Resignation as UFOPaedia administrator

[NKF]

I did a nudge in the PM chat a few nights ago, but still waiting I'm afraid.

 

- NKF

[Jo5hua]

Good evening everyone! Here is the update I have provided to the admin thread regarding the website =)

 

 

 

Great! I was able to finally log back into StrategyCore as the password reset link isn't working. I was able to log in via Facebook login.

 

We have moved the server to a new and MUCH much faster server. UFOPaedia.org is now also on a global Content Delivery Network so the website pages will all load near instantly no matter where you are in the globe. Along with this I have personally rebuilt the entire website and I am very happy to report that the performance/slowness creep issues have been resolved. Previously the website would have an extremely high constant server resource load after a bit of time --- but I'm happy to report that the new rebuilt site has been running stellar with less than half a percent of resource load with same traffic.

 

You may click the website and click any links and the website will respond incredibly quick, a far cry from it's previous state.

 

As you may notice registrations have also been reopened with basic spam filtering. Though this is not enough and we have a road plan in action for the website. Below is a list of plans for the site which we have planned in order to improve everything that is UFOPaedia.org

1. Finalize initial rebuild of website and work out any remaining bugs or quirks on the website to bring the website to 100% in it's current state.
   
   
2. Once the website is 100% fast bug free no issues working great, we will bring up a redundancy backup website server which will have a live second-to-second update of all website content and database data. The website will have full redundancy and mirroring. This will be like www2.ufopaedia.org and will serve as a backup should it be needed.
   
   
3. We are then creating a beta.ufopaedia.org as we need to upgrade the content management system of the website, MediaWiki. Currently UFOPaedia is running legacy MediaWiki 1.22.0 and the latest version is 1.27 stable. The upgrade will be a massive overhaul of the code base and will provide a long term solution to the bot spams as the code base is far more mature and has many anti-spam measures built in.
   
   
4. Once updated we will add a few more extentions which will ensure we have a near 100 percent spam firewall to keep the website integrity at it's best.
   
   
5. Along with extension reinforcement the actual template theme of the website will be updated. We will be using the latest MediaWiki template which we have all grown to love along with many modern upgrades such as Responsive HTML and CSS. Currently the website will display properly on a Desktop monitor with a large resolution, but unfortunately when viewing the website via tablet or mobile device with a smaller resolution, the design is not friendly and does not change with the screen resolution. The new website will be mobile friendly and will format it's content display properly for easy of use and readability on smaller devices and resolutions. Currently the website is receiving 30 percent of it's traffic on these smaller resolution devices, so this new updated MediaWiki template will be a huge improvement on all those visitors.
   

This is what we have so far and I would like to ask the rest of the administration and team what other things we can do to improve the website and experience. XCOM is alive and strong after over 20 years and the world depends on us for all our XCOM information. Let's bring this to the next level and LEVEL UP!

 

Jo5hua

 

[silencer_pl]

This looks amazing. People with such dedication should get a medal or something.

[Zombie]

Hobbes has brought up several very good points. UFOPaedia was Hobbes and to a another extent Tycho's brain child.

 

No, we were not, a lot of other people were behind it in the first place like Gazchap, Zombie, etc.. I was made an administrator a little by accident (IIRC no one actually asked me, they simply made me an admin but this was 10 years ago). I was one of the most active admins in the last years but this was never my site, although a lot of new people had that impression.

 

The UfoPaedia Wiki was GazChap's. He started it all. I actually signed up a little late in the game as I didn't even know what a Wiki was. Folks like NKF, Danial, JellyfishGreen, BombBloke and MikeTheRed were already hard at work when I joined (though, I wasn't exactly that late, and you [Hobbes] signed up just after I did).

 

As for becoming an admin, the whole thing started December 2005 when there was a boatload of spammers creating pages and advertising on current pages. Back then, the only SysOp was GazChap himself. I compiled a list of all those spammers and emailed that to GazChap and also mentioned that it would be nice if there were more SysOps because he wasn't always around. MikeTheRed had also messaged GazChap about the spamming situation and he nominated NKF, BombBloke, yourself and me for the job. So yeah, it was a surprise to probably all of us.

 

- Zombie

[Jo5hua]

The UfoPaedia Wiki was GazChap's. He started it all. I actually signed up a little late in the game as I didn't even know what a Wiki was. Folks like NKF, Danial, JellyfishGreen, BombBloke and MikeTheRed were already hard at work when I joined (though, I wasn't exactly that late, and you [Hobbes] signed up just after I did).

 

As for becoming an admin, the whole thing started December 2005 when there was a boatload of spammers creating pages and advertising on current pages. Back then, the only SysOp was GazChap himself. I compiled a list of all those spammers and emailed that to GazChap and also mentioned that it would be nice if there were more SysOps because he wasn't always around. MikeTheRed had also messaged GazChap about the spamming situation and he nominated NKF, BombBloke, yourself and me for the job. So yeah, it was a surprise to probably all of us.

 

- Zombie

 

Ok so do you want to help us admin the site? Currently the site is stable and fast now on a super high-performance server..... We need help though on the admin side... Anyone else thoughts on this? Thanks let me know!

[NKF]

Zombie's already an admin, though we could always use a few more as many of our existing admins aren't around a lot these days.

 

By the way Jo5hua, not sure if it's the site or it's on my end, but over the last week when I click through a link I end up on a 0 byte page and have to reload to get the page to appear properly. Not all the time, just seems to happen once in a while.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

I think it would be helpful to clarify that I'm a SysOp admin, not a Bureaucrat admin - two different beasts. The other group is checkuser which I'm not a member of either (though, I wish I was as I can see a bunch of possible spammers in the user list which aren't blocked yet but without the ability to check IP addresses I'm helpless). Could've sworn I had that privilege at one time, maybe not though.

 

- Zombie

[Jo5hua]

I think it would be helpful to clarify that I'm a SysOp admin, not a Bureaucrat admin - two different beasts. The other group is checkuser which I'm not a member of either (though, I wish I was as I can see a bunch of possible spammers in the user list which aren't blocked yet but without the ability to check IP addresses I'm helpless). Could've sworn I had that privilege at one time, maybe not though.

 

- Zombie

 

Okay... I would definitely like the additional overseeing of possible spammers especially now that we have opened up the site and began upgrades to it. I am not familiar with the site admins yet as I just came in recently =)

 

Zombie's already an admin, though we could always use a few more as many of our existing admins aren't around a lot these days.

 

By the way Jo5hua, not sure if it's the site or it's on my end, but over the last week when I click through a link I end up on a 0 byte page and have to reload to get the page to appear properly. Not all the time, just seems to happen once in a while.

 

- NKF

 

Please send me a message with your Skype if you have one and we will look into this asap.. Please send me some links that you can paste here or in private message and I will look to replicate and resolve the issue asap. Thanks!

[NKF]

Please send me a message with your Skype if you have one and we will look into this asap.. Please send me some links that you can paste here or in private message and I will look to replicate and resolve the issue asap. Thanks!

 

I haven't really used my Skype a great deal, but I'm enkayeff on there if you need to get in contact.

 

I wish I could send you some concrete examples, but the problem is that it doesn't always happen and when it does it could happen on any page.

 

I usually see it when checking out the diff pages for some of the items that pop up on the recent update list to check out what's been done. Sometimes it will happen when simply clicking through a Wikilink to another page. Another occasion was when I was blocking the most recent spam account. Instead of going to account block page, it just loaded up the blank page until I refreshed.

 

It's rather sporadic, so I'm wondering if it's just me that's experiencing this.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

You aren't alone NKF, I get the same thing every once and a while. Most recent was the Armour page for EU as well as the UFO Detection page. But like you said, refreshing the page fixes it.

 

- Zombie

[Tvol]

Those page load issues are internal server errors (error code 500, which isn't exactly helpful). I get them often, including when running Pywikibot so it's safe to say the problem is universal. I would expect that somewhere in the logs something is throwing out errors when this happens, but since code 500 is so general, there's nothing we can do to be more specific. Someone may need to sit there, reloading pages, and watching the server logs live.