This is happening today and being tracked in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T390517.
On Wed, Mar 5, 2025 at 11:51 AM Alexandros Kosiaris <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > The aforementioned Diff blog post can be found here: > https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/02/24/sunset-of-wikimedia-recommendation-api/ > > Regards, > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 5:53 PM Alexandros Kosiaris < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi everyone, >> Summary >> >> After a long series of consultations with various teams in the Wikimedia >> Foundation, I find myself happy to inform you of the sunset of an API from >> the current Wikimedia offerings. >> >> That would be *recommendation-api*, the one powering >> *https://<project_domain>/api/rest_v1/#/Recommendation* family of >> endpoints, e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/ or >> https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/Recommendation. >> >> The codebase of that API resides in >> *https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/services/recommendation-api >> <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/services/recommendation-api>*. >> >> The removal date will be 2025-03-31. >> >> There is some more information below as to why, what and how as well as >> an estimation of the impact this is expected to have (minimal to zero). It >> is also my intention to proceed with a diff <https://diff.wikimedia.org/> >> post >> explaining our process in more detail. >> Intro >> >> Recommendation-api was being used solely by the Wikipedia official >> Android application. Given that recently >> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T373611>, the Android Wikipedia >> Official application has moved away from using this API, the SRE team >> wanted to remove this service from production to focus on more impactful >> services. The problem was ensuring that we turn off this API responsibly so >> that we do not have a significant impact on users who have not yet upgraded >> their apps and do not waste SRE effort on supporting a service we are >> moving away from, for more than we need to. A complication was that the >> service wasn't anymore owned by anyone, meaning maintenance (Node.js and >> Operating System upgrades) had to be carried out by people that were not >> acquainted at all with the code base. >> Process >> >> To achieve the above goals, a process was jump started by a group of >> Principal Engineers in the Foundation (Jon Robson, Moriel Schottlender and >> yours truly) collecting data and feedback regarding the remaining usage of >> the API as well as the estimated amount of effort that would be needed to >> continue maintaining the service vs sunsetting it. Since October, we spoke >> to various stakeholders in the Foundation to figure out the best possible >> plan, going through a variety of possible paths. We ended up recommending >> that the service be sunset at 2025-03-31, a recommendation that was >> accepted. >> Impact >> >> The service is only accessed by users of the Wikipedia Android >> application. Recent versions of it no longer rely on it and there will be >> zero (0) impact on users of these. But users with application versions >> older than 6 months by the time of removal (2025-03-31), will see reduced >> functionality in the form of the *Suggested Edits* part of the >> application no longer functioning. The rest of the application will >> continue to function as usual. We encourage users of versions older than >> *r/2.7.50504-r-2024-10-01 >> <https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia/releases/tag/r%2F2.7.50504-r-2024-10-01>* >> to >> update. >> >> We wanted to make sure we don't break 3rd party users without giving them >> a heads up. Going through access logs and metrics, we identified no valid >> 3rd party users. Furthermore, we intend to review traffic/errors to that >> API 1 month past the cutoff date and evaluate the effectiveness of our >> solution. >> Note >> >> This API should not be confused with another one, also named >> recommendation-api >> <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/research/recommendation-api/>, >> and exposed by LiftWing, under the >> https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lift_Wing_API/Reference/Get_content_translation_recommendation >> endpoint. >> The latter is powered by a different codebase and, conflicting naming >> aside, has no other relation to the former or this sunsetting. >> >> Regards, >> >> -- >> Alexandros Kosiaris >> Principal Site Reliability Engineer >> Wikimedia Foundation >> > > > -- > Alexandros Kosiaris > Principal Site Reliability Engineer > Wikimedia Foundation > -- Alexandros Kosiaris Principal Site Reliability Engineer Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
