[Wikipedia-l] Propose for active backup network for Wikipedia content

[Milos Rancic]

First, I would like to make some introduction (in my not so good English).

1. I am sure that I am not the only person which uses Wikipedia for his/her
own work. When I want to make some article about some part of history of
linguistics (in Serbian), I am using (Serbian) Wikipedia to do so. There are
a number of reasons for doing that, but two of them are crutial: (1) I want
to work inside of GNU FDL corpus and I don't want to make possibility that
my work becomes a propriety of some company or some academic institution.
(2) I want to popularize this kind of work; I want to involve other people
to work on GNU FDL documents.

This situation makes that (some parts of) my work depends on Wikipedia: (a)
I am using MediaWiki wiki syntax for marking text; (b) I am keeping my work
inside of my user-space at sr: ; (c) I am thinking that there si no metter
where I am if I have access to Internet (i.e., to Wikipedia content); etc.
Yes, I can make some "backup system" (and I have it) for that, but it is not
"ultimate solution".

2. We made some community at sr:. I am sure that bigger Wikipedias has not
only one community, but a lot more then one. So, it started do be some kind
of (sub)cultural place for gathering people who like the idea about free
encyclopedia. There is no such place when Wikipedia is down...

...

I am thinking a lot about solutions for that problem; this idea is not my
first idea how to resolve problem, ant it would not be the last.

I think that people around Wikimedia should make some kind of "active backup
network for Wikipedia content".

(For example, I can keep on my server backup for a number of smaller
Wikipedias (i.e., I can do it for Wikipedias from former Yugoslavia); as
well as I am sure that there are a number of people who can keep other
langauge based Wikipedias to his/her/their servers.)

Connection between xx.wikipedia.org and xx.exapmle.org can be made via bots
with some higher privileges (they should syncchronize user data, too).
Initially, xx.example.org would import xx.wikipedia.org via
download.wikimedia.org; and after that bots would start with
synchronization. People would be able to write and read on both
(xx.wikipedia.org and xx.example.org) and (for example) once per day bots
would synchronize xx.wikipedia.org and xx.example.org. Permissions, users,
etc. should be the same.

Of course, it would not be one-day-work. I know that it would make a lot of
job, but I think it is reasonable because it would relax Wikimedia
infrastructure.

As this would be some kind of external support to Wiki(p|m)edia, I think
that content policy should be Wikimedian; also, I think that people who give
"active backup servers" should say that it is their site.

And, of course, this idea is open for suggestions.

What do you think about that?