November 2016 news

This is Dick writing, and to those who may click into this blog here for the first time, I'm the guy responsible for the virtual place known as wikiloops.

At the end of a four week code-a-thon, let me share some engine-room-news with you tonight.
I was able to launch the upgrade on the french language interface of wikiloops today (thanks to Monsieur OlivBee for translating once again),
after the german and english interfaces had gone live within the previous two weeks.
So, this is it, the 9th interface version of something that initially looked like this in 2010:
[img]https://www.wikiloops.com/images/photoalbum/album_4/02.jpg[/img]
Another four months of work went into this latest upgrade of wikiloops, and after a slightly bumpy changeover and lots of help from the community the new version is starting to perform as smooth as it is meant to be.

Once again what you see on your screen is only the very tip of the iceberg,
and some of the major benefits of what has been done may not necessaryly jump at you right away.
We have taken a huge step foreward in mobile device compatibility with this version, and since the way people use the internet is constantly changing in favor of touchscreen devices, it was overdue to adress that.

A second aspect that may not necessaryly make your life happier but will ensure that search engines keep sending us interested listeners was the change to secure SSL-connected servers (all you may notice is a green safety lock indicator in your browser).

Third and maybe most important, I invested weeks in reorganizing the projects codebase into a format that will ensure maintainability.
Since wikiloops had grown organicly, with bits and pieces added over years, one may imagine it started to become a little hard to handle the load of special fixes applied to by now 15(!) different codebases - one for each language, doubled by the seperation between mobile and desktop interface.
So, in a nutshell, the whole "engine" was taken apart and reorganized for better maintainability and more efficient usage of the expensive server ressources.

On top of that, the rather subtle changes like the addition of a "search by key" filter and some more details to the search engine and the general move towards free text search are worth a remark - these may not change the way a "veteran" wikiloops users uses the search functionalities, but the certainly cater to new users needs, who are mostly hunting for tracks to practise to.

One of the many tasks that are still left to do is the needed workover of the help section, so the little additions like the <3 and especially the :Y do not require any secret knowledge ;)

I just had a look, and I noticed there are 350 forum posts that were made to the wikiloops 9.0 beta testers forum within the past four weeks - an open area in which everyone was able to give feedback on the new version and report bugs and problems.
I really feel it is long over due to say a loud and clear THANK YOU to all the members who took time and effort to support me when getting things in shape, and to those who brought up ideas thru the feedback forum.
So, here's to: Gemmy, TG_Strat, jmrukkers, will_C, Funkystan, Neronick, Woodstock, HiFiFlutes, Wade, DannyK, Uloisius and all who got in touch by messages - that's true support to wikiloops there.

Now, speaking of support to wikiloops, I'll also need to adress this topic today.

I do imagine some folks will have noticed the interface change and have felt the usual dread when being presented with something new, which comes along with the suspicion that there might be some hidden catch to the shiny new thing.

Well, you may have a look around, and you'll notice there is not one single change about wikiloops basic concepts - it is still free to use, signing up is simple and free, and no features were limited or reserved to supporters when switching to the new version - it's still the "we would love to jam with anyone on this globe" thing we started out with.

I did change the paypal gateway for donations to the current standard offered by paypal (which also allows paying by credit card without the need for a paypal account), but that's the whole business-related bit there.
The banners advertising supporting membership to non-supporters have been exchanged, too, that's right.

So much being said, I will have to launch the annual support ralley to round up some funds for 2017 within the next couple of days.
Both the wikipedia and the mozilla foundation have already started their end-of-year rallys, so we better get this started soon as well.

If you think of all the work I described above, you must know that was only possible because people donated a year ago - if we want to see wikiloops move on, then this project needs a solid financial backup.

I asked someone familiar with running web communities what he'd think would be the needed annual budget to run a community like ours here.
The answer had six digits before the comma and was in €, and I'm absolutely sure this guy knew what he was talking about.

I have no intention to play the "pay now or the screen will go black" game on anyone, all I'm saying is that I have a dream of running this community in the free spirit it was started in, and if wikiloops can find 750 people out of 44k users who are willing to sponsor 50 bucks, then we would have a truly independent musicians community safely funded for another year...
I'll have to see where I can land with this, any help is welcome, I could imagine one may even tell some friend who may be known to support good causes about out campaign here... because wikiloops is a good cause, right?
But that is all up to you, and will inshallah develop the way it is meant to be -
I just felt like letting you know before the "support rally banners" surprise you when coming to visit the loops sometime later next week.

For those who may be interested and as another little "thank you" for reading my lenghty blog posts: Here's the official date for next year member meeting in germany for you:
August 31st - September 3rd 2017 it shall be - thought it might be good to announce that now for those who have to plan their holidays ahead

all the best to you folks &
happy jamming on wikiloops

yours
Richard a.k.a "Dick"

:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y


traditional stats of the day:
members: 44.291
tracks online: 70.779
supporting members: 252