The Infosphere - New server!

[#120 :]

*bump*

So what's with the infinite mass of fake/spam accounts that have been/still are being created over the past few months?

I mentioned that a few replies up. I used to enjoy looking through the recent changes, but now I can't be bothered.

Also, is this really the best place to ask? You're probably better off putting it on The Infosphere itself where the admins are more likely to see it.

[#121 :]

A while ago I edited the Street Racing Gang page to use the names of the characters that were revealed in the commentary for that episode. I just discovered that it was undone with this message:

"Despite the fact that it's considered canon, information present in the commentaries is mostly irrelevant. It's not Futurama."

I'm done with trying to edit the infosphere now, because that's a load of bullshit. There's no way I can take it seriously when crap like this is pulled.

Apparently actual useful information being added that vastly improves the quality of the writing isn't worth a damn. How the hell is the quality of the wiki going to improve if generic names like "guy with glasses" are deliberately used over their actual names? Not to mention that the commentaries are used as a source for hundreds of things elsewhere on the wiki. If information from the Futurama commentaries isn't relevant on a Futurama wiki, then nothing is.

Sorry, I'm just a bit pissed off and had to rant about it somewhere. The Infosphere used to be great.

[#122 :]

Unfortunately, I have too many other obligations to be able to take up the fight.  I agree with you UnrealLegend, I disagree with the conduct, but I simply cannot muster it.

And that's largely the problem, you got me as an ally, but I won't bother if no one else will.  Sanfazer is the only one maintaining the wiki these days.

[#123 :]

I don't really care enough to aggressively chase after it, but I did question it on the talk page.

[#124 :]

That's OK.  But I fear Sanfazer is not doing well enough to maintain an active community.

[#125 :]

Sanfazer is the main reason I don't bother editing the Infosphere anymore.

It's his own personal playground as far as he sees it, no matter how well you perfect an edit to Infosphere standards he swoops in and alters it to suit him. Had enough of it.

[#126 :]

*bump*

I'm looking for someone with a copy of season 7A on DVD (it has to be DVD, not Blu-ray, unless you have a way of screencapping the Blu-ray and uploading the images online) as I'm adding some new articles and have no way of getting decent quality pictures of them.

[#127 :]

I've got the 7A DVD. I can help.

[#128 :]

I shall PM you!

[#129 :]

Question: how come, over the last few months, 9 times out of 10 the Infosphere looks like this when I go on it?

This happens on both my laptop & mobile phone.

[#130 :]

Not sure.  I visit the site roughly every week or so, and haven't noticed anything unusual.

[#131 :]

Sometimes PEEL looks like that for me. I just F5 it until it goes away.

[#132 :]

Question: how come, over the last few months, 9 times out of 10 the Infosphere looks like this when I go on it?

Looks like a cache issue.  Just hit ctrl+F5 next time it happens.  Not sure how to do that on a phone, but a refresh might be enough.

[#133 :]

Thanks Svip.

Does anyone know what happened to Sanfazer? He used to rule over the Infosphere as if it were his own personal kingdom, but he hasn't made any edits since the 18th February.

Oddly enough, this was during the time a vandal was altering tonnes of articles on the site to say stupid things involving "poop" and "rape" - I know Quolnok, myself & Sanfazer were always reverting them. Some of the edits mentioned Sanfazer in the "changes" part, if I recall correctly.

[#134 :]

Sanfazer, the vandal, and one other person are the same.

[#135 :]

An update on Sanfazer:

Someone left a message on my Infosphere page asking me to email them regarding San. The person claims to be his cousin, and told me that he passed away recently.

Hoax or not, it explains his sudden disappearance. Very sad news, if true.

[#136 :]

It seems like a strange thing to make up.  I am inclined to believe it.  Which, unfortunately, makes it very sad news indeed.

I am - unfortunately - unable to do much to collaborate his story, because all my data on Sanfazer - limited as it was - is already outdated.  I even tried to install an extension to see if it could be of any help, but at least I ended up upgrading the underlying software, which had been needed for quite a while.

Looking through his contribution log, there seems to be no real reason for a cut off date at that point.  He didn't leave a message or anything.  Sanfazer wasn't planning his departure to be a permanent one, I think is reasonable to assume.

What bothers me the most is that his last contribution was 15 February 2016, which is almost two years ago.  If he passed away recently, that suggests he has been sick for over a year, assuming an illness was his reason for abandoning his contributions to the Infosphere.

I hope, though, that he really just left temporarily - at least initially - and that he got sick later.  If an illness was the cause of his death.

Regardless, he was a great contribution to the Infosphere, and he will be missed.  In fact, I feel bad for not better expressing my appreciations of his contributions to the Infosphere while he was with us.

[#137 :]

Ah, I'm finally able to log in.

Someone on Facebook had been trying to contact me starting on 2017-11-21, and asked a bunch of questions about Sanfazer, but never did get around to telling me the news. With a second, similar attempt on the 1st of January, which went nowhere.

Despite some issues, he was a decent steward of the Infosphere, and he will be missed by us all, I think. Svip has suggested we add a small memorial to his user page, and then protect the page, which I think is a fine idea.

Regarding the site itself: With no new Futurama content being created (besides the comics, I guess), what new information could the average visitor contribute at all? Is there some way to basically lock down the site and only allow trusted users to make edits? That might help mitigate vandalism with a minimum of effort on the part of we few who care but not quite enough to take an active role.

Further, the Infoshere does have an official facebook page, I'd be happy to make most of you guys admins on that page, if you're interested in continuing to interact with the fanbase on all matters Futurama.

[#138 :]

Why lockdown a wiki?

[#139 :]

Despite some issues, he was a decent steward of the Infosphere, and he will be missed by us all, I think. Svip has suggested we add a small memorial to his user page, and then protect the page, which I think is a fine idea.

This is a fantastic idea. I didn't always see eye-to-eye with him, as I (think I) have posted about here in the past, but he was a phenomenal contributer to the wiki, and undoubtedly a great person IRL.

Regarding the site itself: With no new Futurama content being created (besides the comics, I guess), what new information could the average visitor contribute at all? Is there some way to basically lock down the site and only allow trusted users to make edits? That might help mitigate vandalism with a minimum of effort on the part of we few who care but not quite enough to take an active role.

This isn't a bad idea. I occasionally make edits to the wiki from time-to-time, mainly on the Worlds of Tomorrow page, at the minute. The vandalism was crazy a while back, but seems to have disappeared, now.

Further, the Infoshere does have an official facebook page, I'd be happy to make most of you guys admins on that page, if you're interested in continuing to interact with the fanbase on all matters Futurama.

Link me up, please! I would like this very much so.

[#140 :]

https://www.facebook.com/theinfosphere/

Message the page, and I'll add you.

[#141 :]

Why lockdown a wiki?

Because, like I said, what's the average passer-by going to be able to contribute? All the episodes and movies have been covered, all major errors have been corrected, there's nothing much that anyone could contribute. And it would ease the burden of maintenance. But, it's also just brainstorming, just a random idea, to be discussed. It might be a good idea, it might be a stupid idea. Just thought I'd put it out there.

[#142 :]

Unless there's vandals on the prowl, is it really necessary? There's always bits and pieces that can be improved, and such improvements could very well come from anonymous users.

[#143 :]

Not sure if people are aware of this (or if this is the best place to bring it up) but the site is under attack from spambots. I went to make a quick edit today and the recent changes page was flooded with them.

[#144 :]

Thanks for the heads up, BusinessMonkey.  I have disabled anonymous editing for now.  That should take care of most of them.  Since not much is happening with Futurama right now, it might be OK that only registered users can edit.

[#145 :]

That seems the most reasonable solution.

[#146 :]

I'm gonna be honest, the website is broke as shit & almost unaccessible ever since you put it in lockdown. Almost every link you click takes you to a broken page full of error messages & random code. I also can't even sign into my account.

I understand the reasoning for putting it in lockdown but it doesn't seem super necessary to me in hindsight & it seems to have definitely killed the site off, for the most-part, unfortunately.

[#147 :]

Report to me errors you encounter, then I will fix them.  The lockdown should not produce these errors, nor should it limit your ability to log in.

[#148 :]

There are at least some small edits that can still be made. I wanted to add one (there are three bender legs in the messy-office scene of How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back!), but I haven't been able to register an account.

The new user page gives an error:

http://theinfosphere.org/Special:RequestAccount

[42fdc858901691459583f0c7] /Special:RequestAccount Error from line 251 of /var/www/theinfosphere/extensions/ConfirmAccount/frontend/specialpages/actions/RequestAccount_body.php: Call to undefined method QuestyCaptcha::getFormInformation()

Backtrace:

#0 /var/www/theinfosphere/extensions/ConfirmAccount/frontend/specialpages/actions/RequestAccount_body.php(87): RequestAccountPage->showForm()
#1 /var/www/theinfosphere/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(569): RequestAccountPage->execute(NULL)
#2 /var/www/theinfosphere/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(568): SpecialPage->run(NULL)
#3 /var/www/theinfosphere/includes/MediaWiki.php(288): MediaWiki\Special\SpecialPageFactory->executePath(Title, RequestContext)
#4 /var/www/theinfosphere/includes/MediaWiki.php(860): MediaWiki->performRequest()
#5 /var/www/theinfosphere/includes/MediaWiki.php(517): MediaWiki->main()
#6 /var/www/theinfosphere/index.php(42): MediaWiki->run()
#7 {main}

[#149 :]

Looks like the capcha got dropped from the server.

[#150 :]

Apparently the AntiSpoof extension got borked.  So it should be running now.

[#151 :]

Awesome!  Thanks Svip!

[#152 :]

Not sure if it's just me, but I'm still getting the same error... I tried firefox & chrome, same thing in both.

[#153 :]

OK, it took me a while to figure out some extensions had become incompatible, but it should be fixed now.  Try again.

I don't get to use the wiki so much anymore, so I am happy when someone inspects it to see if it is broken.  I will try my best to be as fast as possible.

[#154 :]

Working for me.  I didn't check the first time because the solution sounded reasonable given the php exceptions thrown, that's my bad.  Thanks again!

[#155 :]

Thanks! Working now.