User talk:Bob Moncrief

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What's up with the wiki job queue?

I noticed it's been steadily climbing for the last week or two.. now at "Job queue length 119,266" which sounds fairly off the charts for this wiki. At the same time I haven't noticed any obvious performance impact.

Just curious really, based on past experience and the fact I haven't changed anything recently, I'm reasonably sure this doesn't have anything to do with my bot this time (User:TargetReport) but I'm wondering what's causing it or what it means.. Is it anything we should be worried about? --Rick Dulton 05:04, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that is pretty insane. Sitting at over 122K right now. Looking through RC, the bot does seem like the most likely culprit, since we're not seeing any other activity, but nothing immediately pops out to me as being a likely cause. Just to be safe, would it be possible to lay off the bot for a few days and see if the queue steadily goes down? If it doesn't, we can at least say that the bot is probably not the cause, which will make it easier to look at other possibilities.

Also, random curiosity: why set up the map so that you need to edit all of those individual pages, rather than one map for the entire suburb where you just change one line per block? I.e. Why do it like that instead of more similar to the barricade plan code where changing the barricade level means just changing a few characters? I think we've talked about this before, but I can't remember what the reasoning was. —Aichon— 06:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure thing. I've temporarily disabled the bot wiki updates, with the job queue currently at 122,853. We can see if that influences it. The page design is partly historical but mostly for flexibilty and extensibility - e.g. User:TargetReport/51,42-style is used by both User:TargetReport/Ridleybank and User:TargetReport/Ketchelbank-Roachtown-Barrville-Ridleybank (as well as User:TargetReport/51,42 although that's not really in active use). --Rick Dulton 06:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Just a quick data point; current Job queue length 110,037 (down 12k after about 48h). The bot is still disabled. --Rick Dulton 03:52, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

And now it's increased by another 8,000+ to: Job queue length 118,213. The bot is still disabled. For comparison, in my previous testing of the bot, each update would generate up to about 10-20 jobs on the queue, which cleared within a minute or two. --Rick Dulton 23:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

And now it's down to 91,872, which means a nearly 27K drop in a mere handful of hours. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anyway, if it did spike by 8000 without bot involvement, then let's go ahead and reactivate it and just keep an eye on the queue's length to see what it does. —Aichon— 15:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Aichon. I've reactivated half of the bot (the part which processes dumbwit updates from the IRC channel, but not the clean-up daemon which ages out out-of-date info). Job queue was 67,973 when I reactivated it. Performed a quick test and the queue dropped further to 67,955 (-18 jobs) during the course of the test.. so it doesn't look like the manual updates are pushing it back up at any rate. (It's dropped another 100 jobs while writing this post, to 67,855). Will keep an eye on things before reactivating the 2nd part of the bot. --Rick Dulton 04:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

It's continued to drop.. now down to Job queue length 3,523. The bot has been running this whole time, so it does seem to suggest the job queue spike is uncorrelated (since it continued to rise after I stopped the bot, and then continued to fall after I started it). Still, I'll wait a few more days before re-activating the clean-up daemon part of its functionality. --Rick Dulton 18:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Back down to 0. Now I'm really curious what it was that was causing all of these jobs. We'll monitor it once you reactivate the bot's full functionality, but it seems as if the parts currently active are not responsible for the behavior we were seeing. —Aichon— 16:21, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep, job queue is at 4. Looks like whatever it was, it wasn't the bot, and it's resolved itself by now. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 23:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep. I reactivated the rest of the bot's functionality, but with the throttling increased (by a factor of 60) a few days ago, once I saw the job queue was back at zero. It's stayed that way since, so I agree it doesn't look like the bot. I'll continue to monitor, and gradually scale the throttling back to normal levels if it remains stable. Thanks. --Rick Dulton 06:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Not only did you report something that you knew might impact your ability to use the bot, but you've been honest and responsible in reporting the numbers and handling the reintroduction of the bot. Now, if you'll kindly do something aimed at the wiki community as a whole, rather than just the RRF, I'd love to punish your behavior with a nomination to sysop. :P —Aichon— 16:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

You devil!--Rosslessness 00:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey

Thanks for welcomeing me that was very kind of you if I have any questions ill be sure to ask.

--Storm 20:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I have a question. A zombie came up to me and said "Mah zombah gonna ram h!n banana ahnna h!n rabahz zaghana." The wierd thing was he didn't attack me. Do you know what he was saying? --Storm 05:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I got the first part, but I get lost partway through. I can at least read, "My zombie [is] going [to] ram [...] banana [...]". The "!" usually means the letter I, but "hin" isn't a word, and zombies can use the letters M and Z (which would have made sense for "him" and "his", respectively), so I'm not sure what he was going for there. The "rabahz" might be "rabies" or even something related to rape (which seems possible, given the references to ramming and bananas). —Aichon— 07:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

My best guess is "My zombie [is] going to ram his banana into his lover's vagina." Which would make sense as not a threat, I guess. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:16, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok then, oh and thanks for the help --Storm 20:24, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

How many people do you need to create a group? Is two ok? --Storm 01:31, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I created one with just myself! If you'd like some advice on getting a group started, check out Starting a New Group (Survivor) and the (longer) Guide to Forming Groups. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 02:06, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

How do I create a new page such as a one for my characters? --Storm 04:11, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

To create a page for one of your characters, simply go to User:Storm/XXXX where XXXX is the character's name. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:01, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I still don't understand --Storm 21:37, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

i am sorry to interrupt, bob. i have an idea. storm! welcome! i will help you alongside bob moncrief. this is how to create a page for one of your characters. i learned this not too long ago, so it is fresh in my memory. the slash means that, to put it in understandable terms, you giving your page a son or a daughter. the slash is to connect the two pages. if i wanted to have a son on the wiki and name him lazy, i would search the page User:Anja_Arnheim/Lazy on the side bar, and it will tell me that he does not exist yet! that is when you can create the page. you can edit this page by clicking on the create tab at the top, to the right of discussion, or you can click on the edit this page blue colour link. you then create the page to your liking, and when you view it after you are finished, it should give the parent page directly under the title, in my case it would be User:Anja_Arnheim. the only thing that you should do differently from my example is use your name and not mine, and pick a better name for a page than lazy. -- 22:03, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

To put it into more general terms, think of it like a folder on the computer. For example: you go to C:/ (your C drive), then there is C:/Windows (your windows folder), furthermore there is C:/Windows/System (the system subfolder of windows). It's the same as that. This might also help: click on this User:Storm/sandbox. That will take you to page that doesn't exist. Click to create it (up near the top). Once you have a box you can type in, just type whatever and hit save. You would have made a sandbox page. Here is a sandpit page I made (that happens to be about making user pages): User:Kirsty_cotton/sandpit. It's not really complete but it should get you started. --_K 23:55, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

C drive? People still use Windows? :P —Aichon— 03:53, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd make a witty retort, but my AOL is lagging. --_K 08:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Is images of weapons allowed? --Storm 21:26, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Weapon images are allowed, as long as they aren't under copyright, as with any images. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 03:42, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I recently finished my user page, and 2 of my character pages. I was wondering if you could look at them and give me a few pointers. --Storm 06:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)