User talk:Nicjansma/Archive2018

Fanon Book[edit]

Please, I found a fan-produced book that copies the entries of different factions. I'm not sure if this is acceptable or not. This is the thread at the OF, please contact Red Pins. https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=45897.90#lastPost

Thanks

Nic (and Red Pins): I addressed the concerns on the forum. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 20:41, 28 April 2018 (EDT)

Version 1.28.2[edit]

Morning, Nic. Thought I'd share this tidbit with you: MW 1.28.2 automatically lists cited references under a section called "references", without any need for the ref code (i.e., <references/>). Not a reason to update alone, but I discovered it by accident on one of my wikis. Cheers. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 11:38, 25 June 2017 (EDT)

Thanks Revanche! I plan on doing a full update to MW 1.30.0 soon. Nicjansma (talk) 21:41, 6 February 2018 (EST)
Today we were upgraded to MW 1.30.0! Nicjansma (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2018 (EDT)

Categories not populating[edit]

Hey Nic,

I have noticed that Categories do not appear to be populating anymore, the Clan Bloodnames, Noble Houses and Solaris Characters have all had a number of articles added in the last few weeks but do not show up in said category. Older articles seem fine, just newly added/created articles (I have not tried to see if this happens a new category just existing). This might also be effecting the search engine as an article I was working on this morning did not show up in the first few items of the search (I searched Hartford, and House Hartford was not in the first 3 pages, it was picking up the word within articles). Any chance you could look into this? Dmon (talk) 04:16, 22 February 2018 (EST)

It's apparently more than that. Categories don't seem to change/update at all anymore. See BattleTechWiki:Administrators#Category and What Link Here issues - February 2018 and User talk:Deadfire#Category Link Template. Frabby (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2018 (EST)
Indeed I saw Frabby. We have a major problem it seems. Dmon (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2018 (EST)
Looks like Nic fixed it. Thanks Nic! Frabby (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2018 (EDT)
Yep! Was able to roll out a MW 1.30.0 today, which I've confirmed fixed this (and other) issues. Hopefully it doesn't bring in any new issues! Nicjansma (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2018 (EDT)

Adding Fan Sourcebook[edit]

Hey Nick. I'm a member of the team working on the Death From Above Fan Sourcebook. I have a PDF file we would like to have added to the download section so we can link to it from a Wiki entry. Its a 65 MB PDF. We are hosting it on Box until we can get a permanent home for it here on Sarna. [1] Please give it a gander and let me know if there are any issues. Thanks for your assistance.

Awesome! Added http://www.sarna.net/files/info/docs/fan/dfa-sourcebook.pdf Nicjansma (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2018 (EDT)

MediaWiki 1.30.0[edit]

On March 26, 2018, sarna.net was upgraded to MediaWiki 1.30.0 (from 1.28.0). This fixes at least two known issues:

  • Categories were not being updated after articles are saved. This was a known MW 1.28.0 bug that was fixed in 1.29. I've verified pages like Category:Pages with reference errors are now updated correctly.
  • The BattleTechWiki:ToDo page was broken because of the DynamicPageList plugin being broken with 1.28.0. The plugin has been updated.

As with any upgrade, it brings fixes but also the potential for more issues. If anyone finds any issues, please list them here and I will look into them as soon as I can. Nicjansma (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2018 (EDT)

Template:InfoBoxBattleMech[edit]

Hello there. I've been told that you are the one to speak to about scripted/bot tasks.

I made some changes to Template:InfoBoxBattleMech to improve its functionality, but they do mean that hundreds of mech articles need updating to use the new parameters. I don't know the first thing about bots or scripting to avoid having to do that by hand. Do you? Cease to Hope (talk) 19:50, 9 September 2017 (EDT)

Hi Cease to Hope! If you have a database (CSV, spreadsheet, etc) of the 'Mechs and their corresponding Tech Base values, I can make a bot to update all of them. Nicjansma (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2018 (EST)

Edits missing on Recent Edits page[edit]

Something is still or again broken: It seems the Recent Changes are skipping edits. As of today, for example, the list stubbornly refuses to acknowledge or report several edits User:Dmon made to my talk page, while curiously showing intermediate edits in reply to Dmon by myself and User:Pserratv. We've reported this problem before, alongside the Categories not updating; but now it looks as if it might be a separate issue that either wasn't fixed in the latest upgrades, or has cropped up again. It is naturally near impossible to spot, it was just lucky coincidence that I was informed of a New Message to my talk page (without a corresponding Recent Edit) or I'd neve have found something was amiss. Frabby (talk) 10:18, 7 May 2018 (EDT)

Hey Frabby, next time this occurs can you try to keep track of the time/date you made the edit, and the pages it was made on? (or if you still remember the details from this post) I can then look into the database to see what's going on. Nicjansma (talk) 10:48, 2 June 2018 (EDT)

Spambots[edit]

Hi Nic,
We're getting hit with spambots again - anonymous IPs posting spoof pages. All of the pages tend to follow a common format in their title, and I was wondering if it was possible to adjust Sarna to refuse to allow the creation of article pages containing specific words - for example, I can't imagine we're ever going to have articles here that need the words "Yahoo" or "Netflix" or "Google" or "Paypal", and if we could auto-block the creation of those pages, it would cut down on the spam a bit. I'd prefer to cut down on the spam a bit by finding the spammers and malleting their fingers with a lump hammer until they learn the error of their ways, but a block on new pages would probably be more productive in the short term, if less satisfying. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:02, 8 May 2018 (EDT)

"Yahoo" shouldn't be blacklisted. We have several links to Yahoo videos of computer game content, for example. Frabby (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2018 (EDT)
I wasn't talking about blacklisting Yahoo as a term in general - just blocking it from article names. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 05:05, 8 May 2018 (EDT)
Ah ok. Yes, in article names it can and perhaps should be blacklisted.
In case you're wondering why I raised this topic, I got myself autblocked by the system when I archived my talk page last time - because another user had raised spam reports on my talk page that contained words which were later blacklisted. When I created the archive article, zapp, autoblock. Luckily admin rights apparently override autoblock and I found I could unblock myself. Frabby (talk) 10:04, 8 May 2018 (EDT)
Absolutely agree with blocking the creation of certain pages that utilize certain words...so please respond to that request first.
However, I'd suggest removing "createpage" and "createtalk" from the "all" group, requiring one to be in the "User" (i.e., an Editor) group to do so. Yes, it means someone who sees a need for a "missing" article to go thru the registration process, but at this point, how many non-Editors are going to find a critical "missing" article and not be bothered to register? The time saved for Admins from deleting and blocking IPs would be beneficial.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:10, 11 May 2018 (EDT)
Making account creation require human authentication is a good idea as well. And also maybe put a 4 hour waiting period on account creation before you can create pages.~Amaroq Starwind~ (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2018 (EDT)
I am very much in favour of making account creation a requirement of editing pages, we are currently experiencing the expected influx of Video Game players as well as the spambots, and some of them are editing pages with opinions rather than using the talk pages. So I think we need to stay on top of that too.--Dmon (talk) 05:39, 12 May 2018 (EDT)
Aff. This should include notes on various pages such as "This page is in regards to the novels and to the Tabletop game. For other uses of the term, see..." and "These articles are intended to provide factual information. Please leave personal opinions to the Talk Page." ~Amaroq Starwind~ (talk) 11:50, 16 May 2018 (EDT)
Okay, Admins: I found the Abuse Filter and I've added the following words to it: Yahoo, Netflix, Google, Paypal. I will be adding more words to it, as I see pages that get created that have no relevancy to Sarna (there were many today). Plus, I directed the filter to "Prevent the user from performing the action in question." I decided not to autoblock IPs or new users doing this, just so we can have human eyes reviewing that decision. (I'm definitely open to doing so, but today I had a Frabby avatar on my shoulder suggesting otherwise.) --Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:20, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
In addition, Revanche and I have been working on Abuse Filter #3 which blocks New users adding external links on their user page. We've made some edits, and it seems to be working well, having blocked 3 edits/accounts since yesterday that were SPAM. Before yesterday, this rule wasn't working because it only applied to non-autoconfirmed users (see below).
We previously had not configured MediaWiki's $wgAutoConfirmAge or $wgAutoConfirmCount. This meant all users were autoconfirmed immediately, which skips some of the Abuse Filter rules. I've now set them to 14 days and 5 edits, respectively. This should make the Abuse Filter rules work on all newly-created accounts.
I'm open to removing createpage and createtalk from all, if others agree.
I'm not sure we should require an account for all edits though, as we've historically allowed edits even if not logged in (and have had multiple discussions around this).
Nicjansma (talk) 10:43, 2 June 2018 (EDT)