According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User-Agent_policy and the
associated mailing list threads, user agent headers are now required
(and have been for some time) but on the request log side, we see a
lot of requests with the user agent "-" - IOW, an empty field. Is the
blocking of requests absent a user agent simply happening at a
'higher' stage (in mediawiki itself?) and so not registering with the
varnishes, or is sending an /empty/ header simply A-OK?
--
Oliver Keyes
Count Logula
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi everyone,
*tl;dr: Discovery Department to run A/B test
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T111078> comparing new search suggester
to prefix search, to see if it can reduce zero results rate.*
As I'm sure you're all aware, the search box at the top right of every page
on desktop uses prefix search to generate its results. The main reason for
this is that prefix search is incredibly fast and performant; that search
box sees a lot of traffic, and it's important to keep it scalable.
However, we know that there are numerous problems with prefix search.
Prefix searches are prone to give you no results; if you make even a slight
typo, then you won't get the result you want. And thus a complex system of
manually curated redirects were born to try to alleviate this navigation
issue. Wouldn't it be nice if we could work towards a solution that doesn't
require the manual curation of redirects, thus freeing up Wikimedians to do
other more meaningful tasks? And make search a bit better in the process,
too? That's a long term goal of mine... emphasis on the long. ;-)
The Q1 2015-17 (Jul - Aug 2015) goal of the Search Team in the Discovery
Department is to reduce the zero results rate
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2015-16_Q1_Goals#Search>.
Amongst other things, we've been working to build an alternative to prefix
search <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T105746>. Documentation on the
API is pretty light right now because we're scrambling to get it up and
running (but there's a task for that!
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T111139>).
An initial version of the suggestion API is now in production on enwiki and
dewiki [1], but is currently not being used for anything. Our initial tests
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T109729> of the API show that it's
incredibly promising for reducing the zero results rate. But we need more
data!
We're planning on running an A/B test on whether this API is better at
reducing zero results. We're targeting beginning on Tuesday 8th September,
for two weeks. This is documented in T111078
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T111078>.
A very important note here is that we currently have no way of
quantitatively measuring result relevance (although we're working on it
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T109482>), so this test will be highly
limited in scope, only measuring the zero results rate. Given the limits of
this, even seeing massive success in this test is not enough to deploy this
API as a full replacement of prefix search; we'd need additional data. But,
that's not stopping us from gathering initial data from this test.
As always, if you have any questions, let me know.
Thanks,
Dan
[1]: The API is actually live on all wikis, but we only built the search
indices for enwiki and dewiki since they're our biggest content wikis and
this is an early test. Attempting to use the API on any other wiki will get
you a cirrus backend error.
--
Dan Garry
Lead Product Manager, Discovery
Wikimedia Foundation
Yesterday and today, I've experienced a number of delays in getting pages
to load on Wikimedia sites. My connectivity to other websites is normal, so
I think something may be going on internally with Wikimedia connectivity. I
recall seeing discussions during Mexico Wikimania about testing connections
to Wikimedia sites systematically from geographically dispersed locations.
Is that kind of testing being done? Are there any other tools which might
explain the delays in getting connections and loading pages?
Thanks,
Pine
Dear users, developers and all people interested in semantic wikis,
We are very happy to announce that early bird registration to the 12th
Semantic MediaWiki Conference is now open!
*Important facts reminder:*
* Dates: October 28th to October 30th 2015 (Wednesday to Friday)
* Location: Fabra i Coats, Art Factory. Carrer Sant Adrià 20 (Sant
Andreu), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
* Conference page: https://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2015
* Participants: Everybody interested in semantic wikis, especially in
Semantic MediaWiki, e.g. users, developers, consultants, business
representatives and researchers.
*We welcome new contributions from you:*
* We encourage contributions about applications and development of
semantic wikis; for a list of topics, see [1].
* Please propose regular talks, posters or workshops on the conference
website. We will do our best to consider your proposal in the
conference program. An interesting variety of talks has already be
proposed, see [2].
* Presentations will generally be video and audio recorded and made
available for others after the conference.
* If you've already announced your talk it's now time to expand its
description.
*News on participation and tutorials:*
* You can now officially register for the conference [3] and benefit
from early bird fees until October 5, 2015.
* The tutorial program has been announced and made available [4].
*Organization:*
* Amical Wikimedia [5] and Open Semantic Data Association e. V. [6]
have become the official organisers of SMWCon Fall 2015
* Thanks to Institut de Cultura - Ajuntament de Barcelona [7] for
providing free access to the conference location and its infrastructure
If you have questions you can contact Lia Veja and Karsten Hoffmeyer
(Program Chairs), Alina Mierluș (General Chair) or Toni Hermoso (Local
Chair) per e-mail (Cc).
We will be happy to see you in Barcelona!
Lia Veja, Karsten Hoffmeyer (Program Board)
[1] <http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2015/Announcement>
[2] <https://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2015#Program_proposals>
[3] <https://ti.to/wikisofia/smwcon2015-fall>
[4] <http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2015#Program>
[5] <https://www.wikimedia.cat/>
[6] <https://opensemanticdata.org/>
[7] <http://lameva.barcelona.cat/barcelonacultura/en/>