Utility: Official release of the unofficial Dominions 3 Wiki

[momfreeek]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

@Elsewhere
As for the points about the (Dom3) Wiki content. Yes, I do realise (especially e.g. with Wordpress) that most stuff is delivered dynamically --- and so much the worse for delivery speed and processing usage.

A couple of other things that maybe you're not taking into account:

1. I could be wrong but I'd be surprised if you aren't using far more power to download and view the site than is used to serve it. All that messing about powering the monitor, rendering html into boxes and text on a square page and smoothing the edges of letters. Parsing a script and piecing together a few lists of characters from a database is not such a big deal. Thats not to say its not worth optimising server usage and the (widely used) solution that turns dynamic content into static content is "caching".

2. Developer time is (in general) far more valuable than processing time. Whatever solution you might think is worthwhile to make the site work better, it would perhaps make far more sense to simply buy better hardware to run the existing, working system, especially for a site used by relatively so few people.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

@Soy
I use quotes (among other things) if the word I'm using is not exactly right. When I say "scripts", I know it might be scripts, or programs, or transformers, or whatever. I don't know if his site is really "down", maybe it's running fine but not available. Seems like standard English usage to me as long as I can remember. You're probably pleased that "Waterstone's" got renamed (or perhaps you'd prefer Waterstone's).

Yeah, but that is wrong use of quotation marks. It is used to indicate either a quote, or sarcasm. There is no way for the reader to know if you mean it sarcastic, as something you are unsure about etc.

So it would be better if you would have just written. scripts(*)

*:unsure if this is the correct term.

This sentence : "I don't know if his site is really "down"," is really hard for me to understand fully. I don't really see what you can mean with "down". I assumed you just used the quotes wrong.

And yeah, I was acting like a little schoolgirl. My bad . I get defensive about the wiki... :P

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Yeah, but that is wrong use of quotation marks. It is used to indicate either a quote, or sarcasm.

I believe common usage of quotation marks extends to a lot more than those two, and do not agree with you at all. How about, you use them the way you like and I'll use them the way I do? After all, this is English not French...

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

And yeah, I was acting like a little schoolgirl. My bad . I get defensive about the wiki... :P

I get defensive about my punctuation

As for the original missing-wiki issue. I do understand that it requires processing to generate a wiki page. I do understand that allowing the collaborative editing requires processing. For my part, I only want to read the wiki, I accept that altering is unavailable for a while. In general, pages are accessed a lot more by readers than writers (hopefully). I had assumed, perhaps, that it would be easy to generate static pages somewhere --- 100% precisely in a situation like this where wiki (or whatever) software had issues.

Where I work has recently changed over the company web site (hosted externally) from static, actual pages to Wordpress with database. Yes it is better for developers etc., I understand that. But when for whatever reason there is an issue with page retrieval or generation, my (potential) customers who just want to browse really don't care, they'd have been better served with static content and less to go wrong. There's a difference in requirements for OLAP versus OLTP.

Finally, of course I am not complaining or being ungrateful to Ich and others who maintain it. And I never meant to upset or annoy anyone!

[Soyweiser]

That isn't how language works. You cannot just use stuff wrongly because you think it works a different way. That way you generate confusion and ambiguity. And as the main objective of language is easy communication. You are misusing language in the most horrible way.

I think Lch already explained that the wiki pages are cached normally. But that he just doesn't have enough hd/memory to keep the entire site cached the whole time. (Also, if dynamic pages have a problem with loading, you want to cache them, not make them static).

Also, in the case of the wiki, you get what you pay for.

And never listen to what your customers say, look at what they do. (Which is a great lesson in life generally. Replace customers with whatever you want. (gamers/family/friends/aliens/etc).

[momfreeek]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

But when for whatever reason there is an issue with page retrieval or generation, my (potential) customers who just want to browse really don't care, they'd have been better served with static content and less to go wrong.

It sounds like you've got some specific problems that needs fixing asap. In a system with 1000 things that could go wrong its no surprise that its the latest change that has problems.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

That isn't how language works.

I'd say it is. Language is constantly evolving, ambiguity is rife anyway and context is important. Its not a system crafted to perfection, its an evolution of common usage from Ye Olde English. You won't find a smiley in an english textbook ;-)

Common usage is far more important to understanding than absolute rules (FYI: you should NEVER start a sentence with "And" ).

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

That isn't how language works. You cannot just use stuff wrongly because you think it works a different way. That way you generate confusion and ambiguity. And as the main objective of language is easy communication. You are misusing language in the most horrible way.

I'm not misusing language or using stuff wrongly, and certainly not "in the most horrible way". I don't misuse quotation marks, I have no idea why you think your rules are correct or you think yourself an arbiter on this matter. Instead of you telling me how to write, shall we just leave the matter alone. I've always enjoyed the content of your posts.

[Valerius]

Lol, JonBrave I have to say I interpreted your comment as meaning "lch says the site is down but that's probably just another one of his lies - I doubt he even has a 'kid'".

But thanks to lch and everyone else who keeps providing services to the Dom3 community despite no longer being an active player - since they are of course under no obligation to do so. Llamabeast provides one of the two main MP servers and manages CBM and how much does he even play these days? And Gandalf has spent years running the other main server and doesn't even like the MP crowd.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Lol, JonBrave I have to say I interpreted your comment as meaning "lch says the site is down but that's probably just another one of his lies - I doubt he even has a 'kid'".

Hi Valerius. Is it me or everyone else who's barmy?

Originally I said:

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Any website you know of, they/owner leave current system up while they make changes for new one, then go live. This baby's been gone for weeks & weeks, what can be so difficult?

The "baby" is referring to the web site. Then Ich posted a photo of his baby (which I think is why he said he had been so busy!) --- seems to have been removed from his post now --- and so I said:

Originally Posted by JonBrave

@Ich,

Many thanks for your work, and the return of the site. Now that I've seen the photo, I had not realised that you were so young when I asked in a post about how long the site was down, may I say your IT skills are remarkable for someone of your age.

Which was supposed to be a humorous intimation that the photo might have been of himself (it didn't say), and I was impressed that a baby could write the wiki...

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by momfreeek

It sounds like you've got some specific problems that needs fixing asap. In a system with 1000 things that could go wrong its no surprise that its the latest change that has problems.

I'd say it is. Language is constantly evolving, ambiguity is rife anyway and context is important. Its not a system crafted to perfection, its an evolution of common usage from Ye Olde English. You won't find a smiley in an english textbook ;-)

Common usage is far more important to understanding than absolute rules (FYI: you should NEVER start a sentence with "And" ).

then im now declaring the end of punctuation no more capitalizations points commas or other bull we can make up the rules of language while we go along never mind that it is the job of the writer to be understood not the job of the reader if you make your readers work to understand your language you have failed but i agree im just being a twat and and doesnt create ambiguity it is just ugly but it is part of my write like you talk style which is horrible

ps doesnt apply to certain types of literary work but that is irrelevant

[momfreeek]

I said "evolution" and "common usage".

Every word and contextual device was invented by someone at some point.. but if its crap and no-one uses it, then its not going to become common usage is it?

Tell me what you think of the smiley :-)