[Toolserver-l] WikiMiniAtlas

[Lars Aronsson]

Two weeks ago I turned on WikiMiniAtlas in the Swedish Wikipedia.  
This means Common.js was updated so each geographic coordinate now 
has a little icon, which makes a map pop-up.  This map shows the 
names of other articles that have geo coordinates.  Many other 
languages have already done this long ago. The WikiMiniAtlas is 
documented on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiMiniAtlas

However, the names on the map are now out of date and they are not 
updated if I update the geo coordinates of a page.  In order to 
spark enthusiasm from the Swedish Wikipedia community, I need 
improvements of articles to be shown as improvements on the map.  
This feedback doesn't work now.

I asked around and user:Dschwen told me that user:Kolossos was 
going to update the list.  But nothing has happened.  I asked 
Kolossos, but got no response.  Not even "I don't have time".

I am a programmer. Even though I don't have a toolserver account, 
I understand that much of this relies on individual efforts, and I 
applaud this. But features like this WikiMiniAtlas (or all the 
services that rely on s3 replication) are too impressive and 
useful to rely completely on the voluntary efforts of single 
individuals. In this case, it doesn't help if I offer my help, 
because I don't get any response at all. That is harmful for all 
projects. Now I feel I can't trust anything to work.

We need to reorganize this, so that each task can be performed by 
more than one individual.  Individual projects must be banned.

Instead, we need to form groups with group access to make updates 
and respond to questions.  This might sound harsh, but it's 
actually very easy to implement. Just assign a second person to 
all of your individual projects, and keep the door open for more 
to join. Use the Linux group permissions (chmod g+w) for access, 
and use the user ID only for identity.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se