Netruk44/uesp-wiki-content huggingface dataset:
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/New Servers

New Servers

I'm planning on replacing/buying a few servers in the near future. My general plan is:
:* Replace the monthly content1 with a 24-month server (i.e., it is currently billed monthly, paying for 24-months up front gets us a better price)
:* Similarily replace squid1 with a 24-month server, upgrading bandwidth to 100Mbs and 3000GB/month (currently at 10Mbps, 1500GB/month)
:* Possibly purchase db2/backup2 for backup/redundancy purposes (a little overkill to have 2 db servers but mainly to make it easier and quicker to recover from failures)

The main reason for replacing content1/squid1 is to reduce the monthly server cost and eliminate excess bandwidth fees (over 1300$ alone in the past year). If we do this and purchase db2 we'll end up saving about 1000$ per year. See Site_Costs for more details.

If anyone has any other ideas or requests for server upgrades, either a new server or upgrading an existing one, just let me know. -- Daveh 19:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

:Question: Instead of getting a new server for db2/backup2 why don't we just use util1/content3? I mean, weren't we running fine just having two content servers? Besides, the Summer is almost over, we're probably going to lose traffic due to people going back to school and such. Then again, according to site support, we've got enough money to get a little more redundancy. Of course, I'm not a server guy, so I don't really know. --Ratwar 20:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

::We could, although my "grand plan" is to have content1/content2 solely handle the UESP Wiki content and leave content3 with serving everything else (forums mainly) as well as being the misc/utility server (e-mail for example). Whatever happens I'll be doing things one at a time anyways starting with replacing squid1 and then content1. If anything happens immediately with db2/backup2 it would be next month at the earliest. 
::Along the lines of your idea though...content3 could probably do everything (misc content, db backup, e-mail, etc...) as all of this is very low load compared to what the UESP Wiki uses. -- Daveh 21:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

What I'm going to do for now is purchase the squid1 replacement since that represents the greatest potential savings and is the easiest to setup (250$ for extra bandwidth in July alone). The content1 replacement will be in a few weeks depending on my schedule. There are a couple of options regarding db2 or upgrading db1 (hard drives, RAID, etc...) so whatever happens there will happen in a month or so. -- Daveh 21:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Protected Pages Indicators

Protected Pages Indicators

I know I have been asking a lot lately, but it is only because I have finally come to the conclusion as to whether or not I should propose some things. So, Wikipedia uses padlock images (such as 20px) to indicate page protection. They use these images (which you can see more of at Wikipedia:Protection policy) on the different types of protections to indicate to the editor of the page's current protection status. This makes it very easy to indicate the current limitations. They use them as page icons, but sometimes as banners for certain pages (mainly images and templates). And in order to add the image, I would make a template with simple instructions such as    , which would add the image and the category, so it wouldn't be any more work than we currently do. An example can be seen in my  . –Elliot   05:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
:I like the idea.  It's nice to be able to tell at a glance if a page is semi- or fully-protected before you edit it.  I can see that being especially useful for anons, who're more likely to encounter problems than confirmed users.  We don't have all that many fully-protected pages, after all...at least not ones that a user might reasonably want to edit. —Robin Hood   23:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
::I agree, it would be nice to have an icon to distinguish protected pages.  --GK  04:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

:::The icon as extra would be nice. May I propose to rename the template to "Template:Protection" instead? I'm a little wary of all the short abbreviations you see on Wikipedia all the time. Those tags will be noticed by editors editing the article (as they will likely be on top), and they may understand quicker what that template means. --Timenn-  17:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
::::Yeah, that's no biggie. But the next thing to do would be to decide what colors of padlocks we use for what. Wikipedia has gold for full, silver for semi, red for permanent-full (templates etc.), green for move, and black for office (which we could use for records and such). I am not sure the move tag is necessary, but I am fine with either. –Elliot   21:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
:::::Sounds fine to me.--Ratwar 22:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I will start working on the template, but here are the padlocks:


The creation protection padlock is a tad useless, since you can't put something on a page that doesn't exist; therefore, it is more symbolic. –Elliot   03:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
:I have updated all the ones that I can. I am deciding not to use the padlock for section protection, so that one can be symbolic as well. I have asked a few admins to due the full protection, so that should be happening sometime in the next few days. –Elliot   07:01, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Seeing these on some of my special pages now... Neat! Thanks. --Wrye 22:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Barnstars

Barnstars
I hope this is the right place to suggest this (I figure admins are the only people who can nforce this...) Would it be worth introducing a barnstar policy (like on Wikipedi.a) It would serve as a fun little addition, a nice incentive for editors and a fun way of rewarding regular contributers. Just an idea. Aias 19:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

:Myself, I don't like systems for rewarding people. Seeing the barnstar article on Wikipedia, it only makes me a dread that we will eventually end up with a similar long list of trivial rewards. I prefer to see that if one editor feels he/she should give a reward to another editor, the editor is free to that in his/her own way. --Timenn-  16:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/UESP Blog

UESP Blog

Now that the summer excitement of the database server has passed (well, mostly) I've had time to start something I've been thinking about for a while now: the UESP Blog. Other than the name and a link on the sidebar this is separate from the rest of the UESP so there's no extra work involved for the current Wiki/forum editors/admins. If people think it is appropriate I may also consider adding a front page news article.

The blog is also open to other UESP editors or ES fans that wish to be authors there (just let me know). The only real criteria is that appropriate content matches the UESP guidelines (i.e., in terms of vulgarity/content if would be inappropriate for the Wiki its likewise for the blog). 

If you're not into blogging at all (either reading or writing them) feel free to ignore this. -- Daveh 00:25, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/TORolling

TORolling

It's happened a few times recently that IP users have been using TOR to troll on our wiki.  Is this something we want to try to block?  I found an article about blocking Tor exit points here (PDF), but my network/Internet knowledge is limited to the basics, so much of the article is over my head and I don't know if it would be useful if we do want to try to block TOR trolls. —Robin Hood   01:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

:On a related note, I've also been in touch with OverlordQ who designed the "Tor check" for Wikipedia.  While he's unwilling to re-design it for uesp.net, he is willing to give us the code and explain exactly how it works if we want to re-design it for ourselves.  Is this something we'd be interested in?  The Wikipedia version will double for us if the person also happens to be using Wikipedia, but I suspect it wouldn't work if the person is only using UESP.  If we don't take measures to ban Tor users (as we would other public proxies), then we may want to add our own "Tor check" option to the anonymous IP menu.  Any thoughts? —Robin Hood   00:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
::I think such as system would be worth looking into. Since the middle of August, there have been at least five incidents where Tor has been involved in Trolling on the wiki (or at least that's what I gather via manually checking IP addresses. There's already an option for 'Tor Check' in the check user function, but unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work.--Ratwar 03:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
:::He said it was written in Perl, but that it was fairly simple logic and should be easy to modify, so I suspect anybody with any web programming experience would be able to get it up and running.  Nephele would probably be able to handle it quite easily, though she seems to be on a bit of a Wikibreak right now. —Robin Hood   01:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
::::I was hoping that Nephele would return and comment on this, since at least the initial post would have been more her domain, I think.  In regards to the Tor check, though, should I go ahead and ask OverlordQ for the code?  I'm not a web programmer, so I don't know what would be involved in setting up something like that and whether it's something that anybody could host on any server we want, or if this is something that would have to be handled by Daveh/Nephele. —Robin Hood   01:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
:::::I think it would be worth asking for the code, even if it never gets anywhere.  If someone knows how to work on it and is willing to do so, then we'll at least have the material ready for them! –Eshe  01:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
::::::Okay, done!  Any admins who are likely to work on the project and want a copy of it should e-mail me and I'll respond with a copy of the message once I get it.  (Sorry, I won't send it to anybody else, both for safety reasons and because I presented this in the context of us implementing a Tor check ourselves, not freely distributing his source code.) —Robin Hood   05:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Recent Changes Changes

Recent Changes Changes

Last time I spent some time on UESP even non-patrollers could get a list of which edits were unpatrolled. That's no longer the case and makes it much more difficult for people who want to help out to do so. Is there any reason this was changed? Dr Jones 10:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:I'm not sure.  I just tried logging out to confirm it, and you're right--there's no longer a "hide patrolled edits" option on the Recent Changes page.  I'm guessing it has something to do with the recent upgrades. –Eshe  15:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:: The option disappeared after the update - and it is pretty annoying, especially for users trying to keep track and help out (I know this, because I used this feature a lot, before I became a patroller). Any way we can get it back? Krusty 17:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I bet Nephele knows :). –Eshe  18:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::::I would say maybe... but I am no Nephele. After perusing the extension manuals and upgrade manuals, the only things I could see were   and  , which are listed as bugs (so imagine the opposite. So there might actually be a way to do so. –Elliot   18:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Switching to New Content1 Server

Switching to New Content1 Server
I setup the new content1 server over the long weekend and am planning on switching over tonight unless something terrible comes up. There *should* be no disruption from the user/editor point of views other than possibly having to re-login due to the resetting of the php session data. If you notice anything strange tonight or the next few days don't hesitate to mention here or on my talk page. -- 
Daveh 21:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Update: I have switched over to the new content1 and have fixed a few issues but other than things loading a bit slower (which may indicate other issues) everything seems to be working. -- Daveh 22:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

:Two major sources of problems that I can see so far:
:* The ownership of all files appears to have changed during the switch, which is likely to cause various problems.  I just changed the group ownership of everything in the phpbb3 directory to apache; prior to that change, the forums were completely unable to load because apache couldn't read several important files in the directory.
:* The IP address of content1 has changed, which means that mysql doesn't completely recognize the new server... I'm not sure where else the IP address needs to be changed.
:--Nephele  22:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

::There's also something strange with the apache settings on content1: any attempt to access wiki pages directly on content1 takes you to EQWiki instead of UESPWiki (e.g., Main Page). --Nephele  16:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

:::The EQWiki thing is probably due to how I've setup the Apache configs on the new content1 (using conf.d with individual config files for each site or module). Its either a typo in a config or perhaps the loading order of the configs. 
:::Note that my home internet decided to stop working on me 2 days ago (first time in 10 years) so it will be a few days before it will be working again. Am checking on the site from work but won't do too much from there unless its a priority. -- Daveh 20:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Thanks, Daveh, content1 defaults to UESP again instead of EQWiki.  One other thing is that (a) I've lost membership in the 'uesp' group on content1 and (b) the wiki directories and files are all owned by the 'uespadmin' group, to which nobody appears to belong.  If you can't get to it, I should be able to make the necessary changes later today -- but I'm not sure whether that means there are also changes needed for some of your scripts.  I'll leave the scripts up to you ;) --Nephele  22:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/ConfirmAccount

Suggestion

With the recent nonsense going on in the account creation, I was wondering if installing ConfirmAccount would be too much? I think that with CA and Oversight, the wiki should be pretty safe. We could also remove CA after awhile until some things chill off. Also, perhaps placing Administrator's, Patroller's, and established user's usernames in the blacklist could help. Thoughts? –Elliot   02:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
:Or as a less extensive solution, this could be used. –Elliot   03:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
::How involved would this bureaucracy be?  I'm all for preventing offensive user names, but this is a public site that focuses strongly on the community.  If something like this is implemented, what sort of delays would there be for new users who truly want to help?  I realise that something like this will be disscused at length, but I just thought I'd bring these concerns/thoughts up now.  Also, a possible alternative, would there be some way to block certain keywords from being used?  I don't know much about programming, and I do know that there are always workarounds, but something like that plus the second option Elliot mentions (preventing the same IP from creating multiple accounts) would, I think, at least cut down on inappropriate account creations.  Oh, one other question.  Would the second option affect the creation of sandboxes since they are part of the User namespace?  Again, I know next to nothing about programming so I appologise if these questions are pointless in the context of this issue. -Dlarsh  03:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
:::The ConfirmAccount can be used by whoever is set up to use it (bureaucrats, admins, patrollers, etc.), so you shouldn't have to worry about waiting (we could even have some special members use it); I just think this recent activity is a problem especially considering the content of the usernames. There is something called a blacklist that we use to prevent certain words in a username (such as Arch Mage, Gray Fox, etc.). No, the sandboxes wont be affected, since they are for account creation only. –Elliot   03:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

::::I'm not sure about ConfirmAccount.  I share the above concerns about it being an obstacle for legitimate users.  Also to the extent that this vandal simply wants to flood the logs with obscenities (and not actually use the accounts), I'm not sure it would be effective, in that the offensive names would still be logged.  Blacklisting might be worth investigating, although probably still not effective in this situation (he'd just change one or two letters).
::::I have gone ahead and set $wgAccountCreationThrottle to 1 -- meaning only one account can be created from a given IP in 24 hours.  I'll change the setting if that's the outcome of this discussion, but in the meantime putting some type of limit in place seems prudent as an emergency measure. --Nephele  05:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Edit Notices

Edit Notices

One thing added by the latest upgrade is configurable page edit notices (second one in that section). The idea is that one can add warnings when somebody edits a namespace or even a page, although my quick tests couldn't get the page stuff working.

I wondered what people thought about adding warnings to the User namespace asking people not to edit pages other than their own, or to sign in if required; and to Mainspace suggesting that people are probably creating information in the wrong namespace. We might, in the future, want to look at adding a notice to other namespaces (probably just OB) asking people not to create TESV pages there. Another suggestion would be to add something to the Help namespace telling people that it's not the right place to ask for help.

This will create an extra note (box, probably, or it won't be seen) at the top of each affected page, which could be annoying, but it might be helpful to new users in that they would be less likely to edit incorrectly, and to established users in that they would have less to clean up.

Thoughts? –rpeh  18:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

:I think it's worth pursuing.  Unfortunately with user pages it doesn't seem possible to do a test such as   (although there's probably an extension somewhere that adds a variable like USER... if someone's willing to dig around), which could make the message especially useful. 
:However, we also need to keep in mind existing notices at talkpagetext and anoneditwarning (and possibly others), to try to avoid redundancy or message overkill, and also try to maintain some consistency in format, etc.
:(I'm guessing your 2nd and 3rd tests didn't work because it's supposed to be "Editnotice" not "EditNotice".  From the code, it looks like "Editnotice-2-Rpeh" should be the correct name.  While I'm in the code, one other obscure little feature is that for a page such as "Tes3Mod:Tamriel Rebuilt/Book X/Author", it will look for an edit notice at Editnotice-122-Tamriel_Rebuilt, Editnotice-122-Tamriel_Rebuilt-Book_X, then Editnotice-122-Tamriel_Rebuilt-Book_X-Author, and display any or all that are found (note "-" not "/" as separators).  So an edit notice will target an entire set of subpages.) --Nephele  22:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/UESP E-Mail Server

UESP E-Mail Server
I've finally got around to setting up the e-mail on content3.uesp.net. If anyone (admins, patrollers, or active editors) wants a uesp.net email (i.e., dave@uesp.net) just let me know. There is a web interface at webmail.uesp.net and it supports the POP interface (can't send mails through it yet).
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Cookie Problem

Cookie Problem

I'm suddenly getting the ol' "Loss of session data" error when I try to save whilst logged in. Do we have a problem? 85.92.194.123 08:21, 9 June 2009 (EDT) (aka, Rpeh)

:It was a /tmp on content1 filling up which prevented php sessions from being created. I've moved the UESP wiki file cache to /tmp1/cache (with a sym-link in /tmp/cache) to prevent it from happening again. -- Daveh 08:49, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

:: Ah! Much better. Thanks. –Rpeh  08:51, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

:::Except /tmp1/cache is owned by root and can't be written to by apache. So I've changed LocalSettings.php to use /tmp1/cache1.  Any chance you could clean up /tmp1/cache and /tmp/cache (both of which are owned by root, so I can't do anything to them). --Nephele  00:39, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/UOP Changelog Summary - Wikified

UOP changelog summary - wikified

I've been working on a project for Oblivion; as part of that, I decided to take the UOP changelog, sort everything out, and convert it to wikicode. It was going to be part of a wiki, but plans changed and I was left with this folder full of Notepad files. It wasn't until recently that I thought, "Why not give it to the UESP wiki?" So, here I am. Can someone direct me to somewhere I can add it, and then I can make sure everything's up to snuff?

Oh yeah - you can contact me here, or drop me an email: mistmane@yahoo.com. I'll even be happy to hand over the files if anyone wants to look at them. I contacted Qarl about this awhile back, when I first started working on it; he was cool with it, since he and Kivan had stopped working on it over a year ago and no one's touched it since.  

:I never realised the project was continued upon since previous year. I think it's manageable to cover the list here, if that is indeed OK with the creators. The list would need some better organization though, as it is too long for a wiki article as it currently stands. --Timenn-  11:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

::I've already got it organized, and it's even done in wikicode, though I might have to make a few changes; I did it for Wikidot. I'm just wondering where to put it.

:::I might be a good idea to sort them over a few different subpages. Like Tes4Mod:Unofficial Oblivion Patch/Object Placement, and Tes4Mod:Unofficial Oblivion Patch/Graphical Issues.

:::Though before you start I hope some other editors will add their ideas to this. --Timenn-  11:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

::::Already been done. I've got it spread out over 17 files (there's a LOT of stuff), though some of them could be combined (I have four "Text Fixes" files - Books, Cells, Dialogue, and Quests). If no one has any objections, I'll start adding stuff this weekend, then whoever's interested can sort it out.

:::::Great. Perhaps you can start with a single page, and see how it works out and whether others have any ideas for improvements? Then you can incorporate those in the other pages the first time around. --Timenn-  15:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)