[Wikiquality-l] quality.wikimedia.org - first look & plans

[Erik Moeller]

http://quality.wikimedia.org/

User: Reader
Password: qareader

Do not pass it on quite yet, but please feel free to make basic edits
or layout improvements & do provide feedback here or off-list.

Plan:

1) At least two beta sites will be set up using the FlaggedRevs
extension[1] in two different configurations; these will contain some
English language and some German language demonstration content.
Repeat, DEMONSTRATION CONTENT ONLY. NO REAL WIKIMEDIA PROJECT.

Philipp Birken from WM-DE and I will provide the configuration for
these sites to Brion, who is expected to conclude a security review of
the extension this week.

The page [[Wikiquality]] on Meta will also describe these
configurations, along with some other general info. It is currently
non-existent (do not report).

2) These FlaggedRevs demo sites will go live probably next week. I
suggest a target date of September 20; Sue will finalize this.

Should there be major security or scalability concerns even for a
demo, we can roll back.

3) quality.wikimedia.org: The point is to have portals for major
quality initiatives in Wikipedia and other projects, and an associated
open mailing list. (The list is currently still closed, as it was used
for discussions about FlaggedRevs development.)

These portals should be fairly basic & only point to information
elsewhere. I expect that we will give interested people from the
community & translators access to editing quality.wikimedia.org.
Ironically the site itself would benefit from a FlaggedRevs
configuration, which we may very well put into place if it turns out
to be useful.

Originally I wanted to co-launch this with the beta, but New Scientist
is going to publish a larger piece about Wikimedia quality initiatives
on Thursday, so I thought it would be good to have it up by then,
since it also very visibly suggests making a donation & we don't know
if we might see a bit of a media cascade.

I can quickly fix up some links (link to an off-site demo of
FlaggedRevs for now), open the site & list, and announce them to
various Wikimedia mailing lists before Thursday. If this is _not_
desired, please let me know, and I'll email New Scientist & ask them
to remove the link. But IMHO there is no real risk in going live with
it. Even if we don't take the beta live as expected it'll be a useful
site to have.

4) If there are no remaining security or scalability concerns, after a
declared date, which I suggest to be November 20 (which is also the
middle of the fundraiser and hence a good attention-grabbing moment),
we'll give Wikimedia project/language communities the _option_ of
turning on the extension. To do so, they'll have to point to a
consensus or vote that also explains the configuration they would like
to use (the extension is very flexible).

I expect that de.wp already has such a consensus so they will probably
go live at that date. It may well be possible for en.wp to obtain a
consensus during the beta, in which case it would launch at the same
time. But IMHO the correct answer for press inquiries of "who will be
using the extension" is "this will be determined during the beta, most
likely the German Wikipedia will be among the first".

BugZilla will be used to track these site requests, as was done for
semi-protection.

Once again, the above date will be finalized by Sue.

Comments?

[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

-- 
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik

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