NK wiki page is broken

[equiss]

Heya,

Not sure where to post this. It appears the wiki page for NK isn't working.

See here: https://wiki.project1999.com/Northern_Plains_of_Karana

Anyone know how to revert/fix it?

[loramin]

Looks like it's a server-issue: if it was just "some player screwed up the wiki (in a normal way)" the page would load but be broken, but it's not even loading at all.

It still might be a player's fault (maybe someone figured out a way to save a particularly invalid/garbage character in that page's wiki text, and it pisses off MediaWiki so much it breaks everything?), or it might just be a freak wiki data corruption issue. Either way, one of the wiki server admins (ie. someone on staff like Rogean with access to the box that runs the wiki) needs to look in to it.

P.S. I checked the logs and no one has modified that page recently, nor does it show up in the list of recently deleted pages ... further evidence that something just got messed up in the DB. I could probably debug it but I don't have DB-access. Luckily the people who do have db-access usually fix this sort of thing within a few days.

[Baler]

@loramin
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=293068

[Bummey]

The wiki's just loading really slowly right now, for whatever raisin. I fixed it, I think? The edit went through and the Granite Earring page isn't fucked up anymore, but I can't tell if that changed anything anywhere else. I'll find out if the wiki starts loading again.

It appears someone boned up the string of text at the top, which made the NK page try and load the entire Granite Earring page in frame whenever [[Granite Earring]] was linked. Or not. I don't know how to wiki. I went to a known good item page and copied the <onlyinclude><includeonly><div class="hbdiv">[[Item Name]]<span class="hb">{{Itembox line and pasted it into the Granite Earring page. If I boned it up further it can all be easily reverted.

[loramin]

@loramin
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=293068

Ah, I missed that thread, thanks.

The wiki's just loading really slowly right now, for whatever raisin. I fixed it, I think? The edit went through and the Granite Earring page isn't fucked up anymore, but I can't tell if that changed anything anywhere else. I'll find out if the wiki starts loading again.

Someone boned up the string of text* at the top, which made the NK page try and load the entire Granite Earring page in frame whenever [[Granite Earring]] was linked. I went to a known good item page and copied the <onlyinclude><includeonly><div class="hbdiv">[[Item Name]]<span class="hb">{{Itembox line and pasted it into the Granite Earring page.


Interesting. But just that by itself shouldn't break the page completely, it should just (as you said) show the Granite Earring on the NK page. Strange ...

Actually, what you copied sounds like template code, which doesn't belong on the NK page. That actually might be related to the problem, lemme see if I can roll back to before it somehow.

EDIT: I can get to the history page but whenever I try to rollback the last edit it fails the same way loading the page fails. Again, looks like someone might need to fix this in the DB (or by using a tool I'm not aware of).

[loramin]

Actually it looks like I (or someone else?) fixed it. I'm not sure if it was rolling back the NK code or removing the template code from the Granite Earring page (thanks for pointing me to it Bummey), but either way the page now loads. However the wiki still seems a bit sluggish; hopefully that's just a short-term "it's busy processing these changes" issue that will fix itself.

[Bummey]

I'd like to hope I made it worse, but the NK page (and the rest of the wiki) was loading slowly/not at all before I made that edit. Oh well.

[loramin]

Yeah I guess I spoke to soon: I got the page to load once but now it's failing again. Still digging ...

[Bummey]

It just loaded, and it's still fucked up. The NK page. The Granite Earring page looks good? RIP NK

edit: You fixed something. It's less fucked up now. Granite Earring frame loading gone, {{Expansion depth limit exceeded}} all over the place.

[loramin]

By "fucked up" do you mean the "{{Expansion depth limit exceeded}}" stuff? I'm not certain but that seems like the kind of error that would come up if a page had a template which referenced another template, which referenced the first page ... or something like that.

In any case, it seems pretty clear the problem isn't with the NK page but with something it references. Will keep digging.

[Argh]

The problem was that something on the North Karana page was using the Template:Itempage template rather than Template:Itembox, I think.

[loramin]

Well, after a bit more digging it looks like there have been a batch of changes to monsters in North Karana from a user named Davidj3416. They don't seem to be doing anything wrong except they change the "Class" of mobs from a proper class to something like "Undead" or "Monster".

Now again that seems harmless, but I thought it might be the problem, so I looked at one of the monsters that was changed: a lioness. A lioness got changed from Warrior to Monster, and that mob is shared between North and South Karana. North is broken, while South works, but here's the interesting part: South shows "a lioness" as having a class of Warrior.

In other words, it looks like South has old cached data for the lioness, which might be why it's working and NK isn't. However I'm not certain, so ... more digging (and possibly some mass reversion of Davidj3416's changes, at least temporarily).

[loramin]

Well, if nothing else at least this whole mess helped me catch a lot of (accidental I'm sure) wiki damage. This guy changed hundreds of mobs from "Class: Warrior" to "Class: Monster", "Class: Undead" or other invalid classes.

I'm sure he was just trying to help, and I really want everyone to contribute to the wiki, but please everyone, if you're going to embark on a campaign of mass wiki changes please take the time to understand what you're changing first so you don't make the wiki worse with your edits!

[Baler]

Well, if nothing else at least this whole mess helped me catch a lot of (accidental I'm sure) wiki damage. This guy changed a ton of mobs from "Class: Warrior" to "Class: Monster", "Class: Undead" or other invalid classes.

I'm sure he was just trying to help, and I really want everyone to contribute to the wiki, but please everyone, if you're going to embark on a campaign of mass wiki changes please take the time to understand what you're changing first so you don't make the wiki worse with your edits!

Thank you for everything you do Loramin! :)

[loramin]

Thank you for everything you do Loramin! :)

Thanks. I need to do some real work now though, and while I've asked Davidj3416 to fix the classes he changed, this guy was a super-heavy wiki editor (which is awesome!) and changed hundreds of pages. At the same time though he added lots of information, so I can't just blindly rollback all of his changes; I have to go to each page he changed and edit it to restore the correct class.

As I said hundreds of mobs lost their class, so even if Davidj3416 answers my request there's a ton of work for us. So, if anyone has a few minutes to spare, it would be a HUGE help if you could please go to:

http://wiki.project1999.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Davidj3416&offset=&limit=500&target=Davidj3416%7C

scroll down to "A Large Whiskered Bat" (that's where I left off), and just click through to each changed page. Edit it, set its class to the mob's actual EQ class ("Warrior" for 95+% of them), and then repeat for as many pages as you have time for.

Bonus points if you can post back here when you're done so the next person knows where in that giant list to pick up. If even a few people could just help fix just five or ten pages this way it would make a big dent.

[d3r14k]

I'm sure he was just trying to help, and I really want everyone to contribute to the wiki, but please everyone, if you're going to embark on a campaign of mass wiki changes please take the time to understand what you're changing first so you don't make the wiki worse with your edits!

I use my own nouns for different types of mobs. I call skeletons "boney bobs" and dragons "roary fires". This change needs to be implemented in the Wiki, therefore I will do an edit update en masse.

[loramin]

I use my own nouns for different types of mobs. I call skeletons "boney bobs" and dragons "roary fires". This change needs to be implemented in the Wiki, therefore I will do an edit update en masse.

:D

I really don't mean to bash Davidj3416 though. Unlike most players here he actually volunteered his own time to (mostly) improve the wiki, and I think we can all remember a time before we understood EverQuest well enough to realize the mobs had the same classes we did.

I see the whole thing as just a side effect of having a wiki: occasionally mistakes are made, but hopefully they're not too hard to set right ... especially if people are willing to help out a little (/plead).

[Baler]

Where does Davidj3416 generate these mob pages...
every mobs page I've ever seen started with something like: {{Namedmobpage
All of the ones he created start with: {{Mobstatsbox

May want to talk with him about standard formatting practices.

edit: *chin rubs*
http://wiki.project1999.com/Template:Mobstatsbox

Maybe this is where he got the idea?
vs.. http://wiki.project1999.com/Template:Namedmobpage

This makes me feel like it was only a matter of time. I know how inconsistent the wiki can be so i'm not too surprised.

[loramin]

Where does Davidj3416 generate these mob pages...
every mobs page I've ever seen started with something like: {{Namedmobpage
All of the ones he created start with: {{Mobstatsbox

May want to talk with him about standard formatting practices.

edit: *chin rubs*
http://wiki.project1999.com/Template:Mobstatsbox

Maybe this is where he got the idea?

Yeah whoever setup the templates in the wiki (and it may well have been multiple people) made a few versions, and didn't always clean up the old versions. It'd be a great future wiki clean-up project to get rid of all except the "official" one, but as long as whatever template he used looks ok I figure we have enough work for now just fixing the classes.

[Baler]

He should have to clean up his own mess. If he's unwilling it should be undone.
That's my firm stance on this.

I'm happy to help but there are a lot of pages, that aren't using the same format as the rest of the wiki and the work to verify mob's class is equal to or more than just remaking any new pages he created in the first place.

It shouldn't fall into other people's laps, especially if this person is unwilling to fix their wrongs. (awaiting them to respond) Meaning well is good and all but doing a less than par job isn't up to snuff.

edit: He has about 808 commits to the wiki. (this includes same page changes)
editedit: He also changed some npc's race from their category to a generic category. Such as Wolf to Animal
http://wiki.project1999.com/index.php?title=A_Gray_Wolf&diff=prev&oldid=188668

edit: This all could be technically be considered trolling the wiki. I've seen other users who contributed a few things but also trolled a couple pages and they got banned.
just saying

final edit: made a backup of all his commits, so that if they are undone any new pages he created can be identified more easily for recreation.
https://pastebin.com/eme9zv3N

[loramin]

*Wall of Work*

Awesome, thanks for helping out.

[Ket]

goddamnit, David - get it together, man.

[Baler]

So this David person is continuing to edit and add to the wiki in the wrong way. He's aware he's not following the standards of the wiki as it's been and has made no attempt to learn what those are.

They shouldn't be allowed to continue because they're doing it wrong. He's just adding confusion and making work for people who have to come in later and adjust things. When the fact of the matter is he should just do it right the first time. (minor errors are understandable)

There is a difference between not understanding and doing something wrong while fully aware.

[loramin]

I have blocked him for continuing to remove valid content from the wiki even after acknowledging (and responding to) my explanation that it was a problem.

We all make mistakes, and clearly David just wanted to make the wiki better because he also made many great additions, so I sincerely hope he will reconsider his stance and decide to contribute in a more respectful way.