[Wikipedia-l] Snapshot wikipedia installations in schools

Tue Jun 8 21:43:27 UTC 2004

From: "Andy Rabagliati" <andyr at wizzy.com>
> Folks,
>  [...]
>  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.
>   1. Graphics (you knew that was coming !)

Hi Andy,
I work with three different
school districts in SW New
Hampshire, USA. We have
the students using Wikipedia
as a resource with different
access. One school has an
AOL dial up account at 
33.6k another a frame
relay connection and one
more on local cable broad
band. We've tried it all!

One outlying school cannot
afford a live fulltime connection
and we download whole websites
and mirror them on the server when
requested by teachers, so the process
is during nighttime. For this school
I've brought a lot of information on
CD-R's, shared it out of the drive
and have the kids access the info.
These are all just ways to make do,
untill they get faster access in the 
area, (which is very rural).

I was thinking that if you could use
a backup sent to you on CD-R or a
DVD of whatever images or tarballs 
will be needed it would save you 
incredible amounts of download time, 
wouldn't it? 

>   2. A daily SQL update for the main page.

Even a weekend update would be quite
recent and something to look forward 
to for the students and teachers.

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

I wholeheartedly agree, Andy.
I feel that Wikipedia is an excellent
resource for schools!

With regards,
Jay B.