Forum Talk:Technical Issues/Archive 1

Managing Editor Decision regarding technical problems

The Managing Editor authorizes the Technical Staff to investigate and implement alternative less costly U.S. hosting, that would also include the restoration of e-mail inboxes and other services. -Anthony.Sebastian (talk) 00:13, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Help test new server setup

Citizendium is now hosted by a newer less expensive server, and so the server expenses for 2014 December and later should now be $100/month rather than several times that.

Everything of value seems to have been copied from the older servers as an archive on the newer one so we shouldn't lose that when the old machines disappear within the next week.

The new server still needs substantial setup work done before before every service or feature that worked before works again.

In the meantime, the main wiki (which you are reading now) has been the priority to keep in continuous operation.

The main wiki is running under the latest MediaWiki, 1.24.0, and newer versions of some other dependencies.

The main wiki also makes use of a number of extensions plus customizations, and some of these have been updated too while others have yet to be updated for compatibility and so some sections of the wiki may be broken as a result; these are expected to be fixed over time but there is no schedule.

Currently @citizendium.org emails are not working, including constables; this is expected to be fixed sooner but also there is no schedule.

The readonly Simple Machines forums are not running right now but should come up later; meanwhile newer discussion was already changed several months ago to happen on the wiki or a Google group instead.

Citizendium should be treated like a beta for now; you can go ahead and try using the main wiki like normal, but some parts are known broken and other parts may also be broken; please go easy for now.

If you find any serious problems then please report them at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Forum_Talk:Technical_Issues so they can be triaged and fixed at the earliest.

You should assume that anything you do on the wiki will stick, so treat it as anything you are doing is for real.

Backups are still largely manual at the moment so keep in mind that recent changes might be lost if something bad happens and we have to restore; this is unlikely, but remember your work in case you might have to repeat it.

These are some known differences or issues at this time:

The wiki is slower than usual right now. Some work likely needs to be done with its configuration e.g. related to caching or something but traffic may also be a factor.
Creating new wiki users is broken or disabled right now; making the constables@ email work is a precondition to fixing this I think, another reason for that to be an outstanding priority; existing users can login though.
It sounds like creating new articles is currently broken.
A number of MediaWiki extensions probably need updating or fixing in order to resolve certain problems. MediaWiki itself was updated to the latest version and some extensions have been updated too, others are pending.
There is an outstanding mystery to resolve regarding the report under title Tracking below.
The Citizendium custom skin isn't installed yet so things look more like vanilla MediaWiki.
The orange heading bar doesn't appear on all pages as it usually does.

Issues reported by others on this page may still exist.

Darren Duncan (talk) 23:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

New server experience (comment, not issue)

My experience of using the new server is that so far, if anything it seems to be a faster and smoother experience than on the old servers. I'm not sure if use of the default Vector skin rather than CZ's own Pinkwich version has anything to do with this, or whether it's because we are now on MediaWiki 1.24, or some other reason. But all good so far. John Stephenson (talk) 11:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

No problem with an edit. The tools at the top of the editing area seem to have changed, but that may just be me. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:22, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Problem (metadata)

At the moment it is not possible to test starting a new article on the new website. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:08, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I started a new article by using the quick start process and then doing the metadata. However, the metadata form did not materialise. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm having the same issue with a new test article Anny Kohli. Its Metadata form link is either incomplete or not working, instead I'm facing a wall of warning banners, which want me to create and code edit the No_metadata_template. A big no no IMHO. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 11:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC).

The Special:MetadataForm page definitely isn't working, but the templates on a metadata-less article work for me. I can hit 'show' and see a link to manually "Create the metadata template". John Stephenson (talk) 11:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I created a metadata page without using the special metadata page, but then it did not appear. Now the article shows that it has a metadata page, but the link goes to a blank page. This blank page needs to be deleted so that it can eventually be replaced(Uganda Railway). --Martin Wyatt (talk) 19:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

It is displaying the correct categories on the main article, but the actual /Metadata subpage appears blank. It might come back under future adjustments. Unfortunately, at the moment I can't delete anything. John Stephenson (talk) 21:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm back on CZ after a many-month hiatus and I just created a new article on Ellen Gates Starr with the quick start process and the metadata page. I'm pleased to report that very thing worked very smoothly. Roger A. Lohmann (talk) 22:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Speed Issues

yesterday the site was painfully slow, 3-5 minutes to load a page while the servers shuttled between the old and -dev sites. Today its a little better, 1 minute to load a page. Hopefully its a DNS problem which it will sort itself out with propagation. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 08:08, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

- While DNS affected things last night, the main outstanding issue is the server is getting heavy traffic such as search spiders or something, and some config to help speed is pending.

@DD, check out WIKIPEDIA robots.txt for ideas.If spiders don't behave block them with .htaccess. It took 2 minutes for this edit section to load for me. I'm off to test create an article from scratch to see how it ports. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 10:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The site's speed performance is steadily slowing down. Random speedtest sites show anywhere from 3 to 20 seconds for a page load. Perhaps log files need to be cleared out or specific IPs blocked. There is also an issue that the CSS and script files being loaded at run time are 3 times the size of their Wikipedia counterparts. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 17:14, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, painfully slow. Ro Thorpe (talk) 03:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

New to the project.. but so far the new setup seems extremely slow. I am a system administrator/DBA so if anyone could point me in the right direction I could assist.

Have we looked into using CloudFlare (http://cloudflare)? Even their free account is pretty decent. Is there a page with info about the new setup? Stack (I guess Lamp.. which OS, which web server Apache/Nginx)? specs on hardware (virtual VM, physical)? Francisco Reyes (talk) March 21, 2015

There's the Version page; otherwise someone more technically-minded can help. John Stephenson (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks John that is useful to know. Would still be nice to also include on that page the underlying infrastructure (or somewhere else). Info like PHP version, whether we use any PHP compilers, apache/Nginx.. I make a living, mostly, as Postgres DBA/Sysadmin.. so can certainly help on that part for sure. 9.4 is out and they already reached 9.4.1 so that may something to consider. I also did whois of the IP and seems we are using steadfast.net.. VPS/Physical? SSDs? Francisco Reyes (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Tracking

Calls are being made to "adnxs.com" and "scorecardresearch.com" while loading pages. Is this emanating from MW or from the "addthis" widget ? page load waterfall Pradyumna Singh (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

'Random Page' link

The random page link is back on the default, i.e. any page. We previously had it set to exclude /subpages, stubs (status 3) and external articles (4). John Stephenson (talk) 11:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Page deletion not possible

At the moment, I get an error if I try to delete any page: A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. John Stephenson (talk) 21:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Page deletion should be working now Greg Sabino Mullane (talk) 20:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! John Stephenson (talk) 00:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

DEV site

The dev site is now a redirect to CZ. But it was indexed by the engines, and I suppose there is a feeding frenzy by their agents to index the dev site, by re-indexing CZ. As CZ is back to its canonical state [is it ??], I suggest that an Error 301 is placed on the dev site immediately and or it is DISASSOCIATED from CZ. Not doing so may incur stiff SEO penalties by CZ.

Also, bad spiders and bots MUST be SWIFTLY blocked by robots.txt and other means eg. How to keep bad robots, spiders and web crawlers away.

Another thing, poorly configured MW installations generate multiple server request loops, which often seem like DDOS attacks. Server log analysis would be useful.Pradyumna Singh (talk) 10:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Pradyumna Singh, it seems like we should have a more direct talk in private, as you seem savvy. Please send me a direct email right away, where we can continue discussion. If you don't know my address, do a Google search on my name and it should be obvious in the first page of results; I won't be posting my address on the wiki. Darren Duncan (talk) 11:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC) Also, there has been a robots.txt since Sunday night or so, it was copied from the old server; see http://en.citizendium.org/robots.txt .

As of Monday night, en.citizendium.org is the canonical domain, same as it was on the old server, and currently requests to any other domain will 302 redirect to it. I assumed a 302 would not cause any short term SEO changes, while a 301 would.

Since en.citizendium.org has always been up, aside from an hour or a minute here or there, and there was never any auto-redirect of requests from en.citizendium.org to any other domain, I would expect its SEO rankings to be unaffected. As to citizendium-dev.org, that was always a separate copy and even if it was indexed there shouldn't be any SEO effects, unless duplication does that. I could change citizendium-dev.org to return forbidden errors or do you mean something else about disassociation? I had made it redirect for now because some external announcements linked to the domain.

Also, citizendium.org used to redirect to en.citizendium.org but I don't recall the exact mechanism or if a clone of the site had lived there for some reason, so for now I made that 302 as well to buy time.

Currently all other domains like the simple machines forum domain also 302 to en.citizendium.org until those are restored. Or alternately those could be made to return forbidden errors instead.

What do you suggest for action that would do best from an SEO perspective? And email me. Note, my timezone is UTC-8/PT.

Wikipedia checkbox and link

The box on the edit page that is ticked to indicate Wikipedia source material and the "Some content on this page..." note are missing. John Stephenson (talk) 00:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Redirects from "www.citizendium.org"

@DD, the redirect from "www" is adding an extra '/' and generating 404s from "en." eg. "www.citizendium.org/oneyearandthriving.html" --> "http://en.citizendium.org//oneyearandthriving.html". This content is published on "www." and not on "en.cz" Pradyumna Singh (talk) 10:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Mailbox inaccessible

The mail.citizendium.org server is not responding (checked by Matt and I), so we can't read anything sent to constables@. Mail isn't bouncing, though, so presumably it's still being saved. John Stephenson (talk) 11:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The new server is not setup for receiving email yet as far as I know, so I would expect that email sent to anything @ citizendium.org would be failing right now. As far as I know constables@ is the main one that needs to work but I don't know yet about others. John, see your email where I have further questions for you etc about email setup. Darren Duncan (talk) 23:36, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It's bouncing now. John Stephenson (talk) 12:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Is the mailbox working now ? Pradyumna Singh (talk) 06:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

None of the citizendium.org addresses are currently working. John Stephenson (talk) 00:34, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Preferences

These, or some of them, seem to have changed. Presumably reset to default. I noticed the system adding any page I edited to my watchlist, and had to go to my preferences to change. Peter Jackson (talk) 11:59, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Subpages template issue

I find that if I try to create a /Definition subpage for an article by clicking on the red link in the banner supplied via the {{subpages}} template, instructions but not the template itself appear in the edit window. When you click the link you're supposed to get <noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude> at the top of the edit window, but instead there is a blank line. The instructions appear as normal below. However, if I go to to the def preload template, the subpages line appears. This does not occur with any other red links on the banner. Test by going to e.g. Talk:1876th Communications Squadron and clicking the red links. John Stephenson (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Another issue with the same template: it registers an error for any page deeper than one subpage, e.g. anything under ARTICLENAME/Catalogs/SUBPAGENAME is wrongly registered as an article without metadata. There are now hundreds of subpages registered at Category:False Start Move as a result. John Stephenson (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

As this may be difficult to fix, I have created the ReturnToSubpages template as an alternative to {{subpages}}. An example is at A Christmas Carol/Catalogs/Actors who have played Ebenezer Scrooge.

Don't try to add metadata for sub-subpages, as the subpages template wrongly demands - you will only create useless pages and more error messages elsewhere. Metadata pages are for main articles only. John Stephenson (talk) 21:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

HTML markup pre-processor issue

HTML markup doesn't seem to be recognised consistently eg:

Special:RecentChanges Nominated for Approval: <categorytree mode="all" hideprefix=always hideroot=on>ApprovalCall</categorytree>
Air pollution dispersion modeling $C={\frac {\;Q}{u}}\cdot {\frac {\;f}{\sigma _{y}{\sqrt {2\pi }}}}\;\cdot {\frac {\;g_{1}+g_{2}+g_{3}}{\sigma _{z}{\sqrt {2\pi }}}}$

Pradyumna Singh (talk) 03:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Equations using <math> are not type set

I happened to check an old article I wrote for CZ: Diabatic transformation. All tags <math> are non-functioning. I checked Maxwell equations: same thing. I suggest that the constable on duty either removes the articles that contain <math> or fix its function. As it is now it is a mess that reflects poorly on CZ. --Paul Wormer (talk) 08:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No need for such drastic steps. All it requires is a MediaWiki extension to be reinstalled. Probably Extension:Math or some similar TeX er. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 09:02, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

If somebody can access the old 1.16 folders and checkout "LocalSettings.php" and the contents of the /extension folder, possibly some more of these will tumble out like Ex:Category Tree. BTW, this extension is essential nowadays. The <meta "copyright"> tag is also outputting GFL-1.3+ for articles instead of CC-BY-SA-3.0. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 09:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Equations in the few articles I checked using an iPad are not translated. For example Feedback, Step response, and Centrifugal force. John R. Brews (talk) 17:49, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

No progress as yet in getting math typeset. John R. Brews (talk) 15:24, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

This problem persists. For example,

A_{FB}={\frac {A_{OL}}{1+\beta A_{OL}}}\ ,

is not typeset. Greg Sabino was contacted about this issue twice, but apparently cannot resolve it. John R. Brews (talk) 16:25, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

A motion has been passed to look into this matter. See http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=CZ_Talk:Council_Discussions&diff=prev&oldid=100847705 John R. Brews (talk) 01:45, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

No action yet taken. John R. Brews (talk) 01:01, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

This should be working now. Greg Sabino Mullane (talk) 03:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Typo in site notice

Could someone who has access please correct setup (noun) to set up (verb) in the site notice at the top of every page? Thanks. Ro Thorpe (talk) 01:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Still waiting for this. It looks very bad. Ro Thorpe (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks to John for fixing it. Ro Thorpe (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug in Special:Watchlist

Articles for Approval This special page is supposed to include a link at the top directing users to articles which are in the process of being approved but instead it shows the code: Nominated for Approval: <categorytree mode="all" hideprefix=always hideroot=on>ApprovalCall</categorytree> . Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 06:14, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I had reported this 10 days ago. It needs a MediaWiki extension to be reinstalled. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

This should be working now. If not, please let me know. Greg Sabino Mullane (talk) 03:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Robots.txt

This file, which tells search engines what not to index, doesn't seem to be working - I've found many User: and User_talk: pages listed and cached in Google search results. We have a policy that these not be indexed. John Stephenson (talk) 18:48, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Per Google, "robots.txt" is not a 100% solution. If Google finds external links point to any page, it will index them ignoring robots.txt. The user pages showing up in G-search are explicitly banned by "Disallow: /wiki/User:" in the robots.txt !! The solution here is to set up a Google Webmaster Tools a/c to debug it / remove *URLs from the index Pradyumna Singh (talk) 19:14, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be User-agent: * above the long list of disallows..? At any rate, this is also a priority since if Google etc. are spidering everything, that could be why the wiki is currently slow. John Stephenson (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Darren has adjusted the robots.txt file. If we've got it right, Google will start to strip disallowed pages out of its index. How long this will take we don't know. John Stephenson (talk) 12:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Emerging technology trends for the 'pedias

Must read this - Wikimedia Metrics Dec. 2014 makes 2 trends clear - a) MOBILE, MOBILE & MOBILE b) Massive reader shift to the Global South - especially India - driven by mobile. Other trends are importance of 'structured data', and WMF sliding in Latin America, and Google downgrading Wikipedia by 38%. Pradyumna Singh (talk) 19:38, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Not sure how serious this is...

I wrote a python program to help me figure out how many unique articles I started here. Its input was the output of successive pages from my contribution history.

I found that the Capital "N" that marks a brand new article wasn't marking any of the oldest articles I started, from September 2008...

Yes, this would be a trivial bug, if I haven't made a mistake in my reporting, so I report it only in case it is a manifestation of a larger hiccup.

Details follow:

I always use "first draft" as the edit summaries of my first drafts.
My python program used two regular expressions to find just the programs, and no talk pages or other subpages. """ N (?P<fname>[^/]+) +.first draft."""

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Footnote templates?

See Talk:English spellings#Morgellons. Peter Jackson (talk) 17:21, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

pdf links

Anyone know the right way to do these? I've just tried putting one in 2015 United Kingdom general election#Results by putting http:// before the address shown at top left, but it doesn't work. Peter Jackson (talk) 14:52, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Peter: Here is an example that works. It consists of [ "http:// address" "blank space" "title" ] What is it like to be a bat? John R. Brews (talk) 15:23, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Not directly helpful. I notice it gives five layers of address before the actual title to be found at top left, so no doubt something of the sort needs to be added to the one I was trying to put in. But how does one find out what that should be? Peter Jackson (talk) 08:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Now found a way: hover over an existing link to the pdf and copy out using pen(cil) and paper the (extremely long) URL visible at the bottom of the screen. There really ought to be an easier way. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:56, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Sidebar and templates not loading

The MediaWiki sidebar on the left of every page sometimes doesn't load, instead defaulting to the basic links. This happens whether logged in or out and regardless of what browser I use. When it occurs, only 'Main page' to 'Help' and the Tools menu are visible. I've also encountered a problem where a template gets edited but it doesn't update on the pages where it's used - caching issue? Thanks. John Stephenson (talk) 16:58, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I sometimes get a perhaps related phenomenon recently: en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium has the full sidebar, but en.citizendium.org displays a version of the same page with only truncated sidebar. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Subpage problem

In Victorian Literature, I created a new subpage, Catalogs, which was not there before. This has now appeared twice in the subpage bar. I have not looked to see whether they both have the same content, because with everything running so slow (again) it would take me too long. For the same reason I am not going to check this before saving it. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 15:36, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

/Timelines and /Catalogs links appear automatically when the pages are created; adding them under 'sub1' etc. in the Metadata page just produces duplicate links in the article's navigation bar. The 'sub' entries are for identifying subpages with unique or unrecognised titles, e.g. you decide you want a subpage called /Parody - that won't show up unless you add it to the Metadata page. The problem is knowing which subpage titles will just pop up, and which have to be defined in the metadata. There's a list of recognised titles under 'Unused subpages' at the top of the Talk page. Not at all obvious, but there you go. And yes, the server is very slow today. John Stephenson (talk) 15:53, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Language variants

I don't know whether this is anything to do with CZ, or whether it's the computer system I'm working on. Whichever it is redlines British spellings and sometimes autocorrects them to American. If it's going to do that sort of thing at all, it should be to the variant set for the article in question. Peter Jackson (talk) 08:56, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That's not caused by the MediaWiki software - it's far too primitive for that. :) John Stephenson (talk) 16:18, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Embedded videos no longer working

It used to be possible to embed videos from YouTube and other sites in wiki pages; however, this no longer works. See e.g. here. Can someone take a look? It seems to be a missing extension. Thanks. John Stephenson (talk) 17:10, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Wiki backups

Thanks to Francisco Reyes for getting our backup system on-line. (See here for details.) To download copies of recent pages, use either of these links (70-90MB):

Go-slow

The site finally seems to be working properly again, after weeks of going extremely slowly, or not at all. No announcement about the problem was ever made either here or by the mailing list. The only mention I've seen was on RationalWiki. Before that, my only reason for concluding it wasn't just me was the low edit rate. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:54, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Some oddities

1. Newly started articles are not getting listed under the appropriate Workgroup. I assume this should happen automatically when the Metadata page is completed.

2. If you click on any of the main subject areas shown on the home page, you don't get redirected to the article on that subject, or to the Workgroup, but to the /Related Articles page for the subject.

3. The Random Page function is still not working as it should.

--Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Martin, I don't see problems with Special:Random--I chose it twice and got two different pages. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 04:01, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it is only supposed to land on main pages, not sub-pages, and likewise it should not land on articles which are either stubs or without metadata. Mind you, it does show the number of small out-of-date articles floating round the system. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 13:26, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

You're right, and it was one of the things lost when the wiki was upgraded. It needs some change on the server settings that only the Tech Staff can carry out. For (1): I can see them in the lists. Maybe this is a caching issue and needs a while to come through. (The server is not the fastest.) (2): that's to the benefit of readers, rather than Authors. In my view, going to the article would be too specific, and going to the workgroup would be confusing, when Related Articles pages also list them and in a more user-friendly way (if someone's written them, that is.) John Stephenson (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

User rights

Greg has gone semi-active, which would have meant we'd lack anyone with 'Bureaucrat' privileges, so I asked him to add them to my account. (This is basically the same as 'sysop/administrator', plus the ability to change user rights and rename accounts on the wiki - it is nothing to do with the server setup itself, which I don't have access to). I propose the following:

Remove all special privileges from inactive users;
Remove everyone from the 'editor' user group (this is not what it sounds like - see here) and other inactive groups (I can't delete the groups themselves);
Make members of the Approvals Committee administrators (this would allow them to delete/restore pages and view deleted ones);
Make Francisco, our main active technical-type, a Bureaucrat as well.

Comments welcome. John Stephenson (talk) 13:42, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

All of the above suggestions sound reasonable to me. And practical. Hayford Peirce (talk) 21:28, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Done. John Stephenson (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Let's hope that some of them pop up again! I know that Matt Innes showed up once or twice a couple of years in an unexpected fashion.... Hayford Peirce (talk) 16:15, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Analytics

Are there any stats or tools available to examine which parts of the site get most traffic, how people discover content, and how they interact with it? Google analytics perhaps? Richard Nevell (talk) 21:56, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

The Privacy Policy states that the wiki uses Google Analytics, and furthermore there was a decision to use a Google Analytics account in 2010. I suspect it's no longer working, though. John Stephenson (talk) 20:37, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

I found this from 2014, I see if I can follow any of the leads. Richard Nevell (talk) 09:24, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Joe doesn't have access, but suggested the Approvals Manager Google account may have been used to set up Google analytics. Does anyone know who has the log in details, or who followed Joe? Richard Nevell (talk) 14:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Footer

The link to the blog in the footer visible on every page isn't working. Unless it's a temporary blip, perhaps it could be removed? Richard Nevell (talk) 09:28, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, please remove it. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 07:36, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sitenotice

The site notice hasn't been updated since November 2016. Is the statement about setting up new servers still relevant and can someone with the necessary permissions remove the mention of elections from 2016? Richard Nevell (talk) 17:38, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Is the server set up still considered beta or can this please be updated? Richard Nevell (talk) 19:49, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Special:EmailUser

Is Special:EmailUser actually working? I've tried to use it on three separate occasions, and tick the box to send a copy to myself but I get a delivery failure message in my inbox instead. Error copied below:

This is the mail system at host ip162.208-117-36.static.steadfastdns.net.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.
For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message.
The said: 550 This message appears to be spam (score: 7.4) (in reply to end of DATA command)

Richard Nevell (talk) 14:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

It works fine for me. It looks like Steadfast itself rather than the wiki is rejecting your message as spam. Try another e-mail address? We've had problems with certain services before, especially Yahoo. John Stephenson (talk) 00:26, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I seem to remember that happening to me once when I tried to register to vote in an election. Peter Jackson (talk) 15:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Special:RequestAccount

Special:RequestAccount has a rather fetching red banner saying the form doesn't work because of the new server. Any chance the issue could be resolved or do something which looks less broken like sending people to a Google form to collect details? Richard Nevell (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

That would require making technical changes to the server, which I can't do. (Same applies to your query elsewhere about a mobile version of the site, as it would require an extension to be installed). Technical support is on a volunteer basis so there's no timetable. John Stephenson (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Is there a volunteer dev we can ask to take a look? Richard Nevell (talk) 21:14, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Templates

This is probably a problem with Wiki software generally, and maybe nothing can be done.

If a page has a template in it, there doesn't seem to be a link. You have to open the edit window, at which point you discover the template, and then copy the address and search for it. In the particular case I've just dealt with there was actually a further template nested inside the first one before I could actually update it.

Images don't seem to have this problem: you can click on something that will take you to the image page.

Or am I missing something? Peter Jackson (talk) 17:20, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Security

I don't know who maintains the server that is "still being set up" but there is a permanent security warning in the address bar which every user can see. Is anyone aware of that and, more importantly, is anyone doing anything about it!?

As it happens, I'm here under an obsolete e-mail address so I'm not too concerned about the site's security but a message saying Not secure in red lettering doesn't exactly encourage newcomers.

Is there anybody there? John Leach (talk) 17:16, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

In answer to your last question, see #User rights. Peter Jackson (talk) 18:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

E-mail contact and mailing list archives

Unfortunately the citizendium-l announcement list no longer exists, which is a problem since we were using the list owner address as the main e-mail contact point (because we still don't have a citizendium.org e-mail inbox). Pending some fix, I have changed this to require people to join the non-member forum in order to contact us or apply to join. There is an archive of posts here. John Stephenson (talk) 21:10, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

So you have to join Google, then join the forum, then join us. Unfortunate, yes. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:19, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes. We could just use a Gmail account, but that would open up the previous situation of lots of spam or incomplete applications that take an age to respond to. Possibly this route, for now, will reduce that. John Stephenson (talk) 11:20, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Technical lead

CZ founder Larry Sanger has now stepped in as the project's technical lead. I'd like to personally thank Greg for his time in this position. John Stephenson (talk) 13:11, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

That's good to know. What does this mean and will he be available on this forum ? Pradyumna Singh (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Moves

I tried moving Republic of Macedonia to North Macedonia following ratification of the name change by editing the metadata template, but it just created a new page. Is there some way I can do this, or does it need someone with extra user rights? Peter Jackson (talk) 11:24, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

The fact that you created the page means that you now have to have someone with advanced user rights overwrite the blank North Macedonia with the actual content in Republic of Macedonia. I am moving the subpages now. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 17:56, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe I shouldn't try that again. Then again, messing things up like that might be the only way to get anyone to take any notice of move suggestions! I pointed out that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex is neither her official title nor what the media call her, it's just her Wikipedia name, and nobody replied. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:33, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that this is a dead project and it's got no prospects of being otherwise. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 09:56, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, if you think so, then it's good of you to help out anyway. You may well be right, of course. As I've already said elsewhere, I think the best we can achieve in the near future is a modest number of articles better than their WP equivalents (if any). In some cases, they might simply use those to improve their own. In others, their ultra-strict definition of original research would prevent that. In others again, attempts to do so might be disrupted by propagandists. I'm keeping a look-out for new sites I might add to the three I work on at present. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

That's likely correct. Our best-case scenario is some very specific articles that are well-written and also free of some of the psuedoscience this project is known for having. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

To move pages, you go to the 'More' option at top-right and select 'Move' from the drop-down menu. You can move subpages at the same time. Going via the Metadata form will create new pages. John Stephenson (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

But that's not an option now, so an admin would have to intervene to overwrite. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, John. As a Wikinfo admin I see a Move tab. Not seeing one here, I assumed moving was restricted to admins here too. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes

Rationalwiki seems to be able to access an option I can't find displayed: [1]. I can't get anything past 30 days. Do they know something we don't, or do they just do it by hand? Peter Jackson (talk) 10:10, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

There's no link for some reason, but you can do it by altering the URL, e.g. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special:RecentChanges&limit=5000&days=90 - I think 5000 is the maximum number of edits it will return. You can get the last six months by changing 90 to 180, etc. It doesn't do calendar months. John Stephenson (talk) 17:11, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

(As an aside, I note they don't seem able to count. We haven't finished the first six months of the year yet. On the substantive point they mention, is the last female edit here [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=User_talk:John_Leach&diff=prev&oldid=100859240}?) Peter Jackson (talk) 10:13, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Google Books & SEO

[2] (about halfway) seems to be saying that citing Google Books is very beneficial for search ranking. Anyone know anything about this? If it's true we might make use of it. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Oldest pages

I found this under Special pages. They're nearly all subpages, which is odd, as you'd expect the main pages to be older. Peter Jackson (talk) 13:15, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

This report is just telling us the oldest pages since last revision. If you change Hudson River/Bibliography, it will no longer be at the top. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 17:48, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

And it had a few unnecessary spaces so, yes, it's gone. ;-) John (talk) 14:37, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Active users

See [3]. Peter Jackson (talk) 11:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Special:ActiveUsers. When do we think we'll just throw in the towel? Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Gives me an error message, as they say.

Nobody to take decisions. Maybe it'll just go by default when the money runs out in a couple of years. Peter Jackson (talk) 15:23, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

If you look at the financial report page you'll see that we're paying $99.95 per month for the service and there is someone who has an automatic payment of $5.00, so the net outflow is basically $94.95 per month. Our balance at the end of November was $2,150.84. so at that rate we have 22 and a half months left. BUT, as I recall, the bank where I deposit the funds charges $12 per month if the balance is under $1,500. So in about six months our monthly costs will be $106.95, which means the balance will be used up in less than 22 months overall -- I'll leave it to someone else to figure out the precise date. Hayford Peirce (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

We should probably be more deliberate about winding down the project. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:14, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

According to RW again, the problem is [4]. Peter Jackson (talk) 11:22, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Let's deliberately shut down

It's clear that Citizendium is simply not going to be a viable project as an encyclopedia. There is a monumental amount of work to make this a usable resource and there are virtually no active editors and the money has been dwindling for a long time. Whatever the intentions or best case scenarios, this has failed. I recommend we deliberately wrap up this project by exporting any useful content to Wikipedia, closing the wiki to editing, posting an archived copy to the Internet Archive and directing possible readers there, and use remaining funds to secure the domain name for a long time with some small hosting overhead for a single landing page. Thoughts? Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 02:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. It all depends on how active we have to be to post articles to WP. I am doing SOME of mine, but is anyone else? I'll definitely email Larry, however, and see if HE has a means of saving us -- just to salvage his OWN reputation. Hayford Peirce (talk) 03:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Larry has several failed projects. I don't think this will impact his reputation negatively. I respect him giving this a go but it's clearly not going to happen. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 03:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Any luck? Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 09:03, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Didn't hear back from him, but what with the Holidays, who knows? I write him again in just a moment. Hayford Peirce (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that's worth doing and admirable but we should also have a contingency plan if he doesn't answer or have any way to make this site viable. For the very small audience who pay attention here: do we want to go out with a whimper or even more of a whimper? Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 19:34, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

That's true, of course, and I agree with you. I just this moment sent another email to him. Let's give him a week to reply, and then decide what to do next. Hayford Peirce (talk) 23:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

It's been a week. The en.wp Signpost mentioned this thread. What do we want to do folks? Go out with a whimper or a bigger whimper? Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 07:54, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I just this moment came back to report that I haven't heard anything from Larry since sending him my second email on January 20th. I sent it to TWO different email addresses that I have for him -- one was returned with a "Failure to deliver" message but the other one apparently went through. So it looks as if Larry has washed his hands of this affair. As for what we do next, I don't know. I'll leave it for others to decide. But let's assume that we *did* shut it down, oh, six months from now. In that case there would be about $1,400 in the Treasury. What would happen to THAT money? A minor question, but a very specific one. Since *I'm* the Treasurer, I really ought to know! Hayford Peirce (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

That kind of says it all. That money could pay for domain name registration and hosting for several years. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 08:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd say you should ideally consult the wishes of those who donated the money. Peter Jackson (talk) 13:46, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how you could do the books on something like that. Right now, in the last year, there have been maybe TWO donations of $100. And a steady $5 donation every month from one person. And there was someone who stopped about six months ago who donated $20 every month for several years. And *I* donated $25 every month for MANY years. And Anthony Sebastian donated $100 a month for several years. And then one month about a year ago he donated $1,000! And then he died a couple of months later, I'm pretty sure. If you had ten CPAs, you'd have ten different ways of calculating the balance. And Anthony, who donated far more than anyone else, is gone. As the CPAs say, "First in, first out"? or they also say, "Last in, first out"? Etc. etc. Hayford Peirce (talk) 17:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Oftentimes, when you donate money, you give it away so that the recipient can best decide how to use it. The recipient is the community and I'm trying to get a consensus. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:02, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

As an occasional donor, I am not too bothered about the money. If CZ were based in Britain there would be a clear duty for those controlling the money (who I suppose are the remaining few of us, or just Hayford) to give it to an organisation with similar objectives.--Martin Wyatt (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

If everyone else here clearly came to a consensus as to what to do with the funds, I would follow that consensus, whether I agreed with it or not. Absent that, I suppose that as Treasurer it is up to me to make the necessary decisions. I *do*, however, agree with Martin that it clearly ought to go to an organization with similar objectives. But *which* organization would that be? I would be most reluctant to give it to Wikipedia, but that is, of course, the obvious one. Hayford Peirce (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I suppose you might say, as we were set up specifically as an alternative to WP, "similar" might mean another alternative. Wikinfo and the English branch of Wikisage have maybe even lower activity levels. Not sure what's happening with Everipedia. Of course, the money wouldn't have to go to just one recipient. I think Martin's right about British law, but the relevant law here would presumably be the state where you and/or the bank account is/are located. (That is, I don't think CZ as an abstract organization was ever officially registered with any relevant authorities.) Peter Jackson (talk) 10:56, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I, the Treasurer, am a legal resident of the State of Arizona, and the bank account I use is also in Arizona. However, it is in my name and not CZ's. Back when Larry organized CZ he apparently didn't bother to go to the trouble to register it as a non-profit organization or whatever else it might have been registered as. Several years later, after Larry had left, some of us looked into registering it. It was, as I recall, far more complicated (and expensive) than any of us had thought, so we just put it off until some future date. Which never eventuated. If I were to drop dead today (heaven forbid!) my will specifically directs my executor (Personal Representative) to close out the bank account with the CZ funds and to distribute them as CZ tells him to. That's the situation as it stands today -- and you can check the latest financial report to see how much money we have at the moment. Hayford Peirce (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Any further thoughts?

There were fourteen edits in the past month, including starting pages like Goods and Services. There is really no prospect of this project ever being a functional encyclopedia. It's okay to admit that. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 05:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Right now we have $1,700 in the bank. Unless further donations come in, we will have two more months in which $100 are debited, then, when the balance slides below $1,500, the bank will start taking a $12 monthly service charge, so the monthly debit will be $112. That will allow another 13 months of operation. So, as things now stand, in 15 months we will simply shut down. I suggest that we try to find some way to SAVE all of the material that has so far been created before being thrown into the void. Any suggestions? Hayford Peirce (talk) 16:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

That puts a pretty fine point on it. I'd recommend this:

Remove the notice for donations on Welcome to Citizendium immediately.
Choose a final date for editing and then lock the wiki at that point. This can really be whenever we want but maybe November 1, since I believe that is the 15th anniversary.
Put up a sitewide notice that the project is ending.
On November 1, lock the wiki from editing and create a database dump that can be hosted at Internet Archive or possibly exported to another wiki farm.
Around January 1, turn the domain citizendium.org into a notice that says, "Thanks but we're done. Find our work at [link to Internet Archive] and if you want to contribute to a wiki..." or whatever kinds of calls to action and appreciative language we'd like to draft.
Allow whomever owns the disposition of assets like the trademark on the name "Citizendium" and ownership of the domain name to do whatever he wants with them. My guess would be this is Larry but he hasn't even been here in eight years and won't respond to emails, so I think they will just lapse.

If you want me to help with any of this, I'm happy to do it. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 20:49, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

All of the above sounds very reasonable to me, especially if someone else, such as YOU, hehe, is willing to do most of the work involved. Two questions arise: 1.) How shall we try to notify whoever else remains and get their input on it? 2.) What do we do with the remaining funds in the bank? I could easily abscond with them, of course, but I really don't think that I will. Thanks for any input! Hayford Peirce (talk) 21:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

For 1.) it would be nice if Special:ActiveUsers worked but since it doesn't, I looked at every person who has edited this year:

I'd recommend posting to all of their talk pages (minus us two) and directing them to this conversation and giving them a week to respond. As for 2.), I made some recommendations above. The money pays for domain name registration and hosting for a little while. Eventually, no one will support it and those will lapse. As far as how to do the things I suggested, some of the on-wiki work can be done by an admin (I'm not one but if you'll make me one, I'll do it), some of it will have to be done by someone with server access to change MediaWiki settings (e.g. locking the wiki or creating a database dump) and I'm willing to do that but I've never done it before, and some of it is totally external to the wiki (e.g. uploading to Internet Archive) and I'm willing to do those things that I can do. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 23:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Good suggestions -- I'll get to work on it. Perhaps someone else can make you administrator, I myself have no idea how to do it. There are, I think, I couple of other important individuals who are going to have to be brought into this who have not made EDITS this years, who who are not on the above list. They have worked behind the scenes (off and on) for years now, and know far more about all of the actual mechanics of CZ than I do. (Tony Muldane, does that name ring a bell? I will look through all of my personal email archives to see what I can come up with.) Hayford Peirce (talk) 23:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Any of these users could do it. John Stephenson is the only one recently active. Justin Anthony Knapp (talk) 23:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, some of those are the ones I wuz thinking of. Thanks. I'll take another look at this tomorrow. Hayford Peirce (talk) 03:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

If you look at All Recent Changes,you will see that I have left brief messages on the Talk/Discussion pages of the 12 people that you listed who have either made recent edits or who are administrators. There are a couple of other old-timers that I will find in my email archives and to whom I will try to convey the same message. Hayford Peirce (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Have sent out an additional three or four emails, including a couple of people who have been important to the project. Hayford Peirce (talk) 17:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I haven't been an active editor here in many years (I probably got on your list when I blanked my user page). Citizendium was an interesting idea, but clearly hasn't worked out as planned. And, if finances are really as dire as mentioned, then this does seem like the best option. Joshua Sadule (talk) 19:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

It looks sensible (though most regrettable). Martin Wyatt (talk) 20:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The entity CZ has lived on for 15 years, there should be attempts to keep it going as this is certainly a worthwhile effort, Hayford has managed the Financial side competently and kept it going thus far. I would suggest that the $100 per month which is required to keep it going be maintained in an individual account once the minimum balance threshold is reached for the CZ account, perhaps that could be Hayfords individual account and he could have a clear line of a list of succession for maintaining the financial monthly spend. By this I mean that the original founding members should be listed in a sequence after which more recent editors/atricle contributors who have an interest in keeping it going can be included. Since the requirement is only $100 per month - this could be raised from this core group and may be around $5 to $10 per month per head which may be manageable by most. In the meantime there should be an effort to further develop the addition of content, funding and readership by the core group and volunteers. There could be a brainstorming effort and co-ordination towards these ends. I would like to extend my best wishes and appreciation to all who contributed to developing CZ.--N Rajendra Raju (talk) 01:37, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Not really all that familiar with how to comment.. hope this is the right way.. There is something which I don't see mentioned and is the need for serious, extensive, need of technical work on this project. I am a system administrator and DBA and would gladly continue working on this, but what this project most needs is a developer. We don't even have https working and there are a number of other issues (old code base, parts of the site not working) which likely will be a lot of work. To try and get someone to work on all the technical debt with payment likely would be in the thousands... even if we got a developer in a country with significantly cheaper rate. And someone in US / Europe likely is not even an option. Therefore, given the lack of editors, the technical debt, the fact we don't have a developer volunteer.. not sure this can move forward. - Francisco

Ironically, I (who am a developer, programmer, sysadmin) am finally almost fully retired, enough that I probably could start working on CZ as a volunteer. However, I do not have Wikimedia experience, so it would be a learning curve. I do administer other wikis though (based on Pmwiki) so I'm pretty sure I could do it. I am okay with shutting down, though if we do, I'd very much like to acquire a copy of all the files on the system in case we want to restore it somewhere, someday. OTOH, there are some very nice articles on here, and I'd love to see it stay afloat somehow, in which case, I will donate some more money and time. Keep me posted on what you all decide.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I just sent another $100 via Paypal to Hayford, which will add another month to the time we have either way.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Next, I'm going to go search my email archives. I *think* someone gave me admin rights to this wiki awhile back but I never had time to do anything. I might be able to now. I could at least look into the https issue and make sure I can at least get at the server. I am currently clueless about everything, who the hoster is, etc. Who has been doing sysadmin on this lately? (talk) 15:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we should probably just go out and try running a GoFundMe to raise enough money to keep CZ going for, say, 3 years. It's been the target of derision from folks over at WIkipedia--and I can understand some of that--but Wikipedia is so screwed up in its own right that I refuse to write anything there. CZ has been a thousand times better since we stopped trying to run it as a democracy and just kicked out some of the trouble makers who were exhausting everyone. If we don't want just to shut down, let's try to raise $$ for 2 or 3 years and relax.Pat Palmer (talk) 16:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)