Battlestar Wiki:Chiefs' noticeboard

This page is one of Battlestar Wiki's many projects. This page serves to coordinate discussion on a particular aspect of this Wiki. The formal recommendations of a project may be treated as policies.

This noticeboard is a location to discuss and coordinate administrative tasks for the Battlestar Wiki.

It is my hope that this place can serve as a location for administrators to coordinate their efforts on the maintenance tasks of the Wiki (it's not ALL fun and games), as well as a spot for our contributors to be able to bring things to the attention of the admins if something needs to be done. Need a protected page edited? An article or picture deleted? Admins will watchlist this page so that your request won't get lost in the shuffle.

These are the archives:

• Archive 1:

General, David Larson Screen Capture, Home, Part II, Toaster revision, Billy, Spam Alert, SPAMER ALERT, Constant Vigilance, Amazon referral links, Spoiler policy, Another spammer, IRC Channel Open, Jon Doe

• Archive 2:

Battle Template, Inadvertent Deletions, Unlock the BW:SC Archives, Request that User "Shane" be given a warning ban, Vandel, Report on Vandalism by User:Mickey McGizzle, Shane's RFC and the Think Tank, Problem with mail validation, VandalBot Feature, July 8 Vandalism, Adminoticeboard, Possible Vandalism, Vandel, Search

Ask a new question or begin a new discussion by clicking here.

Current Administrators

Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats are administrators who have the ability to make other users into administrators. Currently Bureaucrats are:

• Joe Beaudoin Currently only Joe has Bureaucrat status.

Sysops

Sysops are administrators who have access to move, delete and restore pages as well as blocking malicious users. The current administrators are:

• CalculatinAvatar
• Day
• Gougef
• Joe Beaudoin Jr.
• Mercifull
• Peter Farago
• Shane
• Spencerian
• Steelviper
• Talos

See list of all admins on Battlestar Wiki

How do you sign up to be a mirror?

Hey all, I'm the webmaster of bsgtns.com and one of the owners of MediaBlvd. We think this is a pretty cool thing that you have here, and would like to offer up some server space for a mirror. MB has 6 high end servers, and good deals on bandwidth. I might be missing how to go about that, as I'm fairly new to this space. I did want to say that I really like the concept though, and I spent several hours going thru the Wiki yesterday, and liked what I saw enough to want to be involved-- NetRanger

talk to joe. I think usually the mirror deals with running the software of mediawiki and one site having access to the other and vice-versa. Joe is currently sick. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 19:12, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

BW:MIR is the basic requirements. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 19:18, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

AFAIK basicly a Mirror has the exact same content except when you go to edit, it takes you to the real BSWiki site? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 04:24, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Yep. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 09:41, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Where to file feature request on MediaWiki

Moved to User talk:Shane

Help for Wiki Review Article

Admins can help in the circus I created named State of the Wiki II. I protected the article so that we can corral the talk page commentary to correct the agregious formatting, bias, lack of bias, and all other ills. This is arguably the worst article I've ever made. --Spencerian 22:17, 14 August 2006 (CDT)

Mark as Read

Did there used to be a buttton thart did this on my Watchlist? Often, I'll read a diff, rather than the actual article, but I would like it unbolded all the same. I could've sworn there used to be a button that said "Mark all articles as Visited" or something like that. Am I losing my mind, or did a recent update take that away or... what? --Day ^{(Talk - Admin - SotS)} 23:47, 14 August 2006 (CDT)

Is it possible to change the CSS so that links which have been clicked on are an ever so slightly different colour like before? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 02:58, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Updated in CSS. Just waiting to be uploaded :-) --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:05, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Login Problems

Hello, since the update to the new MediaWiki-Software and the move to the new URL I (and probably everyone else) cannot login to the German BSW anymore. It tells me there is no user Astfgl but the Userpage still exists. Do I have to recreate my account? If so, will my current userstats be lost? (I'm afraid they already are.) -- Astfgl 03:20, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

I can re-do the stats. I just need you to register. Can you contact me over Gtalk? I need to talk with you also about something. I sent you an email with my email address through the BSG wiki system. In any case, go ahead and REGSITER your name over there excatly with the same settings here, username, etc, and I will run the script that will re-link you to your edit count. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:24, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

I once read, im sure, that it was possible to consolidate all the logins and passwords for all the wikis so that people dont have to re-register to each one. Surely this is a feature that would be of huge benefit to us?--Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 04:38, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

I could copy the "database" row from here to the german to save time, but this is where it gets tricky is the stats. Stats will not auto update. Though it's users. I guess it can't be that hard to count how many users there are and manually update the stat. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 04:45, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

OK, I re-registered. I don't have GTalk (don't even really know what that is, something like ICQ?) but there are other ways to contact me on my userpage. -- Astfgl 05:12, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

Tis ok. I talking to you now via the german wiki. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 05:20, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

The Merovignian Ban

Just to let everyone know, I have taken an executive decision and have banned The Merovingian from the wiki. My explaination of it is here. I did this last night prior to heading off to bed (as it turned out, it was a good decision, in light of the fact that Ernesto severely weakened upon leaving Cuba and I had to go in this morning after all), so I forgot to post the link here. If anyone needs to talk, please use the talk page of the decision in question. Thank you. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:02, 30 August 2006 (CDT)

Vandal

Needs blocking. --FrankieG 16:39, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

On it. Need more info for faster block. --Spencerian 17:07, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Sorry, was trying to notify ASAP. Will remember next time. --FrankieG 17:12, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

That's OK. You did everything else right; it would be good if we had some way to flag any admin account when this stuff happens; I was just online at the time. --Spencerian 17:15, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Spammer blocked. --Spencerian 17:10, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Battlestar T-shirts

This may not be the proper place to bring this to the attention of the community, but my limited knowledge and even more limited intelligence affords me no better alternative. Hot Topic now has Battlestar t-shirts. One has the seal of the "Vigilantes" squadron, and the other says "What the Frak?" with a Colonial emblem on the back. Here's a link: Hot Topic Battlestar Galactica Shirts —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thetruthseeker (talk • contribs).

You may want to bring this up to the Wikipedian Quorum, though I don't think these are officially licensed. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 16:45, 8 September 2006 (CDT)

Forced Skin Update

Since 1.8.0 all the other minor skins were removed. I forced everyone back to 'bsgbook' for the time being. You can change back to bsgmonobook if you like now. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 02:08, 12 October 2006 (CDT)

Think Tank Voting in Progress

All administrators and contributors are asked to visit Battlestar Wiki:Think Tank to vote on proposed projects with links listed in the article. Don't let a good idea fail to ratify! --Spencerian 09:24, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Dogtags

Does anyone know where I can purchase(online or by snail) those neat BG dogtags? :) Wearvyn

There are always people selling on ebay. I dont know of any seller online though that sells them. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 09:56, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

I found the website that got the licence to produce official replicas of Dogtags, pins and other collectibles but the site is not yet live. Keep checking back. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 10:07, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

external.png

Despite changing the theme considerably, you still seem to be using the default MediaWiki external.png. I thought that this one might be nicer, so links look like this instead of this. Well, it would line up, but hey. — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 18:50, 29 October 2006 (CST)

Thanks... will discuss it. Looks good. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 20:09, 29 October 2006 (CST)

I'm fine with it. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:47, 29 October 2006 (CST)

I don't know, there's something kind of forbidding about the dark interior. Could we try it with a white interior and a yellow border that matched the link color? --Peter Farago 00:08, 30 October 2006 (CST)

With the external link colour, there's not enough contrast, it just looks like a yellow blob: http://images.scholesmafia.co.uk/white.bsg.external.png And the internal link text's not much better: http://images.scholesmafia.co.uk/white.link.bsg.external.png — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 06:03, 30 October 2006 (CST)

I much prefer the first one. Or, perhaps, something in red? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 06:34, 30 October 2006 (CST)

I would think that red carries with it all the connotations of a redlink, and as such wouldn't be suitable. — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 07:09, 30 October 2006 (CST)

You may also want to consider the multiple skins in the design. With the white background some of these can be difficult to see. (I mostly use the bsgmonobook skin, in part just to help catch/troubleshoot situations where something isn't working for "the other" skin.) --Steelviper 07:13, 30 October 2006 (CST)

I believe there's a way to use call different images depending on the skin via css. So this shouldn't be so much a problem; we could use the yellow external pic for the bsgbook skin and the standard blue external pic for the monobook skin. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 07:16, 30 October 2006 (CST)

I prefer the yellow with black interior, and I concur with the thought that the red is too easy to misinterpret. --CalculatinAvatar^(C-T) 17:21, 30 October 2006 (CST)

What does it look like in red instead of yellow? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 17:43, 30 October 2006 (CST)

Humph, I've already written this once, the reply seems to have been lost with the recent problems...

Here's what it looks like in red: http://images.scholesmafia.co.uk/red.external.png and with a link: this http://images.scholesmafia.co.uk/red.external.png — I really think the the colours should match up.

And Joe is right, the external image is set as a background-image to an external <a> tag, and can be unique per style sheet. — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 04:53, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Wiki PHP Errors

I get periodic errors now after the server rebuild that's chronic now. One reads:

"Fatal error: Call to a member function selectRow() on a non-object in /home/bsgwiki/w/includes/User.php on line 829"

I've had this three times today while editing and reviewing an article. After a few hours away, I can view the wiki. --Spencerian 19:38, 3 November 2006 (EST)

Yeah. I up the number allowed connections from 500 to 2000. Hopefully this is the ticket to our MySQL problems. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 19:42, 3 November 2006 (EST)

This is because MySQL kept crashing. As noted above, Shane's increased the number of connections permitted by MySQL; he's also going through and optimizing the server, since he's had more experience than I've had with such a thing. :-) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 19:44, 3 November 2006 (EST)

any plans to get a seperate MySQL server? I think this is the main limiting factor on the site. Also, is there any place to discuss the site's systems architecture? I'd like to help. -- Jim Troutman 01:42, 12 November 2006 (EST)

Eventually, yes. This seems unavoidable at this point. Money remains the primary hurdle, however. Right now, we don't have a centralized place to discuss the technical aspects of the wiki, other than the noticeboard or the Battlestar Wiki:Wikipedian Quorum. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 00:46, 12 November 2006 (CST)

Understood on the funding -- some banner ads for DVD sales linked to the new Amazon account might general some revenue (I could work on this). What are the technical specs of the existing server? Any reason not to create a page for technical stuff? -- Jim Troutman 01:53, 12 November 2006 (EST)

Way to Go!

A Star of Kobol to Joe and Shane in getting the wiki back online. --Spencerian 10:36, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Props :D *points upwards to edit buttons* not the spangly red ones I made --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 10:46, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Bad Link on Search Results Page

The "Battlestar Wiki and other wikis running MediaWiki." link is bad on the search results page. --FrankieG 17:35, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Fixed. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 17:50, 10 November 2006 (CST)

The "Answers to Questions" policy regarding episode articles

It seems that this policy (is it really one?) isn't really working out. And it does seem counter-intuitive at first glance. So maybe the rules about it need to be more visible. How about putting a notice on top of every page, like those announcements, every Friday? That way everyone is bound to read it, since I don't think new people bother too much with all details of the policy/rule pages, which is understandable though. That saves people writing text that is bound to be removed later --Serenity 06:09, 12 November 2006 (CST)