MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Damage Control Central

2009-03-16T19:19:05Z

81.158.171.149: /* What we've actually lost */

==Hey hey, what can I do==
I think at this point we must begin formulating plans based on the assumption that the site is a total loss. This means damage control first, then restoration, then prevention.

Assuming no good news comes through, it seems to me we need to take the following steps. Bein' that I'm not a tech guy, there may be more options than what I'm seeing, but here's what I figure we gotta do:

#take down the bulk of the site's pages so Google's cache will not overwrite them
#figure out a system to make Derik and Abates' caches of Google-archived pages accessible to editors as they come in (Derik mentioned it'll take over a week to get a complete set off Google.)
#if possible, automate the stripping of HTML tags and other non-Wiki goop from those pages before anyone tries to edit them, including Wikia links.
#find a way to divvy up a restoration workload among our 50 or so regular editors.
#find a new server. We would be idiots to remain here.

I still hope most of this will be unnecessary, but at this point, I'm losing faith. -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 12:08, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
: Spoke with Bookworm several times this morning. He still has a few more computers to search for backups, but, well, at this point I'm going to assume the worst. He is going to try to at least get our user database working. He wasn't aware that was a problem until I let him know. I think Scout is trying to get all the pages downloaded from Google Caching. I've grabbed a few of my own, but she's got, like, thousands of pages so far.
: As for getting a new server... anybody got any ideas? Hell if I know. Frankly, don't listen to me anyway on that. --Walky

::Take everything down immediately. The longer the site stays up as-is, the greater the risk of contaminating Google's March 9th cache and the more linkbacks we send to Wikia. Then we either beg Google for a mass infodump, or.... 50 editors grab 160 pages each. EDIT: or Scout gets them! Thanks, Scout; good to see at least the words "silver lining" in print, even if I don't see the actual thing itself yet.... '''Thylacine 2000'''--[[Special:Contributions/74.73.131.210|74.73.131.210]] 12:17, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
:::If we take everything down, what are we going to edit back together? WHEN are we going to edit everything back together? Taking it down just delays our ability to fix it. --Walky
::::If we've got our copy of the cache, then site shutdown isn't nearly as important. The main concern is that we'd lose the Google cache. Looking like retards... well, we'll just have to take our lumps there. (I guess we could set permissions for content pages to only logged-in users? Dunno.) -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 12:30, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

==I am a dumb, stupid man==
Just to get that out of the way. Should have told BK to back off on the database upgrade as soon as I saw his original email, and maybe we shouldn't have been here on this server to begin with. It was my call, after all. I'll do my best to make it up to you. Especially TOOG and McFeely, who did so many pages. When I remembered Google caches stuff at like 7 in the morning and started downloading pages whole-hog, theirs was the work I went after first. BEFORE HOT SHOT. That is how bad I feel. Nobody should have to watch through Energon twice. Or, uh, once. This is a terrible, horrible thing, brought on partially by my own incompetence and unassertiveness. Other people shouldn't have to learn my needed life lessons with me. --Walky

==What we've actually lost==
Okay, I've been trying to assess and give a realistic account of the information we appear to be missing. It's hampered by the lack of a search option, meaing I've been having to hit the random button until I've gotten to a page I can link to, and I may be missing something things, but I believe that we have lost the following sections:
*The work McFeely did on [[Energon (cartoon)|Energon]].
*[[Revelation]]
*[[All Hail Megatron]]
*[[The Reign of Starscream]]
*[[Maximum Dinobots]]
*[[Alliance]]
*[[Defiance]]
*[[Universe (2008)]]
*[[Revenge of the Fallen]] updates.
*Abates screen captures on [[Beast Wars]], [[Beast Machines]], and [[Generation 1]].
*Updated screen captures for [[Transformers Animated]] season 1 and 2.
*Last but not least, all we know of [[Transformers Animated]] season 3.

If I missed anything that stands out, please let me know. If all I've done is seriously depress you, then...I don't really know how to respond to that. -- SFH 13:49, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

:I'm not sure how worthwhile this is. I could add that we've lost almost everything related to the S.T.A.R.S. continuity (including the meta-page with that name), but seriously, we could keep listing pages forever. Not to mention that probably a huge majority of the existing pages have lost a lot of updates. I don't think there's anything we rank-and-file editors can do until either Walky appears brandishing a "routine backup" or Scout et al. get the Google cache sorted out and implemented. At THAT point, maybe taking stock would be a good idea, but until then, let's just go outside and get some fresh air. Toss a Frisbee around. Call up an old friend. - '''Jackpot''' [[Special:Contributions/216.231.37.133|216.231.37.133]] 14:01, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

::Yeah, we need a systemic, all-encompassing, computer-generated list of every page, since pretty much every page has probably been edited since the split. (though for the record, my list includes 15-20 Energon eps and 20-30 rewritten subgroup pages.) Said list needs a checklist option or something. I dunno. I had this written more coherently before the save page thing crashed. Whee, are we having fun yet? -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 14:28, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
:I still have all those screen captures, so I can reupload them if necessary. Of course, the images are actually still on the server, but the out-of-date database doesn't know they're there. I grabbed a complete set of Beast Machines episode articles and a near-complete set of RID episode articles from various caches last night. Unfortunately the software I wrote for doing the same only grabbed 53 articles before it was throttled. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 14:47, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
::We lost all the Titan collections that Emvee and I did. They weren't cached yet, but oddly the main Titan page had a cached version with the links I made to the individual pages. Wierd. This loss hits me really hard since I didn't start editing until this winter and '''everything''' I've contributed is now potentially gone. Since the tfwiki is one of the few joys I've had lately, it makes me feel a bit useless now. --Bluestreak7 [[Special:Contributions/98.213.132.186|98.213.132.186]] 15:03, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

That'd be Rob's work on Energon, not mine. I've lost around half the Victory cartoon, and ''every single fucking Japanese character article I ever did that's not Shuta.'' I thought we were only back to post-move September status, but we've actually regressed to June. - '''McFeely''' [[Special:Contributions/81.158.171.149|81.158.171.149]] 15:17, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

== Anything the rank and file could do? ==

OK, so there's obviously alot of scrambling going on from all who can to recover all the massive chunks of what's been lost, my question: is it at all helpful for the rank and file occasional contributor to be doing any editting at this point? I mean, I'm sure there are a bunch of us who would be willing to edit and add here and there to fix up what small bits and pages we can. Or would such small additions and peicemeal fixes just get in the way of the eventual large scale repairs? --[[Special:Contributions/71.235.138.121|71.235.138.121]] 14:59, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Damage Control Central

2009-03-16T19:17:48Z

81.158.171.149: /* What we've actually lost */

==Hey hey, what can I do==
I think at this point we must begin formulating plans based on the assumption that the site is a total loss. This means damage control first, then restoration, then prevention.

Assuming no good news comes through, it seems to me we need to take the following steps. Bein' that I'm not a tech guy, there may be more options than what I'm seeing, but here's what I figure we gotta do:

#take down the bulk of the site's pages so Google's cache will not overwrite them
#figure out a system to make Derik and Abates' caches of Google-archived pages accessible to editors as they come in (Derik mentioned it'll take over a week to get a complete set off Google.)
#if possible, automate the stripping of HTML tags and other non-Wiki goop from those pages before anyone tries to edit them, including Wikia links.
#find a way to divvy up a restoration workload among our 50 or so regular editors.
#find a new server. We would be idiots to remain here.

I still hope most of this will be unnecessary, but at this point, I'm losing faith. -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 12:08, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
: Spoke with Bookworm several times this morning. He still has a few more computers to search for backups, but, well, at this point I'm going to assume the worst. He is going to try to at least get our user database working. He wasn't aware that was a problem until I let him know. I think Scout is trying to get all the pages downloaded from Google Caching. I've grabbed a few of my own, but she's got, like, thousands of pages so far.
: As for getting a new server... anybody got any ideas? Hell if I know. Frankly, don't listen to me anyway on that. --Walky

::Take everything down immediately. The longer the site stays up as-is, the greater the risk of contaminating Google's March 9th cache and the more linkbacks we send to Wikia. Then we either beg Google for a mass infodump, or.... 50 editors grab 160 pages each. EDIT: or Scout gets them! Thanks, Scout; good to see at least the words "silver lining" in print, even if I don't see the actual thing itself yet.... '''Thylacine 2000'''--[[Special:Contributions/74.73.131.210|74.73.131.210]] 12:17, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
:::If we take everything down, what are we going to edit back together? WHEN are we going to edit everything back together? Taking it down just delays our ability to fix it. --Walky
::::If we've got our copy of the cache, then site shutdown isn't nearly as important. The main concern is that we'd lose the Google cache. Looking like retards... well, we'll just have to take our lumps there. (I guess we could set permissions for content pages to only logged-in users? Dunno.) -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 12:30, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

==I am a dumb, stupid man==
Just to get that out of the way. Should have told BK to back off on the database upgrade as soon as I saw his original email, and maybe we shouldn't have been here on this server to begin with. It was my call, after all. I'll do my best to make it up to you. Especially TOOG and McFeely, who did so many pages. When I remembered Google caches stuff at like 7 in the morning and started downloading pages whole-hog, theirs was the work I went after first. BEFORE HOT SHOT. That is how bad I feel. Nobody should have to watch through Energon twice. Or, uh, once. This is a terrible, horrible thing, brought on partially by my own incompetence and unassertiveness. Other people shouldn't have to learn my needed life lessons with me. --Walky

==What we've actually lost==
Okay, I've been trying to assess and give a realistic account of the information we appear to be missing. It's hampered by the lack of a search option, meaing I've been having to hit the random button until I've gotten to a page I can link to, and I may be missing something things, but I believe that we have lost the following sections:
*The work McFeely did on [[Energon (cartoon)|Energon]].
*[[Revelation]]
*[[All Hail Megatron]]
*[[The Reign of Starscream]]
*[[Maximum Dinobots]]
*[[Alliance]]
*[[Defiance]]
*[[Universe (2008)]]
*[[Revenge of the Fallen]] updates.
*Abates screen captures on [[Beast Wars]], [[Beast Machines]], and [[Generation 1]].
*Updated screen captures for [[Transformers Animated]] season 1 and 2.
*Last but not least, all we know of [[Transformers Animated]] season 3.

If I missed anything that stands out, please let me know. If all I've done is seriously depress you, then...I don't really know how to respond to that. -- SFH 13:49, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

:I'm not sure how worthwhile this is. I could add that we've lost almost everything related to the S.T.A.R.S. continuity (including the meta-page with that name), but seriously, we could keep listing pages forever. Not to mention that probably a huge majority of the existing pages have lost a lot of updates. I don't think there's anything we rank-and-file editors can do until either Walky appears brandishing a "routine backup" or Scout et al. get the Google cache sorted out and implemented. At THAT point, maybe taking stock would be a good idea, but until then, let's just go outside and get some fresh air. Toss a Frisbee around. Call up an old friend. - '''Jackpot''' [[Special:Contributions/216.231.37.133|216.231.37.133]] 14:01, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

::Yeah, we need a systemic, all-encompassing, computer-generated list of every page, since pretty much every page has probably been edited since the split. (though for the record, my list includes 15-20 Energon eps and 20-30 rewritten subgroup pages.) Said list needs a checklist option or something. I dunno. I had this written more coherently before the save page thing crashed. Whee, are we having fun yet? -- '''repowers''' [[Special:Contributions/99.140.167.2|99.140.167.2]] 14:28, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
:I still have all those screen captures, so I can reupload them if necessary. Of course, the images are actually still on the server, but the out-of-date database doesn't know they're there. I grabbed a complete set of Beast Machines episode articles and a near-complete set of RID episode articles from various caches last night. Unfortunately the software I wrote for doing the same only grabbed 53 articles before it was throttled. --[[User:Abates|abates]] 14:47, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
::We lost all the Titan collections that Emvee and I did. They weren't cached yet, but oddly the main Titan page had a cached version with the links I made to the individual pages. Wierd. This loss hits me really hard since I didn't start editing until this winter and '''everything''' I've contributed is now potentially gone. Since the tfwiki is one of the few joys I've had lately, it makes me feel a bit useless now. --Bluestreak7 [[Special:Contributions/98.213.132.186|98.213.132.186]] 15:03, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

That'd be Rob's work on Energon, not mine. I've lost around half the Victory cartoon, and ''every single fucking Japanese character article I ever did that's not Shuta.'' - [[Special:Contributions/81.158.171.149|81.158.171.149]] 15:17, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

== Anything the rank and file could do? ==

OK, so there's obviously alot of scrambling going on from all who can to recover all the massive chunks of what's been lost, my question: is it at all helpful for the rank and file occasional contributor to be doing any editting at this point? I mean, I'm sure there are a bunch of us who would be willing to edit and add here and there to fix up what small bits and pages we can. Or would such small additions and peicemeal fixes just get in the way of the eventual large scale repairs? --[[Special:Contributions/71.235.138.121|71.235.138.121]] 14:59, 16 March 2009 (EDT)