I know precisely what it was.

Subject: I know precisely what it was.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-04-29 19:50:00 UTC

For the past ~5 days, Webs.com - who host all my websites - have been suffering from a DDOS attack. They didn't go down, but their sites ran slowly enough that a slow internet connection will actually time out before it gets through. I can confirm this, because my sites didn't work at home (we're in a very slow area), but did work at work.

The CSS that defines the Board is stuck on one of my Webs sites. Every time you load the Board, it has to read from there. Which meant, sure enough, blue links at home, and red at work - and a delay on both as it tried to get through.

I can also confirm that, thank goodness, they fixed it (or... stopped being attacked, I guess). So we're back to normal.

(As to why the CSS is on my site? Simple - so I can muck about with it to do things like make the highlighting show up, or occasionally produce an April Fool's Day blackout...)

hS

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A Question by Desdendelle on 2014-04-29 17:38:00 UTC Reply

Is the board acting up for anyone else? It's loading extremely slowly for me, and it looks weird.

Off Topic by Dark Brother 16 on 2014-04-29 23:29:00 UTC Reply

Can I ask something about the PPC wiki page? Oh well, I'll ask anyway.

The Unclaimed Badfic page has been locked so I can't edit it and move the stories I want to plan for into the Claimed Badfic list.
I have a short list that I would like to do. Is there anyone on this Board who has an account that is not locked who could perhaps move then for me, or who knows how I can get it unlocked for my own account?

Another Question About the Wiki Page by Dark Brother 16 on 2014-04-30 00:25:00 UTC Reply

Also, is it okay if I start creating a page on the Wiki about Imaginations Collide? Obviously, I won't mention more than I already have on this board, but still, it doesn't have much to do with the PPC, except that my series and the PPC will coexist.

I'm not sure if I should go with it or not. Probably no, but what are your thoughts?

I'm gonna go with no by Phobos on 2014-04-30 01:56:00 UTC Reply

Imaginations Collide does not belong on the wiki. For several reasons.

1) It doesn't even exist yet.
2) Even if IC existed, your PPC writing doesn't exist yet.
3) This means that any link between the two doesn't exist yet.

Until all three of those things change, there is no reason to make a page. Even that blog post on the wiki where you are going to document your progress on "creating cohesion and coexistence" between the PPC and Imaginations Collide is really very far ahead of what you should be worrying about.

Slow down. You can't create cohesion and coexistence until there are things in existence.

-Phobos

Okay, then by Dark Brother 16 on 2014-04-30 02:01:00 UTC Reply

I had a feeling that it wasn't.

I can't help it sometimes if I get ahead of myself or overachieve. I'm an ambitious person, it's part of who I am. You know how it is, right?

Oh, and I think I'll leave the blog post up anyway, so that I can save it for later. The website doesn't take down blog posts that have been inactive for a little while, does it?

... well, it's a blog. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-30 07:00:00 UTC Reply

It would be fairly ridiculous for the Wiki to delete parts of what's supposed to be a permanent record.

Also, while I'm here... why exactly are you running around the Wiki making... fairly pointless minor edits? There's no functional difference between 'a position actually held by [[Hornbeam]] the Ironwood' and 'a position that is actually held by [[Hornbeam]] the Ironwood', and you've been doing a heck of a lot of those. I'm curious: is there an actual reason, or just general excitement?

hS

Well, yes and no by Dark Brother 16 on 2014-04-30 14:25:00 UTC Reply

General excitement? A little bit. But mostly, it has to do with me trying to earn the fun little badges.

I was afraid of that. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-30 14:31:00 UTC Reply

I'm all for people trying to get the badges - I actually added the Agent and Flower ones myself - but editing purely for the sake of editing... isn't a terribly good idea. It clogs up the 'recent changes' page, for one thing, and it's also... well, basically a waste of time.

Which isn't to say you can't do something. Ekyl and Neshomeh both have their current 'projects' - Nesh is trying to eliminate useless redirects, Ekyl is (among other things) changing all references to 'Crashing Down' to be descriptive. I'm just starting my Great Readthrough, which involves adding references to all the articles relevant to my stories.

So if you want to do a lot of editing, I'd suggest finding something like that. Going through Agent pages and adding the tag for no stories, say, or the Reference Needed tag (though don't go wild with that). If you're comfortable with how to enter references, picking a PPC series you enjoy reading and starting your own Great Readthrough would be a brilliant move, too - it involves nothing more than reading each story, noting down each fact that should be on the Wiki, then checking if they are, and adding (if necessary) and referencing them. Refs aren't very hard to do, either.

But just going through and adding 'is' or whatever where it's not really needed? I wouldn't recommend it. In fact, I'd do the opposite.

hS

Addendum. by Desdendelle on 2014-04-30 19:51:00 UTC Reply

Doing something like monitoring the badfic pages and bumping stuff to their correct places (removing already-missioned badfics from Unclaimed, cleaning up old claims, etc) is also useful, I think.

Addendum? Damn near killed 'em! (nm) by Ekyl on 2014-05-01 07:41:00 UTC Reply

Seconding. by Neshomeh on 2014-04-30 15:43:00 UTC Reply

I was going to bring this up myself—I was pretty sure I detected a badge-related pattern. {= /

Also, FYI, it's generally not kosher to tinker with the content of other people's agent pages at all unless you're fixing actual problems like missing/broken links, SPaG errors, or wiki style inconsistencies. Editing purely to change a choice of wording, like what hS pointed out a couple posts up, is not even done in professional editing.

~Neshomeh

Speaking of agent pages. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-30 16:19:00 UTC Reply

(And now I really want to know why my computer wanted to autofill that as 'Speaking of Eol.')

In the course of the Great Readthrough, I expect I'll run into other people's agents. Actually, I know for a fact that I'll meet Agent Neshomeh, though it'll be a long time before I do. When that happens, what edits are acceptable to make on her page? Can I add references? What if (to make up an example that probably doesn't apply here) I have a cowritten story with a description of someone who doesn't have a description on the Wiki?

I'm at two advantages here - I know who is and isn't still around, and I've 'adopted' most of the agents in my works who aren't my own anyway. But:

Lacksidacksical: Wow, I got to co-write a mission with Oaken! *starstruck* I'll just add it to the wiki... oh, hey, Oaken wrote that Morrigan has exactly the same colour eyes as my Remora! I'll add that too!

Wiki article on Agent Morrigan: Morrigan's eyes are exactly the same colour as Agent Remora's.^[3]

Summertide: Lacksidacksical! You villainous fiend! How dare you edit Oaken's agent's article! You are now banned from the Wiki!

Lacksidacksical: Wha- buh- I- wha'?

(... we should never have made Summertide an admin. She gets way too angry about things)

You see my point. Poor, hapless Lacksi is just adding information written by Oaken herself, specifically sourced - but is she allowed to do so? What about if 464646 reads their mission and tries to add that snippet? Will Summertide ban her too? Will OlderThanThou have to revoke Summertide's admin privileges? Find out next week on- no, sorry, scratch that last.

(And the Hypothetical Boarders get another outing. Someday I may have to write a Hypothetical Mission with Remora, Morrigan, and Carpace...)

hS

It's highly circumstance-dependent. by Neshomeh on 2014-04-30 17:01:00 UTC Reply

In this case, I'm not really sure why you'd need to edit Agent Neshomeh's page, since I've already got a link to "Brown DragonRider" on there and I've said as much as I want to say about it.

I guess that's kinda how I feel about it in general—if Oaken doesn't see a need to include a comparison of the two characters' hair color on Morrigan's page, it's a bit presumptuous for Lacksi to second-guess him. However, Lacksi can write whatever she wants on Remora's page, so if she really wants to make that comparison, that's the place to do it. Lacksi can also contact Oaken directly and say "Hey, I noticed this thing and I think it's cool! Do you think it should go on your agent's page?"

As far as refs go, my basic assumption is that anything on an individual writer's agent page is sourced to the mission logs/appearances by default, so referencing isn't necessary unless it's something crazy out of left field (like what, I don't know). That said, adding links is good—just let the other guy do it for his own pages unless he's unwilling or unable.

When it comes to shared characters who've been passed around a lot, like Makes-Things and Lux, refs are a good idea so we can keep straight what came from where and can know at a glance that the "facts" about them haven't been invented on the fly.

As for inactive characters, fleshing out their pages is good, and "automatically sourced to the missions/appearances" still applies. You're restricted to what's actually on the page, so the articles may never be very long, but that's okay.

Does that cover it, and also make sense? These are just the conclusions I've come to playing it by ear all this time, so if we want to come up with some kind of codified guidelines that are different, I'm open to that. Historically, some people have gotten very tetchy about having their characters' pages messed with, but if we want to say "no, it's a wiki, everyone can edit everything equally and you can always change anything you don't like," that's not an invalid position. I don't think I'd advocate for it, but just putting it out there.

~Neshomeh

Oaken's a girl. ;) by Huinesoron on 2014-05-01 09:56:00 UTC Reply

I take your point. One final question - what about people who are absolutely active in the community, but just... don't edit the Wiki? Like, um, me, until recently. Should we be bugging them to do so? Doing it for them? Or letting their agents' pages stand at 'Cadeline Rho is an agent of the PPC.'?

hS

Oh, whoops. ^. ^; by Neshomeh on 2014-05-04 18:06:00 UTC Reply

That is a tricky question. I think it would be best if people took care of their own stuff or maybe designated a friend to do it, like I sort of look after Phobos' pages. Failing either... *shrug* I guess anybody can add to the Glossary, the Complete List, etc., so the characters/spin-off can at least be counted and accessed that way?

(Sorry for taking so long to respond; I had limited Internet access the last few days.)

~Neshomeh
All right, a woman. She was a girl when she joined. (nm) by Huinesoron on 2014-05-01 09:58:00 UTC Reply

Oh. by Dark Brother 16 on 2014-04-30 14:49:00 UTC Reply

Well, I wouldn’t have edited it that way if I didn't think it was correct, but I'll see about maybe doing that. I'd like to make the pages for my own stuff, but they don't exist yet.

I'll make the occasional minor change, but I'll tone it down. Boy Scout ' s honor.

It always looks that way to me... (nm) by Snowy the Sane Fangirl on 2014-04-29 19:54:00 UTC Reply

Which may mean... by Huinesoron on 2014-04-29 19:57:00 UTC Reply

... your system either blocks (or can't get to) Webs.com, or, possibly, there's something in the CSS that isn't compatible with your computer. Those are just guesses, though (and honestly you're not missing all that much... the links are meant to be red, there's slight, usually-unnoticable shading behind the threads, and you're meant to get grey highlights on new-posts-on-threads-over-a-day-old).

hS

I know precisely what it was. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-29 19:50:00 UTC Reply

For the past ~5 days, Webs.com - who host all my websites - have been suffering from a DDOS attack. They didn't go down, but their sites ran slowly enough that a slow internet connection will actually time out before it gets through. I can confirm this, because my sites didn't work at home (we're in a very slow area), but did work at work.

The CSS that defines the Board is stuck on one of my Webs sites. Every time you load the Board, it has to read from there. Which meant, sure enough, blue links at home, and red at work - and a delay on both as it tried to get through.

I can also confirm that, thank goodness, they fixed it (or... stopped being attacked, I guess). So we're back to normal.

(As to why the CSS is on my site? Simple - so I can muck about with it to do things like make the highlighting show up, or occasionally produce an April Fool's Day blackout...)

hS

Aha! by Desdendelle on 2014-04-29 20:42:00 UTC Reply

So that's why it loads stuff from the Twisted Skein... I was wondering why, to be honest.

Not now, but it has before. by Neshomeh on 2014-04-29 18:05:00 UTC Reply

And it recently happened to Phobos at work, but not to me at home. I have no idea what the cause is, but it sorts itself out after a while.

~Neshomeh

Bit of a hijack... by Iximaz on 2014-04-29 19:42:00 UTC Reply

For whatever bizarre reason, I can't get the confirmation email from Dreamwidth and it won't let me post a reply to Ilraen until I've gotten the email. Any idea why?

Never mind. (nm) by Iximaz on 2014-04-29 20:19:00 UTC Reply

Is That Not What It's Supposed to Look Like? by sjosten on 2014-04-29 17:57:00 UTC Reply

It always looks like that for me. Now I'm kind of worried.

And now it works... by Desdendelle on 2014-04-29 18:11:00 UTC Reply

Oddly enough, now it's back to normal. I have no idea what happened.