[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

[David Gerard]

On 18 March 2013 13:18, Fae <faewik at gmail.com> wrote:

> PS I have heard the archive question answered recently by a
> representative of the WMF on a radio interview as "Oh, it's all over
> the internet, if we disappear it could always be re-created" (or words
> to that effect) - I thought this a particularly naff answer for an
> organization with many millions in the bank to spend on operational
> risks.


That's not quite right ...

* we need to make sure there are actually multiple accessible copies
of the huge database dump files around
* someone needs to take one of these and recreate a working, editable
copy of (say) en:wp, with all text and images
* if that fails in any regard whatsoever, it's something that really
needs fixing

This is largely a matter for ops, of course. But someone needs to get
a spare PC with a huge amount of disk and try it ... (Why not me?
Time/arsedness/lack of said PC and huge disk.)


- d.