User talk:MikeMol

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Put new stuff below here

User talk:Short Circuit/Image Upload problem

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Problems with uploading new versions of existing images

Looks like there's a problem with uploading new versions of existing images. See File talk:Matlab-randomDisc-output.png and File talk:Eriksiers avatar.jpg. (Might this be related to the recent upstream problems? Seems pretty unlikely, but you never know...) -- Erik Siers 17:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Might be related to the switch to the addition of Squid. Don't know. Don't have time to look at it right now. I'll check the logs this weekend, if I have time. --Michael Mol 18:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

As long as you're aware of it, I'm happy...ish. :-) -- Erik Siers 18:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Looked at the PHP error log file. I'm not seeing any file I/O errors, or anything in the vicinity of your avatar replacement log entry's timestamp, but I am seeing a number of "Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded" errors relating to SMW activity over the past few days. I might be able to resolve some of that. --Michael Mol 18:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Tweaked a couple variables. Bumped max_execution_time to 45s, reduced the job run rate to 0.1. Not a permanent fix for the timeout issues. Need to fix squid, and deal with some serious performance issues in SMW. --Michael Mol 18:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed some occasional-but-significant delays in loading pages today, but didn't really give it much thought... but it could be the cache, I guess. Would make sense, I suppose. -- Erik Siers 19:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The cache won't catch nearly as much as would be ideal, because of complexities surrounding X-Vary-Options. The significant delays you see are going to be cache misses combined with other load on the server. (It looks like the SMW export functionality is getting hit pretty hard.) --Michael Mol 19:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I'll hold off uploading again until you have time to sit and fiddle with everything (and I know how precious time can be). It's not very important to me but I can see it being a problem that might potentially affect everything... or... something. -- Erik Siers 19:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

TBH, I don't have a timeframe in mind for a proper fix for the caching issue. It'll involve using a patched version of Squid, and I really can't anticipate when I'll have time to deal with that. Apart from that, updating MediaWiki (I think I'm a version or two behind by now) may help.) A workaround might be to delete the page and recreate it. You'll have to poke someone with the relevant privs. --Michael Mol 19:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Again

Me again. Looks like you never got around to a permanent fix on the cache problem; I uploaded a new version of my user avatar and it's still showing the old version on my user page (checked on a few machines on different networks). I know essentially nothing about caches so I can't offer any help beyond "hey, not working".

(My only thoughts on the matter may or may not be feasible; it would involve getting Mediawiki to somehow tell Squid to clear the cached version of an updated image, but that would likely require some hacking at the mw sources. Maybe the Squid sources, too, dunno.) -- Erik Siers 04:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

After a hard refresh (ctrl+R in Firefox) I saw the new version (the Feb 1 version). Have you tried that? --Mwn3d 04:47, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I had done that without effect, right before I posted (and numerous times after uploading), but now that I look again, it's showing the correct one. WTF? -- Erik Siers 04:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki and Squid don't get along terribly well, I'm afraid. MediaWiki does have code for telling Squid to purge caches, but it requires a specially-patched version of Squid. The patch had been submitted to Squid devs ages ago, but they declined to include it in trunk. The key, though, is that the cache object is tied to a literal match of your browser's supported-encoding string. --Michael Mol 13:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

That's... kinda weird. Is it one of the patches in here? I might take a look at it (if I can understand it). -- Erik Siers 14:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

this one. --Michael Mol 14:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Contest with RC questions

It seems an APL programming contest used RC questions: here.

Yeah, I first noticed referral traffic from Dyalog's contest a few months ago. Pretty cool. :) --Michael Mol 09:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Template work

So I just started some work on the templates and I noticed TONS of templates like this one: Template:Unimp body 4D. They were made in the before time (in the long, long ago) by ImplSearchBot. Are we not using them anymore? Can I delete them? --Mwn3d 14:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Check to see what pages transclude them, and see if anyone links to those. That info should be available in the toolbox section in the sidebar. If they're not used, wipe 'em. :) --Michael Mol 15:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Stats

Thanks for the welcome.

I was wondering if there were any analytics available on the different languages and tasks. How many tasks are completed for each language? For a given task, how many languages implement it (and how many ignore it)?

Of course any individual question can be answered with a bit of counting, but to see larger trends isn't so easy. For example: of the dozen or so languages where I could conceivably write a solution, which are most underrepresented? Similarly, which tasks seem important yet aren't widely solved?

I toyed with the idea of writing a screen-scraping bot, or even writing a task to write such a bot, but I thought I'd ask here first.

CRGreathouse 04:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like that is mostly covered by Rosetta Code/Count examples and Rosetta Code/Find unimplemented tasks. Maybe add extra credit for a visualization? CRGreathouse 04:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Each language is a category so you can get (a good approximation to) the info directly on its page. You can also get the other information from the language's report page (e.g. for Tcl, the page is Reports:Tasks not implemented in Tcl). –Donal Fellows 10:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Attack page?

Template:Unimpl Page/Not implemented and Category:Programming Tasks were both recently, uh, 'vandalized' by User:Umobytuz who linked them to http://osobageqys.co.cc and http://evicijum.co.cc which seem to be attack/exploit pages. You may wish to check on the IP address of this contributor and/or check for other similar recent additions.

I removed both links.

CRGreathouse 06:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clear-up and notice. I took a look then blocked the user immediately. If I was too harsh, then I'd rather SC unblock than leave the guy easy access. --Paddy3118 07:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

No, blocking isn't too harsh. That means it's probably past time to apply active protections on templates and transcluded pages, too. --Michael Mol 14:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

User:ShariPantoja‎ appears to be another spammer (using their talk page). –Donal Fellows 11:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Did some WP financial research

I just spent a little time digging through the Wikimedia Foundation's site, trying to find some info on how to get money from them. What results I got I put here --> Rosetta Code:Village Pump/Income#Dear Wikimedia Foundation <-- in case you missed it on the "recent activity" thing.

Not much helpful info, but I tried. Possibly you've already seen everything I found anyway. Shrug. -- Erik Siers 07:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

...and now something else you might ponder: Rosetta Code:Village Pump/Income#Paid Memberships. -- Erik Siers 16:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

RC used in a talk by Larry Wall (of Perl)

... And reviewed+blogged by me --> User_talk:TimToady#On "That Goes Without Saying (or Does It)".

Squid configuration

It looks like Squid's maximum request size is causing problems for AutoGeSHi. —Underscore (Talk)

Spammer

User:Debonairlazines6974 is a spammer (check their contributions). Alas. –Donal Fellows 12:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Got it covered now. Thanks Donal. --Mwn3d 13:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I've made a right mess

Mike. I made a mistake with a rename, and I tried to fix it, but the fixes keep digging me deeper and deeper into a hole. Can you back out my changes from 19:29 to 19:48 today (11th July). Cheers. Markhobley 19:53, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Not automagically, it looks like. The 'undo' and 'rollback' features look a little more complicated for page moves that page-local edits. At work right now, and will be busy this evening. I'd suggest popping into (and hanging out in) the IRC channel and enlist some assistance and coordination there. --Michael Mol 19:56, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Book Mention

In "A Byte of Python". --Paddy3118 12:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Cool. :) --Michael Mol 12:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

More financial suggestions

...this time not from me, but posting here in case you missed it:

• Rosetta Code:Village Pump/Income#Dear_Wikimedia_Foundation
• Rosetta Code talk:Finances#Write-off.3F

-- Erik Siers 12:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Saw it then. Just been generally busy, and coping with a hardware failure. Slowly resolving these things...--Michael Mol 23:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Spam users

I happened to look at the user creation log, and holy crap look at all the apparently-created-to-spam usernames -- things like "4Hjyo29LKb", "Gzs6na7KyZ", "4LwiEd2p", etc. Looks to be on the order of 5-10 spam accounts to 1 legit account.

I was thinking, there has to be a way to catch those, before they start posting their links. The only method that comes to mind is blocking their entire subnet, at least temporarily, say 30 days. That way, they can't just come back and create a new username and continue spamming, or just spam without logging in.

Might be harsh, especially if they're spamming from a normal ISP account, but maybe a short-term solution. Would likely reduce the amount of admin work, methinks. -- Erik Siers 20:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

They do get their source IPs blocked, and the IPs are disallowed from creating new users. I don't have a mechanism that allows me to block entire subnets, but that will become necessary when the site moves over to dual-stack IPv4/IPv6. --Michael Mol 20:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

And before anyone suggests it, I'm not interested in applying pattern-matching or bayesian tests on usernames. I've been caught by surprise before when an account that looked like a spam username started making beneficial edits. --Michael Mol 20:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

What about one of those tests that simply sends an alert to an admin? Make it a one-time thing, something like: "SpamWatchBot has noted an edit from suspicious user name apparent-spammer-name on page So-and-so. This is the only alert that will be generated for this user."

Then the bot (or whatever) could add apparent-spammer-name to an internal ignore list, and let the admins worry about it.

Eh... Looking at it now, maybe not worth the time to write. Shrug. Or maybe there's already a MW bot available to do something similar and could be modified appropriately; I haven't looked. Shrug again. -- Erik Siers 07:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Right now, I see almost every edit on the wiki, as I've got the Recent Changes feed pulled in via Google Reader. Anyone who does that can see when accounts are created or blocked, and when pages are edited or moved. Frequently, someone else gets in and repairs things before I have a chance to respond. I wind up blocking the offending account, possibly deleting any 'created' pages if the person who caught the edits first didn't have delete privileges. --Michael Mol 12:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Uploading problem

I've been trying to upload a file and the interface won't let me. It's a png file which I've cunningly disguised with a .png extension, but when I attempt to upload it I just get

Permitted file types: png, gif, jpeg, svg.

Any ideas?

I had written an elegant solution to a task but I daren't post it without its output since I get harassed whenever I have the temerity to post a solution without giving its results.

CRGreathouse 07:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This is a known problem. See Image Upload problem? and Problems with uploading new versions of existing images on this page. -- Erik Siers 07:31, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah. No solution known, then? I didn't see one at either of those links. CRGreathouse 08:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The one I crossed off is probably unrelated. No response from Short Circuit so I assume no solution yet. He had a combination server move/upgrade planned; I don't know what happened with that but I guess that maybe he was hoping that the problem would disappear when he did that. If he did that. -- Erik Siers 08:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

There's some related discussion on my talk page, see if it's of any help. --Ledrug 08:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a workaround linked to in the above discussion: [1]. --Mwn3d 11:57, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe it to be related to "AJAX" uploads. That's what I found when I tried walking through the JS code. What I don't get is why people are still seeing that message even after I disabled AJAX uploads. Sorry for not replying directly in the other places it's cropped up; I'm beginning to think we need a real bugtracker for this stuff. --Michael Mol 14:03, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I managed to make it work by disabling JavaScript on my browser. CRGreathouse 03:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The MediaWiki software has been updated, serverside. Is this still going on? --Michael Mol 23:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

<math> not working?

Equations in the tasks are not being rendered for some reason. Could you check this? Thanks. --Paddy3118 07:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Also broken on all other pages; for example, “<math>1</math>” here renders as $1$ (which used to render as “1” because the code used to spot that it was simple enough to convert to HTML; its definitely not getting as far as trying to send the info into TeX and failing). I guess it was the weekend's server changes, and could be as simple as a missing handler for the <math> tag. –Donal Fellows 09:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed. --Michael Mol 23:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Michael! --Paddy3118 04:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)