All,
Thanks to new architecture developments within the Memento Project, we are pleased to
announce the availability of Version 1.0.0 of the Memento Headers time travel Extension
for MediaWiki. The extension can be downloaded via [1]. Information on the extension is
available at [2]. A demonstration wiki equipped with the extension is available at [3].
This extension only supplies the headers necessary to work with Memento clients [4], and
does not provide all of the features of Memento for a MediaWiki installation. it relies
upon an external TimeGate server, provided online by the Memento Project, to actually
provide the datetime negotiation necessary for web time travel.
Memento clients allow one to select a past date and time to browse, and then browse the
web as if it were that date and time. Installing the Memento Headers extension in a
MediaWiki installation allows Memento clients to seamlessly transition from using web
archives to wikis, allowing one to view past versions of web pages without interruption.
Earlier today, we announced the availability of version 2.1.0 of the full Memento
extension. That extension provides additional functionality, such as ensuring that old
revisions of images and templates match the revision of the page in which they are
embedded. The Memento Headers extension does NOT provide such functionality. The Memento
Headers extension only provides the headers necessary for Memento clients to find the
oldid pages in MediaWiki installations that best match the datetime requested by the
user.
As noted in the earlier announcement, the Memento protocol is currently used by major web
archives [5] and supported by the International Internet Presevation Consortium [6].
Though we have the support of web archives, the Memento team also considers time travel in
MediaWiki to be a major use of the protocol. Videos [7] and [8] show Memento at work in
the web at large, the latter paying attention to navigation within Wikipedia. Video [9]
shows Memento at work in the full Memento MediaWiki extension.
We really look forward to any feedback the Wikimedia community can provide on this new
exciting (though limited) way to provide and experience Memento.
On behalf of the Memento Team,
Shawn M. Jones
Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Computer Science
Old Dominion University
Email: sjone(a)cs.odu.edu
Research group:
http://ws-dl.blogspot.com
Twitter: @shawnmjones
—
[1]
https://github.com/mementoweb/mediawiki-memento-headers/releases/tag/v1.0.0
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MementoHeaders
[3]
http://ws-dl-05.cs.odu.edu/demo-headers/index.php/Main_Page
[4]
http://bit.ly/memento-for-chrome
[5]
http://mementoweb.org/depot/
[6]
http://netpreserve.org/
[7]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_70lQPOOIg
[8]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtZHKeFwjzk
[9]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciClYjTnscs