[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia on DVD

Thu Jul 6 12:41:52 UTC 2006

Hello,

it exists: http://wikipedia.linux.co.nz/index.php/Main_Page

I found out (by accident!) that someone had burnt WP onto DVD and had
given copies to some schools that were interested. He is interested in
knowing what the WM people think of what he is doing. Below are some
of his comments. BTW this is all happening in Australia.

cheers,
Brianna
en.wp,commons,meta:User:pfctdayelise

[him:]
> > um , yeah, hi.  the disk is being uploaded to a mirror which you can get a bittorrent feed from shortly.
> >
> > As the database is a myisampack compressed file on a read-only filesystem , I had to change the wikimedia code so that any insert , delete or update code would not be run , else you'd get errors.
> >
> > I don't know much about the relationship between wikimedia and wikipedia , but I'm concerned about what I'm doing is going to piss off anyone.

[I told him it wasn't because the GFDL encourages re-use]
[...]

yeah , I've just put on a complete copy of the DB. its one of the last
ones done in SQL format before they went for their xml dump .. so its a
bit old , but I don't forsee many problems updating it to a newer db.

the main screen that appears is pretty much like the one that shows up
on the main wikipedia site , except it doesn't do any extra searching of
articles... which is handy , because it's not exactly fast searching for
an article.

[me: (they=WMF)]
> The main concern for them is filtering out
> copyright violations, junk and incorrect information, as you may have
> noticed these things are not entirely infrequent occurrences. :) The

ooh yeah :)

[me:]
> idea is that once they make a CD version they could be sued as
> "publishers" for copyright violation etc, but running a website is
> somehow not being a "publisher".... just wondering if you have any
> concerns about that? (being sued)

never thought about it.  you're scaring me :)

[me:]
> For example on English Wikipedia a lot of pages have tags like
> {{hoax}} or {{unverified}} or {{clean-up}} - did you do any kind of
> exclusion at all?

no , none.  straight DB dump , plus as many images as I could fit in the
time I had on a single sided single layer dvd. I plan to go dual layer ,
just as soon as I rustle up the money for a burner , more ram.. mare
hdd..

[...]

I'm aware of the german dvd, but I've never seen it IRL.  Didn't know
they did any filtering.  My thoughts on filtering is that if I do any ,
the trust in what I've done would go down , and I'd rather have a db
with some crap in it , than one that noone wants to "trust".

[...]

the disk should be downloadable in a few days , its just waiting to be
mailed to canberra and stuck in LA's server.

the link you were posted is slow because its using mysql on my box at
home , but the mediawiki install is on a hosted box in NZ.. so its a bit
slow , and I don't have the cash to pay for hosting anywhere else, so it
could easily drown in a slashdotting.  But please let the wikimedia
people know.

The ISO isn't exactly release ready or anything , I've tried to put
logos in and and stuff , but it needs polish , I was hoping that people
who download it can give me a hand with making it better.  there's a lot
of optimising that can be done to make it faster/better.