[Wikipedia-l] Snapshot wikipedia installations in schools

Tue Jun 8 12:33:54 UTC 2004

Folks,

  In conjunction with the Wizzy Digital Courier internet
  access project http://wizzy.org.za/ I am considering
  installing wikipedia.

  Wizzy Digital Courier is primarily to enable Internet access
  for countries / communities that cannot afford daytime
  internet access, due to Telcom monopolies and per-minute
  local telephone charges.

  In two pilot schools, I have installed wikipedia on their
  intranet, with great success. After initial skeptism from
  teachers, it has become a very useful resource.

  I install the wikimedia tarball, and a weekly snapshot.

  Due to the time taken to download new snapshots, I only
  do these between semesters - it can take a week or so to
  download, using UUCP at cheap rates in evenings and weekends.

  After feedback from teachers, I have two requests :-

  1.	Graphics	(you knew that was coming !)

	To determine feasibility of this, can you give me
	an idea of the size of a potential graphics archive ?
	An incremental snapshot would almost be mandatory for
	this, I think.

  2.	A daily SQL update for the main page.

  	This will give it a newsy feel, instead of talking
	about Mandarin Chinese for two months :-) I know
	that some of the articles it refers to will not be
	available, but ... tough.

  Thanks again for an invaluable resource that almost replaces
  the web at one fell swoop in places that cannot afford the web.

Cheers,    Andy!