Mailing List Archive

Jeroen wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Proberly some of you will flame me, but I will take that for granted.
>
Disagreement is not a flame if it is done respectfully.

>My idea is to combine all the European language wikipedia's (except english
>and maybe spanish and portuguese) on one server and using one database,
>located somewhere in Europe.
>
>Here is why:
>
>* We will not be depending on the US anymore.
>
I'm as critical as any foreigner (relative to the US) about their
policies, but that alone does not make the case for the move. Ideally,
it should not make any difference where the server(s) is located if we
are operating in a global environment As a Canadian I would be just as
concerned about having the French Wikipedia dominated by European interests.

Of course, I still think that it would be worthwhile to have every
Wikipedia automatically backed up in a second country. This sort of
reflects a street smart self-preservation instinct. Given the
centralizing tendencies in the European Community and it's love for
bureaucracy, anything based in the EC would have to be backed up outside
that community since any two countries in the EC are now different in
name only.

>- As this can be considered a political issue, it is mostly a technical
>issue. Because when there are problems, we (Europeans) can solve this on
>hours, people in the US are still at sleep. This also includes fixing
>things on location.
>
This is a round the clock operation. Hopefully, problems requiring
on-location attention will remain very few, but we can expect long
waitsin those cases no matter when the problem arises.

>- Also the performance will not be influenced by the English-language
>wikipedia.
>
This is not an argument for moving out of the US; only for moving them
to another server.

Eclecticology

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>At that time, I'll be submitting to him the
>completed application, by-laws, etc., for him to review and make
>suggestions.
>
What is the link to the by-laws?

Ec

If it's just a technical issue, and not a political issue, then I have
no objections to doing this *under the Wikimedia Foundation*.

However, when you start your comments with this:
> * We will not be depending on the US anymore.

I immediately suspect that it's political.

> - As this can be considered a political issue, it is mostly a technical
> issue. Because when there are problems, we (Europeans) can solve this on
> hours, people in the US are still at sleep. This also includes fixing
> things on location.

But, things tend to break at random times around the clock. The
US-based servers sometimes crash at night, when people are sleeping
here.

One solution to this is to give access to the power port to people
living in other parts of the world.

> * Finding a reliable server that is free and only for us.

Well, everything is free as long as I pay for it, and if it can be
shown that it is technically superior to host European wikis in
Europe, I'm willing to do that.

> * Finding European sysadmins for this server.

That's not hard -- Magnus and Erik spring to mind immediately, but of
course there are many eligible people in Europe.

Again, let me say: I strongly support taking technical measures to
ensure responsiveness and uptime for everyone on the planet. I
strongly oppose taking measures to divide the wikipedia community
politically.

--Jimbo

Jeroen-
> Hello,

> Proberly some of you will flame me, but I will take that for granted.

> My idea is to combine all the European language wikipedia's (except english
> and maybe spanish and portuguese) on one server and using one database,
> located somewhere in Europe.

Crashes that are so hard that they require someone to do a fix on location
should be expected to take about 24 hours to fix -- that's normal and OK.
The present crash took about 7 hours to fix (we still don't know what
caused it), and it would have taken just a few minutes if I or Tim could
have done the reboot instead of waiting for Jimbo to wake up. Hopefully
Brion will be back soon as well.

Splitting up the wikis can cause the following problems:
* makes software updates harder -- we are trying to move towards a common
codebase
* makes it impossible to combine the different tables into a single
database, which would have various advantages
* makes it more difficult to combine at least user accounts and
interlanguage links into a single DB
* could lead to cultural split -- different power structures, different
policies etc.

Furthermore, Jimbo is in the process of finalizing the Wikimedia
Foundation, which will allow us to take donations. Given enough money, we
can improve our current setup. A reasonably redundant database setup with
replication should be more resistant to this kind of failure.

Realistically, with a decent setup, we don't need to split up our
databases -- it's the single point of failure (pliny) that is the problem,
not that the server is based in the US.

Regards,

Erik

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Jeroen-
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>Proberly some of you will flame me, but I will take that for granted.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>My idea is to combine all the European language wikipedia's (except english
>>and maybe spanish and portuguese) on one server and using one database,
>>located somewhere in Europe.
>>
>>
>
>Crashes that are so hard that they require someone to do a fix on location
>should be expected to take about 24 hours to fix -- that's normal and OK.
>The present crash took about 7 hours to fix (we still don't know what
>caused it), and it would have taken just a few minutes if I or Tim could
>have done the reboot instead of waiting for Jimbo to wake up. Hopefully
>Brion will be back soon as well.
>
>Splitting up the wikis can cause the following problems:
>* makes software updates harder -- we are trying to move towards a common
>codebase
>* makes it impossible to combine the different tables into a single
>database, which would have various advantages
>* makes it more difficult to combine at least user accounts and
>interlanguage links into a single DB
>* could lead to cultural split -- different power structures, different
>policies etc.
>
>Furthermore, Jimbo is in the process of finalizing the Wikimedia
>Foundation, which will allow us to take donations. Given enough money, we
>can improve our current setup. A reasonably redundant database setup with
>replication should be more resistant to this kind of failure.
>
>Realistically, with a decent setup, we don't need to split up our
>databases -- it's the single point of failure (pliny) that is the problem,
>not that the server is based in the US.
>
>Regards,
>
which reminds m... Any status update on the wikimedia foundation?? I
know as of know Its officially a non-profit, but still hasn't achieved
IRS tax exempt status. So, where are we with that? Have the papers been
filed, or not? And how many more steps do we have afterwards. It'd be
nice to have an estimated time by when this could be done. Is it going
to take a couple of weeks or a couple of months? Just curious, and eager
to donate....

Lightning

> which reminds m... Any status update on the wikimedia foundation?? I
> know as of know Its officially a non-profit, but still hasn't achieved
> IRS tax exempt status. So, where are we with that? Have the papers been
> filed, or not? And how many more steps do we have afterwards. It'd be
> nice to have an estimated time by when this could be done. Is it going
> to take a couple of weeks or a couple of months? Just curious, and eager
> to donate....

Alex is an attorney who does this kind of thing all the time, and he
is now advising me. We chatted last week, and are scheduled to chat
again this week. At that time, I'll be submitting to him the
completed application, by-laws, etc., for him to review and make
suggestions. Also, I have to register with Florida and California as
a charity, etc. If I've done a good job, it'll be a matter of sending
the apps to the relevant agencies.

However, we can actually start accepting donations before that, he
tells me. So I'm setting up a bank account and a merchant account and
a paypal account for all of that.

I would say within 2 weeks to 1 month, we'll be ready to do a press
release (to Slashdot, for example) and to have a pledge week or
something like that.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>which reminds m... Any status update on the wikimedia foundation?? I
>>know as of know Its officially a non-profit, but still hasn't achieved
>>IRS tax exempt status. So, where are we with that? Have the papers been
>>filed, or not? And how many more steps do we have afterwards. It'd be
>>nice to have an estimated time by when this could be done. Is it going
>>to take a couple of weeks or a couple of months? Just curious, and eager
>>to donate....
>>
>>
>
>Alex is an attorney who does this kind of thing all the time, and he
>is now advising me. We chatted last week, and are scheduled to chat
>again this week. At that time, I'll be submitting to him the
>completed application, by-laws, etc., for him to review and make
>suggestions. Also, I have to register with Florida and California as
>a charity, etc. If I've done a good job, it'll be a matter of sending
>the apps to the relevant agencies.
>
>However, we can actually start accepting donations before that, he
>tells me. So I'm setting up a bank account and a merchant account and
>a paypal account for all of that.
>
>I would say within 2 weeks to 1 month, we'll be ready to do a press
>release (to Slashdot, for example) and to have a pledge week or
>something like that.
>
>--Jimbo
>

Slick. Let us know when that's up and which one charges you a smaller
fee. Also, Are you going to put up a musicbrainz-style finances page? I
really like that about Music Brainz, I think it encourages people to
donate because they see exactly where the money they donate is going.
It's just a list people who donated either with ther name or no name or
a pseudonym if they want to and how much they donated as well as a list
of expenses and It's updated every day or so I would guess. I think that
kind of thing really helps the credibility of projects and makes people
more comfortable with donating their money.


Lightning