Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Geoffrey Plourde]

I agree. As I said before, where would this stop? Memorial sites for specific 
incidents will lead to more and more requests. If we have one for an event, we 
must have one for all. 





From: Jon 
To: k...@kurtweber.us; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 

Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:13:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:53, you wrote:
>> I posit that the "memorial project" is not essential.  I think it
>>  would drain resources from our mission.
>>
>> Jon
> As I explained in the proposal (again, did you read the proposal?)
> it is an essential part of the WMF's mission.
I did read it... and I jsut read it again at meta to be sure I
understand again.

The mission... "...empower and engage people around the world to
collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the
public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."


I question how a POV memorial is educational content.


I also question alignments that could be generated by such memorials.


I question scalability... "They have a memorial, why can't I.  You
don't think [insert event here] is important enough?  I just won't
support WMF anymore".


With the above, when groups become alienated, I question our ability
to effectively disseminate the core projects (wikipedia, and others)
effectively and globally.


I question the technical strain on our resources.  All of these memorials.

I question the political implications of having a worded memorial,
polarizing an otherwise neutral foundation, or the public perception
of the foundation.

These are only a few of the things I began to question when I first
read the proposal.


Jon-





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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
It is not one either. It has been said repeatedly that the process of a
straightforward back up is something that is done on a regular basis. This
however includes a lot of information that we do not allow to be included in
the data export that is made available to the public. So never mind what
database is used, special purpose software is needed to provide the
functionality needed.

This functionality needs more redesign and programming. It is a process that
impacts the usability of the English language Wikipedia and as such may
benefit from the Stanton gift.. then again it does not impact the usability
of people new to Wikipedia.
Thanks,
  GerardM

2008/12/25 Brian 

> Nice work Erik!
>
> I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes
> to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at
> mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case:
>
> 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data
> in, we cannot get it all back out.
> 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct
> hardware has still not been purchased.
>
> I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ?
>
> Cheers,
> Brian
>
> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Erik Zachte  >wrote:
>
> > New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
> > May 2008. The reports have been  generated on the new wikistats server
> > 'Bayes', which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself
> > had
> > been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all
> 700+
> > wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From
> now
> > on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
> > processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
> > results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
> > will be published.
> >
> > Much more on this at
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/
> >
> > Happy holidays everyone.
> >
> > Erik Zachte
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> Can you and Kurt come up with a proposal that doesn't abandon our
> fabulously useful and marketable air of neutrality?

Yes, good thought, I think we could. After all, it is a sort of cemetery.

Fred



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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 20:30, David Gerard wrote:
>   
>> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
>> 
>>> Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point.
>>> I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs.
>>>   
>> Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual
>> management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining
>> politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the
>> cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're
>> not going away.
>> 
>
> I fail to see how your conclusion follows from your premises.
>
>   
>> And as economics shifts to information, we have 
>> credibility to the skies. "Information wants to be free" means "it
>> leaks like a gas" and "running a Great Firewall is like trying to
>> carry air in a bucket".
>> 
>
> What does this have to do with anything?
>
>   
>> Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as
>> NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make
>> direct sense) would be a disaster.
>> 
>
> Why?  I don't deny its usefulness and appropriateness for SPECIFIC PROJECTS, 
> but why must it be universal across all WMF projects?
>   
?

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 20:30, David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
> > Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point.
> > I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs.
>
> Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual
> management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining
> politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the
> cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're
> not going away.

I fail to see how your conclusion follows from your premises.

> And as economics shifts to information, we have 
> credibility to the skies. "Information wants to be free" means "it
> leaks like a gas" and "running a Great Firewall is like trying to
> carry air in a bucket".

What does this have to do with anything?

>
> Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as
> NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make
> direct sense) would be a disaster.

Why?  I don't deny its usefulness and appropriateness for SPECIFIC PROJECTS, 
but why must it be universal across all WMF projects?
-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:53, you wrote:
>> I posit that the "memorial project" is not essential.  I think it
>>  would drain resources from our mission.
>>
>> Jon
> As I explained in the proposal (again, did you read the proposal?)
> it is an essential part of the WMF's mission.
I did read it... and I jsut read it again at meta to be sure I
understand again.

The mission... "...empower and engage people around the world to
collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the
public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."


I question how a POV memorial is educational content.


I also question alignments that could be generated by such memorials.


I question scalability... "They have a memorial, why can't I.  You
don't think [insert event here] is important enough?  I just won't
support WMF anymore".


With the above, when groups become alienated, I question our ability
to effectively disseminate the core projects (wikipedia, and others)
effectively and globally.


I question the technical strain on our resources.  All of these memorials.

I question the political implications of having a worded memorial,
polarizing an otherwise neutral foundation, or the public perception
of the foundation.

These are only a few of the things I began to question when I first
read the proposal.


Jon-





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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions

[Durova]

Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual
management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining
politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the
cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're
not going away. And as economics shifts to information, we have
credibility to the skies. "Information wants to be free" means "it
leaks like a gas" and "running a Great Firewall is like trying to
carry air in a bucket".

Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as
NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make
direct sense) would be a disaster. Possibly a greater one than putting
ads on the site (and I wouldn't object to ads on the site, but I
realise enough people despise them that it'd be utterly unworkable).

Can you and Kurt come up with a proposal that doesn't abandon our
fabulously useful and marketable air of neutrality?

[We will leave for the moment post-modernist arguments about the
impossibility of neutrality, or the quite accurate argument that
running an Enlightenment-style encyclopedia project is itself pushing
a huge and detailed point of view in all sorts of ways. You know what
I mean by the question.]

Oh, and Merry Christmas. That's CHRISTMAS, as detailed in the King
James Version! [* may not be 100% verifiable or not original research]


- d.

Hey Kurt, I didn't bother putting that troll sockpuppet of you under
copyleft license because of your retirement.  As a present for the free
world, maybe I'll do that for Christmas.

"I'll get you my pretty, and your little sockpuppet too." - The Wiki Witch
of the West.

- Durova

-- 
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:53, you wrote:
>
> I posit that the "memorial project" is not essential.  I think it
> would drain resources from our mission.
>
> Jon
As I explained in the proposal (again, did you read the proposal?) it is an 
essential part of the WMF's mission.
-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 geni :

> I'd more be thinking of handing over a stack of hard drives to
> wikimedia chapter reps at wikimania .


2TB external hard disk, gzip on the fly (gzipping is faster than the
network - remember, Wikimedia gzips data going between internal
servers in the same rack because CPU is cheaper than network!) - USB
2.0 is 480Mbit/sec, that's 60MB/sec, that's a gzipped dump at about 9
hours 20 minutes a terabyte assuming a near-perfect USB interface.
Long-winded, but all we need is to custom-build a hard disk duplicator
for I/O efficiency. A simple matter of hardware design. Then it should
be no more inherently painful than duplicating VHS video tapes.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[geni]

2008/12/25 David Gerard :
> 2008/12/25 Brian :
>
>> But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the
>> dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people
>> who want this can't be > 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API
>> I guess.
>
>
> Maybe we can run a sneakernet of DLTs. The Florida sysadmins run off a
> stack of tapes, they send those to someone to run off copies of and
> distribute to the next layer, and so on ...
>
>
> - d.

I'd more be thinking of handing over a stack of hard drives to
wikimedia chapter reps at wikimania .



-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:29 PM, Brian  wrote:
> I'm also curious, what is the estimated amount of time to decompress this
> thing?

Somewhere around 1 week, I'd guesstimate.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Brian :

> But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the
> dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people
> who want this can't be > 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API
> I guess.


Maybe we can run a sneakernet of DLTs. The Florida sysadmins run off a
stack of tapes, they send those to someone to run off copies of and
distribute to the next layer, and so on ...


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :

> Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point.
> I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs.


Well, yes. (Who thankfully are not gross incompetents at the actual
management to the degree he was.) And it turns out that remaining
politically neutral is one of the best things we can do as well as the
cheapest and easiest, because we have the moral high ground and we're
not going away. And as economics shifts to information, we have
credibility to the skies. "Information wants to be free" means "it
leaks like a gas" and "running a Great Firewall is like trying to
carry air in a bucket".

Abandoning neutrality as a general operating principle (manifested as
NPOV on Wikipedia, variants on other projects where that doesn't make
direct sense) would be a disaster. Possibly a greater one than putting
ads on the site (and I wouldn't object to ads on the site, but I
realise enough people despise them that it'd be utterly unworkable).

Can you and Kurt come up with a proposal that doesn't abandon our
fabulously useful and marketable air of neutrality?

[We will leave for the moment post-modernist arguments about the
impossibility of neutrality, or the quite accurate argument that
running an Enlightenment-style encyclopedia project is itself pushing
a huge and detailed point of view in all sorts of ways. You know what
I mean by the question.]

Oh, and Merry Christmas. That's CHRISTMAS, as detailed in the King
James Version! [* may not be 100% verifiable or not original research]


- d.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

I'm also curious, what is the estimated amount of time to decompress this
thing?

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 7:24 PM, Brian  wrote:

> But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the
> dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people
> who want this can't be > 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API
> I guess.
>
> Cheers,
> Brian
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 7:18 PM, Robert Rohde  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Brian  wrote:
>> > Hi Robert,
>> >
>> > I'm not sure I agree with you..
>> >
>> > (3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days
>> >
>> > That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a
>> few
>> > days. The only cost is bandwidth.
>>
>> While you might be correct, most connections are reported as megaBITS
>> per second.  For example, AT&T's highest grade of residential DSL
>> service is 6 Mbps, which would result in 46 day download.  Comcast
>> goes up to 16 Mbps, which is 17 days.
>>
>> -Robert Rohde
>>
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>
>
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>



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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

But at least this would allow Erik, researchers and archivers to get the
dump faster than they can get the compressed version. The number of people
who want this can't be > 100, can it? It would need to be metered by an API
I guess.

Cheers,
Brian

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 7:18 PM, Robert Rohde  wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Brian  wrote:
> > Hi Robert,
> >
> > I'm not sure I agree with you..
> >
> > (3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days
> >
> > That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a
> few
> > days. The only cost is bandwidth.
>
> While you might be correct, most connections are reported as megaBITS
> per second.  For example, AT&T's highest grade of residential DSL
> service is 6 Mbps, which would result in 46 day download.  Comcast
> goes up to 16 Mbps, which is 17 days.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
> ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 geni :
> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :

>>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial
>>> project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the
>>> motives behind this proposal.

>> I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the
>> victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of
>> Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc,

> What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general
> estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without really
> meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests?  Shaka's conquests?
> They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india.
> Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china.  Nanking Massacre.
>Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post independence
> Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff.


I submit that a wiki that could almost have been custom-designed to
attract the worst of the interminable ethnic arguments of en:wp would
have limited ability to produce educational content, but would be of
vast educational use for sociological study. I'm not sure that
*entirely* squares with the mission either.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
>
>> Oh, but we are, just by what we do. And the mass murders of the
>> twentieth
>> century would have made short work of us. In fact, in the last regime
>> controlled by them Wikipedia is blocked.
>
>
> Controlled by the Soviets, who I understand were the subject of the
> proposed wiki? I believe you have conflated two Communist
> dictatorships that hadn't been on particularly good terms since the
> 1960s.
>
>
> - d.
>

Hard to keep things straight isn't it when the object is to make a point.
I speak of Red China, still controlled by Mao's heirs.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

geni wrote:
> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
>>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>>> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
>>> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.
>> I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one
>> for the victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one
>> for the victims of Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc,
>>
>
> What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general
> estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without
> really meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests? Shaka's
> conquests?
>
> They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india.
> Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china.  Nanking
> Massacre. Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post
> independence Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff.
>
>
>
I agree.  I just don't think we have the resources to make this
technically plausible, aside from the political implications that I am
concerned with, as I have referenced.


Jon-
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Brian  wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> I'm not sure I agree with you..
>
> (3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days
>
> That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a few
> days. The only cost is bandwidth.

While you might be correct, most connections are reported as megaBITS
per second.  For example, AT&T's highest grade of residential DSL
service is 6 Mbps, which would result in 46 day download.  Comcast
goes up to 16 Mbps, which is 17 days.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[geni]

2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial
>> project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the
>> motives behind this proposal.
>
> I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the
> victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of
> Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc,
>

What about Carthage? What about the native Americans (general
estimates are we managed to kill off about 90% of them without really
meeting them)? An Shi Rebellion? Mongol Conquests?  Shaka's conquests?

They we get the political fun ones. The islamic invasion of india.
Arab slave trade. The Muslims killed of in china.  Nanking Massacre.
Anticommunist purge in Indonesia. The various post independence
Pakistan /India/Bangladesh stuff.



-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :

> Oh, but we are, just by what we do. And the mass murders of the twentieth
> century would have made short work of us. In fact, in the last regime
> controlled by them Wikipedia is blocked.


Controlled by the Soviets, who I understand were the subject of the
proposed wiki? I believe you have conflated two Communist
dictatorships that hadn't been on particularly good terms since the
1960s.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> I must agree with Mr Gerard, and taking that position, or any position
> by the Foundation is a road I don't want to see WMF go down.  I don't
> want WMF to alienate anyone... anyone.  The information must be free,
> and global.  For everyone.
>
> Please don't intrepet this message as my defending any group, I'm
> not.  I'm against oppression.  However, I don't think the WMF should
> be for or against anything, politically.
>
> Jon

Oh, but we are, just by what we do. And the mass murders of the twentieth
century would have made short work of us. In fact, in the last regime
controlled by them Wikipedia is blocked.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :
>
>> If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate.
>
>
> You mean, taking a particular political position? I don't see that
> in the mission.
>
>
> - d.
>
> ___ foundation-l
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I must agree with Mr Gerard, and taking that position, or any position
by the Foundation is a road I don't want to see WMF go down.  I don't
want WMF to alienate anyone... anyone.  The information must be free,
and global.  For everyone.

Please don't intrepet this message as my defending any group, I'm
not.  I'm against oppression.  However, I don't think the WMF should
be for or against anything, politically.

Jon
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial
> project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the
> motives behind this proposal.

I think half a dozen might do, one for the victims of Hitler, one for the
victims of Stalin, one for the victims of Pol Pot, one for the victims of
Mao, one for victims of the inquisition, etc,

We would not need to mess with small time killers like Osama bin Ladin.

Fred

> 
> From: Fred Bauder 

> I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into
> some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it
> because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position
> that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian
> repression, is to be repressed and not readily available.
>
> Fred Bauder



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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

Hi Robert,

I'm not sure I agree with you..

(3 terabytes / 10 megabytes) seconds in days = 3.64 days

That is, on my university connection I could download the dump in just a few
days. The only cost is bandwidth.

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:46 PM, Robert Rohde  wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Brian  wrote:
> > Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is
> > really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward:
> >
> > 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is
> > cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process
> > 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you
> on
> > a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge.
>
> I would estimate a complete, uncompressed enwiki dump in the present
> format at ~3 TB in size.  ruwiki, which has about 5% as many revisions
> as enwiki, has a 187 GB uncompressed dump.
>
> At 3 TB, virtually any mechanism of distributing an uncompressed dump
> would be very problematic.
>
> 7zip currently achieves greater than 99% size reduction.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :

> Each of the millions who were starved, imprisoned, tortured, or killed
> has a unique story. Each story is more significant and educational than a
> Wikipedia article on Hitler or Stalin.


The same applies to the Sep11 wiki. Why was that moved offsite?


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Fred Bauder :

> If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate.


You mean, taking a particular political position? I don't see that in
the mission.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

>>>
>>> The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
>>> people around the world to collect and develop educational
>>> content under a free license
>>>  or in the public
>>> domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
>>>
>>> The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement.
>>> The "Wikipedia article" on the tragedy would appear to better
>>> meet this mission statement, as opposed to a "memorial wiki".

>>
>> It would be quite educational.
>>
>> Fred


> Could you expand a bit more on that... in what way would it be more
> educational than say, the article?  In a very neutral, factual,
> referenced way?
>
> Jon

Each of the millions who were starved, imprisoned, tortured, or killed
has a unique story. Each story is more significant and educational than a
Wikipedia article on Hitler or Stalin.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:25, Jon wrote:
>>> I don't think it is something we should focus on.  Let us focus
>>> on our existing projects, perfect them.  Reference my earlier
>>> rationale.
>>
>> Given that these are all volunteer projects, those more interested
>> in improving existing projects will do so regardless.  This
>> provides an opportunity for those not inclined to work on those
>> projects (or more inclined to work on this one), to still have an
>> opportunity to help fulfill an essential part of the WMF's mission.
>>
>>
> I posit that the "memorial project" is not essential.  I think it
> would drain resources from our mission.
>
> Jon

If we stood for something, it might serve to invigorate.

Fred



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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Fred Bauder wrote:
>> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
 Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have
 a memorial project for all disasters.
>>> And what, in principle, is wrong with that?
>>>
>> Kurt, et al...
>>
>> In principle, it does not scale well.  I can understand a
>> Wikipedia article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial
>> project?
>>
>> The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
>> people around the world to collect and develop educational
>> content under a free license
>>  or in the public
>> domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
>>
>> The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement.
>> The "Wikipedia article" on the tragedy would appear to better
>> meet this mission statement, as opposed to a "memorial wiki".
>>
>> And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that.
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Jon
>
> It would be quite educational.
>
> Fred
>
>
> ___ foundation-l
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Could you expand a bit more on that... in what way would it be more
educational than say, the article?  In a very neutral, factual,
referenced way?

Jon
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote:
 Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
>> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.

 I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law
 is that it is not generally permitted to have a "political"
 purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any
 "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear to be anathema to a
 charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has
 used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be
 taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes
 the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely
 a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims,
 however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects
 might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put
 forward seems to militate against that construction.

>>>
>>> I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and
>>> telling their stories constitutes "taking partisan sides in
>>> political disputes."  It's educating people about the impact of
>>> these events, plain and simple. --
>>> Kurt Weber
>>> http://blog.kurtweber.us
>>> 
>
> That would be fine, up to a point. On the other hand, putting all that
> under
> a POV title within the WMF umbrealls is quite a different issue, and not
> one, I think, which would be palatable to the WMF, for reasons I've
> already
> outlined. Kurt, as you now should realise, politics at any level is a
> subtle
> and complex business, and my personal opinion is that you should stick to
> marching bands.

Please be respectful.

Fred



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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>>> memorial
>>> project for all disasters.
>>
>> And what, in principle, is wrong with that?
>>
>
> Kurt, et al...
>
> In principle, it does not scale well.  I can understand a Wikipedia
> article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial project?
>
> The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
> people around the world to collect and develop educational content
> under a free license  or
> in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
>
> The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement.  The
> "Wikipedia article" on the tragedy would appear to better meet this
> mission statement, as opposed to a "memorial wiki".
>
> And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that.
>
>
> Best,
>
> Jon

It would be quite educational.

Fred


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:25, Jon wrote:
>> I don't think it is something we should focus on.  Let us focus
>> on our existing projects, perfect them.  Reference my earlier
>> rationale.
>
> Given that these are all volunteer projects, those more interested
> in improving existing projects will do so regardless.  This
> provides an opportunity for those not inclined to work on those
> projects (or more inclined to work on this one), to still have an
> opportunity to help fulfill an essential part of the WMF's mission.
>
>
I posit that the "memorial project" is not essential.  I think it
would drain resources from our mission.

Jon
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Brian  wrote:
> Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is
> really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward:
>
> 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is
> cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process
> 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you on
> a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge.

I would estimate a complete, uncompressed enwiki dump in the present
format at ~3 TB in size.  ruwiki, which has about 5% as many revisions
as enwiki, has a 187 GB uncompressed dump.

At 3 TB, virtually any mechanism of distributing an uncompressed dump
would be very problematic.

7zip currently achieves greater than 99% size reduction.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Phil Nash]

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote:
>>> Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.
>>>
>>> I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law
>>> is that it is not generally permitted to have a "political"
>>> purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any
>>> "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear to be anathema to a
>>> charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has
>>> used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be
>>> taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes
>>> the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely
>>> a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims,
>>> however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects
>>> might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put
>>> forward seems to militate against that construction.
>>>
>>
>> I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and
>> telling their stories constitutes "taking partisan sides in
>> political disputes."  It's educating people about the impact of
>> these events, plain and simple. --
>> Kurt Weber
>> http://blog.kurtweber.us
>> 

That would be fine, up to a point. On the other hand, putting all that under 
a POV title within the WMF umbrealls is quite a different issue, and not 
one, I think, which would be palatable to the WMF, for reasons I've already 
outlined. Kurt, as you now should realise, politics at any level is a subtle 
and complex business, and my personal opinion is that you should stick to 
marching bands.



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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 19:25, Jon wrote:
>
> I don't think it is something we should focus on.  Let us focus on our
> existing projects, perfect them.  Reference my earlier rationale.

Given that these are all volunteer projects, those more interested in 
improving existing projects will do so regardless.  This provides an 
opportunity for those not inclined to work on those projects (or more 
inclined to work on this one), to still have an opportunity to help fulfill 
an essential part of the WMF's mission.

-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote:
>> Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
 Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have
 a memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in
 his concerns about the motives behind this proposal.
>> I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity
>> law is that it is not generally permitted to have a "political"
>> purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any
>> "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear to be anathema to a
>> charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations
>> has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to
>>  be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that
>> dilutes the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's
>> entirely a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the
>> victims, however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial
>> projects might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's
>> been put forward seems to militate against that construction.
>>
>
> I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and
> telling their stories constitutes "taking partisan sides in
> political disputes."  It's educating people about the impact of
> these events, plain and simple.
I don't think it is something we should focus on.  Let us focus on our
existing projects, perfect them.  Reference my earlier rationale.

Jon
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote:
> Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> >> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
> >> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
> >> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.
>
> I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that
> it is not generally permitted to have a "political" purpose, and certainly
> taking such a strong line on any "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear
> to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United
> Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to
> be taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the
> educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different
> issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to
> the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus.
> However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that
> construction.
>

I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and telling their 
stories constitutes "taking partisan sides in political disputes."  It's 
educating people about the impact of these events, plain and simple.
-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>> memorial project for all disasters.
>
> And what, in principle, is wrong with that?
>
I also want to mention by being outside of the mission statement, it
is outside the WMF scope.  I don't feel comfortable with the
foundation taking a political position also.

Jon
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Phil Nash]

Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
>> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.

I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law is that 
it is not generally permitted to have a "political" purpose, and certainly 
taking such a strong line on any "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear 
to be anathema to a charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United 
Nations has used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be 
taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes the 
educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely a different 
issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims, however, and I am open to 
the idea that such memorial projects might have that idea as a focus. 
However, the way it's been put forward seems to militate against that 
construction.

>>
>> 
>> From: Fred Bauder 
>> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>> 
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:12:25 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions
>> Memorial
>>
>>> 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler :
>>>
 A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be
 anything else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of
 memorials is biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims
 of Soviet Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi
 victims, victims of the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan
 Genocide, victims of various repression regimes in South-East Asia
 and China, victims in Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic
 etc. etc.
 No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for
 every "repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus,
 we had better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued
 and would argue that it is better to have "something" than
 "nothing", but in this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the
 merits of the proposal at all and of the propriety of the motives
 behind it)
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately.
>>> Generic hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki
>>> out the box. The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap
>>> hosting would do for a start.
>>>
>>> See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
>>> project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.
>>>
>>> Although started with a strong POV, such a project could
>>> nevertheless accumulate material of high quality historical and
>>> scholarly interest.
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>
>> I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into
>> some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should
>> host it
>> because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the
>> position
>> that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian
>> repression, is to be repressed and not readily available.
>>
>> Fred Bauder
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial
>> project for all disasters.
>
> And what, in principle, is wrong with that?
>

Kurt, et al...

In principle, it does not scale well.  I can understand a Wikipedia
article on an event (disaster)... but a memorial project?

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
people around the world to collect and develop educational content
under a free license  or
in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

The memorial project does not appear to meet the above statement.  The
"Wikipedia article" on the tragedy would appear to better meet this
mission statement, as opposed to a "memorial wiki".

And that my friend, is what, in principle, is wrong with that.


Best,

Jon
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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=/sfR
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[David Gerard]

2008/12/25 Erik Zachte :

> Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump is
> the main bottleneck.
> Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major resource
> drain.
> Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider
> platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads).
> This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on
> major platforms over the years.
> Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error
> recovery.


7zip is readily available as free software for Unixlike platforms,
though it's pretty much never installed by default.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:12, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial
> project for all disasters.

And what, in principle, is wrong with that?

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Geoffrey Plourde]

Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a memorial 
project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his concerns about the motives 
behind this proposal. 





From: Fred Bauder 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List 
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

> 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler :
>
>> A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything
>> else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is
>> biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet
>> Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of
>> the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of
>> various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in
>> Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc.
>> No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every
>> "repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had
>> better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued and would
>> argue that it is better to have "something" than "nothing", but in
>> this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal
>> at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it)
>
>
> Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic
> hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box.
> The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would
> do for a start.
>
> See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
> project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.
>
> Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless
> accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest.
>
>
> - d.

I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into
some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it
because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position
that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian
repression, is to be repressed and not readily available.

Fred Bauder



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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

Also, I wonder if these folks have been consulted for their expertise in
compressing wikipedia data: http://prize.hutter1.net/

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Brian  wrote:

> Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is
> really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward:
>
> 1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is
> cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process
> 2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you
> on a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Erik Zachte wrote:
>
>> Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump
>> is
>> the main bottleneck.
>>
>> Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major
>> resource
>> drain.
>> Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider
>> platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads).
>> This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on
>> major platforms over the years.
>> Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error
>> recovery.
>>
>> Erik Zachte
>>
>> 
>>
>> I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes
>> to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at
>> mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case:
>>
>> 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data
>> in, we cannot get it all back out.
>> 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct
>> hardware has still not been purchased.
>>
>> I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Brian
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> (Not sent from my iPhone)
>



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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

Interesting. I realize that the dump is extremely large, but if 7zip is
really the bottleneck then to me the solutions are straightforward:

1. Offer an uncompressed version of the dump for download. Bandwidth is
cheap and downloads can be resumed, unlike this dump process
2. The WMF offers a service whereby the mail the uncompressed dump to you on
a hard drive. You pay for the drive and a service charge.

Cheers,


On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Erik Zachte wrote:

> Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump
> is
> the main bottleneck.
>
> Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major
> resource
> drain.
> Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider
> platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads).
> This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on
> major platforms over the years.
> Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error
> recovery.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
> 
>
> I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes
> to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at
> mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case:
>
> 1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data
> in, we cannot get it all back out.
> 2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct
> hardware has still not been purchased.
>
> I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ?
>
> Cheers,
> Brian
>
>
>
>
> ___
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[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Erik Zachte]

Hi Brian, Brion once explained to me that the post processing of the dump is
the main bottleneck. 

Compressing articles with tens of thousands of revisions is a major resource
drain.
Right now every dump is even compressed twice, into bzip2 (for wider
platform compatibility) and 7zip format (for 20 times smaller downloads).
This may no longer be needed as 7zip presumably gained better support on
major platforms over the years.
Apart from that the job could gain from parallelization and better error
recovery.

Erik Zachte



I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes
to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at
mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case:

1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data
in, we cannot get it all back out.
2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct
hardware has still not been purchased.

I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ?

Cheers,
Brian




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[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Erik Zachte]

John:
> For the "Page Views" data on some projects, the May data 
> looks unusually lower than the June data; 
> could it be that the May data isn't
> a complete month for some projects?

Yes, that is indeed the case. I will omit the incomplete month on subsequent
reports. 

Erik Zachte





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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Jon]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Thank you Erik!

Erik Zachte wrote:
> New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
> May 2008. The reports have been  generated on the new wikistats server
> ‘Bayes’, which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process
itself had
> been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+
> wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now
> on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
> processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
> results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
> will be published.
>
> Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/
>
> Happy holidays everyone.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
>
>
> ___
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-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAklSxlMACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtWCZACdEbLR7W/nU5Q9hmgR9BYcziB3
HtYAoIKTbslx9ooSFOvyFbH671DyEaOM
=tGOu
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Brian]

Nice work Erik!

I am still quite shocked at the amount of time the english wikipedia takes
to dump, especially since we seem to have close links to folks who work at
mysql. To me it seems that one of two things must be the case:

1. Wikipedia has outgrown mysql, in the sense that, while we can put data
in, we cannot get it all back out.
2. Despite aggressive hardware purchases over the years, the correct
hardware has still not been purchased.

I wonder which of these is the case. Presumably #2 ?

Cheers,
Brian

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Erik Zachte wrote:

> New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
> May 2008. The reports have been  generated on the new wikistats server
> 'Bayes', which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself
> had
> been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+
> wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now
> on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
> processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
> results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
> will be published.
>
> Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/
>
> Happy holidays everyone.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[John Vandenberg]

Thank you Erik!

For the "Page Views" data on some projects, the May data looks
unusually lower than the June data; could it be that the May data isnt
a complete month for some projects?

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikiquote/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikinews/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm

--
John

On 12/25/08, Erik Zachte  wrote:
> New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
> May 2008. The reports have been  generated on the new wikistats server
> 'Bayes', which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had
> been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+
> wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now
> on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
> processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
> results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
> will be published.
>
> Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/
>
> Happy holidays everyone.
>
> Erik Zachte
>
>
>
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[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back

[Erik Zachte]

New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
May 2008. The reports have been  generated on the new wikistats server
‘Bayes’, which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had
been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+
wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now
on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
will be published.

Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/

Happy holidays everyone.

Erik Zachte



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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Fred Bauder]

> 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler :
>
>> A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything
>> else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is
>> biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet
>> Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of
>> the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of
>> various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in
>> Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc.
>> No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every
>> "repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had
>> better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued and would
>> argue that it is better to have "something" than "nothing", but in
>> this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal
>> at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it)
>
>
> Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic
> hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box.
> The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would
> do for a start.
>
> See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
> project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.
>
> Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless
> accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest.
>
>
> - d.

I support this project, and don't think it should get pushed off into
some obscure corner of the internet. We should host it. We should host it
because we stand against totalitarian repression; and reject the position
that some knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of totalitarian
repression, is to be repressed and not readily available.

Fred Bauder



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Re: [Foundation-l] Europeana

[Nemo_bis]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, 24/12/2008 21:12:
> Interesting material, definitely. But PD; I think not...
Europeana is only a portal and metadata search engine: content is 
actually in other sites (e.g.: 
http://www.photo.rmn.fr/cf/htm/CPicZ.aspx?E=2C6NU045OU4Q), which terms 
of use is relevant only.

Nemo

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Re: [Foundation-l] Europeana

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) is working again. I think that it
> has a lot of useful (PD) materials.
>
>   

Interesting material, definitely. But PD; I think not...


http://www.europeana.eu/portal/termsofservice.html


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] CC licensing implemented for the ABS

[David Gerard]

w00t!

Perhaps we can do a data dump of .au localities as well to be combed
through by en:wp editors ...

(no, NOT making rambot articles automatically, human consideration ;-)


- d.



-- Forwarded message --
From: Jessica Coates 
Date: 2008/12/23
Subject: [Wikimediaau-l] CC licensing implemented for the ABS
To: "cc...@lists.ibiblio.org" ,
"cc-commun...@lists.ibiblio.org" ,
"cc...@lists.ibiblio.org" ,
"c...@lists.ibiblio.org" ,
"asia-comm...@googlegroups.org" ,
"wikimediaa...@lists.wikimedia.org"



Those following the post a few weeks ago about the announcement by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics that they were going to release their
material under a Creative Commons licence will be pleased to know that
it's happened.

All content on the ABS website (other than logos and other trade
marked content) is now marked as CC BY - including all census data,
economy data, fact sheets, analysis, press releases etc.

Hopefully this will just be the start of a general move towards open
access by the Australian public sector.

For more information see http://creativecommons.org.au/node/207
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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[mbimmler]

On 12/24/08, David Gerard  wrote:
> 2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler :
>
>> A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything
>> else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is
>> biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet
>> Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of
>> the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of
>> various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in
>> Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc.
>> No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every
>> "repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had
>> better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued and would
>> argue that it is better to have "something" than "nothing", but in
>> this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal
>> at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it)
>
>
> Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic
> hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box.
> The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would
> do for a start.
>
> See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
> project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.
>
> Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless
> accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest.
>

Oh, surely. There are also genuine academic projects 'off-wiki' that
have such aims - it just doesn't fit with my personal vision of the
Wikimedia Foundation.


>
> - d.
>
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-- 
Michael Bimmler
mbimm...@gmail.com

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 11:02, David Gerard wrote:
>
> Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic
> hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box.
> The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would
> do for a start.
>
> See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
> project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.
>
> Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless
> accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest.


I still don't see how it's outside the WMF's scope, nor do I see how 
presenting a strong POV is necessarily bad.

The WMF's mission is essentially educational, correct?  And I submit that to 
be truly educated about such an event as this, one needs to see perhaps a 
more emotional presentation, to truly understand what it actually did to 
people.

One would not say that the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., is 
non-educational, though it presents a strong POV and is focused more on 
presenting the human effects of the Holocaust than simple factual 
information.  This is basically the same thing.  It fulfills an essential 
part of the Foundation's educational mission that to now has been neglected.

-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] Europeana

[David Gerard]

2008/12/24 Milos Rancic :

> Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) is working again. I think that it
> has a lot of useful (PD) materials.


Looks like it *could* be an interesting project. Any pointers to good
places to start looking?


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[David Gerard]

2008/12/24 Michael Bimmler :

> A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything
> else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is
> biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet
> Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of
> the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of
> various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in
> Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc.
> No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every
> "repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had
> better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued and would
> argue that it is better to have "something" than "nothing", but in
> this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal
> at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it)


Yes. However, it could be a valuable wiki to create privately. Generic
hosting is (a) really cheap (b) often includes MediaWiki out the box.
The wiki is unlikely to be vastly overloaded, so cheap hosting would
do for a start.

See http://www.sep11memories.org/wiki/In_Memoriam for a memorial
project for victims of the World Trade Center attack, for example.

Although started with a strong POV, such a project could nevertheless
accumulate material of high quality historical and scholarly interest.


- d.

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Given that some of our Betawiki localisers have not provided us with their
e-mail address and given that this is an open call to contribute to our end
of your localisation effort, I forward this mail to you all.

Help us to end 2008 with a bang and in the process you can help yourself or
the Wikimedia Foundation to some bucks..
Thanks and happy holidays,
   GerardM

-- Forwarded message --
From: Siebrand Mazeland
Date: 2008/12/24
Subject: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings
To: mediawiki-i...@lists.wikimedia.org, translator...@lists.wikimedia.org


Dear translators, developers, and other subscribers,

As Betawiki staff we would like to thank you very much for your continued
support making MediaWiki projects succeed, and hope on good health for you
and your loved ones, and your continued contributions for 2009.

End of December 2007 Siebrand formulated localisation goals for MediaWiki
For 2008[1]. They were ambitious. Really ambitious, and it looks like the
four goals that were set are not going to be met. However, us Betawiki staff
do not give up without a fight. There is still one more week left before the
year ends, and because of that we would like to give you an incentive.

== 1,000 Euro bounty ==
Together with Stichting Open Progress[2] we are able to make available 1,000
Euro, to be divided between all translators that will make 500 or more new
translations for MediaWiki or its extensions before the end of the year. In
the past week there have been 5 users that made more than 500 translations,
so that is quite an incentive, we think! If you are eligible to claim your
share of the bounty, please do that at the designated page[3]. Please note
if you would like to receive your cut, have us donate it to the Wikimedia
Foundation on your behalf, or if you do not claim it, in which case
Stichting Open Progress will repurpose it.

We wish you happy and productive holidays and hope to see you (re)visit
Betawiki often!

Betawiki Staff[4]

[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html
[2] http://openprogress.org/Stichting_Open_Progress
[3] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project/500claim
[4] http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=staff


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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Michael Bimmler]

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 4:42 PM, Kurt Maxwell Weber
 wrote:
> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 03:10, Delirium wrote:
>> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>> > I have submitted a new project proposal, at
>> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Soviet_Repressions_Memorial
>>
>> Isn't this the sort of thing we've been in the business of slowly
>> getting out of, with the move offsite of the September 11 memorial wiki?
>> The consensus from that move seemed to be that notable victims of the
>> September 11 attacks get an article on the regular encyclopedia projects
>> (what constitutes "notable" being a different debate), and non-notable
>> ones are either redirects to a larger article discussing them or not
>> there at all, but that in either case we shouldn't be in the business of
>> hosting victim memorials.
>
> In the proposal, I make my case as to how this is essential to fulfilling the
> mission of the Wikimedia Foundation.

I'm sorry, but I stopped reading at "Understanding the destructive
effects of the most vile, most tyrannical, most despotic, most
murderous, and most capricious regime in human history necessitates
putting a "human face" on its victims."

A project which is motivated in such a way cannot possibly be anything
else than biased...and indeed, the very concept of memorials is
biased: Why should we have a memorial of the victims of Soviet
Repression, when we don't have a memorial of Nazi victims, victims of
the Armenian Genocide, victim of the Rwandan Genocide, victims of
various repression regimes in South-East Asia and China, victims in
Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic etc. etc.

No one can sensibly suggest that we can have memorial sites for every
"repression" (in lack of a better word) in history and thus, we had
better none, in my opinion.  (Yes, in other cases I argued and would
argue that it is better to have "something" than "nothing", but in
this case, I'm afraid I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal
at all and of the propriety of the motives behind it)

MIchael



-- 
Michael Bimmler
mbimm...@gmail.com

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Wednesday 24 December 2008 03:10, Delirium wrote:
> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> > I have submitted a new project proposal, at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Soviet_Repressions_Memorial
>
> Isn't this the sort of thing we've been in the business of slowly
> getting out of, with the move offsite of the September 11 memorial wiki?
> The consensus from that move seemed to be that notable victims of the
> September 11 attacks get an article on the regular encyclopedia projects
> (what constitutes "notable" being a different debate), and non-notable
> ones are either redirects to a larger article discussing them or not
> there at all, but that in either case we shouldn't be in the business of
> hosting victim memorials.

In the proposal, I make my case as to how this is essential to fulfilling the 
mission of the Wikimedia Foundation.

-- 
Kurt Weber
http://blog.kurtweber.us


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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal

[David Gerard]

2008/12/24 Robert Rohde :

> So, if not visibility, then what is really going on.  In my opinion,
> if you want someone to read something, personalizing it is a very good
> idea.  I think describing it as a personal message and putting a face
> to it, provides engagement and gets people to pay attention.  That
> Jimbo has excellent name recognition helps (if it were Sue or Michael
> Snow, for example, I don't think it would do as well).


Jimbo applying his rock star factor is one of his most useful jobs for WMF :-)


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] The new iteration

[KillerChihuahua]

If the list is dead, it is because there is nothing to discuss at this 
time. This isn't a forum. Someone will bring a new topic in as 
appropriate, which is far preferable to trying to keep this list active 
and clog our inboxes with less relevant discussions, surely?

Milos Rancic wrote:
> Anybody alive?
>
> The iteration goes like:
> * I start to talk about low activity on the list.
> * Erik mentions that new step toward license migration has been happened.
> * Others get some idea to talk about.
> * The new iteration of discussion begins.
>
> So, let's try: This list became dead once again!
>
>
>   

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal

[Robert Rohde]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> Within the last 24 hours, we've raised a total of $283,859. That's
> more than 10 times as much as we made during a typical weekday in the
> last few days of the fundraiser, and the single highest day on record
> for community gifts. We don't know yet how steep the inevitable
> drop-off will be, but it's obvious that the appeal is working beyond
> everyone's expectations.
>
> I think it's worth noting that this tenfold increase has been possible
> without the use of additional pixel real estate, without scrolling
> marquees,  interstitials, or other serious interruptions of the
> Wikipedia reader/editor experience. All it took were less than 60
> characters of text on each page in a highly visible font, linking to a
> personal appeal that makes our case in more detail.
>
> We should ask ourselves why it is that based on the previous
> sitenotices, 9 in 10 people who would be clearly willing to give to
> us, did not do so. There seem to be at least three principal reasons
> for that:
>
> * The previous messages were below the visibility threshold for most
> people: They considered them to be an unimportant part of the page
> that should be ignored.
>
> * The previous messages did not, clearly enough, make a case for
> giving. They appealed to people who instantly "get" the non-profit
> donation model, but not to those for whom Wikipedia is essentially the
> same as any other website. The appeal directly addresses this
> distinction, to the satisfaction of a great number of people.
>
> * Because it's a personal appeal, rather than an impersonal donation
> message, the letter seems more likely to resonate with people.


I would opine that points 2 and 3 are the core characteristics, with 2
somewhat ahead of 3.  Most of the banners are quite visible, and so I
think 1 is negligible factor.  Or perhaps more directly, I think most
of the banners are visible to the point that people notice them, but
after reading them many fail to care about that message they offer.
For example, both the donation bar and the scales graphic starkly
standout on the page, and yet they are no where near as successful.
(I also suspect that the ability to extract gains by making the
message more visibile has already been saturated, and one could
probably reduce the height of the banner by 1/3 or so with little
marginal change in the response rate.)

So, if not visibility, then what is really going on.  In my opinion,
if you want someone to read something, personalizing it is a very good
idea.  I think describing it as a personal message and putting a face
to it, provides engagement and gets people to pay attention.  That
Jimbo has excellent name recognition helps (if it were Sue or Michael
Snow, for example, I don't think it would do as well).

But ultimately, once one captures eyeballs, I think the biggest factor
in getting people to hit the big red button is message.  We tend to
forget that among the 100s of millions of people that occasionally use
Wikipedia, a substantial fraction don't really understand our
operation or our goals.  Saying "we are a non-profit" or a similar
banner-sized message doesn't capture who we are in the way the longer
text can.  I suspect that simply providing the larger community with
more information about what-the-hell-Wikipedia-is goes a long way to
encouraging donations.  It also suggests that the current donations
landing page could probably be improved by providing more of that
information.

If I am right that the new message captures a larger number of people
with only a casual familiarity with Wikipedia, then one might also
guess that the donations early in the drive tended to come more from
hard-core Wiki supporters who were already well acquainted with who we
are and how we work.

-Robert Rohde

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal

[toddmallen]

It works and isn't terribly invasive, and realistically financial difficulty 
will find sympathy right now. I think it's brilliant.

-Original Message-

From:  "Erik Moeller" 
Subj:  Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
Date:  Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:00 pm
Size:  3K
To:  "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 

2008/12/23 effe iets anders :
> Up to now, I kinda liked the fundraiser. Although they are very shouty for
> what I'm used to (I dislike the red button for instance and the somewhat
> agressive tone), I think this last change in message could use a *little*
> step back. Please use a slightly smaller font, an slightly less shouty text.
> To me it really reads like " wow, now we're really desperate, PLEASE COME
> READ THIS ** APPEAL". I would really appreciate it if this last banner would
> be done a little less in a way that comes to me (justified or not) as
> "typical American"...

Within the last 24 hours, we've raised a total of $283,859. That's
more than 10 times as much as we made during a typical weekday in the
last few days of the fundraiser, and the single highest day on record
for community gifts. We don't know yet how steep the inevitable
drop-off will be, but it's obvious that the appeal is working beyond
everyone's expectations.

I think it's worth noting that this tenfold increase has been possible
without the use of additional pixel real estate, without scrolling
marquees,  interstitials, or other serious interruptions of the
Wikipedia reader/editor experience. All it took were less than 60
characters of text on each page in a highly visible font, linking to a
personal appeal that makes our case in more detail.

We should ask ourselves why it is that based on the previous
sitenotices, 9 in 10 people who would be clearly willing to give to
us, did not do so. There seem to be at least three principal reasons
for that:

* The previous messages were below the visibility threshold for most
people: They considered them to be an unimportant part of the page
that should be ignored.

* The previous messages did not, clearly enough, make a case for
giving. They appealed to people who instantly "get" the non-profit
donation model, but not to those for whom Wikipedia is essentially the
same as any other website. The appeal directly addresses this
distinction, to the satisfaction of a great number of people.

* Because it's a personal appeal, rather than an impersonal donation
message, the letter seems more likely to resonate with people.

Regardless of how the numbers will hold up, it's clear that these are
important lessons to take away: The appeal, compared to some of our
other site-notices, was trivial to implement. It's more important to
communicate clearly and in a personal manner what we're trying to do
than to focus on widgets & designs.

Yes, more so than before, this appeal communicates a sense of urgency.
As it should: We still have a revenue gap of $1.75M to just cover our
expenses for the fiscal year (let alone increase our reserve). We're
in the middle of the worst financial crisis in our lifetime; companies
are failing or laying off staff around us. If people's reaction is "I
don't want Wikipedia to go away - I better donate", that's not a bad
thing.

Obviously we should try to work out any remaining display glitches.
And I'm sure over time we'll find a "happy medium" when it comes to
aspects like font size, color, etc. But more importantly, we should
try to translate this appeal into as many languages as possible, as
it's currently just running in the English language wikis.
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Delirium]

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> I have submitted a new project proposal, at 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Soviet_Repressions_Memorial
>   
Isn't this the sort of thing we've been in the business of slowly 
getting out of, with the move offsite of the September 11 memorial wiki? 
The consensus from that move seemed to be that notable victims of the 
September 11 attacks get an article on the regular encyclopedia projects 
(what constitutes "notable" being a different debate), and non-notable 
ones are either redirects to a larger article discussing them or not 
there at all, but that in either case we shouldn't be in the business of 
hosting victim memorials.

-Mark


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Re: [Foundation-l] 2008 Annual Fundraiser - Going into Phas e 2

[Delirium]

Casey Brown wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:57 PM, effe iets anders
>  wrote:
>   
>> Hm, btw, where was again that list with all incoming donations?
>>
>> Lodewijk
>>
>> 
>
> There are many statistics pages, see the "Contributions/Fundraiser"
> section on .
>   

This is somewhat of a tangent, but from there I find 
Special:ContributionStatistics, which seems to have some wonky stats in 
its Currency Totals table. It says that the largest donation in any 
currency was 5,000 USD, donated in USD. But the Monthly Totals table 
shows lots over that, up to $262,000. The Currency Totals table also 
shows a $740.64 average USD contribution, but if you divide its total by 
its number of contributions, you get a more plausible $48.57 instead.

-Mark


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