[Server-devel] Wikipedia on XS

[Martin Langhoff]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 6:56 AM, Tom Parker <tom at carrott.org> wrote:
> * The Wikipedia Activity doesn't have any images while offline (I haven't
> ever tried it while online). The Schools Wikipedia has scaled down
> versions of all images (which are about the right size to fill an XO's
> screen)

Strange -- it does have images for me. Just tested -- from the
homepage, I click on the Sociology link and on that page I get the
picture of Auguste Compte. Both Wikipedia English and Spanish carry
it.

Hmm. Or do they? The images are actually being referenced from the
internet. This is a regression from earlier releases of WA.

When I compare WA English with WA Spanish I see the Spanish one
contains a good number of images, where the English one doesn't.

> * The Wikipedia Activity links to articles not included in the activity.
> The schools Wikipedia does not include any links to articles not included
> in the Schools Wikipedia

Correct -- they are usually marked with a different colour however...

> * The Wikipedia Activity is very slow on an XO-1. The Schools Wikipedia is
> very fast with good wifi to an idle schoolserver

Wikipedia Activity is highly compressed, so it's unzipping things
behind your back.

> * The Wikipedia Activity has a lot of articles that might be considered
> inappropriate for some or all age groups by some cultures. I haven't found
> anything in the Schools Wikipedia that I think might be considered
> inappropriate, but it's search features are poor and I haven't done a
> particularly thorough search.

There's been some editing in WA but I do believe you might find tricky topics

Given that your planned XS is fairly powerful for the task, and has
abundant storage, you have another alternative:
http://static.wikipedia.org/ -- it lacks search, images and content
curation, but it definitely has coverage.

cheers,


m
-- 
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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