Wikinews:TWG


 * I expect this refactored into multiple sub-pages, much as-is done on the Water Cooler. Ultimately, it would transition to Wikinewsie Group controlled wikis.
 * I apologise to non-native English speakers; I would far-prefer to have our own http://meta.wikinews.org to act as an interface to Meta itself. However, in the absence of such, it seems most-sensible to work in English in collaborating on where we want to get to. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:29, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

= Technical updates =

Accredited reporters: Emails

 * 1) Quotas have been imposed on all mailboxes at over 100MB; ''except for those I clearly recognise as active (even if only sporadically).
 * Please look into getting a mail client to keep your data locally until such time as secured server space is available.
 * Do not use web-based mail collectors! Please make arrangements to extract any @wikinewsie.org correspondence from the likes of Gmail, Hotmail, etc.
 * Mailboxes which hit quota will be locked, removed from scoop, and deleted (including content); this will include some unavoidable 'grace period' due to work commitments.
 * It is expected this will aid in moving wikinewsie.org hosting from the Netherlands to Iceland; and, permit a more-orderly cleaning of the accredited list.
 * 1) * Further updates from server-side will be hash-numbered, please feel-free to comment/discuss (with use of #:*) to indent bullet-point remarks. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

TWG wiki

 * This subject is largely up-in-the-air; Wikinewsie.org has been registered a long time now, setting up group.wikinewsie.org, twg.wikinewsie.org, or any other sub-domain, is not too-difficult. Comments welcome on the below 'geeky ramblings'. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Wiki farm
This seems sensible; we are likely to want to compartmentalise different wikis; share our own media repository, etc.

I am installing a range of software locally - which will allow me to, with git - synch up to the WMF-preferred install. Ultimately, that will become repository.wikinewsie.org. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:29, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Dedicated hosting
We suffer from major data security risks with our current hosting arrangements. We, quite frankly, can't even trust Virtual Private Servers, unless they're ones we build, and harden the images of; meaning, the only real solution is physical hardware we control. With modern, fixed-line &mdash; and, even 3G mobile &mdash; connections, contributing to Wikinews need not be everyone working in whatever environment they can 'cobble together'.

VPNs allow us to collaborate, as-if on the same local area network. Journalists can work on a standardised desktop install via Remote Desktop, access to data can be readily-compartmentalised, with audit trails, access logs, &c.

With our own server(s) &mdash; and,  '' &mdash; we should use the same  as. Before anyone gets 'antsy' about "waaaaah! not Open Source!", that's not the point. Scroll down.

Grant options

 * Open question
 * Including &mdash; say &mdash; the, what are our options for grant-funding a hardware budget?

'ideal' configuration
To explain my proposed choice of platform for TWG, let me outline some of the features it supports (as-if knowing that the NSA could-well simulate large chunks of the internet, in a farm of Virtual Machines running on it, wasn't enough!):


 * Supports, , ,
 * Distributed filesystem support (including via Gigabit Ethernet/Fibrechannel)
 * Clustering (Active, not failover; a 3-node cluster can lose a node and not lose any uncommitted data)
 * Where the FAQ is out-of-date, the manuals have answers
 * Supports ; thus: OpenVMS can 'expose', or hide, areas within a hosted MediaWiki instance down to page-version level; even linking categories to ACLs, and allowing full data-access auditing.

Huge amount of options open to us - if we've a budget.

It does translate to quite a few U of rackspace, ideally in three separate datacentres, with the fastest possible interconnects between them. With solidly supported software out to 2020. Similarly, hardware support for the operating system. And, if someone else (going back to grants) thinks they could write a compelling grant proposal, I can start getting quotes. I am working on planning an October trip to Iceland; already have an invite to tour one of the datacentres there, but dates are in-flux. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:51, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikinewsie.org distro
I've had a few goes at knocking together a Linux distro which is of-use to contributors. Since, when first looking at this several years ago, have taken directions I dislike; I've been looking for an alternative (whilst cobbling together derivative distros that suit me). At that time &mdash; as, once again I find myself &mdash; in-touch with the local music scene; So, the purchase of a new piece of shiney audio hardware had me take another look at.

They've &mdash; obviously &mdash; felt the same as me about Ubuntu &mdash; although, last time I looked (circa Ubuntu 10.04) &mdash; they had the worse desktop manager. And, this fine, upstanding, beer-drinking USian, also approves of the new look.

I'm starting to build, from a Debian NetInst upwards, a suitable distro in a virtual machine. I will post some screencaps thereof later. I had to call a halt to work on getting VMWare installed as I was uploading tens of gigabites of video footage to wikinewsie.org. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:51, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

An idea of a look
I took some time yesterday to have a play with just-how configurable UbuntuStudio 12.04 LTS is. I popped up some screencaps here; apologies for the blurriness on the half-size display; click each for the full-size ones. (These are simply examples; wikinewsie.org needs a makeover in-terms of the Globes image being ND'd, and the photographer not responding to queries.) You can easily snag a distro from here: http://ubuntustudio.org/ and I've found it runs quite nicely off an 8GB USB3.0 memory stick.

I've noticed, that for putting a Wikinews logo onto video, there's a problem with it being too-harsh. I've toned that down here (right) with a few filters to make a semi-transparent version of the logo. I would expect something along these lines to form a base for a TWG logo; but, in the meantime, it's an interesting exercise (I am somewhat stuck until a three-hour image backup job completes. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:19, 26 August 2013 (UTC)