Golden-Road.net
Front Office => The Front Office => Topic started by: SteveGavazzi on November 22, 2021, 08:15:19 PM
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Quick heads-up, guys...as I'm sure some of you have noticed by now, something's wrong with the timeline (and probably the rest of the FAQ, but it only becomes an issue when I make edits). It doesn't seem to be allowing me to submit large articles, and no one's sure why. I tried wiping it yesterday to see if starting with something smaller would fix it; obviously, it didn't. Chelsea's been looking at it, but she doesn't seem to have access to the source of the problem (it's probably something with the webhost), and even if she did, she's not sure it's something she can fix.
We're kind of at a dead end with this right now...the whole timeline is archived (if you want to see everything that existed before last Friday's show, check the edit history for November 17), and I'm still keeping it updated on my PC, but I don't know when I'll be able to get it uploaded properly again.
I wish I had more to tell you, but I don't.
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Update: Whatever was wrong appears to have gotten fixed -- I've got the whole timeline back up. That said, I'd started a plan to reupload each season on its own page, and I'm probably going to do that anyway in case this happens again. The only thing worse than having to fix something is having to fix the same thing twice.
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Thank you so much for your ongoing work on the timeline, Steve. It is such a great and interesting resource.
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For reasons I'm unsure of (as I receive zero communication with them), our webhost cut the available physical memory on our server in half for several days.
Which meant that anything memory-intensive was jamming up. And as editing the timeline is the single most memory-intensive function on this site (due to the size of the page). As much as it sounds like a 2003 Problem, for a few days we just didn't have the bandwidth to edit that page.
The situation brought to light two issues:
1) Our webhost is....I'm not a fan.
2) Even with the issue resolved (probably), the timeline is now at 75% of it's maximum length. As I've discussed with Steve, at some point eventually (especially if Pluto goes deeper into the 80s), the page is going to have to be split up.
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Personally, I think having each season having its own section is a good idea. (or at the very least split the Barker and Carey eras) There are already clickable links at the top of the timeline so navigating wouldn't really feel all that different.
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There are already clickable links at the top of the timeline so navigating wouldn't really feel all that different.
Actually, that's just a table of contents for that one page. It exists because I have each season coded as a separate section.
Now, that's not to say that I won't create something similar once I have to split the timeline, but it'll exist for a different reason.
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Totally get what you're saying. I'm just saying the navigation would still have the same feel to it. In any event, 100% on board with whatever you ultimately decide to do.
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I would recommend going with the split-up approach now, in order to avoid even the possibility of reaching the maximum page size. There is also the fact that if you were to edit a season section, as it currently is you would have to edit the single-page Timeline and the dedicated season page (the latter, if not immediately, then at some point). Further, it is entirely possible that the webhost could cut the physical memory again, perhaps even permanently.
Best to avoid the headaches now, rather than later.
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I would recommend going with the split-up approach now, in order to avoid even the possibility of reaching the maximum page size. There is also the fact that if you were to edit a season section, as it currently is you would have to edit the single-page Timeline and the dedicated season page (the latter, if not immediately, then at some point). Further, it is entirely possible that the webhost could cut the physical memory again, perhaps even permanently.
Best to avoid the headaches now, rather than later.
Speaking as a Wikipedia editor who writers insanely long articles, there is no real limit, but the functionality of the page starts to suffer.
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Speaking as a Wikipedia editor who writers insanely long articles, there is no real limit, but the functionality of the page starts to suffer.
Speaking as the person who installed our build of Mediawiki, the default maximum is approximately 2MB.
However I also think I've just figured out how to change that after all. Except that, as you note: Page performance starts to suffer (as we saw this weekend), and as we're on a shared webhost we aren't exactly working with a lot of bandwidth here.
Anyway, timeline is Steve's baby, he can do with it as he likes.
Trouble has passed, and what Steve does with the timeline isn't really a debate, so locking this up.