Just a reminder about the Meets today:
On Fri, May 5, 2023 at 8:17 AM Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello Again World,
>
> The Google Meets for live discussion about MCS decommissioning will be
> held during the upcoming week for those needing assistance. There are two
> sessions on Thursday, 11 May 2023, and we hope they will provide for decent
> timezone coverage. Please see details below and add an entry to your
> calendar if you would like to meet synchronously this way.
>
> Additionally, as noted before, there will be Content Transform Team
> members at the Wikimedia Hackathon 19-21 May 2023. Ask around if you are
> there, and consider helping others who may be transitioning their
> components off of MCS.
>
> If it is better for you to discuss asynchronously, please as always feel
> free to use https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_Transform_Team .
>
> We have reached out to a handful of additionally identified MCS re-users
> where there were some clues in the User-Agent fields from the web request
> logs. If you or someone you know has a bot, gadget, user script, Scribunto
> Lua module, or extension* (or other component, for that matter!) using MCS,
> we would appreciate your help in further spreading the word and helping
> migrate active use.
>
> == Google Meet Details ==
>
> Thursday, 11-May-2023 - 1100-1200 UTC (0400 - 0500 San Francisco)
> Videoconference: https://meet.google.com/mcc-gdew-xit
> Telephone numbers in case of audio issues:
> https://tel.meet/mcc-gdew-xit?pin=3225094353686&hs=1
>
>
> Thursday, 11-May-2023 - 1800-1900 UTC (1100 - 1200 San Francisco)
> Videoconference: https://meet.google.com/mcc-gdew-xit
> Telephone numbers in case of audio issues:
> https://tel.meet/mcc-gdew-xit?pin=3225094353686&hs=1
>
> Please refer to https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473 for system
> requirements for using Google Meet.
>
> Thank you!
> Adam Baso, on behalf of the Content Transform Team
>
> *
> https://codesearch.wmcloud.org/search/?q=mobile-sections&files=&excludeFiles=&repos=
> is not suggestive of unknown things.
> https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=%22mobile-sections%22&namespaces=&title=
> is not suggestive of obvious on-site user generated content / code (a regex
> search seems to possibly be too exhaustive as these searches are inherently
> slow, but in theory would not turn up anything extra anyway as a simple
> string search should be sufficient). It is certainly the case that there
> are repos discovered via
> https://github.com/search?q=mobile-sections&type=code , but it's a bit of
> a stretch to determine reliably if things are even running and where. As
> this message is going out, it dawns on oneself that
> https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/ repos could be a target for searches, but
> this may require enabling global search
> <https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/search/> (will need to check with a
> GitLab admin if that can be done outside of an EE installation easily) or
> perhaps a scripted search across each individual repos...TBD.
>
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 4:45?AM Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> TL;DR: The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023.
>> Please switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service
>> continuity.
>>
>> Hello World,
>>
>> I'm writing about a service decommission we hope to complete mid-July
>> 2023. The service to be decommissioned is the legacy Mobile Content Service
>> ("MCS"), which is maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation's Content
>> Transform Team. We will be marking this service as deprecated soon.
>>
>> We hope that with this notice, people will have ample time to update
>> their systems for use of other endpoints such as Parsoid [1] (n.b., MCS
>> uses Parsoid HTML).
>>
>> The MCS endpoints are the ones with the relative URL path pattern
>> /page/mobile-sections* on the Wikipedias. For examples of the URLs see the
>> "Mobile" section on the online Swagger (OpenAPI) specification
>> documentation with matching URLs here:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/Mobile
>>
>> == History ==
>>
>> The Mobile Content Service ("MCS") is the historical aggregate service
>> that originally provided support for the article reading experience on the
>> Wikipedia for Android native app, as well as some other experiences. We
>> have noticed that there are other users of the service. We are not able to
>> determine all of the users, as it's hard to tell with confidence from the
>> web logs.
>>
>> The Wikimedia Foundation had already transitioned the Wikipedia for
>> Android and iOS apps to the newer Page Content Service ("PCS") several
>> years ago. PCS has some similarities with MCS in terms of its mobility
>> focus, but it also has different request-response signatures in practice.
>> PCS, as with MCS, is intended to primarily satisfy Wikimedia
>> Foundation-maintained user experiences only, and so this is classified with
>> the "unstable" moniker.
>>
>> == Looking ahead ==
>>
>> Generally, as noted in the lead, we recommend that folks who use MCS (or
>> PCS, for that matter) switch over to Parsoid for accessing Wikipedia
>> article content programmatically for the most predictable service.
>>
>> The HTML produced by Parsoid has a versioned specification [2] and
>> because Parsoid is accessed regularly by a number of components across the
>> globe tends to have fairly well cached responses. However, please note that
>> Parsoid may be subject to stricter rate limits that can apply under certain
>> traffic patterns.
>>
>> At this point, I do also want to note that in order to keep up with
>> contemporary HTML standards, particularly those favoring accessibility and
>> machine readability enhancements, Parsoid HTML will undergo change as we
>> further converge parsing stacks [3]. Generally, you should expect iteration
>> on the Parsoid HTML spec, and of course as you may have come to appreciate
>> that the shape of HTML in practice can vary nontrivially wiki-by-wiki as
>> practices across wikis vary.
>>
>> You may also want to consider Wikimedia Enterprise API options, which
>> range from no cost to higher volume access paid options.
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Access
>>
>> == Forking okay, but not recommended ==
>>
>> Because MCS acts as a service aggregate and makes multiple backend API
>> calls, caveats can apply for those subresources - possibility of API
>> changes, deprecation, and the like. We do not recommend a plain fork of MCS
>> code because of the subresource fetch behavior. This said, of course you
>> are welcome to fork in a way compatible with MCS's license.
>>
>>
>> == Help spread the word ==
>>
>> Although we are aware of the top two remaining consumers of MCS, we also
>> are not sure who else is accessing MCS and anticipate that some downstream
>> tech may break when MCS is turned off. As we are cross-posting this
>> message, we hope most people who have come to rely upon MCS will see this
>> message. Please feel free to forward this message to contacts if you know
>> they are using MCS.
>>
>> == Help ==
>>
>> Although we intend to decommission MCS in July 2023, we would like to
>> share resources if you need some help. We plan to hold office hours in case
>> you would like to meet with us to discuss this or other Content Transform
>> Team matters. We will host these events on Google Meet. We will provide
>> notice of these office hours on the wikitech-l mailing list in the coming
>> weeks and months.
>>
>> Additionally, if you would like to discuss your MCS transition plans,
>> please visit the Content Transform Team talk page:
>>
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_Transform_Team
>>
>> Finally, some Content Transform Team members will also be at the
>> Wikimedia Hackathon [4] if you would like some in-person support.
>>
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Adam Baso (he/him/his/Adam), on behalf of the Content Transform Team
>> Director of Engineering
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>> [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid
>>
>> [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Specs/HTML
>>
>> [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Parser_Unification/Updates
>>
>> [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2023
>>
>
On Fri, May 5, 2023 at 8:17 AM Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello Again World,
>
> The Google Meets for live discussion about MCS decommissioning will be
> held during the upcoming week for those needing assistance. There are two
> sessions on Thursday, 11 May 2023, and we hope they will provide for decent
> timezone coverage. Please see details below and add an entry to your
> calendar if you would like to meet synchronously this way.
>
> Additionally, as noted before, there will be Content Transform Team
> members at the Wikimedia Hackathon 19-21 May 2023. Ask around if you are
> there, and consider helping others who may be transitioning their
> components off of MCS.
>
> If it is better for you to discuss asynchronously, please as always feel
> free to use https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_Transform_Team .
>
> We have reached out to a handful of additionally identified MCS re-users
> where there were some clues in the User-Agent fields from the web request
> logs. If you or someone you know has a bot, gadget, user script, Scribunto
> Lua module, or extension* (or other component, for that matter!) using MCS,
> we would appreciate your help in further spreading the word and helping
> migrate active use.
>
> == Google Meet Details ==
>
> Thursday, 11-May-2023 - 1100-1200 UTC (0400 - 0500 San Francisco)
> Videoconference: https://meet.google.com/mcc-gdew-xit
> Telephone numbers in case of audio issues:
> https://tel.meet/mcc-gdew-xit?pin=3225094353686&hs=1
>
>
> Thursday, 11-May-2023 - 1800-1900 UTC (1100 - 1200 San Francisco)
> Videoconference: https://meet.google.com/mcc-gdew-xit
> Telephone numbers in case of audio issues:
> https://tel.meet/mcc-gdew-xit?pin=3225094353686&hs=1
>
> Please refer to https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473 for system
> requirements for using Google Meet.
>
> Thank you!
> Adam Baso, on behalf of the Content Transform Team
>
> *
> https://codesearch.wmcloud.org/search/?q=mobile-sections&files=&excludeFiles=&repos=
> is not suggestive of unknown things.
> https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=%22mobile-sections%22&namespaces=&title=
> is not suggestive of obvious on-site user generated content / code (a regex
> search seems to possibly be too exhaustive as these searches are inherently
> slow, but in theory would not turn up anything extra anyway as a simple
> string search should be sufficient). It is certainly the case that there
> are repos discovered via
> https://github.com/search?q=mobile-sections&type=code , but it's a bit of
> a stretch to determine reliably if things are even running and where. As
> this message is going out, it dawns on oneself that
> https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/ repos could be a target for searches, but
> this may require enabling global search
> <https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/search/> (will need to check with a
> GitLab admin if that can be done outside of an EE installation easily) or
> perhaps a scripted search across each individual repos...TBD.
>
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 4:45?AM Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> TL;DR: The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023.
>> Please switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service
>> continuity.
>>
>> Hello World,
>>
>> I'm writing about a service decommission we hope to complete mid-July
>> 2023. The service to be decommissioned is the legacy Mobile Content Service
>> ("MCS"), which is maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation's Content
>> Transform Team. We will be marking this service as deprecated soon.
>>
>> We hope that with this notice, people will have ample time to update
>> their systems for use of other endpoints such as Parsoid [1] (n.b., MCS
>> uses Parsoid HTML).
>>
>> The MCS endpoints are the ones with the relative URL path pattern
>> /page/mobile-sections* on the Wikipedias. For examples of the URLs see the
>> "Mobile" section on the online Swagger (OpenAPI) specification
>> documentation with matching URLs here:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/Mobile
>>
>> == History ==
>>
>> The Mobile Content Service ("MCS") is the historical aggregate service
>> that originally provided support for the article reading experience on the
>> Wikipedia for Android native app, as well as some other experiences. We
>> have noticed that there are other users of the service. We are not able to
>> determine all of the users, as it's hard to tell with confidence from the
>> web logs.
>>
>> The Wikimedia Foundation had already transitioned the Wikipedia for
>> Android and iOS apps to the newer Page Content Service ("PCS") several
>> years ago. PCS has some similarities with MCS in terms of its mobility
>> focus, but it also has different request-response signatures in practice.
>> PCS, as with MCS, is intended to primarily satisfy Wikimedia
>> Foundation-maintained user experiences only, and so this is classified with
>> the "unstable" moniker.
>>
>> == Looking ahead ==
>>
>> Generally, as noted in the lead, we recommend that folks who use MCS (or
>> PCS, for that matter) switch over to Parsoid for accessing Wikipedia
>> article content programmatically for the most predictable service.
>>
>> The HTML produced by Parsoid has a versioned specification [2] and
>> because Parsoid is accessed regularly by a number of components across the
>> globe tends to have fairly well cached responses. However, please note that
>> Parsoid may be subject to stricter rate limits that can apply under certain
>> traffic patterns.
>>
>> At this point, I do also want to note that in order to keep up with
>> contemporary HTML standards, particularly those favoring accessibility and
>> machine readability enhancements, Parsoid HTML will undergo change as we
>> further converge parsing stacks [3]. Generally, you should expect iteration
>> on the Parsoid HTML spec, and of course as you may have come to appreciate
>> that the shape of HTML in practice can vary nontrivially wiki-by-wiki as
>> practices across wikis vary.
>>
>> You may also want to consider Wikimedia Enterprise API options, which
>> range from no cost to higher volume access paid options.
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Access
>>
>> == Forking okay, but not recommended ==
>>
>> Because MCS acts as a service aggregate and makes multiple backend API
>> calls, caveats can apply for those subresources - possibility of API
>> changes, deprecation, and the like. We do not recommend a plain fork of MCS
>> code because of the subresource fetch behavior. This said, of course you
>> are welcome to fork in a way compatible with MCS's license.
>>
>>
>> == Help spread the word ==
>>
>> Although we are aware of the top two remaining consumers of MCS, we also
>> are not sure who else is accessing MCS and anticipate that some downstream
>> tech may break when MCS is turned off. As we are cross-posting this
>> message, we hope most people who have come to rely upon MCS will see this
>> message. Please feel free to forward this message to contacts if you know
>> they are using MCS.
>>
>> == Help ==
>>
>> Although we intend to decommission MCS in July 2023, we would like to
>> share resources if you need some help. We plan to hold office hours in case
>> you would like to meet with us to discuss this or other Content Transform
>> Team matters. We will host these events on Google Meet. We will provide
>> notice of these office hours on the wikitech-l mailing list in the coming
>> weeks and months.
>>
>> Additionally, if you would like to discuss your MCS transition plans,
>> please visit the Content Transform Team talk page:
>>
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_Transform_Team
>>
>> Finally, some Content Transform Team members will also be at the
>> Wikimedia Hackathon [4] if you would like some in-person support.
>>
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Adam Baso (he/him/his/Adam), on behalf of the Content Transform Team
>> Director of Engineering
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>> [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid
>>
>> [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Specs/HTML
>>
>> [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Parser_Unification/Updates
>>
>> [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2023
>>
>