User talk:Emily Diehl/Wiki discussion archive 4

Question
Emily, I'm not sure you are the one to talk to about this, but I figured you might at least be able to route it properly. The content on Guild Wars Wiki:About really needs some updating. With GuildWiki going to Wikia, most of the points regarding it on this page are non-issues now. Maybe someone could take a look see and get some more pertinent information posted instead?-- Wynthyst 06:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya Wynthyst! I agree that this could probably use some updating. I'm not sure that this necessarily needs to come directly from us, though. Originally, we posted it because the wiki was brand new and lots of people had questions about why we couldn't just adopt Guild Wiki. Now, the site is understood by a great majority of people, and it's completely community run. Since it's everyone's site, I'd suggest that you guys work out an about section and tailor it to what you guys would want it to say. If you need our input on the section or if you need some official word on things (like legal questions), just let me know and I'll be happy to track down whatever is needed :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Heya again, Wynthyst! We'll be doing some general updates to our site disclaimers, so that should hit some of the requests you've made here. I don't have a timeframe for any of these updates, though. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 22:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Emily! We've been working on a revision to the About page here. I would be happy for any input you or the rest of the staff might have. --[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wynthyst 06:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is looking great, Wynthyst. I'll send the link around to folks here and see if they have any input. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair Use, revisited
You mentioned above in PvX wiki logo - copyright question that you'd check into whether we needed to be careful about fair use or not. Have you gotten any response back with regards to fair use content? Going further with that, would it be possible to specifically check whether we can allow fair use content on the wiki? Things like Guild Wars Wiki:Fair Use have been proposed for additions to the copyright policy, but due to the legal nature of such, we as a community can't really make true decision in that regard. We'd need a statement from ArenaNet allowing us to include such items in our copyright policies here. It would, however, be nice to be able to include fair-use content, since things like configuration tutorials and the like benefit highly from being able to display partial Windows screenshots, et cetera. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya Aiiane! I haven't gotten anything back about this just yet. I'll send a follow email about it today as a reminder. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Emily. :) [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Skill sounds
Hey Emily, I was wondering if you had any news on the skill sounds update. Is it going to be implemented? Are you all considering it? Or is it a no? Thanks Emily :) -- Shadowphoenix    18:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, I have some new stuff on this. I've posted it over here :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 18:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Move limits RFTA
Hi Emily, just thought I'd bring this RFTA to your attention - it's just a configuration tweak so it shouldn't be too hard on the IT people, and it'd help a lot with curbing the recent and repeated incidents of move vandalism. If there's any way it could be "fast tracked" so to speak, the sysop base would appreciate it. :) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 18:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, Aiiane. We'll push this right now, so keep an eye on it breaking anything else. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. If you let me know when it's live, I'll do some quick tests to make sure the proper results were achieved. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing! It should be live now, so you can go ahead and let me know if there is anything that's misbehaving. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * <3 Thank you Emily :) poke | talk 21:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing! I'm going to run out and grab a burger, but I'll bring it back to my desk to eat. Got lots of catching up to do, even after two days out XD If anything else needs changing, let me know. I found out that I'm actually able to make changes to LocalSettings myself, so I can get those requests pushed through pretty quickly now. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 21:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good to know. :) As far as the current changes go, my tests show everything working fine so far. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a bit rubbish, but meh [[Image:User Brains12 Heart.png]] --[[Image:User Brains12 Spiral.png|16px|]] Brains12 \ talk 21:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Brains is saying his heart is rubbish! Everyone, give him a hug! *hugs* --[[Image:User People of Antioch sig.png|Talk]] People of Antioch  21:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt my heart, just the Tango-iness of my icons :/. Thanks though :p --[[Image:User Brains12 Spiral.png|16px|]] Brains12 \ talk 21:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * HUGS @ Plingggggg -- Salome [[Image:User_salome_sig.png|19px]] 21:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to mention that this seems to have done the trick nicely and add in some extra appreciation. Thanks much, Emily! - Tanetris 20:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Upcoming wiki upgrade
Hi guys! We're going to be doing some wiki upgrades this upcoming Monday. I'm going to post the following outage notice to our site, so we may want to have a similar warning up here on the front page to let people know.


 * We’ll be performing routine upgrades and maintenance during the times listed below.


 * Players may lose connectivity to the Official Guild Wars Wiki during this maintenance period.


 * Planned Start: Monday 6/9/2008 4:00 am PDT (7:00 am EDT; 11:00 GMT)
 * Planned Finish: Monday 6/9/2008 7:00 am PDT (10:00 am EDT; 14:00 GMT)
 * Impact Duration: Three hours

For the curious, we'll be upgrading our version of MediaWiki to 1.12, as well as upgrading the DPL extention to 1.7.4 and upgrading ParserFunctions to their most recent version (I can't remember the number offhand).

We've tested the upgrades on an internal staging environment as best as we can, but everyone should be on alert for broken stuff come Monday. I'll be patrolling the bug page and keeping an eye out for reports of issues there.

Anyways, thanks :) -- Emily Diehl (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * =D Very happy to see this update coming. Go ahead and give the IT department some cookies ^^. Dominator Matrix  21:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Emily! Could you ask the IT to enable this (or update to MW 1.13? :P) Thanks :) poke | talk 21:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hiya Poke! Sure can...I'll put the ticket in for that right now. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oooh another upgrade? :P --[[Image:User Brains12 Spiral.png|16px|]] Brains12 \ talk 22:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I'll request enabling the redirects for now, since pushing full upgrades requires quite a bit of testing time on our end to make sure nothing breaks too extravagantly. I'll take a look at what 1.13 offers and see if it's something that we'd really benefit from soon, or if we can hold until the next security update/major version upgrade. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (Meh, it was only a joke :P)--[[Image:User Brains12 Spiral.png|16px|]] Brains12 \ talk 22:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Take your time with MW 1.13 ^^ The only features I would like to see is the editing API, which was already promised with MW 1.12 but they moved it then to 1.13, so maybe it will be available on MW 1.14 for the first time...? :P poke | talk 22:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm betting that the person who handles the upgrades felt a really strong disturbance in the force on that one, lol. I'd try to scare him by asking for another version upgrade, but he already left for the night to go catch up on sleep from getting up so early for this update XD I should put the upgrade request in just to see if I can make him cry a little before I tell him it's just a joke :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 22:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well.. of course if he likes to do that upgrade.......... ^^ poke | talk 22:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) So I mentioned the request to enable file redirects to my contact over here, and he was wondering what it was that stopped working? From what I understand, this redirect was introduced in 1.12 and will deprecate in 1.14, so it's only here for the new version and 1.13 (which we'll likely skip). We haven't changed any configs, so we're not sure what's breaking now. We can definitely add this in, but we'll have to remember to take it out with the next upgrade :) -- Emily Diehl (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Since I'm noticing no one's actually answered your question: It's the redirects in the Image: namespace which are broken. For example, if you click the image in your signature, instead of redirecting to your userpage, it'll go to the image's page as if using http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif&redirect=no. Obviously rather inconvenient, as both sig images and skill icons are intended are intended to link you to the relevant pages.
 * Semi-relatedly, could you nudge the IT folks toward Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for technical administration when you get a spare moment? There are some configuration changes we'd like, to curb the recent move vandalism. - Tanetris 23:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Emily, you are right. That variable was added in 1.12 and removed in 1.13 already. poke | talk 06:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the explanation, Tanetris. I think that this is worth adding in until the 1.14 release, even if it is just an annoyance. I'll put in the request and make sure that I leave a note to remove it when the new version goes up. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Heya guys? I'm testing this change out on our staging servers, and I'm finding that "$wgFileRedirects = true;" doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. Images are still pointing to the image pages. Is there something else we need to do to LocalSettings to get these images to redirect like they used to? If you can't think of anything, I can see if IT has any thoughts on it tomorrow. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 22:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Potential fix: Change lines 252-253 in includes/Wiki.php from: $request->getVal( 'redirect' ) != 'no' && !( $wgTitle->getNamespace == NS_IMAGE && wfFindFile( $wgTitle->getText ) ) ) { to: $request->getVal( 'redirect' ) != 'no' ) { I doubt there will be any simpler fix (other than waiting for a fixed MediaWiki release); sorry. --Rezyk 02:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Rezyk. The image issue on the front page is driving me nuts. I'll test out this fix on staging and see if I can get it working. Hopefully we don't have to wait for 1.14 for it =( --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 20:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, that worked like a charm. Thanks for the fix, Rezyk! If there is anything that is misbehaving because of the change, please let me know on the bugs page :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 23:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * --[[Image:User Brains12 Spiral.png|16px|]] Brains12 \ talk 23:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Which bug page does the wiki bugs go do? cause I've been noticing an annoying bug since after the update, tried to ignore it but couldn't, and i want to let emily know about it n(if it hasn't been reported yet) --M age [[image:user MageMontu sig.png| ]]M ontu 23:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * nvm, found it thnx to Emily's archiving :P --M age [[image:user MageMontu sig.png| ]]M ontu 23:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

PvX wiki logo - copyright question.
Hello Emily, not 100% you're the right person to ask but.. Is the logo used on http://www.pvxwiki.com a modified version of an Arenanet image? If it was modified, would Anet still own the copyright? Thanks, -- Indochine talk 18:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is the image which I believe it may be based on. -- Inspired to ____ 18:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * IANAL but in the way its use it clearly fall over fair use. Beside it probaly a derivated work base of the fansite kit that explicitly allow redistribution if some rules are followed. --Bob 19:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This is more about if we are allowed to use that image here, as GWW doesn't allow images under Fair use, Bob. poke | talk 19:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to add this is in reference to the discussion here. -- Kakarot [[Image:User_Kakarot_Sig.gif|Talk]] 19:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair use is not somthing that need to be allowed by the copyright owner. --Bob 20:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand, we don't allow Fair use images to be used here. poke | talk 20:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, apparently someone else is claiming copyright on the image here while stating they made it by modifying ArenaNet material. -- Inspired to ____ 20:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I say we wait until Emily replys to decide on whether to keep it or not -- Shadowphoenix  [[Image:User Shadowphoenix Necromancer.png|19x19px|Please, talk to me; I'm so lonley ;-;]] 20:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I really don't know about the technicalities of any of this. I'll send off a few emails and check. If you decide to remove it before my response because of fair use technicalities on the wiki, that's up to you guys. To be thorough, I'll check on whether we need to be wary of fair use items here too. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 21:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[reset indent] Trademarks don't fall under fair use. That is all. =) --Ravious 15:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes they do, see Wikipedia's trademark article and logo policy, using a logo to identify a company or product is covered by American fair use law as long as it is not used in a misleading way. -- Gordon Ecker 21:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha, I knew someone would bring that up. I wrote like three extra sentences and was like "naaah," k.i.s.s.  /shrug.  You are correct, and I guess I should've said trademark fair use is nothing like copyright fair use... or something.  Thanks for the clar., Gordon. --Ravious 10:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi guys! I sent out another email about this today. I'll keep following up on the topic until I have an answer for ya. Sorry about the delay. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 19:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good to hear; thanks Emily. -- [[Image:User indochine dsk tree.png|15px]] Indochine  talk 19:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Heya everyone! I had a discussion about this with some folks this morning, and here's what came from the talks.
 * In response to the first question, yes, the image used in the PvXWiki logo is one of our copyrighted images. Therefore, we would retain the copyright for it. Since it's in the fansite kit, we allow it to be used on third party fansites, but that doesn't mean that we've given up rights to the image itself. As Bob mentions, the fansite content falls under our terms of use. Sometimes we're lenient with policing these rules because we don't mind people using stuff for the good of the community, but overall, they still stand and should always be kept in mind.
 * As far as fair use images go, we're not able to host non-Guild Wars fair use content on the site because of the GFDL license. Since this is a Guild Wars wiki and we're obviously not going to have issues with our own content being posted, GW stuff can be posted (like we currently do with screenshots, renders, etc). However, we can't have content from other games and other sources posted to the site because the licenses don't match up.
 * So, anyways, long story short...yes, the image used in the PvXWiki logo is our copyrighted images but we're OK with it being posted here since it's our content and no, we can't accept other kinds of fair-use content that is not ours. Hope that helps :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 17:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :P -- [[Image:User indochine dsk tree.png|15px]] Indochine  talk 17:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification, Emily. poke | talk 17:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Wait, we can't use fair use? Isn't that... counter-productive? Counter-intuitive? Counter-logic-brain-thing? -- Armond Warblade[[Image:User Armond sig image.png]] 02:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair use has NEVER been allowed here, so I don't understand the big problem. This just definitively says that once and for all.--[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wynthyst 02:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that not allowing fair use is dumb, not that fair use isn't allowed. -- Armond Warblade[[Image:User Armond sig image.png]] 02:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes box
I hope you don't mind, but I changed your userboxes section to use a two-column format, so it'd be a little friendlier to people with smaller resolution monitors - because userboxes have a fixed width, putting 3 of them side-by-side was enough to push your sidebar off the right side of some browsers, making a horizontal scrollbar for no real reason. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 10:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Aiiane, how do I figure out whether if my layout is doing that horizontal scrollbar to some of viewers? Thanks – [[Image:User Barinthus Magical Compass.png|19px]]  Barinthus  15:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * just resize your browser window poke | talk 15:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Image cache
Hi Emily, could you ask the IT to check our image cache? Recently there are more situations where images do not update (even within multiple days), thumbnail creation is not updated or fails at all. Could the settings maybe lighten up a bit so everything changes a bit faster? Thank you. poke | talk 12:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * yeh ive waited for nearly a day now and my thumbnails still haven't updated -- Salome [[Image:User_salome_sig.png|19px]] 20:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm seeing some weird hiccups with images too. I'll pass it along :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks :) poke | talk 06:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Skill sounds.. again ;)
Hi Emily, as you not seem to watch over the project page, I wanted to direct you to my questions on that page, so we know how we could proceed with that. Also there was a new section added for skill animation videos, so if you have anything to say about that too, it would be great as well :) Thanks. poke | talk 21:11, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. I've actually been following the discussions on that page, but I've been having to follow up on details about them internally before I can comment. I've got some new information as of today, though, so I'll open the topic up again on that page. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 21:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Great! Thank you, Emily! poke | talk 21:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wiki problem
Hi Emily, I reported a problem on the report page 12 days ago, while other people indicated they have also seen the issue there was no response from you regarding it, and it has since been archived.. I guess i was hoping for some sort of answer... that's the question. -- Wyn 05:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that this may have to do with caching again. I brought the issue to the attention of IT again late last night, and it's been escalated to Network Engineering. I'm working to follow up on it as much as I can, but this particular problem is hitting a lot of people, and a lot of people are working to figure out what's causing the caching oddities. As I've mentioned before, it's extremely difficult to replicate these issues, and replications are often needed to figure out exactly what's happening. I'll be keeping an eye on things as best I can, but unfortunately this week and the next week are extremely busy for me, so I may not be commenting here as much as usual :( If I find out anything beyond what I've already commented on, I'll pop in and let you guys know. I'm sorry I can't be much more help personally. I promise that I have escalated these issues about as far up as they can go, and everyone involved is working to figure out why the problems keep happening. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I guess I didn't see it as being part of the caching issue since it appears to happen at the same exact times every 2 or 3 days. It 'feels' more like a server maintenance/backup thing like we experience on Guru every morning when the forums are backed up. I was just trying to ascertain whether or not there WAS a regularly scheduled maintenance/backup that could be posted, so that people would know no to try to do a lot of editing during those times, or that they may experience these difficulties. I do appreciate you addressing it. Thanks again Emily!--[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wyn 22:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ready to implement
Hi Emily, I just wanted to give you a heads up that Guild Wars Wiki:About/revision is scheduled to be moved to Guild Wars Wiki:About on the 23rd. Since there have been no further posts from you or anyone else at Anet, I'm assuming you haven't come up with anything you wish to add, but if there is, it should be brought up now, though additional changes can be made later if necessary.-- Wyn 14:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya Wyn...sorry I've been silent on this one. I'll pass another email over to folks today and see if anyone has any comments. If so, we can just make adjustments to the page. Thanks for updating this section :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 18:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Image Probs?
Don't know if this is happening to other ppl, but something is wrong with image loading. It happened for the first time today. The problem, is, images are not loading, and are displayed by text instead or by an error, here are screenies to show what I'm talking about. Image 1 & Image 2 --M age M ontu 22:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably should report at GWW:BUG, but having the same issue here. Earlier, images didn't load at random (having to load them manually), and now i get some thumbnail errors.--Fighterdoken 22:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Me too &mdash;Zerpha[[Image:UserZerpha The Improver sig.png|talk]] The Improver 22:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Aaakkk!!!! Sorry guys, I've been in meetings literally all day and just saw this. I'm going to put an emergency call in for this issue, which may be linked to the fixes they're putting in place for the caching. Sorry for the problems! =( --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 23:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Awww, NP Emily ^.^, I posted that like an hour ago so it's not late from your side. --M <font color="#330000">age [[image:user MageMontu sig.png| ]]<font color="#CC0000">M <font color="#330000">ontu 23:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Heya guys....I got a response back from operations that let me know the problem should be resolved. It seems that some wiki process was hanging, so they needed to reboot one of the servers. If there are any more problems with any kind of caching, please let me know as soon as possible. Again, I'm really sorry for the issues. I think I'm getting greys from just the caching alone, and I'm not even the person actually fixing the problems, lol! --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 00:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to say, but I'm still seeing these things. This is the page i checked. I answered too fast, It's fixed now :P --<font color="#CC0000">M <font color="#330000">age [[image:user MageMontu sig.png| ]]<font color="#CC0000">M <font color="#330000">ontu 00:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like a quick purge will take care of it on any page that still has them. Just click on the clock up at the top. - Tanetris 00:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, and thnx for solving our problems, I should buy u some hair dye for those greys :P --<font color="#CC0000">M <font color="#330000">age [[image:user MageMontu sig.png| ]]<font color="#CC0000">M <font color="#330000">ontu 00:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm.. It's back??Image:User Kurd FOE.PNG ~ Kurd  19:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Still seems to be somewhat of a problem here at least.--[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wyn 20:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I had the same thing happen to me earlier on a user page, can't remember who's it was but purge via the clock fixed it immediately. -- Kakarot [[Image:User_Kakarot_Sig.gif|Talk]] 23:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's working now, though when I posted the previous the purge hadn't worked and it had also been reported to me by a guildie. --[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wyn 23:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The performance hiccup
Thank you for looking into this and getting an answer. I understand the need to back up this data, and would be hugely disappointed if it wasn't being done. I guess what I would like to see is a post 'somewhere' that would give us the days and times this is done. After having Gaile comment on it last week, I realized that the times I have felt compelled to ask about it have all be on Saturday nights, though it seems that it happens more than just once a week. If that information could be posted, so that editors can be aware of it, it might eliminate some of the frustration that has gone along with it. Thanks once again for all your hard work! -- Wyn 03:38, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya Wyn! I can talk to the team and get the information for the times we're doing these backups. From what I was told, yes, they are nightly. I believe we take regular snapshots at an even shorter intervals, with full backups occurring every night. Because of the sheer amount of data here and the importance of that data, we want to make sure that the pain is as minimal as can be if something catastrophic happened in the data center where the wiki is housed. Like I mentioned on my journal page, I was told that we're looking into ways to make this hiccup less noticeable, so hopefully that will come into play sooner than later as well. --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 03:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hm, I first wanted to post this on your Journal talk page, but as people has already started here, I'll just continue :P

First of all: thanks for all that information; it is always very interesting to hear something about the technical background of the wiki. I hope the server-side changes help to make the wiki stable again, even when there are a lot people looking update notes etc. Especially the last two days were extreme; while it was rather quiet the days before with the big update (and the small yesterday) and the dev update there were a lot people accessing the wiki causing really hard loading issues. In addition I just uploaded about 1300 images in between xD On that topic, is it possible to get access to some kind of statistics for the wiki servers? I would really like to see when there are the most people online etc.

It is really great to hear that the audio player is still being discussed, I'm really curious to hear the results :) - btw. I think Emily earns a big from all of us ^^ poke | talk 12:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Epic journal entry, and loads of interesting and useful stuff to know. I too would be interested in seeing some of the stats on hits, purely out of curiosity, I can imagine they are huge on update days and also during events. -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 20:33, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Backups usually don't crawl servers to a stand still. The performance hiccup might be a simple problem. Fragmented disks. That could be a reason why the cache slows to a complete halt sometimes. So Emily ask/check the web team if they use any defragment(ing) programs. Other then that, it could just be the high usage. <font color="limegreen" size="2px">Dominator <font color="mediumblue" size="1px">Matrix  11:42, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What I see, primarily on Saturday nights around 10:40 pm PST is that the wiki goes into a 'read-only' mode for approximately 1 hr. Anyone trying to edit or upload image gets timed out, or dc'd from the server, and no edits are recorded in the RC during that time. It has been noted by Gaile and several others as well. It's very strange, as that at the end of the hour, when it seems to go back into real time, the RC will catch up and within an hour it will appear that there was no break in editing. I have been watching this for several weeks now, and Dom, it is behaving exactly like the Guru site does during their daily forum backup. --[[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png | Wyn's Talk page]] Wyn 15:48, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * During backups its smart to go into read only mode as theres no point in backing up out of date stuff. Though backups could be faster, which is where defragmenting comes in. It will also help overall performance improve. Though we need to know what times they are so we know is down (like a message saying "Wiki is currently in the middle of a backup. Uploads and edits are currently disabled. Please come back later [or please wait till such time]"). <font color="limegreen" size="2px">Dominator <font color="mediumblue" size="1px">Matrix  09:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again guys....I confirmed with our IT folks that the wiki currently undergoes it's nightly DB backup at 2:05 GMT, which is followed by a DB optimization at 4:10 GMT . If you'd like to post notices at those times about users potentially experiencing slowdowns, feel free to do so :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 21:29, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go ahead and archive this topic. As a final note, the upgrades we just did should completely alleviate any backup-related hiccups the site was going through. Our new DB config allows for on-the-fly backups without any performance hits. And that's rockin' news for all :) --[[Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif]] Emily Diehl (talk) 00:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)