Talk:Main Page/Archive5

WHA'PPEN?

So...what on Earth has happened to the TFWiki? Also, for some reason the old Wikia seems to have gained all of the articles that are now missing from here. (Such as the Season 3 animated stuff)

Seems to me that we've reverted to a June 2008 version of the database which could be really bad news. Some of my articles Macabre for example are at the old site but not here, which would make sense since I wrote it in September 2008 before we moved here. I don't even have a login here anymore - Emvee :( 77.102.92.218 19:31, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Looks like our brain-damaged friend is back again.

There's some more info on the wiki thread in the Allspark forums. Looks like an upgrade handled very very sloppily. I'm hoping once they restore the old database it'll overwrite the changes made in the interim, seeing as how our favorite Idiot Vandal With No Life is on a rampage. (Sigh.) Wiping out his stupid crap in one go would be priceless. (This is Jeysie, BTW.) --72.79.219.120 19:41, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Thank Primus. I was worried someone had hacked in and deleted the database. The thought of 6 months work lost filled me with dread. --abates 19:46, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Ditto. Dread all round here too. Good to know it's in hand. --Emvee 77.102.92.218 19:48, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

You know... assuming it does get overwritten so we don't have to worry about undoing it, watching our pet vandal complain about how the wiki malfunctioning prevents him from vandalizing properly is one of the most morbidly hilarious things I've seen in a while. -Jeysie --72.79.219.120 20:07, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Don't I know it, I was just having a laugh at that with the other half :) --Emvee 77.102.92.218 20:16, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

You know, there are some benefits about this. On the one hand, people don't have to worry about being spoiled about TransWarped. On the other, we get to see Assaulthead self-destruct in rage as he can't vandalize the wiki. However, there is one concern: What if they can't retrieve the lost information? -- (SFH) 67.164.210.225 20:11, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm assuming that Bookworm made a database backup before he started work. Should be fairly simple to upload it again. Which means this conversation never happened. --Emvee 77.102.92.218 20:16, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I've decided I don't want to think about what happens if he didn't. (Realistically about all we could do is a crapload of trawling through Google's cache, but even then we'd pretty much be seriously hosed.) --Jeysie 72.79.219.120 20:18, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I didn't spot this thread until right after emailing Suki and Walky (one knows the code well, the other is right by the servers) about the situation (though I figure they already know), as I thought it might have been Assaulthead showing a heretofore hidden hacking genius. (Hey, if Bulkhead can be a space bridge genius...) I hope to heck we don't lose all those months of work. Someone really needs to work on that update process... --Apcog 99.158.0.251 20:21, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

It would be a real pain if all that work was lost. I hope it's not. How long would it take to get everything back up again? --Tribor

Guys, stop worrying and check out the community portal talk page. That's been restored and its last post was only a couple of days ago. Unless that's the only page on the enitire wiki that was backed-up, the most that could maybe have been lost is a couple of days' worth. (Okay, as soon as I wrote this, that page got fucked up, too.) The main thing to think about is first-time visitors seeing the site like this. - Magnus Maximus

I just find it sad that the only person who can log in (with multiple usernames, it seems) is the guy with the (so imaginative) gift for profanity. --Emvee 77.102.92.218 20:49, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

That's only because he keeps making new accounts every time he shows up, since we keep blocking the old ones.--Apcog 72.48.68.223 00:15, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

What worries me, is... why is the database even that far back? Even if we somehow lost everything, we should at least be stuck in how the wiki looked when we first arrived, but we've been rolled almost three months before that. (The last edits in the histories all seem to be mid-June 2008, but didn't we move here in mid-September 2008?) --Jeysie 72.79.219.120 21:02, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, but IIRC we moved in with an older backup and ended up losing a little bit of stuff? -hx 24.30.97.198 21:14, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Only a few weeks at most, though, IIRC, not three months' worth. (Not that it really matters if we did lose everything, it just makes me even more worried that this backup/upgrade wasn't done right.) --Jeysie 72.79.219.120 21:24, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I just don't uderstand why there wasn't a working failsafe in case something like this happened. I mean come on have you ever heard of an SD card or floppy disk? --E-Bot

Somebody set up us the bomb. --Interrobang 21:26, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Straight up! I agree, it dosesn't make any sense Dawg. Yo but you know i'm still concerned if something like this could happen again, and if the damage could much more worse than it is now. --The Man 21:19, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

There had been discussion for several months about creating a proper back-up system.

No one really thought it was important. *eyeroll* -207.224.69.82 23:00, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I had a look at the page for exporting the database a week or so ago but couldn't work out how to make it give me any data. I kinda wish I'd stuck at it now. Oh well, I'm just hanging out for some sort of official word on what's happening now... --abates 23:09, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Who are we gonna get the offical word from? Admin? I've only been able to track two. This is what really gets me though, I've put more work into this wiki in the past four months than any other time. But I'm kinda doubting that this entire thing was Assualthead, even though his fancy with profanity is some kind of wonderment. I hate worrying because it's like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere.--AWT88--98.19.92.58 23:25, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Walky just blogged on the matter.

It looks like our host decided to spontaneously upgrade our software without warning or asking us first, forgot to make a database backup while doing so, things got corrupted and now he's slapped in the database we had during transition just to get things working while he digs through the backup archives to find the most up-to-date regular update.

(I am not relaxing until this update is in-hand. That's the kind of flim-flam answer I usually associate with "oops it's all gone" unless I'm informed somethign is going to happen AHEAD of time.) -Derik

OK, I have here a list of all content pages on the Wiki from roughly 4 days ago. I am thinking of writing something to request and save the Google cache of every damn one of them tonight. Actually converting them to Wiki format and restoring them is another matter. --abates 00:34, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Google Cache is passable - I tried a few links that I was able to access and they were about at least a week to three weeks off. --lonegamer78 76.95.138.16 00:44, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

If you can automate such a thing, I'd say go for it, Abates, just in case. The TV Tropes folks saved their own wiki from a crash with Google's cache, so while it'll be a crapton of work, it'll still be way better than starting over after losing 9 months of work. And if it turns out we didn't need it because Idiot Server guy gets things running again, well... just a little time wasted, then. --Jeysie 72.79.218.38 01:21, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Hrm, as I more or less expected, Google throttled me. I'm not sure of a better way to get the cache pages though. :/ --abates 02:26, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

The not-entirely-ultrahorrific news is that the Google cache of every page I've tested for is from March 9th. So at least there IS a record of really everything we've done here; we've only "lost" TransWarped and one or two comic issues.

But for fuck's sake we have to get this nailed down SOON.

First question: is it possible for Google to make a cache of the current lobotomized pages? How long will they rely on their March 9th cache of, say, Kup, before they make a new image of it based on the piece of shit Bookworm reverted us to? Can we ask them to STOP updating?

And does this current incarnation of TFWiki still have the quarter-million implanted redirects to Wikia in it? 'Cos if it does, fuck, we're better off pulling the plug on the site altogether and only putting it back when it's presentable. Thylacine 2000 --74.73.131.210 11:03, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Agreed. There is absolutely no reason for the site to be up right now. We're begging Google to overwrite their old cache. Chip 161.203.16.1 11:39, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Another thing comin'

Okay, people, look here. I don't know jack from shit about databases and backups and servers and whatnot, but what I do know is this:

This is a fucking catastrophe.

In the very best possible scenario, we've had a site that's been down all freakin' day. That's if we're very, very lucky, apparently. This is also a site that goes down every single night at 1:10am central time, and stays down from several minutes up to an hour. Every. Single. Night. Like clockwork. This is a known issue and in 6 months, nothing has been done about it.

That's if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, and I'm seeing no reason to think we are, then we've lost eight months of work, all thanks to some bizarre software update that... does what? Was it even necessary? Was something broken here? Was that whole thing where the site appeared to be working, was that just me hallucinating?

Furthermore, if this required taking down the whole site, why on god's green earth was a full backup not made immediately beforehand???

Daily outages for 6 months, lost backups, no backups before software updates, and a site that's now rudderless. We were supposed to make a clean, sharp, snazzy break from Wikia, show that we'd be better off on our own and didn't need them. At the moment, we instead look like idiots who can't hack it.

We HAVE advertising money, yes? It is time to find a professional site host, and PAY THEM for their services so we can in turn get reliable hosting. The free charity hosting thing was very nice, but it seems we've gotten what we paid for. -- repowers, not freakin' signed in.

Yeah, seriously, what was the server guy thinking? The way this should have been done:

1. Ask us first.
2. Give at least a week's scheduled warning once we gave permission. (I mean... premiere of the first big TF info in a while kind of is a really bad time to be doing this sort of thing...)
3. Put the wiki in locked-down Maintenance Mode.
4. Backup the wiki.
5. Upgrade.
6. Test it out.
7. Unlock the wiki.

...I'm with you, there's gotta be some webhost we can pay that's better than this silliness. (I'd recommend Dreamhost, but admittedly, while they're more reliable than these folks, I still wouldn't offer it up for more than simple hobby sites.) --Jeysie 72.79.222.241 23:51, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, this was the one reservation I had against ditching Wikia - that entrusting our work to some random host would be riskier than a company that does nothing but wikis. Every time I mentioned it, I was either patted on the head or ignored. Maybe NOW the danger will be taken more seriously. - Jackpot 216.231.37.133 00:53, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

In all fairness, this wasn't "some random host." This would be "the guy Walky pays to host Blank Label, where his livelihood resides." --Rosicrucian --67.232.209.132 01:15, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Not just Walky, but all the other people on BLC. Near as I can tell, this kind of thing has never happened with the BLC servers before. M Sipher--75.177.130.173 05:38, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

And the problem is that Wikia was unreliable too, in entirely different ways. If we'd stayed with them the wiki might be up... but they'd also be randomly breaking things by upgrading without our permission, and screwing around with our content. Personally, I wish we simply had a webhost where we were allowed to do our own backups/upgrades... --Jeysie 72.79.218.38 01:21, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, we had no real reason to suspect this would happen. Walkypedia has been on this same server, with the same hosting and same maintenance guy for years (albeit it's not a wiki of anywhere near this scale). Bookworm had, previously, seemed to have his act together. We just have to hope that he gets it back up, and that he's properly chastised by this.--Rosicrucian, 67.232.209.132 01:24, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

It's just that... personally, I'm dismayed we were trusting an "outside" IT person to maintain our site anyway. I had thought Suki and Derik were handling things. I mean, If I'm going to host something on my own webspace from a webhost, I'm of the "Take my money, give me webspace, keep the space online, and let me handle the rest" mentality. Or at the very least, not do anything to my site unless I authorize it and I'm there watching... --Jeysie 72.79.218.38 01:30, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

I beleve that we must do everything in our power to restore the wiki post-hast. Otherwise we will fall behind so far it may set us back weeks even months just to get caught up again. And if I might add that if anyone copied any of the articales we can use that information help fix the problem. I know it sounds complcated but we have to try. To me this not just a wiki it stands for everything Transfomers are. --D.J.Sky 03:35 15 March (2009)

Ruined FOREVER, you mean? - Magnus Maximus 04:39, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Aw, jesus, I was really hoping that when I woke up, this would all have been a dream or something. - - McFeely 78.32.44.57 06:27, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

That's exactly what I was hoping McFreely, but sadly it wasn't. I was hoping the site would be back up by now and we'd have four days of work to recreate, but no, it's still down. I mean come on, the half-ass guys over at the wikia have almost everything we've put up in the past four days (not to our quality but still). I don't know guys... I hope it'll be back up by the time I get home from work tonight and might pull an all nighter trying to do what I can.--AWT88--98.19.92.58 10:53, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

It's really a bad nightmare. Oww... I have same feeling with Chris. --(TX55) 61.229.26.192 11:42, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

Damage control

Figured there should be a link here to the discussion Rob started on how to go about fixing all of this: Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Damage Control Central - Jackpot 216.231.37.133 13:52, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

ROTF countdown

I can't remember, but was our ROTF countdown thing automated or did somebody have to manually change the number of days left? --FFN 09:04, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

*blink* Yeah, it used to be a countdown in wikicode. *yoinks the countdown back onto the page from the history and feels sheepish for not noticing it got overwritten* --Jeysie 09:15, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Thank you kindly. --FFN 09:17, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

It's showing 101 days again, which is where it was stuck after the crash. --Cattleprod 00:00, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

OOps, shall fix. Thanks for the heads up! -Derik 00:19, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Derik's revamp.

Looked and worked awesome when you showed me the sample, even better now that it's in proper layout. Kudos, man.--Rosicrucian^Talk 01:00, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Not sure what else was done, but the image banner at the top looks all huge and pixelated now in Firefox on my iMac. This may or may not stem from the revamp.--Apcog 03:16, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

It looks mostly spiffilicious, but there's something off on the Continuities/Categories paddings, as the longer titles (External Properties, Full Series Info, and About Continuities) wrap into double lines for me, where they didn't before. --Jeysie 07:14, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Doesn't happen for me at 1024, haven't tried it at other resolutions. I did notice that the "Full Series Info" anchor link on the Continuities box is now broken.--Rosicrucian^Talk 18:56, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

I've had a chance to look at it on the PC at home, and the banner image looks fine there. The Continuities & Categories titles look fine to me, no line wrapping. Go figure. The anchor link for Full Series Info is indeed messed up, though.--Apcog 20:22, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Mrr, maybe it's my font size. I don't know why it's suddenly weird, though, it was fine before.

As for the "Full Series Info", that, and "anyone can edit" and "add to!" in the disambig were all in-page anchor links to various feature boxes' IDs. If Derik changed or forgot to add the IDs on the feature boxes, either that needs to be fixed, or the links need to be fixed. --Jeysie 22:20, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

They have ID's-- but not names. (I think 1 or two of the ID's might've changed, I didn't think they were used.) Are you referring to anchors, or...? -Derik 22:48, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Yup, anchors. The link in question goes to Main_Page#series for example.--Rosicrucian^Talk 22:52, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

The anchors work-- they're set using the id= in the main page text. I apparently changed the "#editing" anchor to "#editing-tips" to make it consistent with the rest of the ID's used on the page. I didn't realize anything actually used it. -Derik 23:12, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

And yet, I click on that link, and it's no-go.--Rosicrucian^Talk 23:17, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Ah. Now it works. Go figure.--Rosicrucian^Talk 13:52, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

I like the idea of the autosizing banner, but as mentioned previously, it looks really pixel-y and...well, bad. (Never mind that the Decepticon banner has some sort of smudge in the middle of the "K".) I'm looking at it in IE7 at a resolution of 1280x1024, meaning the banner image itself shows up at 1007 pixels wide. But it looks really junky until I shrink the window down so that the image is below 800 pixels. --Salt-Man Z 16:43, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Server Slowdown?

Still getting some major lag at various times, and not just at the "standard" time of midnight Central Time or so. For at least a couple of hours this afternoon, the wiki was taking too long to respond, delivering server time-out errors, or else generating a blank page. Frankly, until I was able to see it properly again just now, I was worried we had a repeat performance on our hands. I believe Suki/Scout said she was making regular back-ups, which is good. Is this periodic bog-down going to be SOP until/unless we move again, or is Bookworm gonna do something about it?--Apcog 20:27, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

I noticed that there were zero edits from 13:45–18:56 this afternoon. - Starfield 20:42, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Yep, the site was pretty much unreachable for about 5 hours there, along with Blank Label Comics' site. I was beginning to wonder if the server had died completely.

The favicon seems to have stopped working for me too, though I can't work out why. The image is still there... --abates 22:27, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

Five hours? Yeesh. -Derik 22:49, 5 April 2009 (EDT)

And no one who knows why has shown up here to explain or communicated the reason to anyone who posts here yet. Lovely. Favicon's still working for me, at least.--Apcog 00:54, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

I called Bookworm in the middle of it to get him to kick the server in the nuts, but I only got his voicemail. --ItsWalky 01:14, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Peachy. My confidence is soaring now. Well, at least we know someone here has tried to get his attention.--Apcog 14:40, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Been Out for a While

I figured this would be the best place to do this. First and formost, I'd like to apologize to everyone on the Wiki for not helping in probably our biggest time of need. I have been unable to have internet access for the past few weeks, because the damn hospital wouldn't let me have a computer (and maybe only being able to use one arm on a laptop is pretty damn hard), which means I have been unable to update or edit anything. Hell, today was the first time I was on my Facebook or Myspace for weeks, have finally caught up on Lil'formers and ShortPacked as well.

Anyways, let me explain about these ramblings. Two or three days after the crash--on my way to work--I had some fucking dumbass in a riced Toyota run a red light and T-bone the side of my truck in my door and messed me up pretty good (he fucked himself up as bad as his car) and put me in the hospital. I was pretty damn lucky though, dislocated my shoulder and elbow, factured my forearm and wrist, broke three of my fingers; all on my left arm (and I'm a lefty), cracked four ribs and bruised them too, fractured my tibia and broke my ankle. My right side was farely untouched but still got bruised, oh, and my seatbelt cut into my neck (I've had worse cuts and scars before). This is all probably a bit too much but I figured I needed to explain why I haven't been on here until after everything was fixed.

I do have a few questions now though. 1) I can't log in under my name so do I have to set up a new one? 2) Was everything completely blanked when it came to users (i.e. Page Watch, Contribs., etc.) or can we retrieve that? I guess that's all the questions I can think of right now. Any responses, obviously write on the talk page, or hit me on my IP address Talk Page.--AWT88--98.19.92.58 23:10, 20 April 2009 (EDT)

Wow, that sucks. I'm glad to hear you're recovering though!

And no, the user accounts were completely scragged. You'll have to re-register. -Derik 00:10, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

ROTF

Shouldn't the newest thing be the Veiled Threat instead of Defiance #4? --206.253.51.107 09:26, 10 May 2009 (EDT)

Could not connect

Was anyone else unable to connect to tfwiki for the last four hours? Are we still having server problems, then?KrytenKoro 14:09, 16 May 2009 (EDT)

I was finally able to get back on the site after about 6 hours, and noticed there had been only one edit in the past 6 hours. What gives? Has the site been down the entire time, or has everyone been busy at BOTCON?--AWT88 23:38, 29 May 2009 (EDT)

It's definitely been down all that time for me, at least. --Jeysie 00:48, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

That was downright painful. :( --abates 02:18, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

Indeed, its getting to where I see why Wikia is still running, since its actually up half the time76.240.201.195 11:56, 4 June 2009 (EDT)

Dinoforce

For some reason, all of the Dinoforce articles show up twice in the Turncoats category. This doesn't happen with any other article in there, so I think maybe it's a facet of that little accented u in their names. They appear to not just be copies of the same article, though, since the talk page for one was the talk page for the other. I'm not sure if this is an in-joke or not, though, so could someone familiar with the articles please address this?KrytenKoro 19:52, 7 June 2009 (EDT)

Remaining the Fallen?

Do we have a lineup of potential Featured Articles for August? I vote for Sector Seven, unless we think it would be a good idea to keep it as-is until the movie leaves theaters..... --Thylacine 2000 12:16, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

Siph suggested Micromaster Collection a week or two back. - Chris McFeely 12:57, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

Do we have any featured-level G.I.Joe related articles? --abates 16:31, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

Not especially... even the complete ones look kind of... limp. --Jeysie 16:44, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

I think a G.I.Joe article is a good idea...to bad in don't know nearly enough about the show to lap at least one of the articles a feature...--Sunjumper 16:54, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

So, are we going to switch to Micromaster Collection after all? If that doesn't work for some reason, I could also suggest "Shattered Glass" Alpha Trion or Megatron for further potential quirkiness. --Jeysie 01:59, 5 August 2009 (EDT)

I suggest Marissa Faireborn to go with our G.I. Joe theme. -Derik 22:21, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

I second Marissa (and note that it's usually Walky who changes the featured article, and he's on the road which is probably why it hasn't changed. Also, I want to slap an "anatomy doesn't work that way" tag on the current tower ad). --abates 22:27, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, I'll third the Marissa idea (and not just because I did that article up recently!). We're already a week into August, so I'll just change it now before I head out to work. - Chris McFeely 06:05, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

September FA?

So.... Micromaster Collection? --M Sipher 02:34, 30 August 2009 (EDT)

I'm down with that. -- SFH 02:45, 30 August 2009 (EDT)

Anyone wanna put that up? I will tomorrow morning if not! :) --abates 09:09, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

DVD field guide

Actually, with the column width wouldn't this fit easily in the featured series box?--Rosicrucian^Talk 18:57, 22 October 2009 (EDT)

Maybe, although I think it needs to stay in a nicely prominent spot somewhere and not get "lost". There's already so much info jammed in the Featured Series box already. --Jeysie 19:22, 22 October 2009 (EDT)

Reception in all fiction

Just an idea, why not add a reception section to all main fiction pages (comics and series) ala the Animated/UT pages User:Eire 20,07 Nov 2 09 (UTC)

I tend to cringe at these, as they're tough to write, inevitably biased, and magnets for vandalism.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:12, 2 November 2009 (EST)

I kinda agree. Though I DID really enjoy the UT ones (those articles in general were good reads for me, since I missed most of those shows). I think only in cases where the response was very particularly notable should we dip into such opinionated waters. Otherwise, yeah, they're kinda huge moron/troll/vandal bait. --ZacWilliam 15:31, 2 November 2009 (EST)

That would be my concern as well. If a series had a particularly notable and uniform reception, then it might be worth a write-up. Otherwise, what is there to say? I worry about echo-chamber effects as well. --Jimsorenson 15:40, 2 November 2009 (EST)

To be honest, don't we already have some sort of reception section in most of the articles? Beast Wars has the infamous Trukk not munky reactions and so forth, and Beast Machines has the fandom's dim views on it. Is there any section which already doesn't have some sort of fandom reaction on it? -- SFH 16:02, 2 November 2009 (EST)