subject: [Wikitech-l] A thought on the shopping process

body:
To whatever extent possible, I'd like to buy a large number of general
purpose boxen that can be reasonably pressed into service for a
variety of configurations, rather than trying to overspecify what we
are going to do and buy machines that are highly specific to those
purposes.

My thinking is that we will be needing N general boxen to do load
balancing/squid/apache and then also email and dns on separate
machines too I think, and 2 specialized boxes to be database servers.
We have one very good machine (when it's fixed!)  to be our database
server.  We will want another one that's not quite as expensive but
which would be reasonably capable of serving as a backup unit.  If the
general profile that we are buying is capable of doing that, then
great.  If not, then at least one machine is going to have to be
special.

Does that sound sensible?

--Jimbo


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] registering Wikipedia as a trademark

body:
First I wanted to name this thread "How to spend the money", but I guess
  it's better to open Pandora's box bit by bit.

So what about registering Wikipedia (and also Wikimedia?) as a
trademark? I think we can afford it now, and I also think it's important
enough to do it. But in which countries? Maybe in those where the
languages of the biggest five or ten Wikipedias are spoken?

If there is no reaction I consider this as approval and will organize
the registration for Germany. It costs 300 Euro and lasts for 10 years.

Kurt


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
One last thought...

Jens Frank wrote:
> 1 CPU at about 2GHz
> 2 GB RAM
> 2*36G 15kRPM SCSI Disks
> Remote controller (rILO, eRIC) for remote "lights out" management
> 1 Unit rack mountable
> redundant power supply

Jens priced this configuration at $4000.  I was able to replicate the
same performance configuration for $2500 or less.  I think that for
$2000, or half the price, I could match the performance of the box he
describes.

However, my proposal does not include either remote controllers nor
redundant power supplies.  Here is my thinking, please think with me
if this is right or not.

1.  If my server costs $2000, and Jens costs $4000, then I don't need
redundant power supplies since I have redundant *servers*.  With only
a little bit of work to make sure that dead machines are taken out of
service, we have a lot more capacity for the same money.

2.  A remote controller would be sweet in our current facility.  But
we are going to move to a facility with the following features -- (1)
24 hour a day remote "hands on" service (2) geographically close to me
and my employees so that we can physically drive over (more on this
later today or tomorrow after I tour one more facility).

--Jimbo


from_name: Constans, Camille (C.C.)

body:
On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 10:34, Delirium wrote:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

>> So what about registering Wikipedia (and also Wikimedia?) as a
>> trademark? I think we can afford it now, and I also think it's
>> important enough to do it. But in which countries? Maybe in those
>> where the languages of the biggest five or ten Wikipedias are spoken?
>>
>> If there is no reaction I consider this as approval and will organize
>> the registration for Germany. It costs 300 Euro and lasts for 10 years.

>Just as a datapoint. In Finland trademarks registered within the European
>Union can register internet domains (private individuals can not yet do
>so, though the registration is about to liberalize somewhat soon), and
>are protected against cybersquatters claiming the selfsame domain, at
>least in some circumstances.

>Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)

Same in France, you can register .fr if you own the trademark. (the same european trademark)

Shaihulud


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Jan 8, 2004, at 06:51, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> I like the idea of several small machines better than one big machine.
> At least, if the mailing list server is up when the DB or Web server is
> down, the developers can COMMUNICATE with each other to figure out how
> to fix it.

Do you remember late December, when the backup mailserver kept us all
connected even while pliny was down for a couple days?

> Wikipedia doesn't seem any faster this month than before Christmas.

That might have something to do with the database server having been
offline during that whole time period, replaced with a slower temporary
machine.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
Sean David Childers wrote:
>I think we would be crazy not to register wikipedia.
>So much effort has gone into this project and the
>copyright/patent/trademark laws right now seem
>to be strange at best, and almost random.  I think
>by not registering wikipedia we are taking a risk.

I agree. This is especially true due to the fact that we now have nearly
US$40,000 in and offers all over the world to establish mirrors. With just
US$20,000 and our current equipment we will have the redundancy and a
scalable set-up needed to start having near-real-time web-server mirrors
around the world.  So it is not like we are trading off a server for the
trademarks.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror of Dutch Wikipedia

body:
Erik van den Muijzenberg
>...
>This ISP is using a Wikipedia-logo of their own,
>and on all pages the title-tag says '[ISP-name]
>partner Wikipedia'.

They cannot say they are a partner with us because they are not. They cannot
also use our logo without our consent, which they do not have.

>There is no link to the GNU-license, and the
>pages are not stating they were copied from
>Wikipedia.

This is in clear breach of our license. Somebody should tell them what needs
to be done in order to comply. Otherwise they cannot use any Wikipedia
content.

>However they have a link to the original
>page on the Wiki-server.

That much is good. You may want to tell them that simply hosting the printable
versions of the French Wikipedia will put them into GNU FDL compliance (there
should be a link-back, statement that the article was retrieved from
Wikipedia, and link to the GNU FDL on each printable page).

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] www.wixpression.org?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>Nevertheless I would like to see some kind of such
>scheme up and working on one single project so that
>we can get the bugs out before the scheme is adopted
>on other projects.

That is what http://test.wikipedia.org/ is for.

--mav


subject: [Wikitech-l] Why can't I ban Michael on Meta?

body:
Every time I try it says "No user exists by that name". Interesting message
considering this 'non-user' has an edit history on Meta (most of his edits
have been to articles that are now deleted, however):
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Michael

Also whenever I ban an IP on Meta the ban seems to auto-expire after a very
short time and does not seem to leave any mention of the un-banning in any
log I could find.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: www.wixpression.org?

references:
<3FFB3BB4.5050906@moongate.ro>
	<hLOk01AOxS$$Ew4i@arwel.cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<3FFD36AB.6030701@moongate.ro>

body:
On Thursday 08 January 2004 05:53 am, Gutza wrote:
> Arwel Parry wrote:
> > In message <3FFD1664.3070803 at moongate.ro>, Gutza
> > <gutza-xe8bB7KpE7GhKNWrAYCRhA at public.gmane.org> writes
> >
> >> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>> The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of automated
> >>> translation.  [...] Still, to choose one example and say that there
> >>> is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two languages represnts
> >>> a totally na?ve view of language.
> >>
> >> What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in
> >> mind?
> >
> > Well, for example if you were translating to/from Welsh, the word
> > "glas" is normally used to describe the colour of the sky, however it
> > is also used to describe the colour of grass. "Llwyd" usually means
> > "grey" but it also has "bluey" connotations...

Perhaps the most famous example would be "libre" and "gratuit" mapping onto
the english "free". I agree with Gutza nonetheless that automation would be a
good idea. The overwhelming majority of words can be translated into most
languages one-to-one (ie. no ambiguities). This would save us a lot of work.
And for the few cases where there are problems, they can be corrected by
hand.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
I like the idea of several small machines better than one big machine.
At least, if the mailing list server is up when the DB or Web server is
down, the developers can COMMUNICATE with each other to figure out how
to fix it.

Wikipedia doesn't seem any faster this month than before Christmas. My
main concern is response time. When I click on a link, I don't want to
wait more than 5 second. Especially when I'm following multiple links: A
links to B, then I want to glance at [[talk:B]] before adding a comment.
At 5 or 10 seconds per user click, three clicks means 15 to 30 seconds
before I can stop typing. It makes me wish I could do all my editing
off-line.

Ed Poor


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: www.wixpression.org?

references:
<3FFB3BB4.5050906@moongate.ro> <3FFB40AB.5050005@rufus.d2g.com>
	<3FFB442D.5070406@moongate.ro> <3FFD094A.7080908@telus.net>
	<3FFD094A.7080908-EynCeXvFgoheoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org>
	<3FFD1664.3070803@moongate.ro>

body:
In message <3FFD1664.3070803 at moongate.ro>, Gutza
<gutza-xe8bB7KpE7GhKNWrAYCRhA at public.gmane.org> writes
>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of automated
>>translation.  Of course the English Wiktionary is "English-centric".
>>What else did you expect?  It is first a dictionary, and only secondly
>>a book of translations.  Still, to choose one example and say that
>>there is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two languages
>>represnts a totally na?ve view of language.
>
>Really? Here's what I tried: clicked on "Random Page" 10 times. Here
>are the results:
>1. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronunciaci%C3%B3n
>2. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%92%AD
>3. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Mayoress
>4. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Bijutel
>5. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Decibel
>6. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Balul
>7. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%86
>8. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Airtight
>9. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Brush
>10. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%95%9A
>
>There is not a single one hit in the ten above which isn't appropriate
>for automated parsing:
>* No. 1 would be reverse translated from Spanish to English (note that
>http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronounciation doesn't exist).
>* No. 2, 3, 7 and 10 would be completely skipped in parsing because
>they don't contain any proper translations.
>* No. 4 and 6 would be reverse translated from Volap?k to English (note
>there is no mention of Balul at http://wiktionary.org/wiki/January, and
>http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Jeweller doesn't exist).
>* No. 5, 8 and 9 would be properly translated to the respective
>languages for which translations are available.
>
>What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in mind?

Well, for example if you were translating to/from Welsh, the word "glas"
is normally used to describe the colour of the sky, however it is also
used to describe the colour of grass. "Llwyd" usually means "grey" but
it also has "bluey" connotations...

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

body:
On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 10:34, Delirium wrote:

    Kurt Jansson wrote:

    > So what about registering Wikipedia (and also Wikimedia?) as a
    > trademark? I think we can afford it now, and I also think it's
    > important enough to do it. But in which countries? Maybe in those
    > where the languages of the biggest five or ten Wikipedias are spoken?
    >
    > If there is no reaction I consider this as approval and will organize
    > the registration for Germany. It costs 300 Euro and lasts for 10 years.

    FWIW, it's $335 in the US, also for 10 years.  However, I'm not sure I
    like the idea of spending our money in this way.  At least in the US,
    registering a trademark is not necessary to claim trademark ownership:
    the only requirement is that you show use of the trademark.  In fact,
    registering doesn't help you if you don't show use of the trademark, so
    that's the only requirement, registration or not.  Really the only
    things registration gives you, at least in the US, are the ability to
    sue for punitive damages, and some procedural things (like petitioning
    to US customs to ban the importation of infringing foreign products).
    You can still do the normal "cease and desist" thing without a
    registered trademark.

    Not that registering a trademark is completely worthless, but I think
    for what we're doing, simply using it is sufficient, and registration
    gives marginal additional benefits, so we can find better uses for $1k+.
    -Mark

Just as a datapoint. In Finland trademarks registered within the
European Union can register internet domains (private individuals can
not yet do so, though the registration is about to liberalize somewhat
soon), and are protected against cybersquatters claiming the selfsame
domain, at least in some circumstances.

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)

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from_name: Gutza

subject: [WikiEN-l] www.wixpression.org?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of automated
> translation.  Of course the English Wiktionary is "English-centric".
> What else did you expect?  It is first a dictionary, and only secondly
> a book of translations.  Still, to choose one example and say that
> there is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two languages
> represnts a totally na?ve view of language.

Really? Here's what I tried: clicked on "Random Page" 10 times. Here are
the results:
1. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronunciaci%C3%B3n
2. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%92%AD
3. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Mayoress
4. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Bijutel
5. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Decibel
6. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Balul
7. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%86
8. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Airtight
9. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Brush
10. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%95%9A

There is not a single one hit in the ten above which isn't appropriate
for automated parsing:
* No. 1 would be reverse translated from Spanish to English (note that
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronounciation doesn't exist).
* No. 2, 3, 7 and 10 would be completely skipped in parsing because they
don't contain any proper translations.
* No. 4 and 6 would be reverse translated from Volap?k to English (note
there is no mention of Balul at http://wiktionary.org/wiki/January, and
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Jeweller doesn't exist).
* No. 5, 8 and 9 would be properly translated to the respective
languages for which translations are available.

What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in mind?

--Gutza


subject:
[WikiEN-l]/[[DNA]]/Lir/and a PS on Expert Determination
	(crossposting to the legal list)

body:
NOTE: I AM CROSSPOSTING THIS TO THE WIKILEGAL LIST,
SO PLEASE EDIT THE LISTS LINE TO THE APPROPRIATE
RECIPIENTS.

On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 10:56, A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

<<I am requesting arbitration at [[DNA]]. I have
attempted to submit that DNA is a form of [[nucleic
acid]]. [[User:Peak]] (working in conjunction with an
anon IP) has made it clear to me that he thinks I am a
vandal (thus, mediation is not appropriate; since,
discussion is impossible).>>

    Respectfully, I think in this situation, discussion is imperative.

    By speech and action, you should make it clear that Peak and his
    (putative) anonymous friend are incorrect in their characterisation
    of you.

    (more about the possible role of mediation below)

<<I request that the arbitration committee determine
whether, or not, DNA is a nucleic acid.>>

    It is unclear whether we are going to allow either the mediation
    or the arbitration process stray into making determinations on
    questions of fact (personally I think it would be a serious
    over-reach of authority and compounding of "hats" which might
    cause severe difficulties to the credibility of either process).

    If that is decided to be outside our remit, perhaps the best you
    could hope for is that a mediator would try to get Peek and/or
    the anonymous editor to confront your views, and try to help
    all parties to find some useful mode to discuss the matter
    between each other, either within the mediation process or
    subsequent to it, without taking a position in any way, other
    than to the effect that discussion should take place and
    perhaps suggesting intermediary discussion points which might help
    to chart where the heart of the disagreement lies.

    Respectfully,

        Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro),
        MEMBER OF THE MEDIATION COMMITTEE

P.S. I hate to keep on harping on this matter, but there is a
possibility that a method
for resolving questions of fact may be needed down the line. The ideal
method for
this is neither arbitration nor mediation, but rather "expert
determination". This has
already been excercised informally in the Florentin Smarandache and
Neutrosophy
case, when a professor from outside Wikipedia was "enticed" to "fix" the
problem.

Once we get more and more public exposure, it may well turn out that on
specific
tightly defined questions of fact, we may be able to get even notable
experts to
accept commissions to sort things out, in a context of both/all sides of
the
conflict accepting beforehand the expert enlisted makes the final call.
There are
attendant possibilities here, for generating publicity for both
Wikipedia and/or the
expert who accepts the commission (and we may even get a new convert
from
the highest reaches of the particular field :-).

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from_name: Erik van den Muijzenberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror of Dutch Wikipedia

body:
A Dutch ISP is mirroring the Dutch Wikipedia in a way which
makes it VERY up to date. (Method yet unknown to us.)

Apparently it is beta at this time - it says so on a logo of
this ISP which is displayed on every page of the mirror.
Currently it is not mentioned on their homepage. One of the
Dutch wikipedians noticed the existence of this mirror in a
logfile. We are wondering what to make of it.

This ISP is using a Wikipedia-logo of their own, and on all
pages the title-tag says '[ISP-name] partner Wikipedia'.
There is no link to the GNU-license, and the pages are not
stating they were copied from Wikipedia. However they have
a link to the original page on the Wiki-server.

For reasons unknown to me, the Dutch version of Wikipedia is
not carrying a subclass title like 'From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia'. As a result, this mirror isn't either,
which I feel is a pity.

I informed Jimmy Swales, who encouraged me to post here the
questions I asked him. I am relatively new to Wikipedia, so
please feel not offended if I made a mistake, or am asking an
answer to familiar questions. Also please excuse my English.

Q u e s t i o n s
-----------------
I would like to receive an answer to the following questions:

* Is this ISP entitled to keep an integral and up to date copy
of the Dutch database? (I guess it is.)
* Is this ISP entitled to use a 'Wikipedia'-logo they made
themselves by combining elements of the official Dutch logo?
(I guess they are not.)
* Is 'Wikipedia' somehow registered as a trademark? (Would
make our position stronger I guess, if we want them to stop
using their homemade logo.)
* Is this ISP entitled to call themselves 'partner' of
Wikipedia without our consent? (I guess they are not.)

O b l i g a t i o n s   f o r   a   m i r r o r
-----------------------------------------------
I got the impression the following is mandatory for a mirror:

* every copied page contains the original titletag
* every copied page contains a link to a local kept version
of the GNU-license
* every copied page contains a byline - contained in the source
as a subclass item - mentioning the page is originally from
Wikipedia. (This item is sometimes referred to as 'titlepage'.)
* every copied page contains a link to the original page on
the Wikipedia-server

Am I mistaken?
Is there anything missing on this list?

H o w   w e   p l a n   t o   p r o c e e d
-------------------------------------------
First we will contact this ISP, and ask them to provide the
emailaddress of the administrator of this Wikipedia-mirror.
Our next step will be to inform this administrator about the
obligations in case of a mirror, and ask the administrator
whether the ISP is crawling the pages - politely discouraging
them from doing so if this is the case.
Next steps will be to make sure the ISP complies, or to have
the site taken down, if they won't.

Any comment is welcome.

Best regards,
Erik vdMb


from_name: Ricky Beam

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
>> 2.  A remote controller would be sweet in our current facility.  But
>> we are going to move to a facility with the following features -- (1)
>> 24 hour a day remote "hands on" service (2) geographically close to me
>> and my employees so that we can physically drive over (more on this
>> later today or tomorrow after I tour one more facility).
>
>You also get fairly cheap video adapter cards with serial output. Which gives
>you access to bios, the boot procedure, etc.

Any server class motherboard BIOS will have "BIOS Console Redirection".  It
is rather stupid and crappy, but it *does* work and doesn't cost 1000$.

I'm using this on Tyan S2721-533's right now. (the onboard video is disabled.)
(And my S2460 dual athlon "desktop" too.)

--Ricky


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: www.wixpression.org?

references:
<3FFB3BB4.5050906@moongate.ro>
	<3FFB40AB.5050005@rufus.d2g.com>	<3FFB442D.5070406@moongate.ro>
	<3FFD094A.7080908@telus.net>	<3FFD094A.7080908-EynCeXvFgoheoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org>	<3FFD1664.3070803@moongate.ro>
	<hLOk01AOxS$$Ew4i@arwel.cartref.demon.co.uk>

body:
Arwel Parry wrote:

> In message <3FFD1664.3070803 at moongate.ro>, Gutza
> <gutza-xe8bB7KpE7GhKNWrAYCRhA at public.gmane.org> writes
>
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of automated
>>> translation.  [...] Still, to choose one example and say that there
>>> is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two languages represnts
>>> a totally na?ve view of language.
>>
>>
>> What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in
>> mind?
>
>
> Well, for example if you were translating to/from Welsh, the word
> "glas" is normally used to describe the colour of the sky, however it
> is also used to describe the colour of grass. "Llwyd" usually means
> "grey" but it also has "bluey" connotations...

Ok, maybe I didn't get the concept across really well. You are aware
that we didn't get to that point in history where we humans all lay back
and expect automatons to do all the work for us, right? Writing a parser
to create the proper cross-links between definitions in the English
Wiktionary and other languages' Wiktionaries would not be expected to
result in complete dictionaries for all other languages.

But the same happens with human contributors: you happen to know that
"glas" has those two meanings, but some other contributor may not. Some
other contributor may write the "glas" article in the Welsh Wiktionary
and only include the first definition. If you happened to come across
that article, you might add the other definition as well.

I don't see why we need that human contributor at all if "glas" were to
be found on the English Wiktionary article on "sky blue", for instance.
Not to mention that if "glas" also showed up on "grass green" then both
definitions would be available for the Welsh "glas", using a smart
automated parser.

In any case, the point is not to expect the automated parser to result
in a prefect any language to any language dictionary, but rather to do
what automated things tend to do today: make our lives easier, as in
creating a reasonable basis for other Wiktionaries, as well as keeping
things in sync.

Just my 2c,
Gutza


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 03:09:01PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>
> >               |-----------  Bind DNS round robin
> >        _______|______       (multiple A records)
>
> How well does DNS round robin work in practice as compared to
> a proper load balancer?
>
> I've never tried DNS round robin because people say it sucks.  But I
> have no actual knowledge from first hand experience.  I do know that
> load balancing using the tools that linuxvirtualserver.org talks about
> works great, and gives a very good and predictable level of control.

DNS round robin sucks because it (i) doesn't provide a way to check for a
servers outage and (ii) is not suited for a farm of differently sized servers.

Having a heart beat between the two servers solves issue (i). In case of
the outage of one server the other server takes over the IP and both round
robin IPs point to the same server.

Issue (ii) can be addressed by having similar boxes. Since those have to
be purchased, this should be easy to achieve.

In the office, we ran a website using DNS RR. It was about 500,000 hits
per day and 52% of the request hit the "first" server, 48% the second.
We changed to HW load balancers recently since the number of web servers
increased.

==Sizing==

Regarding sizing of the squid boxes: We set up internal squids for
web caching and noticed that squid does not support SMP. One squid
process can utilize only one CPU. My proposed sizing:

1 CPU at about 2GHz
2 GB RAM
2*36G 15kRPM SCSI Disks
Remote controller (rILO, eRIC) for remote "lights out" management
1 Unit rack mountable
redundant power supply

Being most familiar with Compaq's Intel servers, I configured the box
in their webshop and it was about 4,000$

Regarding CPU size:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030605225127/hermes.wwwcache.ja.net/servers/squids.html
states that a dual Ultra Sparc at 170 MHz was able to process
1.8 million of requests per day. This is roughly the current load
of en:. A 2 GHz x86 CPU beats the Sparc by far. If we want to spend
more money on the box, add memory.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Kent Wang

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
I was browsing through OHHLA.com (Online Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive) and
realized that a lyrics archive would be an excellent application of Wiki
technology. Although OHHLA is the most comprehensive website in its
genre, there are still many less popular artists that are not covered,
and most of the pages I've seen contain at least a mistake or two.

So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that
would cover music lyrics for all genres.

Hip-hop lyrics are particularly in need for a wiki because they are full
of slang words and in-references that can be Wikified to articles
explaining them. Hip-hop albums also rarely come with lyrics sheets
though ironically, are probably most in need of them.

I've already Googled for "lyrics wiki" and found no significant hits.

I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need
to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the
GFDL will most certainly be incompatible. Though the RIAA is definitely
tort-happy, I don't believe there have been any attempts to shut down
online lyrics websites, especially since they should not undermine
record sales.

I eagerly await your comments on this idea.

Kent Wang


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
I agree.  I love the idea, but it's not for us.

tarquin wrote:

>
>
> Kent Wang wrote:
>
> >So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that
> >would cover music lyrics for all genres.
> >
> >
> A core principle of ALL wikimedia projects is the concept of free content.
>
>
> >I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need
> >to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the
> >GFDL will most certainly be incompatible.
> >
> >
> It's an unsurmountable problem.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> Jimbo, how much rackspace can we use?

Rackspace isn't an issue at all.

When I asked the world for $20,000, my intention is that this will see
us through a pretty steep growth curve for awhile.  I'd like for us to
setup a system now that's robust and has a very large amount of
reserve capacity, so that as far as we can manage, the site will be
highly responsive to users for some time to come *even in a case where
we have had bad hardware luck*.

If two squids are good enough and we can survive on one, then I want
three.  If 3 webservers are handling the load just fine, and we can
survive on 2, then I want 5.  If geoffrin dies, I want to have another
machine that can take the load without breaking a sweat.

--Jimbo


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> 1.  If my server costs $2000, and Jens costs $4000, then I don't need
> redundant power supplies since I have redundant *servers*.  With only
> a little bit of work to make sure that dead machines are taken out of
> service, we have a lot more capacity for the same money.

You don't have to buy brand servers to get redundant power supplies. You get
fairly cheap generic rackmount boxes with this feature.

> 2.  A remote controller would be sweet in our current facility.  But
> we are going to move to a facility with the following features -- (1)
> 24 hour a day remote "hands on" service (2) geographically close to me
> and my employees so that we can physically drive over (more on this
> later today or tomorrow after I tour one more facility).

You also get fairly cheap video adapter cards with serial output. Which gives
you access to bios, the boot procedure, etc.

-- Daniel


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> > 1 CPU at 2.4GHZ P4.  (They offer a cheaper Celeron, I'm not sure if
> > the P4 is worth the extra money for webserving or not.)
>
> The 2,6 GHz is 1$ cheaper. If you want to buy the same boxes for all
> purpose (squid+apache), I'd go for the faster CPU.

To be sure that I understand.  For essentially the same price, you
recommend a 2.6Ghz Celeron over a 2.4Ghz Pentium?  That sounds fine to
me, I just don't know how the differences between Celeron and Pentium
affect performance for webserving.

> The SM-1151SATA has non-ECC memory. Being used to ECC and even hot
> spare memory, I'm not comfortable with this. 2*1GB is what I'd use,
> too.

Can you elaborate on this?  All my recent server purchases have been
from Penguin, and they are always ECC memory, which costs more and
performs less, but which is supposed to be more reliable.  But is it
really?  How much more reliable?  Or have I misunderstood the
difference completely?

My new G5 uses non-ECC ram, and it seems to work just fine.  I have
had plenty of bad sticks of ECC ram in my life.

Would you consider the use of non-ECC ram to be a "deal killer" on the
SM-1151SATA, or just something that's not quite ideal?

> Remote management cards are really useful coping with crashed servers.
> It starts with being able to read the kernel panic message, being
> able to power off and on the server, and advanced ones being even able
> to insert a "virtual floppy" during booting (Remember the crash we
> had while trying to remotely update the kernel?).
> http://www.techland.co.uk/index/eric is a vendor-independent RMB.
> Compaq's ILO-boards are much more powerfull, though.

*nod*  I'll look into these.

How does a remote management card compare to serial console
redirection?

I couldn't find a price for that Eric card, what do remote server
management cards cost, generally?

Keep in mind that we are going to have easy hands-on access to the
servers, and we're going to be in a facility that's staffer 24x7 with
free "remote hands" service for things like pushing a reset button and
typing a few things on the console, sticking in a floppy, etc.

> > Just for clarity in case people dozed off during the boring bits
> > above:
> >
> > SATA 80GB RAID    $1951 or $1579 depending on ram/processor
> > SCSI 36GB RAID    $2521 or $1749 depending on ram/processor
>
> Strange that the difference is 600$ for one configuration and 170$
> for the other.

I see a difference of $372 and $772.  You're right, though, it is
strange.  (Oh, I see, you were differencing in the other direction,
but either way, there is something odd here.  I will study it to make
sure I didn't make a mistake.)

> Thinking of Squid, I'd rather spend the money for
> 2 Gigs of additional memory than for the faster disks. Memory should
> dramatically reduce I/O load on proxies. 2 additional GB are 762$.

And if this is non-ECC ram, then perhaps 2 additional GB are less
than that from other vendors.

> PS: Sorry if this became to long.

I want everyone to write things this long, it's the only way for us to
really study this out.  :-) I will read every word that everyone says,
because I have a very strong responsibility to make wise purchases
with other people's money.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> The default configuration for using Linux Director would be no load
> balancing at all and one machine on standby with Heartbeat. We could do
> the same with the squids, but it makes more sense to use both machine's
> ram.

I'm not sure I'm following you here.  If we have 2 Linux Directors,
one on standby, but they aren't doing load balancing, then what are
they for?  I thought the director would be in charge of (iptables
style) load balancing the squids?

> for cpu, but for future memory expansion. I think Raid isn't
> necessary for the squid if the logging is done to a separate disk.

*nod* But RAID could be used in mirroring mode to increase
reliability, presumably...

I'm listening to your thought that maybe going with a 64 bit CPU might
make more sense just from the point of view of more RAM potential in
the future.  It's just very hard today to predict whether that's the
right path to take or not.

One can only assume that RAM will be a lot cheaper in the future, and
it sure would be nice to spend $1600 per machine to upgrade to 16Gb.
:-)

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] images/media files, sessions, nfs/replication?

body:
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of a
> single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.
> Once we use a cluster of Apaches the files need to be available to all
> servers. The easiest solution might be to mount the media dir from a
> fileserver (with a big Raid array) via nfs.

Does nfs still stink?  I know that it used to be common wisdom that
you never webserve stuff from nfs, because the performance was
disastrous.  Probably some smart apache rewriting could solve this for
the most part, i.e. if a server doesn't have a requested image
locally, it tries to get it via nfs and *keeps* it locally for future
reference.

Probably Brion has more good ideas about how to handle images on our
proposed architecture.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> You said something else earlier today, that we shouldn't spend the money
> just because we have it. Being tight-fisted, I somewhat have a problem
> with "overdelivery". Redundancy is fine, we need it. Having a spare server
> on site is probably cheaper than a service contract. But 3? Please,
> someone covince me that we won't find a better way to spend the money
> in half a year.

I hear what you're saying.  With the right scalable architecture,
adding capacity in the future should be as easy as adding a new server
or two, copying over some software, and editing a few config files.
It seems obvious that buying too much hardware too early is not good,
because cheaper and better hardware will be available 6 months from
now.

Even so, I don't want us to be too stingy.  What I'm hearing loud and
clear is that people want wikipedia to be fast, highly responsive, and
reliable.  We don't want to be sketchy about reaching those goals, we
want to embrace those goals wholeheartedly and make sure we aren't
sitting on money in the bank while the site lags.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>SATA vs. SCSI -- SCSI is theoretically faster, although many say that
>the practical difference is minimal.  SCSI is theoretically more
>reliable, but with 2 SATA drives in RAID redundant configuration, this
>is a very minor issue?

SCSI performance is better in practice too, especially when you have
multiple hard disks. But the work those boxes will have to do (load
balancers, squid, web serving, mail server) does not seem HD intensive, if
they have enough RAM.

SCSI disks are usually more reliable, simply because disk manufacturers
test them more and use higher quality components (hence the bigger price).
If our boxes are redundant, and each box has a RAID 1 array, I don't think
that going with IDE/SATA is a problem.

Alfio


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: A thought on the shopping process

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 04:42:51 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> To whatever extent possible, I'd like to buy a large number of general
> purpose boxen that can be reasonably pressed into service for a
> variety of configurations, rather than trying to overspecify what we
> are going to do and buy machines that are highly specific to those
> purposes.
>
> My thinking is that we will be needing N general boxen to do load
> balancing/squid/apache

>From my information it would be very good if the Apaches would be all the
same size as it would simplify the load balancing a lot. I guess those
mainly need cpu, i'm not shure about hd. How are the images/media stored
at the moment? NFS? I think the apaches could be pretty cheap machines-
more cheap ones might buy more power than fewer high-end ones. I don't see
the need for a separate load balancer right now, but if we need one the
same machine as the Apaches would be fine.
The squid boxes should have a lot of ram (4Gb if possible) to cut hd usage
and one processor. All frequently accessed pages and images should fit
into ram.

> and then also email and dns on separate
> machines too I think,

This might be a good use for one of the current machines.

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:25:22 +0100, Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>>SATA vs. SCSI -- SCSI is theoretically faster, although many say that
>>the practical difference is minimal.  SCSI is theoretically more
>>reliable, but with 2 SATA drives in RAID redundant configuration, this
>>is a very minor issue?
>
> SCSI performance is better in practice too, especially when you have
> multiple hard disks. But the work those boxes will have to do (load
> balancers, squid, web serving, mail server) does not seem HD intensive, if
> they have enough RAM.

I agree- imo only the database servers and (if used) the fileservers for
images/media need fancy hds.

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:13:58 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:

> In the office, we ran a website using DNS RR. It was about 500,000 hits
> per day and 52% of the request hit the "first" server, 48% the second.
> We changed to HW load balancers recently since the number of web servers
> increased.

The default configuration for using Linux Director would be no load
balancing at all and one machine on standby with Heartbeat. We could do
the same with the squids, but it makes more sense to use both machine's
ram.

> 2*36G 15kRPM SCSI Disks

If money was short i'd propose to buy 4Gb ram and see how much money is
left for a fancy hd. I theory the hd should be used only for booting and
logging.
It might make sense to go single-processor 64bit for the Squids- not
for cpu, but for future memory expansion. I think Raid isn't
necessary for the squid if the logging is done to a separate disk.

> Regarding CPU size:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030605225127/hermes.wwwcache.ja.net/servers/squids.html
> states that a dual Ultra Sparc at 170 MHz was able to process
> 1.8 million of requests per day. This is roughly the current load
> of en:. A 2 GHz x86 CPU beats the Sparc by far. If we want to spend
> more money on the box, add memory.

Agree completely. My Celeron 2Ghz does about 700 html requests/second at
54% cpu (siege load tester taking up the rest). That's 60.2 million
requests per day.

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:37:58AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Jens Frank wrote:
> > 1 CPU at about 2GHz
> > 2 GB RAM
> > 2*36G 15kRPM SCSI Disks
> > Remote controller (rILO, eRIC) for remote "lights out" management
> > 1 Unit rack mountable
> > redundant power supply
> >
> > Being most familiar with Compaq's Intel servers, I configured the box
> > in their webshop and it was about 4,000$
>
> I just looked at a configuration at Silicon Mechanics.  (But, I am
> also considering another vendor with similar prices, Penguin
> Computing.  And I'm open to more suggestions, as always.)
>
> SM-1151SATA, http://www.siliconmechanics.com/i1511/p4-server.php
>
> 1 CPU at 2.4GHZ P4.  (They offer a cheaper Celeron, I'm not sure if
> the P4 is worth the extra money for webserving or not.)

The 2,6 GHz is 1$ cheaper. If you want to buy the same boxes for all
purpose (squid+apache), I'd go for the faster CPU.

> 2 GB Ram (2x1GB, which is a little more expensive than 4x512, but
> leaves slots open for future growth.)

The SM-1151SATA has non-ECC memory. Being used to ECC and even hot
spare memory, I'm not comfortable with this. 2*1GB is what I'd use,
too.

> 2*80G 7.2kRPM, 8MB cache SATA drives
>
> SATA RAID controller (we could run raid 0 or 1 for redundancy or
> speed - since a webserver ought not hit the disk all that much,
> I think redundancy is more important)

Looking at pliny and larousse, from the numbers I've been told,
their disks are highly busy, bi and bo are very high in vmstat.

> NO CD-ROM
> yes floppy
> Red Hat 9
>
> The price on this box is $1951.  Going with a cheaper processor,
> and (4x512) RAM, I can get that down to $1579.

Comparing with the above compaq it looks cheap. It has no ECC, no
remote management, no redundant power supply, no 15kRPM disks, though.

Remote management cards are really useful coping with crashed servers.
It starts with being able to read the kernel panic message, being
able to power off and on the server, and advanced ones being even able
to insert a "virtual floppy" during booting (Remember the crash we
had while trying to remotely update the kernel?).
http://www.techland.co.uk/index/eric is a vendor-independent RMB.
Compaq's ILO-boards are much more powerfull, though.

> ----
>
> SATA vs. SCSI -- SCSI is theoretically faster, although many say that
> the practical difference is minimal.  SCSI is theoretically more
> reliable, but with 2 SATA drives in RAID redundant configuration, this
> is a very minor issue?

There probably isn't much difference between a SCSI and a SATA interface
for the same disk. The difference is mainly in the disk seek time since
SCSI disks are available at 15kRPM, while SATA are mostly 7,2kRPM.

>
> Anyhow, for reference, the same exact configurations as above, but
> with SCSI instead of SATA (and only 36Gb disks instead of 80Gb since
> disk size on the webserver boxes is not so important):
>
> $2521/$1749.
>
> Just for clarity in case people dozed off during the boring bits
> above:
>
> SATA 80GB RAID    $1951 or $1579 depending on ram/processor
> SCSI 36GB RAID    $2521 or $1749 depending on ram/processor

Strange that the difference is 600$ for one configuration and 170$
for the other. Thinking of Squid, I'd rather spend the money for
2 Gigs of additional memory than for the faster disks. Memory should
dramatically reduce I/O load on proxies. 2 additional GB are 762$.

>
> ----
>
> I am thinking of buying several of these boxes, to be potentially used
> in these capacities:
>
> load balancers (2)
> squid proxies (3)
> web servers (4)
> backup db machine (1) (this one should be stuffed with extra ram and
> the fastest processor, I guess)
>
> Many alternative configurations are possible, esp. if as the current
> trend seems to suggest, we eliminate the load balancers and simply
> count on squid+heartbeat

You'd need heartbeat for the load balancers, anyway.
Doing it on the squids would just save two boxes.

Why three squids? Two would be enough, and even one should be able
to handle the load if the other one fails.

Should the DB backup machine really have a different sizing from the
active machine? From what I've seen brion say geoffrin is rather
idle, so perhaps yes. On the other hand side, administration would
be easier when having two identical boxes, or at least same CPU
family. A small Altus 1000 E dual Opteron (single Opterons are
not offered by penguincomputing?) with 2 GB RAM (ECC!), 2*80 disk, no
CDROM, is at 2,810 $. We could probably get away with two of these
for web serving instead of four, and save 2 units of rackspace.

2 squids, single CPU  (Relion 1X, 2GB, 2,66 GHz P4, 2*80 GB)	2x 2,150$
2 webservers, dual Opteron (Altus 1000E, 2GB, 2*Opteron 240
			    2*80GB)				2x 2,810$
1 DB Backup box		   (same)				1x 2,810$
								=========
Total								  12,730$

Using 4 webservers at $1951 each would cost 2,184$ more, plus 2RU space
consumption.

> then we would have
> database machine as geoffrin, the big dog, when fixed
> and other old hardware eventually moved to the new colo to be
> mailserver, etc.
>
> Our budget is $20,000 but we have more money than that by far, donated
> by people who knew that we were already over $20,000.  We don't want
> to go crazy and spend it because we have it -- better to take a wait
> and see attitude, because hardware will only get cheaper, and our
> needs will be better understoood in a few months.  However, going a
> little bit over or under should be no cause for concern, if the
> purpose is valid.

Very good point.

	Regards,

		JeLuF

PS: Sorry if this became to long.


from_name: Adam Bishop

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
It's apparently illegal to post lyrics on the Internet, and I think some
lyrics sites have been sued or shut down because of this.  Some guitar tab
sites (notably olga.net, the Online Guitar Archive), were also forced to
shut down in the past, partly because of the lyrics (but also because of the
uncertain legality of the tabs themselves, but that's another story...in any
case now they can only include a few words of lyrics).

>From: "Kent Wang" <kwang at kwang.org>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics
>Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:16:02 -0600
>
>I was browsing through OHHLA.com (Online Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive) and
>realized that a lyrics archive would be an excellent application of Wiki
>technology. Although OHHLA is the most comprehensive website in its
>genre, there are still many less popular artists that are not covered,
>and most of the pages I've seen contain at least a mistake or two.
>
>So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that
>would cover music lyrics for all genres.
>
>Hip-hop lyrics are particularly in need for a wiki because they are full
>of slang words and in-references that can be Wikified to articles
>explaining them. Hip-hop albums also rarely come with lyrics sheets
>though ironically, are probably most in need of them.
>
>I've already Googled for "lyrics wiki" and found no significant hits.
>
>I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need
>to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the
>GFDL will most certainly be incompatible. Though the RIAA is definitely
>tort-happy, I don't believe there have been any attempts to shut down
>online lyrics websites, especially since they should not undermine
>record sales.
>
>I eagerly await your comments on this idea.
>
>Kent Wang
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:11:09 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:

>> 2*80G 7.2kRPM, 8MB cache SATA drives
>>
>> SATA RAID controller (we could run raid 0 or 1 for redundancy or
>> speed - since a webserver ought not hit the disk all that much,
>> I think redundancy is more important)
>
> Looking at pliny and larousse, from the numbers I've been told,
> their disks are highly busy, bi and bo are very high in vmstat.

This should be the current cache- it could be switched off once the Squids
are working. I even don't see a need for Apache logging- the logging is
done on the Squids. The only potentially disk-accessing operation would be
serving images which will get picked up by the squids as well.

My proposal for the Apaches is heaps of Cpu, single ordinary drive and
enough memory to prevent any swapping. And some more of them. We don't
need high reliability as long as we have enough of them.

>> SATA vs. SCSI -- SCSI is theoretically faster, although many say that
>> the practical difference is minimal.  SCSI is theoretically more
>> reliable, but with 2 SATA drives in RAID redundant configuration, this
>> is a very minor issue?

I might be wrong, but the only gain it having a big disk might be a faster
start up time ;-)

> You'd need heartbeat for the load balancers, anyway.
> Doing it on the squids would just save two boxes.
>
> Why three squids? Two would be enough, and even one should be able
> to handle the load if the other one fails.

+1

> Should the DB backup machine really have a different sizing from the
> active machine? From what I've seen brion say geoffrin is rather
> idle, so perhaps yes. On the other hand side, administration would
> be easier when having two identical boxes, or at least same CPU
> family. A small Altus 1000 E dual Opteron (single Opterons are
> not offered by penguincomputing?) with 2 GB RAM (ECC!), 2*80 disk, no
> CDROM, is at 2,810 $. We could probably get away with two of these
> for web serving instead of four, and save 2 units of rackspace.

+1 again ;-)

Gabriel Wicke


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:47:16AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> One last thought...
>
> Jens Frank wrote:
> > 1 CPU at about 2GHz
> > 2 GB RAM
> > 2*36G 15kRPM SCSI Disks
> > Remote controller (rILO, eRIC) for remote "lights out" management
> > 1 Unit rack mountable
> > redundant power supply
>
> Jens priced this configuration at $4000.  I was able to replicate the
> same performance configuration for $2500 or less.  I think that for
> $2000, or half the price, I could match the performance of the box he
> describes.
>
> However, my proposal does not include either remote controllers nor
> redundant power supplies.  Here is my thinking, please think with me
> if this is right or not.
>
> 1.  If my server costs $2000, and Jens costs $4000, then I don't need
> redundant power supplies since I have redundant *servers*.  With only
> a little bit of work to make sure that dead machines are taken out of
> service, we have a lot more capacity for the same money.

If rack space is available, this is true.

> 2.  A remote controller would be sweet in our current facility.  But
> we are going to move to a facility with the following features -- (1)
> 24 hour a day remote "hands on" service (2) geographically close to me
> and my employees so that we can physically drive over (more on this
> later today or tomorrow after I tour one more facility).

This sounds good. I appreciate Jason's help, but it's something else
to have remote hands on site.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Delirium

body:
Constans, Camille (C.C.) wrote:

>Same in France, you can register .fr if you own the trademark. (the same european trademark)
>
>
Does this mean that we only need to register the trademark once for it
to be valid in the entire EU?  If so, EUR300 for an EU trademark plus
USD335 for a US trademark only adds up to USD$750 or so, which isn't all
*that* bad.  If, on the other hand, we have to register individually in
each EU country, that'd add up to a lot more.

-Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 03:31:00PM +0100, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:11:09 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:
>
>
> >> 2*80G 7.2kRPM, 8MB cache SATA drives
> >>
> > Looking at pliny and larousse, from the numbers I've been told,
> > their disks are highly busy, bi and bo are very high in vmstat.
>
> This should be the current cache- it could be switched off once the Squids
> are working. I even don't see a need for Apache logging- the logging is
> done on the Squids. The only potentially disk-accessing operation would be
> serving images which will get picked up by the squids as well.

Agreed.

> My proposal for the Apaches is heaps of Cpu, single ordinary drive and
> enough memory to prevent any swapping. And some more of them. We don't
> need high reliability as long as we have enough of them.

Jimbo, how much rackspace can we use?

> > You'd need heartbeat for the load balancers, anyway.
> > Doing it on the squids would just save two boxes.
> >
> > Why three squids? Two would be enough, and even one should be able
> > to handle the load if the other one fails.
>
> +1

Plus one box or plus one who thinks the same?

JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:57:20 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:

>> +1

Plus one vote ;-)

Cheers

Gabriel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror of Dutch Wikipedia

body:
Delirium wrote:
>I'm not entirely sure one of those points is necessary:
>the statement that the article was retrieved from Wikipedia.

Well, that is what the printable page says. So what if it goes over the bounds
of what what is minimally needed for GNU FDL compliance? Another purpose of
the message is for citation purposes. In those cases the name of the source
and when the article was last edited are needed.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of a
single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.
Once we use a cluster of Apaches the files need to be available to all
servers. The easiest solution might be to mount the media dir from a
fileserver (with a big Raid array) via nfs.

I think the sessions are stored in the database, so this is no problem.

Gabriel Wicke


body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:13:46PM +0100, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of a
> single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.

Single server, not in the database currently.

> Once we use a cluster of Apaches the files need to be available to all
> servers. The easiest solution might be to mount the media dir from a
> fileserver (with a big Raid array) via nfs.

And to replicate it to a secondary machine using rsync, for backup purpose.
Having heartbeat on the squids, could those build an NFS cluster?

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] www.wixpression.org?

body:
Gutza wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of automated
>> translation.  Of course the English Wiktionary is "English-centric".
>> What else did you expect?  It is first a dictionary, and only
>> secondly a book of translations.  Still, to choose one example and
>> say that there is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two
>> languages represnts a totally na?ve view of language.
>
>
> Really? Here's what I tried: clicked on "Random Page" 10 times. Here
> are the results:
> 1. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronunciaci%C3%B3n
> 2. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%92%AD
> 3. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Mayoress
> 4. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Bijutel
> 5. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Decibel
> 6. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Balul
> 7. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%86
> 8. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Airtight
> 9. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Brush
> 10. http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%95%9A
>
> There is not a single one hit in the ten above which isn't appropriate
> for automated parsing:
> * No. 1 would be reverse translated from Spanish to English (note that
> http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronounciation doesn't exist).
> * No. 2, 3, 7 and 10 would be completely skipped in parsing because
> they don't contain any proper translations.
> * No. 4 and 6 would be reverse translated from Volap?k to English
> (note there is no mention of Balul at
> http://wiktionary.org/wiki/January, and
> http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Jeweller doesn't exist).
> * No. 5, 8 and 9 would be properly translated to the respective
> languages for which translations are available.
>
> What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in mind?

Most of the above have their own problems.
1. Spanish.  It at first seems like a simple matter of using the cognate
"pronunciation", but in  Law it can also mean "publication".  Coming
back from English there is also the usage at a wedding where the parties
are "pronounced husband and wife"
2. An elder brother.  Not all languages have special words to
differentiate between an older and younger brother.  Just because there
is no translation there now, does not mean that it will never be added.
3. Are we talking about a female mayor, or the mayor's wife.
4. Two meanings are given:  the jeweller (or jeweler in the U.S.) and
his shop.  How do we determine which is meant.  English does not have a
proper single word for the latter.  At least French has "bijoutier" and
"bijouterie"
5. This is the most stable of the lot because it is defined by
international standards.
6. Probably stable.  Names of months usually are unless we are talking
about diferent calenders, which would be stretching the issue even for me.
7. This one relates to pennants or streamers, or even flags, but not in
the sense of national flags.
8. The literal meaning seems obvious, but one still has to allow for the
more metaphorical, as in "The lawyer had an airtight case."
9. The ordinary meaning might seem easy enough, but a brush in an
electric motor would not be translated the same way.
10.It can mean a cloth for carrying a baby on one's back, or as a verb
to "tie" or "bind"

So this leaves me with only two out of ten where one does not run into
ambiguities.  This is far too much ambiguity for automated translations
to be a viable option.  As US President Kennedy once said, "I am a jelly
doughnut".

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: images/media files, sessions, nfs/replication?

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:28:41 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:13:46PM +0100, Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>> I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of a
>> single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.
>
> Single server, not in the database currently.
>
>> Once we use a cluster of Apaches the files need to be available to all
>> servers. The easiest solution might be to mount the media dir from a
>> fileserver (with a big Raid array) via nfs.
>
> And to replicate it to a secondary machine using rsync, for backup purpose.
> Having heartbeat on the squids, could those build an NFS cluster?

In theory-yes. The disadvantage is security- the Squids are the firewall,
separate fileservers could be configured to only accept connections from
the apaches. Having both the database and the fileservers behind the
firewall and behind the Apaches should be much safer.

There are network filesystems like afs that could propably do a
better job for immediate replication than nfs, don't know. We should
figure this out soon...

Whatever the configuration is- this might be a good application for the
current servers. The main server should have raid, but the backup one
could most propably do without. These servers won't see a lot of hits-
basically one write and one read for each image/file for whatever the
squid config's timeout value is. But they should be connected with
Heartbeat to provide failover. I'm not shure if there's a good test module
for fileservers that can detect the more subtle failures.

Gabriel


body:
About AFS:
http://www.openafs.org/
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/plutonic/afs-faq.html#sub1

Sounds interesting, especially the failover/caching part. I have no
experience with this however.

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Sean David Childers

body:
I think we would be crazy not to register wikipedia.  So much effort has
gone into this project and the copyright/patent/trademark laws right now
seem to be strange at best, and almost random.  I think by not
registering wikipedia we are taking a risk.
~seanchilders

urt Jansson wrote:

> First I wanted to name this thread "How to spend the money", but I
> guess  it's better to open Pandora's box bit by bit.
>
> So what about registering Wikipedia (and also Wikimedia?) as a
> trademark? I think we can afford it now, and I also think it's
> important enough to do it. But in which countries? Maybe in those
> where the languages of the biggest five or ten Wikipedias are spoken?
>
> If there is no reaction I consider this as approval and will organize
> the registration for Germany. It costs 300 Euro and lasts for 10 years.
>
>
> Kurt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
Completely disagree.  Copyright problems would destroy the project.  Read up on the history of www.lyrics.ch.

RIckK

Kent Wang <kwang at kwang.org> wrote:
I was browsing through OHHLA.com (Online Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive) and
realized that a lyrics archive would be an excellent application of Wiki
technology.

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 17:03:43 +0100, Gabriel Wicke wrote:

> About AFS:
> http://www.openafs.org/
> http://www.angelfire.com/hi/plutonic/afs-faq.html#sub1

>From the openafs website:

Efficiency Boosters: Replication and Caching

AFS incorporates special features on server machines and client machines
that help make it efficient and reliable.

On server machines, AFS enables administrators to replicate commonly-used
volumes, such as those containing binaries for popular programs.
Replication means putting an identical read-only copy (sometimes called a
clone) of a volume on more than one file server machine. The failure of
one file server machine housing the volume does not interrupt users' work,
because the volume's contents are still available from other machines.
Replication also means that one machine does not become overburdened with
requests for files from a popular volume.

--
Gabriel


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Rob Hooft wrote:
>ECC is slower and more expensive, but it will prevent an eventual memory
>error from propagating into disk files thereby potentially corrupting
>data. This might be advisable to a project like Wikipedia, but only on
>database and/or file servers.

ECC memory is just as fast as non-ECC memory.  In fact, they are exactly
the same.  ECC modules have more bits to accommodate the error correction
bits.  The actual correction data is handled in hardware by the motherboard
chipset and is thus "free".  We aren't in the world of 3-chip fake parity
memory of yesturyear.

Memory bit faults are more likely to cause the machine to fail than
corrupt data on disk.  Having seen numerous ECC "corrected bit faults"
from various machines and other non-ECC equiped machines simply panic or
just hard lock, I highly recommend the added expense.

(And depending on the quality of your server hardware, you may be REQUIRED
 to use registered ECC memory.)

>The only thing where I have personally seen that "expensive pays" is in
>SCSI vs. ATA (no experience with SATA): The SCSI protocol is so much
>smarter that it can be not 2 but 10 times faster than ATA if addressed
>in parallel by concurrent processes. An ftp server working with ATA that
>I have used would grind to a standstill whenever a backup was running....

To be fair, SCSI and modern ATA are basically the same command set.  The
difference is the physical layer.  A SCSI bus will beat an IDE bus EVERY
SINGLE TIME.  SATA is much more closely aligned to SCSI, but until there
are "native" SATA drives -- vs. IDE drives with integrate SATA<->IDE bridges,
I'm staying away from them. (they do exist, it's nearly impossible to
tell without using it.)

(FWIW, I can get 21MB/s from my maxtor IDE drives and 61MB/s from my seagate
 fibre channel drives.  Seagate's latest 200GB drives get about 50MB/s, but
 I've not actually put one to task, yet.)

--Ricky


from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: www.wixpression.org?

references:
<3FFB3BB4.5050906@moongate.ro>
	<hLOk01AOxS$$Ew4i@arwel.cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<3FFD36AB.6030701@moongate.ro>
	<200401080943.57083.sascha@pantropy.net>

body:
On Jan 8, 2004, at 9:43 AM, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> On Thursday 08 January 2004 05:53 am, Gutza wrote:
>
>> Arwel Parry wrote:
>>
>>> Well, for example if you were translating to/from Welsh, the word
>>> "glas" is normally used to describe the colour of the sky, however it
>>> is also used to describe the colour of grass. "Llwyd" usually means
>>> "grey" but it also has "bluey" connotations...
>
> Perhaps the most famous example would be "libre" and "gratuit" mapping
> onto
> the english "free". I agree with Gutza nonetheless that automation
> would be a
> good idea. The overwhelming majority of words can be translated into
> most
> languages one-to-one (ie. no ambiguities). This would save us a lot of
> work.
> And for the few cases where there are problems, they can be corrected
> by
> hand.

Take, specifically, the Spanish 'libre', the English 'free', and the
French 'gratuit'.  Without care, one might end up saying that since
sp:'libre' means en:'free', which means fr:'gratuit', sp:'libre' also
means fr:'gratuit', which is of course wrong.  The transitive property
does not always apply to language.  Here out little automaton friend
might run into difficulty, even if he *is* only aiming to "make our
lives easier".

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
Kent Wang wrote:

>So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that
>would cover music lyrics for all genres.
>
>
A core principle of ALL wikimedia projects is the concept of free content.

>I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need
>to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the
>GFDL will most certainly be incompatible.
>
>
It's an unsurmountable problem.


subject:
class rimage (was Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Server Side image resizing
	and	image layout -	patch included)

body:
Jens Frank wrote:

>>Our stylesheets are a terrible mess.
>>Once I get MediaWiki working on my PC, I'll make a few short-term fixes,
>>pending our implementation of Smarty templates.
>>
>>
>
>That sounds good, what can I do to help you set up MediaWiki?
>
>
>
Rewrite http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_MediaWiki_on_Windows so
it's idiot-proof :)

I am currently having trouble understanding that "c:/playpen/" is meant
to correspond to on my HD.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Can we PLEASE ban Wik?

body:
He is in a CONSTANT state of edit war with just about efverybody on every article he works on, and he has added Hephaestos and Angela to Problem Users.  This has gone far enough.

RickK

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
You're going to get into a lot of trouble with it.  As has been said here, lyrichs.ch was shut down by the police because American publishers sent the Swiss police to shut it down.

RickK

cprompt <cprompt at tmbg.org> wrote:
Actually, I was planning on start a project like that for a while now.
Maybe I'll actually get around to doing it. :-) I believe that lyrics
should be under fair use, and I think that most artists would agree with
me.

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
Kent-
> Though the RIAA is definitely
> tort-happy, I don't believe there have been any attempts to shut down
> online lyrics websites

Incorrect. The best lyrics archive of all time was lyrics.sh, and it was
shut down via court order by the Swiss RIAA equivalent. I think they
reached a settlement of some kind, but the site that is now in its place
is a spam-infested craphole. Everything2.com, which is a bit like a wiki,
has recently started to enforce strict copyright rules on material such as
lyrics.

There are lots of ad-infested lyrics archives on the net, but it seems
like the good ones always get shut down sooner or later. If you want to
deal with legal threats, then go ahead and set up a lyrics wiki. Nowadays
when I search for lyrics, I just google for a phrase from the song which I
can identify (remember to put the phrase in quotes), that usually does the
trick.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
> Incorrect. The best lyrics archive of all time was lyrics.sh

lyrics.ch, that is.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiLyrics

body:
Actually, I was planning on start a project like that for a while now.
Maybe I'll actually get around to doing it. :-) I believe that lyrics
should be under fair use, and I think that most artists would agree with
me. That's why people who buy music on eBay would more likely bid on CDs
without the liner notes, as opposed to liner notes without CDs. While I
think a lyric project would be a great use of our wiki software, I think
it doesn't really belong on Wikimedia, which has prided itself on open
content. Unless the Wikimedia version restricted its lyrics to public
domain songs or songs under a free (as in freedom) license.

On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 14:16, Kent Wang wrote:
> I was browsing through OHHLA.com (Online Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive) and
> realized that a lyrics archive would be an excellent application of Wiki
> technology. Although OHHLA is the most comprehensive website in its
> genre, there are still many less popular artists that are not covered,
> and most of the pages I've seen contain at least a mistake or two.
>
> So I think a great new WikiMedia project would be a "WikiLyrics" that
> would cover music lyrics for all genres.
>
> Hip-hop lyrics are particularly in need for a wiki because they are full
> of slang words and in-references that can be Wikified to articles
> explaining them. Hip-hop albums also rarely come with lyrics sheets
> though ironically, are probably most in need of them.
>
> I've already Googled for "lyrics wiki" and found no significant hits.
>
> I'm very enthusiastic about this idea but a major problem that will need
> to be resolved is that almost all lyrics are not open content and the
> GFDL will most certainly be incompatible. Though the RIAA is definitely
> tort-happy, I don't believe there have been any attempts to shut down
> online lyrics websites, especially since they should not undermine
> record sales.
>
> I eagerly await your comments on this idea.
>
> Kent Wang
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:52:13PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Jens Frank wrote:
> > Jimbo, how much rackspace can we use?
>
> Rackspace isn't an issue at all.

Good to hear. Knowing the prices for colo's in the US, I have to say
"Thank you".

> When I asked the world for $20,000, my intention is that this will see
> us through a pretty steep growth curve for awhile.  I'd like for us to
> setup a system now that's robust and has a very large amount of
> reserve capacity, so that as far as we can manage, the site will be
> highly responsive to users for some time to come *even in a case where
> we have had bad hardware luck*.
>
> If two squids are good enough and we can survive on one, then I want
> three.  If 3 webservers are handling the load just fine, and we can
> survive on 2, then I want 5.  If geoffrin dies, I want to have another
> machine that can take the load without breaking a sweat.

You said something else earlier today, that we shouldn't spend the money
just because we have it. Being tight-fisted, I somewhat have a problem
with "overdelivery". Redundancy is fine, we need it. Having a spare server
on site is probably cheaper than a service contract. But 3? Please,
someone covince me that we won't find a better way to spend the money
in half a year.

Regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Rob Hooft

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
Jens Frank wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:52:13PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>When I asked the world for $20,000, my intention is that this will see
>>us through a pretty steep growth curve for awhile.  I'd like for us to
>>setup a system now that's robust and has a very large amount of
>>reserve capacity, so that as far as we can manage, the site will be
>>highly responsive to users for some time to come *even in a case where
>>we have had bad hardware luck*.
>>
>>If two squids are good enough and we can survive on one, then I want
>>three.  If 3 webservers are handling the load just fine, and we can
>>survive on 2, then I want 5.  If geoffrin dies, I want to have another
>>machine that can take the load without breaking a sweat.
>
>
> You said something else earlier today, that we shouldn't spend the money
> just because we have it. Being tight-fisted, I somewhat have a problem
> with "overdelivery". Redundancy is fine, we need it. Having a spare server
> on site is probably cheaper than a service contract. But 3? Please,
> someone covince me that we won't find a better way to spend the money
> in half a year.
>

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The same money now used on "useless"
redundancy or "growth capacity" will buy 50% more in 6 months.

I am advising everyone in my environment to take always "one step back"
in hardware, this will be three steps less in price. Remember that the
top of the line at any moment is out of date in two months time anyway,
so you can just as well buy 2 months old technology right now.

A similar argument holds for memory capacity. I have often seen that
people including myself bought an "extensible" computer, but before you
actually want to extend it the parts are no longer available or perform
badly in your system. If you're really going to be growing memory to
16GB on a system in the future, buying the whole 16GB at that point may
be more reliable and cheaper than going for very special modules right now.

ECC is slower and more expensive, but it will prevent an eventual memory
error from propagating into disk files thereby potentially corrupting
data. This might be advisable to a project like Wikipedia, but only on
database and/or file servers.

The only thing where I have personally seen that "expensive pays" is in
SCSI vs. ATA (no experience with SATA): The SCSI protocol is so much
smarter that it can be not 2 but 10 times faster than ATA if addressed
in parallel by concurrent processes. An ftp server working with ATA that
I have used would grind to a standstill whenever a backup was running....

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


from_name: Yann Forget

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

Le Thursday 08 January 2004 12:43, Constans, Camille (C.C.) a ?crit :

> Same in France, you can register .fr if you own the trademark. (the same
> european trademark)

Yes, but the French organisation managing domain names just said that it will
ease the registration of .fr domain names, i.e. a trademark won't be
necessary anymore, but it will still be only possible for companies. I am not
sure what it will mean by "only possible for companies" (only organisations
or only commercial companies).

cf. http://www.temps-reels.net/breve.php3?id_breve=133

> Shaihulud

Yann
- --
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

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CmrqdnEqlMaxUJxaxSWoFm0=
=M3+S
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Arne Klempert (akl)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] please update letter.html

body:
Could anyone update the donation amount (last update on December 31) on
http://wikimedia.org/letter.html ?

Perhaps it makes sense, to replace it with a link to
http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising

Arne
[[de:Benutzer:Akl]]
--
http://klempert.de :: http://phpbar.de :: http://opengeodb.de


body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:06:57 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>> The default configuration for using Linux Director would be no load
>> balancing at all and one machine on standby with Heartbeat. We could do
>> the same with the squids, but it makes more sense to use both machine's
>> ram.
>
> I'm not sure I'm following you here.  If we have 2 Linux Directors,
> one on standby, but they aren't doing load balancing, then what are
> they for?  I thought the director would be in charge of (iptables
> style) load balancing the squids?

Yes, but the two Linux Director wouldn't be load balanced because each of
them can deal with the full traffic. Same for the Squids, but it wouldn't
hurt to use them both.

>> for cpu, but for future memory expansion. I think Raid isn't
>> necessary for the squid if the logging is done to a separate disk.
>
> *nod* But RAID could be used in mirroring mode to increase
> reliability, presumably...

Yes, i'm not against RAID at all- i just wanted to stretch that 4Gigs of
ram might be more important than the most advanced five-dics RAID. If we
have enough money- then fine. The Squids will do all the logging- so the
disk will be accessed regularly.

> I'm listening to your thought that maybe going with a 64 bit CPU might
> make more sense just from the point of view of more RAM potential in
> the future.  It's just very hard today to predict whether that's the
> right path to take or not.

I'm not shure either. 4Gigs will carry a long way i guess (especially
with the 'join' configuration of the Squids)- and accessing a few bigger
files from disk won't be a performance problem.
By the time a memory upgrade would be beneficial a full machine with that
amount of ram (of possibly a different kind then) might cost no more. So
x86 with 4Gigs might be fine as well- cpu-wise anyway.

> One can only assume that RAM will be a lot cheaper in the future, and
> it sure would be nice to spend $1600 per machine to upgrade to 16Gb.

The question is if this is really needed that soon- if the load really
explodes we could start adding mirrors which would also save some
bandwidth. Once the envisoned setup is running the next step is mainly
about a DNS thing like SuperSparrows. Squid3 is scheduled for release this
spring- with ESI this can lower the load drastically again.
__

Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Does this mean that we only need to register the trademark once for it
> to be valid in the entire EU?

Yes. I talked recently to a German lawyer about this stuff and he gave
me the same info.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Jan 8, 2004, at 14:10, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Gabriel Wicke wrote:
>> I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of
>> a
>> single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.

There is a table in the database that _lists_ images, but the uploaded
files are simply stored in the web server's local filesystem. For the
primitive en/en2 split, we just force all image-related actions to
happen on one server, but that's not very satisfactory.

> Probably Brion has more good ideas about how to handle images on our
> proposed architecture.

Well, the idea I floated a while ago, which was somewhat unpopular, was
to basically keep the "real" images as blobs in the database and let
the web servers cache them to the local filesystem as needed.

I should point out that the database holds far more data in the
revision history than we have in uploaded images. en.wikipedia.org's
uploads directory totals about 1.2GB, de's is <300MB. If we're talking
about saving 14GB from the database by compressing old revisions, 2
gigs or so of images seem a relatively minor burden.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror of Dutch Wikipedia

body:
On Jan 8, 2004, at 02:37, Erik van den Muijzenberg wrote:
> A Dutch ISP is mirroring the Dutch Wikipedia in a way which
> makes it VERY up to date. (Method yet unknown to us.)

Could you point out a URL? It's very hard to talk usefully in abstracts
about these sorts of things.

(Also I'd like to see if I can figure out their mirroring method to
make sure it's not draining on our server.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Menchi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Brilliant prose rename brainstorm

body:
It has to be obvious to non-Wikipedian oldie readers. 'Trusted AREA' & 'Safe
zone' (both words) are not obvious. The others are ok.

--
___________________________
Menchi
p.s. My 1st reply to the ML in several months... And the 1st to use a mail
client program directly, hope it gets thru


body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:16:48 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Even so, I don't want us to be too stingy.  What I'm hearing loud and
> clear is that people want wikipedia to be fast, highly responsive, and
> reliable.  We don't want to be sketchy about reaching those goals, we
> want to embrace those goals wholeheartedly and make sure we aren't
> sitting on money in the bank while the site lags.

In the case of the Squids it wouldn't exactly be a case of 'survive on
one'. A Pentium 2.4 or similar with 4Gigs of Ram will do at the very
minimum 15 times the current traffic, i would bet it will do 25 times the
current load. I fear wikipedia won't be that big in three months time...
>From the current plans it seems that there will be two database servers-
if we went for three Squids it would make sense to buy a third DB as well.
Same for any load balancers (if we wnat any) and file servers. That would
be very expensive. It's not hard to add another Squid if one goes down for
a longer time (no data to transfer for once), but i would guess it's
harder to do with the DB. The other thing is that three Squids might be
harder to connect with Heartbeat- i'm pretty shure it's possible, but
definetely more work. How much ram is in larousse/pliny? One of them could
be readily configured as a third (possibly standby) Squid and
DNS/mailserver- the Squids are not demanding after all.

I'd propose to get going as soon as possible with at least 6 Apaches, 2
Squids, 2 DBs and 2 Fileservers (propably one of them combined with DB?),
plus mail/dns box. Once that's running we can add a third Squid and more
Apaches or Dbs- depending on the load we observe.

And we can do some testing with mirrors (possibly including Squid3/ ESI)
until then. Somebody has to pay the bandwidth after all ;-)
--
Gabriel Wicke


subject: [WikiEN-l] Set globally (ML settings)

body:
What does it mean when the settings say "Set globally " in
http://mail.wikipedia.org ?
___________________________
Menchi


from_name: Jens Frank

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 02:10:32PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> > I'm still wondering how the images are stored currently- on the hd of a
> > single Server? They don't seem to be in the database.
> > Once we use a cluster of Apaches the files need to be available to all
> > servers. The easiest solution might be to mount the media dir from a
> > fileserver (with a big Raid array) via nfs.
>
> Does nfs still stink?  I know that it used to be common wisdom that
> you never webserve stuff from nfs, because the performance was
> disastrous.  Probably some smart apache rewriting could solve this for
> the most part, i.e. if a server doesn't have a requested image
> locally, it tries to get it via nfs and *keeps* it locally for future
> reference.

There's a program we could run in front of our webservers, I think it's
called squid, that can solve this ;-) Just enable caching for those.
Sending a PURGE if an image is overwritten might be OK.

	JeLuF


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:03:19 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Jens Frank wrote:
>> > 1 CPU at 2.4GHZ P4.  (They offer a cheaper Celeron, I'm not sure if
>> > the P4 is worth the extra money for webserving or not.)
>>
>> The 2,6 GHz is 1$ cheaper. If you want to buy the same boxes for all
>> purpose (squid+apache), I'd go for the faster CPU.
>
> To be sure that I understand.  For essentially the same price, you
> recommend a 2.6Ghz Celeron over a 2.4Ghz Pentium?  That sounds fine to
> me, I just don't know how the differences between Celeron and Pentium
> affect performance for webserving.

I think for the Apaches we should look for the most cpu we can get for the
money- no remote control, no RAID, but enough ram to not swap.
It's very likely that we could get much more cpu power for the
money by buying nine modest 2Ghz machines rather than five 2.6Ghz Pentium4
with RAID. Prices are usually disproportionally higher for the latest
compared to the average, latest four-months-ago machines. Double price
often doesn't buy double performance. Rack space doesn't seem to be a
problem, so the only drawback would be the installation work. This
shouldn't be that bad- after configuring one machine we would just copy
over the image to the others anyway.

>> The SM-1151SATA has non-ECC memory. Being used to ECC and even hot
>> spare memory, I'm not comfortable with this. 2*1GB is what I'd use,
>> too.

What's the current memory consumption on pliny/larousse?

(...)

> Keep in mind that we are going to have easy hands-on access to the
> servers, and we're going to be in a facility that's staffer 24x7 with
> free "remote hands" service for things like pushing a reset button and
> typing a few things on the console, sticking in a floppy, etc.

For me, all these things just mean that having cheap but many Apaches
would bring more performance.

I woudn't want to use a cheap machine for the DB- or file servers and not
for the squids (they benefit a lot from ram), but the Apaches are the
place where the extra dollars for high-end hardware would buy very little.

What's google based on? Are they even using desktop pcs for the cpu work?

--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Anthere

body:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen a ?crit:
> NOTE: I AM CROSSPOSTING THIS TO THE WIKILEGAL LIST,
> SO PLEASE EDIT THE LISTS LINE TO THE APPROPRIATE
> RECIPIENTS.

I think I am misunderstanding what you mean here...

what is the list line ?

(gee, I am *sure* I am making a mistake)

> On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 10:56, A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>
> <<I am requesting arbitration at [[DNA]]. I have
> attempted to submit that DNA is a form of [[nucleic
> acid]]. [[User:Peak]] (working in conjunction with an
> anon IP) has made it clear to me that he thinks I am a
> vandal (thus, mediation is not appropriate; since,
> discussion is impossible).>>
>
>     Respectfully, I think in this situation, discussion is imperative.
>
>     By speech and action, you should make it clear that Peak and his
>     (putative) anonymous friend are incorrect in their characterisation
>     of you.
>
>     (more about the possible role of mediation below)
>
>
> <<I request that the arbitration committee determine
> whether, or not, DNA is a nucleic acid.>>
>
>     It is unclear whether we are going to allow either the mediation
>     or the arbitration process stray into making determinations on
>     questions of fact (personally I think it would be a serious
>     over-reach of authority and compounding of "hats" which might
>     cause severe difficulties to the credibility of either process).
>
>     If that is decided to be outside our remit, perhaps the best you
>     could hope for is that a mediator would try to get Peek and/or
>     the anonymous editor to confront your views, and try to help
>     all parties to find some useful mode to discuss the matter
>     between each other, either within the mediation process or
>     subsequent to it, without taking a position in any way, other
>     than to the effect that discussion should take place and
>     perhaps suggesting intermediary discussion points which might help
>     to chart where the heart of the disagreement lies.
>
>     Respectfully,
>
>         Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro),
>         MEMBER OF THE MEDIATION COMMITTEE

Boy, did you sound serious there...

> P.S. I hate to keep on harping on this matter, but there is a
> possibility that a method
> for resolving questions of fact may be needed down the line. The ideal
> method for
> this is neither arbitration nor mediation, but rather "expert
> determination". This has
> already been excercised informally in the Florentin Smarandache and
> Neutrosophy
> case, when a professor from outside Wikipedia was "enticed" to "fix" the
> problem.
>
> Once we get more and more public exposure, it may well turn out that on
> specific
> tightly defined questions of fact, we may be able to get even notable
> experts to
> accept commissions to sort things out, in a context of both/all sides of
> the
> conflict accepting beforehand the expert enlisted makes the final call.
> There are
> attendant possibilities here, for generating publicity for both
> Wikipedia and/or the
> expert who accepts the commission (and we may even get a new convert from
> the highest reaches of the particular field :-).

hummmm, perhaps. Yeah, why not.

But...let's say...if it is a purely factual point, expertise is nice.
But usually, most conflicts are not exactly on purely factual points.
More on some that involves interpretation.
And...being an expert is no guarantee of neutrality
rather far from that in fact :-)

Say...if we call for help upon an expert...I would say it is ok if this
expert succeeds to *convince* us of the proper answer to the issue,
provided that he gives us appropriate references.
?t is ok that he convinces us.
It is not ok that he just tell us "this is the good answer".

I mean...if we call help upon a "great" expert, that we agree on that
expert, that this expert is indeed biaised in his answer, and makes a
final call upon which someone disagree, how are we gonna get out of that
? and tell the guy from whom we requested help that "no, it is not
acceptable".

In short, I think a respectable number of us know an expert, who is just
as experts as us on a topic, but with whom we disagree. I do not think
it would be fair in the slightest that on wikipedia this expert vision
is considered the right one, just because he was requested as an expert,
if in the real world we fairly disagree.

the idea is seducing, but dangerous :-)


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] mirror of Dutch Wikipedia

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>That much is good. You may want to tell them that simply hosting the printable
>versions of the French Wikipedia will put them into GNU FDL compliance (there
>should be a link-back, statement that the article was retrieved from
>Wikipedia, and link to the GNU FDL on each printable page).
>
>
I'm not entirely sure one of those points is necessary: the statement
that the article was retrieved from Wikipedia.  Simply saying "this text
is under the GFDL; click 'here' to get a list of authors" should
suffice, since Wikipedia isn't one of the authors.  Or even mirroring
the edit history themselves and not liking to (or mentioning) Wikipedia
at all.  In any case, we should make sure what we're telling people they
"have" to do is something they actually *do* absolutely "have" to do.

-Mark


from_name: A

from_email: A

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for Mediation [[nervous system]]

body:
The current edit war is over whether it is really
technically accurate to refer to neural "information"
as being "true" information. The article on
[[information]] clearly indicates that it might be
inaccurate to refer to this as information.

However, my edits are reverted by people who make far
more personal attacks than statements of fact or
discussion.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: squid idea summary

body:
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 02:03:19PM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Jens Frank wrote:
> > > 1 CPU at 2.4GHZ P4.  (They offer a cheaper Celeron, I'm not sure if
> > > the P4 is worth the extra money for webserving or not.)
> >
> > The 2,6 GHz is 1$ cheaper. If you want to buy the same boxes for all
> > purpose (squid+apache), I'd go for the faster CPU.
>
> To be sure that I understand.  For essentially the same price, you
> recommend a 2.6Ghz Celeron over a 2.4Ghz Pentium?  That sounds fine to
> me, I just don't know how the differences between Celeron and Pentium
> affect performance for webserving.

No, I recommend the 2.6 Pentium, according to their web shop, the 2.6GHz
version is cheaper than the 2.4GHz Pentium.

> > The SM-1151SATA has non-ECC memory. Being used to ECC and even hot
> > spare memory, I'm not comfortable with this. 2*1GB is what I'd use,
> > too.
>
> Can you elaborate on this?  All my recent server purchases have been
> from Penguin, and they are always ECC memory, which costs more and
> performs less, but which is supposed to be more reliable.  But is it
> really?  How much more reliable?  Or have I misunderstood the
> difference completely?

Without ECC, you can detect a memory fault. Kernel panic.

With ECC, you get a message to the log file and can call Penguin to send
a new module before it's completely broken.

> My new G5 uses non-ECC ram, and it seems to work just fine.  I have
> had plenty of bad sticks of ECC ram in my life.

Except for "dead on arrival" I've never had a failure of an entire
ECC stick. But might be that the price difference makes a little
quality difference, too.

> Would you consider the use of non-ECC ram to be a "deal killer" on the
> SM-1151SATA, or just something that's not quite ideal?

The later. ECC is just like redundant power supply.

> > Remote management cards are really useful coping with crashed servers.
> > It starts with being able to read the kernel panic message, being
> > able to power off and on the server, and advanced ones being even able
> > to insert a "virtual floppy" during booting (Remember the crash we
> > had while trying to remotely update the kernel?).
> > http://www.techland.co.uk/index/eric is a vendor-independent RMB.
> > Compaq's ILO-boards are much more powerfull, though.
>
> *nod*  I'll look into these.
>
> How does a remote management card compare to serial console
> redirection?

It provides a way to hit reset and power off/power on. But having
remote helping hands, we perhaps won't need this.

> I couldn't find a price for that Eric card, what do remote server
> management cards cost, generally?

Compaq charges some 600 US$

> Keep in mind that we are going to have easy hands-on access to the
> servers, and we're going to be in a facility that's staffer 24x7 with
> free "remote hands" service for things like pushing a reset button and
> typing a few things on the console, sticking in a floppy, etc.

Yup. Didn't know this when proposing the remote cards.

> > Thinking of Squid, I'd rather spend the money for
> > 2 Gigs of additional memory than for the faster disks. Memory should
> > dramatically reduce I/O load on proxies. 2 additional GB are 762$.
>
> And if this is non-ECC ram, then perhaps 2 additional GB are less
> than that from other vendors.

Those were the prices from SM's web configuration tool.

JeLuF


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Move of datacenter

body:
Jimbo,

will the new servers be installed directly to the new colo or
go to California first?

JeLuF