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Too many random test wikis

 

 

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nemowiki at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 12:28 AM

Post #1 of 9 (166 views)
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Too many random test wikis

Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss
about our test wikis.
I see the following problems:
* No inventory of test wikis exist. There are many and they don't follow
any pattern or rule of sort (see appendix).
* It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're
permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also
open to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds
("let's see how sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request
one (example real use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to
Finnish before deploy on fi.wiki").
* As a result, valuable content and activities are either misplaced and
not performed effectively (or at all), or lost forever in the end.

An example of the latter, which seems the worst problem:
https://www.mediawiki.org/?oldid=499749#Feature_requests references a
feedback page that got deleted in the meanwhile. The future of
<http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Problem_reports> is unclear
and the page overlaps with other wikis' purposes, in particular it
should be on a permanent wiki and moved to mediawiki.org if only meant
for developers/technical users or to
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problem_reports> if it has the
Wikimedia projects' users as audience.

I think that we should work on some sort of general policy for test
wikis (very simple) to divide them in categories, avoid fragmentation
and ensure we empower people to do all they need. The permanent test
wikis at least should be easily discoverable from a central place (I've
heard of a Wikimedia Labs automatical home page with index, but we need
to focus on what's most urgent).
In the meanwhile, it doesn't harm if each of us adds the (current or
past) test wikis they remembers to this section I created:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Test_wikis

Nemo

== Appendix ==
Examples of wikis follow (far from comprehensive):
* Main ones are https://test.wikipedia.org , https://test2.wikipedia.org
* Now we have http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ and all the
related wikis in the form http://af.wiktionary.beta.wmflabs.org but
they're not accessible from anywhere, nor explained clearly, nor have an
index or any navigation tool.
** Used to be deployment.wmflabs.org
** The situation will get worse with subdomains not following any clear
rule like http://education.wmflabs.org
* Several Labs wikis have been important for a while, now locked for
unclear reasons and with an even more unclear future.
** http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/
** http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/
** http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/
** http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org/ (deleted)
* A bunch of prototype wikis exist or has existed at some point.
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/release-en/Main_Page
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/deployment-en and so on
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org and so on
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs-en and so on
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevsde/Hauptseite
** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.6/Main_Page
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.3/Main_Page and so on
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page
** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/uwd
** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/

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p858snake at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 1:33 AM

Post #2 of 9 (154 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

* labs.wikimedia are the old old old labs/test projects, These are no
longer (and any that still wanted -> wmflabs)
* prototype.wikimedia are oldish test setups, and most should be moved
to wmflabs if still wanted
*.wmflabs.org are instances hosted on our Labs setup[1] which is our
virtuazlization cluster/project that Ryan setup, Which houses more
than just test wikis (Think Toolserver, but yes, with test wikis as
well).

[1]. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs

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benapetr at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 1:53 AM

Post #3 of 9 (163 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

In fact most of the old test wikis are going to be replaced by wmflabs
wikis. I don't know which rules you want to set. These are test wikis
and people are supposed to do tests there. I see no need for any
rules.

All test wikis we have which can be accessed are of course useable by
regular users, non developers. The deployment site is even recommended
to be used by wikimedia users who are developing gadgets and such so
that they can test they are going to work in future on production. The
deployment site is something like a mirror of production running
software we are going to use there in future, while test.wikipedia.org
is production like setup which isn't running any new software, but is
only supposed to be used as last place to test changes, configuration
and sw updates before it's pushed to other sites (in fact it's mostly
running same software as other sites), there is no unstable software
on test.wikipedia for security reasons.

The deployment site is purposefully separated from production so that
it's safe to run unstable and insecure software there (any unreviewed
revision might be insecure).

The labs.wikimedia.org sites are likely going to be closed and
replaced by wmflabs projects in future just as many of them already
was. (Any testing project is not supposed to be hosted on production
cluster, excepting test.wikimedia which isn't really testing software
but running production stable version)

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 10:33 AM, K. Peachey <p858snake [at] gmail> wrote:
> * labs.wikimedia are the old old old labs/test projects, These are no
> longer (and any that still wanted -> wmflabs)
> * prototype.wikimedia are oldish test setups, and most should be moved
> to wmflabs if still wanted
> *.wmflabs.org are instances hosted on our Labs setup[1] which is our
> virtuazlization cluster/project that Ryan setup, Which houses more
> than just test wikis (Think Toolserver, but yes, with test wikis as
> well).
>
> [1]. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l [at] lists
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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rlane32 at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 3:27 AM

Post #4 of 9 (150 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 12:28 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<nemowiki [at] gmail> wrote:
> Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss
> about our test wikis.
> I see the following problems:
> * No inventory of test wikis exist. There are many and they don't follow any
> pattern or rule of sort (see appendix).
> * It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're
> permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also open
> to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds ("let's see how
> sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request one (example real
> use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to Finnish before deploy on
> fi.wiki").
> * As a result, valuable content and activities are either misplaced and not
> performed effectively (or at all), or lost forever in the end.
>
> An example of the latter, which seems the worst problem:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/?oldid=499749#Feature_requests references a
> feedback page that got deleted in the meanwhile. The future of
> <http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Problem_reports> is unclear and
> the page overlaps with other wikis' purposes, in particular it should be on
> a permanent wiki and moved to mediawiki.org if only meant for
> developers/technical users or to
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Problem_reports> if it has the Wikimedia
> projects' users as audience.
>
> I think that we should work on some sort of general policy for test wikis
> (very simple) to divide them in categories, avoid fragmentation and ensure
> we empower people to do all they need. The permanent test wikis at least
> should be easily discoverable from a central place (I've heard of a
> Wikimedia Labs automatical home page with index, but we need to focus on
> what's most urgent).
> In the meanwhile, it doesn't harm if each of us adds the (current or past)
> test wikis they remembers to this section I created:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Test_wikis
>
> Nemo
>
> == Appendix ==
> Examples of wikis follow (far from comprehensive):
> * Main ones are https://test.wikipedia.org , https://test2.wikipedia.org

These wikis are in the production cluster. They are meant as a final
test before code is fully launched in production. These wikis are as
close to production as possible. test.wikipedia.org runs from NFS and
is pre-deployment. test2.wikipedia.org is deployed in a similar way to
the rest of the cluster.

> * Now we have http://labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ and all the related
> wikis in the form http://af.wiktionary.beta.wmflabs.org but they're not
> accessible from anywhere, nor explained clearly, nor have an index or any
> navigation tool.
> ** Used to be deployment.wmflabs.org

Well, no. It used to be labs.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org and is now
deployment.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org. Labs was a confusing name. Labs
is the infrastructure supporting beta. Beta is meant to be a clone of
production that hosts wikis in a similar manner. It's meant to be an
environment close to production that can be used pre-production
(meaning before it hits test or test2).

> ** The situation will get worse with subdomains not following any clear rule
> like http://education.wmflabs.org

So, we're looking at models for handling stuff like this...

Education is a project that isn't ready for production. It's in
initial development. It needs to be demo'd publicly though. Because of
that, we give it a public IP address and a domain name.

Just because it's in labs doesn't mean it's about to go into
production. Labs is meant to prototype a *lot* of experimental things.
When extensions get closer to being production ready, the current
concept is that it'll move into beta to test functionality in a more
production like environment.

> * Several Labs wikis have been important for a while, now locked for unclear
> reasons and with an even more unclear future.
> ** http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/
> ** http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/
> ** http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/
> ** http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org/ (deleted)
> * A bunch of prototype wikis exist or has existed at some point.
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/release-en/Main_Page
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/deployment-en and so on
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org and so on
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs-en and so on
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevsde/Hauptseite
> ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.6/Main_Page
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/sandbox.3/Main_Page  and so on
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page
> ** http://commons.prototype.wikimedia.org/uwd
> ** http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/
>

All of these are going away. <something>.labs.wikimedia.org have
already been closed. I'd *love* to delete them permanently, but we
have no reasonable means of doing so in the production cluster.

All of the prototypes are going to go away soon. Beta is the
replacement for prototype.

- Ryan

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p858snake at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 4:06 AM

Post #5 of 9 (149 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Ryan Lane <rlane32 [at] gmail> wrote:
> All of these are going away. <something>.labs.wikimedia.org have
> already been closed. I'd *love* to delete them permanently, but we
> have no reasonable means of doing so in the production cluster.

We have done it before, But that was a private wiki (one of the
strategic ones I think)…

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helder.wiki at gmail

Apr 7, 2012, 5:38 AM

Post #6 of 9 (151 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 04:28, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki [at] gmail> wrote:
> * It's unclear what purpose those wikis have, in particular: if they're
> permanent, or going to be deleted; if used only by developers or also open
> to generic testing by users or even as sandboxes/playgrounds ("let's see how
> sysop tools are"); when and how it's possible to request one (example real
> use case: "test the translation of FlaggedRevs to Finnish before deploy on
> fi.wiki").

Indeed. See also:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/28/beta-cluster-test-software-before-deployment/#comments

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sumanah at wikimedia

Apr 7, 2012, 6:16 AM

Post #7 of 9 (149 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

On 04/07/2012 03:28 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
> Now that 1.19 deploy has been completed, it seems a good idea to discuss
> about our test wikis.

Federico did this survey and mentioned it to me, and I asked him to put
it somewhere public. So now we have a list of all the test wikis that
we know about, so we can make sure to manage them all appropriately
(even if that means shutting most of them down, first telling all their
users what their new test wiki will be). Thanks for your research,
Federico! I really appreciate it.

--
Sumana Harihareswara
Volunteer Development Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation

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nemowiki at gmail

Apr 15, 2012, 4:51 PM

Post #8 of 9 (135 views)
Permalink
Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

Just in case someone thinks otherwise, none of my doubts has been
addressed. The point is what Helder stressed, and a lot of work is
needed to reduce confusion.

Nemo

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benapetr at gmail

Apr 16, 2012, 12:24 AM

Post #9 of 9 (141 views)
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Re: Too many random test wikis [In reply to]

I made [[mediawiki:Test_wikis]] feel free to improve it and link to
that page from everywhere possible where people might be looking for
this

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<nemowiki [at] gmail> wrote:
> Just in case someone thinks otherwise, none of my doubts has been addressed.
> The point is what Helder stressed, and a lot of work is needed to reduce
> confusion.
>
> Nemo
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l [at] lists
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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