Talk:Main Page

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The Main Page
Firstly can we move Main Page to Main page? The case seems plain wrong. (JOKING) Seriously though: My concern is that the Main Page is not as useful as it could be. I think we should address why people use the wiki currently, and why people would want to use the wiki. My current observations are that the Main Page is a bit cluttered. What do people come to this site for? We have quite complete skill listings, other than that things are pretty incomplete, and yet we don't have an obvious link to skills on the front page. Any thoughts? 02:20, 13 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * Heh, just look at the popular pages. The site is being used as a reference: missions, quests, collectors, armor types, skill locations.  --Fyren 03:53, 13 Aug 2005 (EST)

Archiving
I moved a tonne of other stuff to the archive page. 06:30, 27 Jul 2005 (EST)

Hosting
Hey folks, sorry for the silence on my part, been hectic here at zerohq. Anywho, good news! We're gonna be moving the site to a seperate account on the web host, and it's going to be totally free! The tip jar will go away, and be replaced by a little icon or something saying "hosted by", in an unobtrusive way. The wiki is also on task to break 7 gigs of bandwidth used this month, so the free hosting is going to kick ass. I'm going to keep what is left of the donations in the paypal account in case its needed later for domain name registering or so on. Will keep you posted as to when the move will take place. Downtime should only be 10 or 15 mins, tops. Gravewit


 * Oh right, this is really good news :) Is there any catch though? ;) hehe. 21:09, 22 Jul 2005 (EST)

GuildWiki.org active
I just typed http://www.guildwiki.org and got the wiki :) good stuff! Unfortunately it redirects to a quite unsightly URL, http://www.guildwiki.org/guildwars/index.php/Main_Page. Could we change this before the guildwiki.org domain becomes established? I'm not sure what the setup is yet, if anyone could confirm the situation we can make plans to improve the url, by either changing the root directory or using apache rewrite or both :) 07:51, 6 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * It doesn't matter much since a mod_rewrite rule will be transparent to the user should links to the old style get googled, etc. Based on the email I received from Gravewit earlier, I expect he'll be putting in the appropriate rewrites soon enough. Oh and I should also mention that guildwiki.net, guild-wiki.org (and .com/.net), and guildwarswiki.org all point to the server as well. Just in case there's confusion. :) MartinLightbringer 10:37, 6 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Grabbing all similar domains is a smoove! (smooth move) :) --Karlos 11:03, 6 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Yeah Martin, I know how mod_rewrite works, I'm just applying gentle pressure to make sure it get's done ;) Also, it makes a difference on whether the guildwiki.org is hosted on a different server to zerolives.org or on the same server to zerolives, since a simple mod_rewrite rule such as

RewriteRule    ^([a-z0-9A-Z]+)/$ /guildwars/index.php/$1    [L]


 * will work on a new, clean host, but if it's on Gravewit's original host then it would mean that his root site would be inaccessable. (I'm aware the the rewrite rule is incomplete, since it doesn't handle punctuation, but I can't remember my regex syntax :P) Really, what would be ideal is to type "guildwiki.org/Unyielding Aura" and to get the article. 20:47, 6 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * It is on the same host as zerolives.org (given that the IP address brings up the zerolives.org blog). But RewriteRules work in a vhost context so even a rewrite rule like the above wouldn't affect other sites hosted on the same box. "guildwiki.org/Unyielding Aura" would be a pain though (and not just because of the space) because you don't have anything to anchor to to make determinations about how to reform the destination url since you'd probably also want "guildwiki.org/Yak's Bend" (or whatever) to work too. If you want short jump urls then something like "guildwiki.org/skills/Blah" and "guildwiki.org/locations/Blah" would be easier to setup rewrites for. Something like:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/guildwars/index.php RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /guildwars/index.php$1    [L,NE]


 * might resolve the simple rewrite case without causing infinite loops. Although I think reconfiguring MediaWiki might be a more simple solution and then you could just turn around the Rewrite to "^/guildwars/index.php(.*)$ /$1 [L,NE]" to send any bookmarks back to the new layout. MartinLightbringer 23:33, 6 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * I've just been doing some tests on my own web server using the rewrites posted by Martin, and I don't think these will work either, at least not without some more tweaking! I'm using...

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mediawiki-1.4.0/index.php (as suggested by Martin) RewriteRule  ^(.*)$  /mediawiki-1.4.0/index.php/$1  [QSA,L]


 * ...to rewrite the url and I have index.php inside a directory to mirror this site. You can see the result on http://wiki1.baxter.ath.cx/Test, which links to an article 'Test' on my sample wiki. The main problem is, as you can see, the url for the stylesheets is also rewritten (duh)! So it looks like you are right Martin, hehe. I don't know enough about mod_rewrite to say for certain though!
 * I don't think using "guildwiki.org/locations/xxx" is much better than using "guildwiki.org/guildwars/xxx", so if we can't manage "guildwiki.org/xxx" then a rewrite to remove index.php would suffice imo :) 01:15, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Just poking around the mediawiki code, it looks like the best way to do this would be to do one of:
 * Set DocumentRoot to be /whatever/.../guildwars/ and change $wgScriptPath to be '/' and change $wgScript to be $wgScriptPath and make sure apache's DirectoryIndex has index.php in it and set $prettyURLs on or
 * Reinstall mediawiki with the appropriate changes above and point it at the existing db of stuff (backing it up first of course :))
 * It's also possible that just setting $prettyURLs would be enough to get it to "guildwiki.org/guildwars/Main_Page" or whatever.
 * Note I haven't tried any of these things yet so I could be way off base. I'll try and do some tests while I'm at work (if i can find some time in between actually doing work :) ). MartinLightbringer 03:06, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * So after playing around with it, with no success, I had the bright idea to actually read the docs. wikimedia.org has a nice FAQ on this. Eliminating index.php from the url or even better Using a very short URL are two ways of doing this. If possible I think we should go with the second option. MartinLightbringer 05:24, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Yeah, the second method seems the best! For some reason I never thought to look at the meta wiki!! The 'kludge' way seems the most probable course of action, since I imagine it would cost some money to have the webhost patch apache. Might be worth a try before we rule it out. 06:35, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)

To make clean URLs
This is a summary of what must be done according 'Using a very short URL' on meta wiki, presuming that no patch can be applied to Apache.

In .htaccess: RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(stylesheets|skins|images|config)/ RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(index|redirect|texvc).php RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/error/(40(1|3|4)|500).html RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(favicon.ico|robots.txt)
 * 1) Don't rewrite requests for files in MediaWiki subdirectories,
 * 2) MediaWiki PHP files, HTTP error documents, favicon.ico, or robots.txt

RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ /index.php?title=$1 [L] In MediaWiki:

Function getLocalURL in includes/Title.php:

- $url = "{$wgScript}?title={$dbkey}&{$query}"; + $url = "/{$dbkey}&{$query}";

Function view in includes/RawPage.php:

- if( strcmp( $wgScript, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ) ) { + if( 0 and strcmp( $wgScript, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ) ) {

In LocalSettings.php:

$wgScript = ""; $wgScriptPath = ""; $wgArticlePath = "/$1";

Please could someone verify that this is correct? 06:53, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Yes, that works. With the caveat that DocumentRoot for the www.guildwiki.org vhost will need to be changed to be the directory that MediaWiki is installed (/guildwars/) in. Either that or its contents will need to be moved to the DocumentRoot directory. See Test Wiki to view it in action. This is a clean installation of MediaWiki 1.4.5 with the recommended Kludge directions above applied. MartinLightbringer 09:35, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Can you change DocumentRoot in .htaccess? If so that could be included in the directions above. 20:36, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * DocRoot is only set in a server/virtualhost context, so no. If Gravewit doesn't have access to the httpd.conf file on the server then worst case we have short urls that look like http://www.guildwiki.org/guildwars/Main_Page etc instead of http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_Page. Or you can accomplish the same thing by installing MediaWiki into the DocRoot rather than a subdir. MartinLightbringer 22:56, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Well if Gravewit is hosting zerolives.org in www-root/ or whatever, and guildwiki in www-root/guildwars/ then he won't be able to move index.php to the parent dir, since that will overwrite his blog. The host would surely be able to change the document root though, so this might not be a problem. 23:18, 7 Jul 2005 (EST)

Signature times?
It's not important, but I just noticed when I use the auto-signature thing the time it inserts is... wrong. It doesn't match the edit time listed in the history/recent changes and it doesn't match my local time, though the time is marked as my time zone. I'm EST and it appears to be showing (at least, to me) a time 14 hours ahead. My timezone preferences are correct and the history times shown are correct. It's just the times inserted by the signature. --Fyren 06:13, 8 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Well, I just edited the previous section and it came up with the time 8:42, it was 23:42 when i posted it here, and I am British summer time, GMT+1. Someone else can figure out if that is right or wrong :P 08:45, 8 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Well, regardless of where you are, the signature is marked with a time zone but the time doesn't match it, so something is wrong. Do signatures on your end show up as EST also?  Or GMT+1?  (Or something else?)  --Fyren 06:01, 12 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Everything on the site shows up as EST time for me. 06:31, 12 Jul 2005 (EST)

SQL errors
What about the database errors when trying to access articles with templates, will that be fixed anytime soon? Roland of Gilead 01:14, 25 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Gravewit said he spoke/is trying to speak with the guy running the hosting. --Fyren 05:06, 25 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I doubt it is related to the host exactly. Seems like something needs repairing. He should be able to run "Repair" from an admin tool, like phpMyAdmin. Maybe not though, I'm not well up on these things. He could be speaking to the host about a backup, that would be a big help. 07:03, 25 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * (Repasting part of what I left in User_talk:Tanaric) At $dayjob I manage mysql servers with several hundred gigs of data so I might be able to help with whatever is going on. Also re: Backups, someone with shell access should setup a cronjob of "mysqldump --quick --add-drop-table -u root --password='$password' > /path/to/backupfile.txt" on a daily basis. I'd also recommend an offsite sync of that data (which I'm more than happy to contribute server space for). Anyway it's definitely a table corruption issue. I'd recommend stopping mysql and running mysiamchk -r on the appropriate table (or run REPAIR TABLE while mysql is running). As an aside does anyone know what version of mysql is running here? MartinLightbringer 07:49, 25 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Martin: Yeah, that's pretty much my dayjob, too. I'm a mySQL/PHP/Python/(X)HTML/CSS/XML/etc programmer/hack person. Anyway, have run all the repair commands I can think of, doesn't seem to be helping. I run an offsite mySQL backup each week, but since the wiki has gotten so popular, daily is definately a better idea. Also, you can always find the version of mySQL, PHP, and MediaWiki here Special:Version Gravewit
 * Have you done a myisamchk -r with mysql not running or just the REPAIR TABLE? I'd suggest the myisamchk -r, if you haven't done it already. If that doesn't work, my next suggestion would be to upgrade to mysql 4.1.13 and try again. Also Mediawiki could use an upgrade too. :) There were security fixes in 1.4.5, 1.4.6, and 1.4.7. MartinLightbringer 12:41, 26 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Just to add to Martin's point, you might have to contact the host for this Gravewit, but I'm not sure. 21:01, 26 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I usually am in contact with the host, as he's a friend of mine. I've tried all of the above, not sure what to do here. I am going to try a couple more things tonight and look at what sort of data I get from dumping the database to a text file. 68.251.127.146 04:47, 27 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * And booya, it seems to be fixed. Gravewit
 * Indeed. I've tried a handful of the pages I remember giving me errors and they seem to work fine now. Excellent news. What ended up being the fix? Dump and reload? MartinLightbringer 03:56, 28 Jul 2005 (EST)

Search Box
Maybe it's just me being blind, but why does the search box not offer a convenient link to create a new article if no matching article was found for the search string? Shouldn't it be trivial to implement this? Roland of Gilead 04:18, 27 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * That is an excellent idea. Gravewit, I second this.  &mdash;Tanaric 20:48, 3 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * bump

Empty Articles
Can one of the admins please roll back the massive number of empty articles that Ollj created these past few days. This takes them off the wanted pages and we will not know that we are lacking this info, while those who come looking for the info will get empty pages! --Karlos 19:48, 28 Jul 2005 (EST)

Category:Candidates_for_deletion is pretty full Ollj


 * Yeah, I'll go through it when I have some spare time to check everything. Hopefully some other sysops will be added by then to help out! 08:06, 2 Aug 2005 (EST)

Disambiguation
I noticed there's Domination referring to the attribute and Domination Magic referring to the quest. There's also Protection Prayers which refers to the attribute but I recall there being a quest with the same name. Should we add (Quest) and (Attribute) to disambiguate? Should there be a disambiguation page? There are no such pages for locations/missions that are doubled up on. --Fyren 03:54, 30 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Good point. As far as the name goes I think we should disambiguate. I'm not sure if a disambiguation page is necessarily needed (although I'm not opposed to one). We could just put a note on either page saying " For the attribute please see Protection Prayers (Attribute) ". 10:16, 31 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I think a disambigulation would be good for attribute/quest's. Either way, though, we should add a note to the missions pointing to the location pages, then have the mission name be a redirect to the mission entry. Best overall orginisation, while maintaining easy access. --Talrath Stormcrush 15:09, 31 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * That is currently how mission and location articles should look Talrath. 20:14, 31 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * That's what I thought. Most still don't... --Talrath Stormcrush 12:45, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)

SQL errors - Reloaded
About an hour or so ago I couldn't connect to GuildWiki and now that I can access the site again I get an SQL error ("1062: Duplicate entry '17581' for key 1 (localhost)") everytime I edit a page or upload an image. Also no new edits show up on the recent changes page. All edits seem to be performed ok, though. --Eightyfour-onesevenfive 08:45, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * Same problem for me. Nothing new on the "recent changes" page, but it seems that the rest is working, except from the MySQL error. I've encountered the last three nights (+1 GMT), as far as I recall right now, that site is down for 10 to 20 min. It seems that it is the server itself because a trace shows 100% packet loss at the server. kaarechr 08:55, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * The problem is (most likely) caused by the fact that MySQL tries to insert a new row in the recent changes table which has a primary key value that already exists. This is usaully fixed by repairng the table. People was talking about backup of the wiki database ... any news here? My impression is that several people working with the guildwiki are more than willing to store off site backups. kaarechr 09:06, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * I'm also getting this error. Just to quote it entirely:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

(SQL query hidden)

from within function "RecentChange::save". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '17581' for key 1 (localhost)".
 * Might need repairing again, and a backup would be very useful. It would help me sleep at night :) 10:36, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Not sure if this is related, but the What Links Here pages do no appear to be updating properly&mdash;they seem to be stuck where the Recent Changes pages is. &mdash;Tanaric 16:29, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Can changes to pages made now? or are they rolled back from backups when this problem has been solved? --Jazim 18:31, 4 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * If the problem can be solved the same way as before, I would just carry on editing. If not then, as far as I know, there are no backups. 00:01, 5 Aug 2005 (EST)

SQL errors - Revolutions
Well I hope this is a sign of the database being under repair, but as of now the Recent Changes are completely inaccessible: A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

(SQL query hidden)

from within function "wfSpecialRecentchanges". MySQL returned error "1016: Can't open file: 'guild_recentchanges.MYI' (errno: 145) (localhost)". I hope in the future we will be mostly spared of these nasty errors, because neither working on nor reading a half-broken wiki is great fun in the long run. Roland of Gilead 10:18, 5 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * I'm well aware of this. If someone wants to make an errors page, that would be great. It's not half broken, the reent changes table is locked for some reason, and I must unstick it without losing any data. Gravewit


 * but hey, this is the chance to do edits without people noticing! i'll start with my userpage =9 Nuble 16:21, 5 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * I always wanted to start the Category:Things that make you go Hmmm and I think this is a good time to do it. It will definately include Dwarven Ale, the glitch in Thunderhead Keep mission and "to the end of us all!" :) --Karlos 15:35, 6 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * the female elementalist dance! wait, that one makes you go "oooh". Nuble on 219.93.174.108 01:29, 7 Aug 2005 (EST)

Lo' and behold! It's fixed! Both the errors on the Recent Changes page as well as upon editing are gone. :D And as far as I can tell the only data missing is the corrosponding timeframe on the Recent changes page. --Eightyfour-onesevenfive 04:46, 7 Aug 2005 (EST)
 * Yep - seems that way. Glad it's working again :) kaarechr 05:31, 7 Aug 2005 (EST)

Community/Current events
Both the Current Events and Community Portal have laid fallow for quite some time. Perhaps we should put them to some use? They're easily accessible and commonly editable, and would be a perfect place for recent stylistic clarifications to be put, non-vital questions to be asked, and polls to be conducted. --Talrath Stormcrush 14:32, 15 Aug 2005 (EST)


 * Take the lead on it, and we'll see how it turns out and tweak it communitarily (is that a word?). Design by committee isn't useful, but critique by committee is. &mdash;Tanaric 18:06, 15 Aug 2005 (EST)