So, here are the news. I made a Google group [1] and SourceForge project [2]. Here is my initial email to the group. If you are interested to participate in the project, please join the group and open SF account if you don't have it (and tell me to add you as a developer).
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So, here is the short plan:
* Please, open an account at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/). I created project "weather-bot". Send to this list or to me privately your usernames, so I may add you as developers/managers/whatever of that project. * I'll upload at SF's Subversion system bot's code. (Optionally, if more of you prefer Git instead of Subversion, we'll use Git.) Until I upload it, whoever doesn't have the code, let me know and I'll send it to him/her. Note that the code is under GNU Affero General Public License, while localization are under PD and its database under CC-BY. (If anyone needs explanations for the licensing, please let me know.) * SF provides MediaWiki, too. So, we may have examples (or even a full set of weather data) on wiki. I think that we may keep localization there, too. * My code is not finished and there are a couple of needed changes: ** The full abstraction level of methods for getting data. ** Localization designed at the next levels: *** Normalization: The names of the places are not always good enough (for example, there are some bad names, like "Pozega Uzicka" for "Užička Požega"; there are some abbreviations, like "U. Pozega" for the same place; or the name is in a native language, like it may be "Београд" for "Belgrade" at the [local] Hydro-meteorological Institute of Serbia.) All of those names should be "normalized" into the proper English names. Note, also, that we'll need to "normalize" other things, like wind direction is: For example, wund.com is giving wind direction data in the form "SE" or "NNW", but, also, "South", "East". We need to normalize that into one form (I normalized that with "S", "W" etc.). *** Localization: It is logically a relatively simple task, but it'll take a time for localization of different places. We may, optionally, make a localization bot (but, I think that Tris mentioned to me that he has a localization bot) and gather right names from Wikipedia. Also, it would be good if we would keep all data on wiki, not inside of the code, so we may update data from time to time. *** Also, we should organize our localization work. The best idea would be if we have it implemented at translatewiki.net, but we may do that at SF's wiki, too. Note that we should make some auxiliary bot which would generate localizations from wiki pages periodically. ** Data about places: We need to get latitude and longitude for every place. Usually, Wikipedia has such data. * I am using python module "ephem" [3] for finding is there a daylight or night. This may produce much better daily pages: we may have not just weather data, but, also, astronomical data (i.e. where is Jupiter at the sky of that place for that day). * Organization: I think that we should organize our bots in the next way: ** One bot owner should cover one country. In the cases of the bigger countries, one bot owner should cover one or a couple of states/regions. Such bot should update all Wikinews editions (of course, all Wikinews editions which are willing to be updated in such way and which localized messages) for that country/region. In other words, for example, the first bot owner from France should cover weather in France for English, French, Serbian etc. Wikinews. Note that you'll need as many bot instances as Wikinews editions you are covering. (In other words, if all Wikinews editions are willing to have weather, you'll need to have ~20 bot instances.) Usually, bot should be initiated as a cron job, which means that you should periodically check does bot work.) ** There is the list of servers owned by Wikimedians somewhere at Meta. Also, besides German Toolserver, there is Polish Toolserver, too. We need as many servers as we are able to get because 20 instances for one server is not a lot, but 200 instances (so, 10 countries) is a lot. ** We need to gather the list of information about weather conditions: clear, cloudy, fog, light rain etc. and to "normalize" them. ** We need more icons. Tango project icons (which I am using) are good for the beginning because they are SVG. Please, keep new forms under PD. * Further development: ** Brian mentioned that we should generate maps (with temperatures and pressure fronts). It is possible to make and we should work on that issue.
* The next (immediate) steps are: ** Opening accounts at SourceForge and adding you as developers. ** Organizing logically on-wiki localization work (the wiki address is [4]). ** I am fixing the core of the code (I think I'll need one or two weeks for that task). If someone is willing to work on that with me, please let me know. ** Finding a person (someone of you?) who would gather information about weather conditions. ** Finding a person (someone of you?) who would make icons. * The second phase: ** Making localization for all languages (for now, English -- which would be easy, Serbian and French). * The third phase: ** Running bots. ** Development.
I think that this is all for now.
[1] - http://groups.google.com/group/weather-bot [2] - https://sourceforge.net/projects/weather-bot/ [3] - http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem/ [4] - https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/weather-bot/