Update Server down

[MHBraun]

I just wanted you to know that my server died after ten years and I could not recover the VM. - Before you ask, of course I have a backup... which did not work. And the same game with the backup of the backup...

Needed to setup a new system. Now running Debian 11. Thought originally going with the dumps from wikimedia. But with all the hassles I decided to be safe and scrape the databases from scratch and generate the slobs as usual from there.

The existing slobs and the mirror on RWTH is not affected. It is just about creating new slob files. It will take some weeks to collect the data from dewiki and enwiki. After that, I will decide which other wikipedias I will continue to maintain. I am open to suggestions, of course.

[schos...@gmail.com]

hm...as updates have been coming, was that a pretty rough April fool's joke – or were you joyfully quickly done with setup of the new server? 🙂

Georg

[MHBraun]

I wish it were an April fools joke.

It took me a week or so to get the system back up and running, as I have remote access only. Switched to the enterprise dumps to skip the generation of the articles in the couchdb first.

All is still very manual as the scripts do not work anymore.

So we should be back and running.

[schos...@gmail.com]

Good evening,

I wish it were an April fools joke.

It took me a week or so to get the system back up and running

Oh my gosh 🙉   Thank you very much for your efforts! 👍

I hope my paypal donation helps to make some evening nicer (🥂 🍕 🧇 🎵) so you've at least some balance for the unpleasant work 😉

Cheers, Georg

[MHBraun]

Thank you for your support. It is rare and I really appreciate it. Just to give you an idea, the annual donations do not cover the electricity cost of running the systems. So there must be some fun for me doing it. :)

Cheers to you. 

I will put you on the distribution list which will inform you by email about every update. If you do not want this, please let me know.

[Georg Baum (vorm. Dembowski)]

Hi Markus,

> Thank you for your support. It is rare and I really appreciate it. Just
> to give you an idea, the annual donations do not cover the electricity
> cost of running the systems.

that's something I hear/read quite often and I think it's a really bad
habit: People offering services for the public, doing it in their
"leisure time", accepting certain risks (e.g. being sued), investing to
learn the required skills, and then also having to pay for the costs of
the material required for the service?

While users that actually befit of the services often can't help much to
reduce risks or to support in the service delivery, it is very easy to
donate some money. Which IMHO shall _at least_ compensate the provider's
expenses, be it bolts for climbing routes maintainers, be it electricity
& hardware & traffic for internet services. Luckily, for some purposes,
clubs have been established that do found expenses, e.g. "IG Klettern"
which pays the bolts within the covered area.

IMHO it was also very good – not only morally but also in the users own,
purely rational interest – if donations would exceed the expenses. So
that the volunteer provider has at least e.g. a free pizza & coffee
while spending his/her leisure time to provide the service. That adds
some feeling of support, appreciation, own benefit, call whatever you
want. And it also reduces the risk of volunteers thinking "why the heck
am I doing this at all?" which is nearly always triggered by few people
harshly demanding this or that within a certain, typically very short
time span. Hence, think about this idea: If the volunteer is paying too
much of his own money, or is predominantly experiencing unpleasant
feedback – the volunteer might stop providing the service. So you'd have
to switch to commercial providers. How much do they cost? A map easily
10-30€, so maybe donate 5€ to https://www.openandromaps.org or
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org and you're still better off _at this
moment in time_ and the volunteers have less motivation to stop
providing their service.

> So there must be some fun for me doing it. :)

definitely 😉 Elsewise you'd not even learned how to create dictionaries.

> I will put you on the distribution list which will inform you by email
> about every update. If you do not want this, please let me know.

Thank you for the offer, but please take me off that list. I update only
every few years so that the huge download is in reasonable relation to
load each single article online.

Best regards,
Georg