Hub/Software
>>
>>
>> Bästa hälsningar,
>> /axel
>>
>> ====================================
>> Axel Pettersson (han/honom)
>> Projektledare GLAM/Outreach
>> Wikimedia Sverige
>>
>> +46 (0)733 96 55 65
>> axel.pettersson(a)wikimedia.se
>>
>> Twitter: @Haxpett <https://twitter.com/haxpett>
>>
>> Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
>> Läs mer på *wikimedia.se/sv/blimedlem
>> <http://wikimedia.se/sv/blimedlem>*
>>
>>
>> Den tis 14 feb. 2023 kl 06:38 skrev Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>om>:
>>
>>> Today, Wikimedia Cloud had an outage that highlights the fragile
>>> nature of our GLAM wiki ecosystem:
>>>
>>> – All tools on
wmcloud.org and
toolforge.org were knocked out and
>>> unavailable for 4 hours.
>>>
>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/cloud-announce@lists.wikimedia.…
>>> – Petscan needed an extra hour before it came back, because it is not
>>> setup to run automatically, and needs a manual restart by logging in as
>>> Magnus and running a script by hand. This is a problematic situation for
>>> service deployment.
>>> – Many tools rely on Petscan, such as GLAMorgan for expanding
>>> category trees and generating Mediawiki page titles, so this outage
>>> affected many more tools
>>> – BaGLAMa2 seems to have not come back successfully, as all the
>>> categories that should be tracked are missing. Likely, the data is all
>>> there somewhere, but it currently needs some loving care to be restored.
>>> Unclear if this is being worked on.
>>> – PAWS, the visual Python environment on wmcloud that is a workhorse
>>> for bot work and scripts, is still down and needs some loving care to
>>> revive.
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T329581
>>>
>>> In short – we're trying to be scrappy and resourceful, but we're
>>> hurting.
>>>
>>> -Andrew
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 10:03 AM Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks all for the feedback and conversation.
>>>>
>>>> In the meantime, has anyone gotten GLAMorgan to report back any
>>>> useful pageview data?
>>>>
>>>> Regardless of small, medium, or large categories, I keep getting:
>>>> "Data for ... pages could not be loaded from the WMF pageview API
>>>> (404 error)."
>>>>
>>>>
https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorgan.html
>>>>
>>>> -Andrew
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 10:10 AM Mary Mark Ockerbloom <
>>>> celebration.women(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for posting the fabricator ticket; I too have subscribed.
>>>>> I concur with others, lack of support for reliable tools for GLAM
>>>>> institutions has been a major concern for GLAMs for many years.
>>>>> Mary Mark Ockerbloom
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 5:41 PM Fiona Romeo
<fromeo(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for adding your perspective, Dominic.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here is the Phabricator ticket that tracks work the Foundation
has
>>>>>> been doing with Wikimedia Israel to resolve storage issues for
the GLAM
>>>>>> Wiki Dashboard:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T321702
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The conclusion was that it would be best for the service to use
>>>>>> the MediaRequest API, as Dominic has also recommended in his
email. Further
>>>>>> to this, the Foundation's Data Platform team is looking into
a custom API
>>>>>> endpoint for media requests by category to reduce/remove the need
for data
>>>>>> transformation and storage. As an interim solution for the GLAM
>>>>>> Wiki Dashboard, we advised Wikimedia Israel to migrate their
project from
>>>>>> Amazon Web Services to our own servers and made capacity
available for
>>>>>> that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We don't know as much about the BaGLAMa2 issues at the
moment.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm very sorry to see our GLAM wiki community struggling with
tool
>>>>>> instability again.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Fiona
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Feb 2023 at 21:34, Dominic Byrd-McDevitt
<dominic(a)dp.la>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For my part, I'd like to point out that these issues are
>>>>>>> recurring problems, and also that when it comes to BaGLAMa
lag, the longer
>>>>>>> it goes, the more unrecoverable it becomes. Data errors, once
introduced,
>>>>>>> are not repairable.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dozens of the tracked categories in BaGLAMa are DPLA
>>>>>>> institutions, and I have shared these links numerous times
over the years.
>>>>>>> So I frequently get questions from partners who check their
data and find
>>>>>>> it months out of date. There is nothing I can tell them in
these
>>>>>>> situations, except that I have regularly seen data get that
lagged, and
>>>>>>> then eventually it reaches a point where (presumably after
someone finally
>>>>>>> reached Magnus?) all the backlogged months come in at once.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This causes its own problems, I believe, because I have to
assume
>>>>>>> in such situations where data is generated after the fact,
that it is all
>>>>>>> corrupt to some degree. My understanding of BaGLAMa is that
it counts page
>>>>>>> views of articles using images from a category. But there is
no MediaWiki
>>>>>>> log of when images were added to a page (or to a category),
so if you are
>>>>>>> counting page views that occurred three months ago based on
images that are
>>>>>>> in a page today, you might be counting crediting three past
months with
>>>>>>> views for an image that was added last week.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This issue causes massive data errors in the other direction
too.
>>>>>>> Sometimes you'll have an unexplained spike, like the
several here
>>>>>>>
<https://glamtools.toolforge.org/baglama2/#gid=50&month=201611&giu=enwiki&server=en.wikipedia.org>
(and
>>>>>>> by spike, I mean 700 million page views), and it's caused
by the fact that
>>>>>>> an image that was on the main page for no more than hours
caused BaGLAMa to
>>>>>>> count the entire month's page views of the main page.
These errors are
>>>>>>> unrecoverable; they stay in the data and just increase the
error of the
>>>>>>> overall total over time. There's never been a time where
I could go to a
>>>>>>> maintainer and point out this massive data error and get that
rerun or
>>>>>>> fixed. Instead, I am often in the embarrassing position of
telling partners
>>>>>>> "Here is the analytics page, but there is a big
overcount on one random
>>>>>>> month, so just always remember to mentally subtract 100
million from your
>>>>>>> total, and treat these numbers as very inexact."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So as long as we are talking about BaGLAMa at all, I do have
to
>>>>>>> point out that it is an entirely flawed tool and the data is
unreliable.
>>>>>>> And aside from all of those bugs, the methodology is very
flawed, since it
>>>>>>> should not be using the Pageviews API in the first place. I
consider the
>>>>>>> data essentially fictitious anyway— we know the images we are
tracking are
>>>>>>> probably not even receiving half of the article views we are
crediting to
>>>>>>> them, but we continue to report bad data, because our
projects rely
>>>>>>> on having outcomes and reporting analytics. Glamorous and
Glamorgan are
>>>>>>> based on the same flawed methodology.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And I haven't even started on the clunky UI, where an
>>>>>>> ever-growing list of 1000+ categories are all displayed on
the landing
>>>>>>> page, many of which are typos or non-existent categories that
can never be
>>>>>>> removed or cleaned up.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I guess my main point here is that no amount of band aids
will
>>>>>>> ever resolve some of the issues, and we need to be thinking
about entirely
>>>>>>> redoing the tool itself. Or we should have already done so as
soon as the
>>>>>>> Mediarequests API was released—which was in 2019.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>>> Dominic
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 6:50 AM Fiona Romeo
<fromeo(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dear Andrew,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks for escalating these specific issues to us.
Giovanna and
>>>>>>>> I were both travelling in January so we haven't been
as active in Telegram.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are you aware of anyone else having issues with the GLAM
Wiki
>>>>>>>> Dashboard, or is it just The MET? I quickly sampled some
of the
>>>>>>>> institutions and only saw a "bad request" for
The MET. We have been
>>>>>>>> directly supporting Wikimedia Israel to optimise their
service, so I will
>>>>>>>> raise this issue with both Wikimedia Israel and the
Foundation team that
>>>>>>>> has some familiarity with their service.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I noted these two BaGLAMa2 issues in the Telegram chat:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
https://bitbucket.org/magnusmanske/magnustools/issues/49/baglama-not-up-to-…
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
https://bitbucket.org/magnusmanske/magnustools/issues/50/baglama-not-adding…
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are there other BaGLAMa2 reports we should be aware of?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Metrics are definitely understood to be a priority for
the
>>>>>>>> Foundation and I heard yesterday that metrics tools rose
to the top in
>>>>>>>> Wikimedia Sweden’s survey too. There will be
opportunities to discuss this
>>>>>>>> further in the context of annual planning but I will see
what can be done
>>>>>>>> in the short term.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> More soon,
>>>>>>>> Fiona
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Feb 2023 at 10:57, Andrew Lih
<andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hi WREN and GLAM folks,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I need your insights into what could be a very
problematic year
>>>>>>>>> for us in the GLAM wiki community, as our metrics
tools to measure our
>>>>>>>>> impact are in crisis and disrepair. If you have any
insights, please do
>>>>>>>>> share them here, or in the GLAM Wiki Telegram group
where this conversation
>>>>>>>>> started happening recently.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I sent a "HELP!" message to the Wikimedia
SE content
>>>>>>>>> partnerships help desk just the other day, included
below, and hope this
>>>>>>>>> may be useful to start a conversation. If there is
enough interest, we
>>>>>>>>> might want to start a wiki page to formally document
our needs as a GLAM
>>>>>>>>> wiki community. Thanks.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -Andrew
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ----
>>>>>>>>> To: help(a)wikimedia.se
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'd like to formally employ the Helpdesk's
services in getting
>>>>>>>>> some care and attention to BaGLAMa2. It seems to have
been failing since
>>>>>>>>> the end of last year, and even then, it was reporting
extremely low figures
>>>>>>>>> for all categories. This is one of the few tools we
have in the GLAM wiki
>>>>>>>>> community to measure impact and to make the case for
sustaining our work.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
https://glamtools.toolforge.org/baglama2/
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Without these basic metrics, 2023 could prove to be
a
>>>>>>>>> disastrous year for continuing efforts. So far, we
have been unable to
>>>>>>>>> report good, reliable numbers to folks such as the
Metropolitan Museum of
>>>>>>>>> Art or the Smithsonian Institution. Other on-demand
tools such as Glamorgan
>>>>>>>>> usually cannot handle such large category trees, and
also have their own
>>>>>>>>> problems with not being able to read the pageviews
API numbers accurately,
>>>>>>>>> which is another issue in itself.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorgan.html
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In short - help! How can we get this on the radar
screen of
>>>>>>>>> people who can put more care, attention, and
resources into this? Thanks.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -Andrew
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> *Fiona Romeo* (she/her)
>>>>>>>> Senior Manager, Culture and Heritage
>>>>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Wren mailing list -- wren(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wren-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wren mailing list -- wren(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wren-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -Andrew Lih
>>>> Smithsonian Institution - Wikimedian at Large
>>>> Metropolitan Museum of Art - Wikimedia strategist
>>>> Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American
>>>> University, Columbia University, University of Southern California
>>>> ---
>>>> Email: andrew.lih(a)gmail.com, andrew(a)andrewlih.com
>>>> WEB:
https://muckrack.com/fuzheado
>>>> PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -Andrew Lih
>>> Smithsonian Institution - Wikimedian at Large
>>> Metropolitan Museum of Art - Wikimedia strategist
>>> Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American
>>> University, Columbia University, University of Southern California
>>> ---
>>> Email: andrew.lih(a)gmail.com, andrew(a)andrewlih.com
>>> WEB:
https://muckrack.com/fuzheado
>>> PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
>>>
>>>
--
-Andrew Lih
Smithsonian Institution - Wikimedian at Large
Metropolitan Museum of Art - Wikimedia strategist
Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American
University, Columbia University, University of Southern California
---
Email: andrew.lih(a)gmail.com, andrew(a)andrewlih.com
WEB:
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