WMUK wiki migration/strategy
Tom has prepared a first analysis regarding the WMUK wiki migration: https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/IT_Development/Progress_meetings/18_April_2013/WMUK_Migration_Report
I fully suport his conclusions and what follows should be considered as information and propositions for the next steps.
Like written by Tom, the migration of the data is no a real problem, here is how it could be done:
- Setup a Mediawiki instance similar to current one
- Migrate the data from the XML/SQL dump
- Keep data up2date (until the final switch) with a synchronisation script
Assuming that the WMF won't share any information about the users, the only big problem is how to make this migration feels smooth for our users (in particular regarding the user passwords).
Before getting into details, a few stats about our users:
- 2674 registered users
- 809 have edits
- 2175 are global users
- 1772 are emailable (179 with at least 1 edit, 81 with at least 2)
Here is the simpliest way I can figure out regaring the "password problem":
- Recreate all users on the wiki with new random generated passwords
- Email the new passwords to all emailable users and invite them to
login to the new instance and change their password.
- People not emailable should be invited to add their email into the old
wiki instance, we would then send them the new account password per email (cronjob or on demand)
- The old WMUK instance should be put in readonly (except USER_TALK) and
be kept available at least X months (one year?) under a special domain name like wmukold.wikimedia.org.
So the final and global schedule would looks like: J-3: Create the new WMUK Mediawiki instance J-2: Migrate the data, create and activate a script to keep data synchronized J-1: Put the old wiki in readonly (except user pages) and but a global notice J-1: Activate an email address where users can write to regarding this migration. Communicate about the migration J-1: Write an email to all emailable users with their new password J-1: Write a message to the talk page to all non-emailable users inviting them to follow the procedure to get a new password on the new wiki J: Switch the DNS, make old wiki available under a custom name J+10: Write a last email to emailable users who don't have updated J+30: Write a message on the old wiki on all emailable people who still don't have updated (message similar to the noemail people). J+365: Shutdown the old wiki. No way anymore to migrated automatically a user.
So, everything could be done within a month and would need IOM ~10 days of work.