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This Upgrade... Wow


Markwell

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I've weathered through several upgrades before: forum change, image server change, ad infinitum. This however seems to be one of the "buggiest" upgrades I've seen so far. Text in logs that had links no longer working, image tags broken, missing text on cache pages (user home page links, cache size on print friendly), do we put user counts on or not, and if so how.

 

I normally try not to whine too much about changes, but this seemed to have a whole bunch of unexpected quirks.

 

It's unfortunate that there are four or five threads about bugs in the upgrade and no cohesive spot for people to raise their concerns, and for Jeremy to let us know what's being done toward fixing these things. We're relying on his posts and our good faith.

 

Now that charter members are paying for the upkeep of this site, it seems to me that we should have a more accountable way of dealing with problems than haphazard lists of bugs and admin posts of "I'll be fixing that soon" (not meaning to bash the hard workers too heavily).

 

I dunno what my point is...

Anyone want to use this thread as a bug list? Or maybe I'm just venting some frustration at this "seamless" icon_wink.gif upgrade...

 

Comments?

 

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

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Ouch. I guess I deserve that.

 

It looks like I have fixed most of the issues indicated in many posts here. It seemed to work relatively well, since I can close bugs that cropped up over the changes.

 

In defense, we moved the page over to a totally different code base, so there was bound to be some issues that would not show up in the "test environment." We also added a completely "new" print friendly page, and I tried to make sure that page had all the necessary info without the design clutter.

 

If there are any other issues, let me know and I'll try to fix them. Unfortunately I've been in meetings a lot more these last few weeks than usual so I tend to be sporatic in the fixes. But I really felt I had to push the release early since the site was reaching critical mass in visits by users.

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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I will fully admit, I have only been on this system for little over a month. So my karma here is no where near the long timers. I am however a programmer and computer geek, and have been around the Internet since before there really was a public Internet. (Started on Compu$erve)

 

My experience is this is how these things work. Servers reach critical mass, things have to change. Any programmer can tell you that a program is never finished, and even with hours and days of testing, even weeks, bugs happen. Im sure Im not telling anyone something they don't already know.

 

Should there be a better way of reporting them? Should there have been more warning and user input? Not my call, thats a call for the admins. Do I think I get special treatment here because I coughed up $30.. No, I didnt do it for that. I read what the benefits were, and I enjoy geocaching, so I though I would help out and send in a meager sum. I can't say I know whos paying for this whole shebang, or even what the Admins do fulltime, but if they started like me, its a hobby that grew into something huge. (I run the Midwest Horse Stables Directory at www.stablesdirectory.org)

So changes get made. The indication from Jeremy (who I do not know) was that the servers were reaching critical mass, that's good enough for me. Ghods know I have seen it in my own machines now and then. It could NOT have been an easy task to transfer active cache pages to xml cached documents.

 

If I had never known the cache hit numbers had been after the users names, i never would have missed it. So some links got broken, they can be fixed. It always takes time to shake out a new code base. As long as the servers stay up and give me cache pages faster, I think thats all one could wish for at this moment. icon_smile.gif

 

-Centaur

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

Ouch. I guess I deserve that.

 

It looks like I have fixed most of the issues indicated in many posts here. It seemed to work relatively well, since I can close bugs that cropped up over the changes.


 

Yeah - I'm sure that 99% of the folks that are mentioning bugs and quirks aren't meaning to sound negative about it... we just love the site and when things get quirky we get worried. icon_smile.gif

 

And, I've noticed how quick you are to address user comments, complaints, and suggestions - so we should all rest assured that any bugs that appear during a change or upgrade will be dealt with asap.

 

- Toe.

 

--==< Rubbertoe's Webcam, Photo Albums, and Homepage >==--

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Don't get me wrong - if I didn't like the site, I'd wouldn't hang out here so much. The database is truly amazing that it can handle the load that it does. I guess I just expect perfection because I know the potential of the site designers icon_wink.gif .

 

I guess I'm not really complaining about the change so much as I'm complaining about the lack of a central clearing house for bugs that aren't fixed. The printer-friendly pages are GREAT, and the speed has definitely increased.

 

I see to bugs mentioned that don't have a resolution yet (at least in my mind)

 

There's the one mentioned here, and that's just because I never got an answer to the question if the links could be sweepingly changed or if I have to do it manually.

 

And this thread is marked closed, even though the problem isn't fixed. Take a look at this cache and my log (597530). The link that I added before used to work, and now won't. Did I miss something?

 

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

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Markwell,

 

I can address your link issue, I believe. Right now, to my knowledge, there is no recognition of the A HREF tag. As Jeremy has stated in another thread, urls are now recognized as such and automatically displayed as links.

 

It doesn't look as clean, but in order to get that link to work, you'll have to post it "publicly," rather than hiddin in HTML. Jeremy has hinted at some UBB tags.. hopefully there will be a URL tag included.

 

Your particular url will no longer work for two reasons. The first being the A HREF issue, and the second is that the new pages have slightly different addresses. See my note, just above your find. http://www.geocaching.com/cache_details.aspx?ID=17279

 

Here's the "new" address to the cache you were trying to link to:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=17279

Notice up there... the "aspx?" The X is new, so any old links will have to be changed to incorporate the X.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this, since I have only studied it briefly in order to see what does and what doesn't work.

 

Jamie

 

[This message was edited by Jamie Z on September 17, 2002 at 08:29 PM.]

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quote:
Originally posted by Markwell:

 

I normally try not to whine too much about changes, but this seemed to have a whole bunch of unexpected quirks.

 

It's unfortunate that there are four or five threads about bugs in the upgrade and no cohesive spot for people to raise their concerns, and for Jeremy to let us know what's being done toward fixing these things. We're relying on his posts and our good faith.

 

Now that charter members are paying for the upkeep of this site, it seems to me that we should have a more accountable way of dealing with problems than haphazard lists of bugs and admin posts of "I'll be fixing that soon" (not meaning to bash the hard workers too heavily).


have some cheese with your whine

 

I recall you telling that to another poster just recently...

 

For what it's worth, the charter membership doesn't make anyone a stockholder where the operating officers need to be accountable to a member for their time or activities. The charter membership was a way to raise money to keep the site going, consider the alternative.

 

Each member needs to make up their own mind about what value they are receiving for their money. For me, the added value of the pocket queries make it worthwhile. Can I ask for more?...sure, but there's no promises or guarantees with the charter memberships, I'm pretty sure all members know that going in.

 

As far as the broken links go, it's fixable, but you will probably need to do it manually. The problem is with the internal links, not the external ones. As an example, see the GHOST BUSTERS cache, where every log is required to provide a link. So providing a full path in your URL should fix things.

 

I'd rather see the staff working on more important issues then spending time fixing logs that contain bad HTML. I think that if a user has broken links then it should be up to that user to go fix his or her own logs.

 

Also, I reported a bug and it got prompt attention, as others had as well. If I could have done something to fix it myself, I would have. I don't think its fair for you to jump on these guys who are obviously making this site rock.

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quote:
Originally posted by Markwell:

I guess I'm not really complaining about the change so much as I'm complaining about the lack of a central clearing house for bugs that aren't fixed.


 

Oops!

 

My point is/was: the above idea isn't a bad one!

 

Charlie

"One should never begin a journey by heading in the wrong direction."

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quote:
Originally posted by cachew nut:

have some cheese with your whine


 

Gee, I love that saying. I only get to read it every dadgum day in usenet somewhere... icon_razz.gif

 

Anyway, take it easy with your whining about the whining. icon_smile.gif Markwell has been an INSANE amount of help to the community here... several times beating me to the punch when I was hoping to provide an answer to a newbie's question. icon_razz.gif

 

When someone invests a lot of care, time, and support into a hobby like this, such as Markwell apparently has, of course that person will have some issues when things are acting up. Yes, this is Jeremy's baby - but a lot of users have adopted it as their own as well. icon_smile.gif I mean, it really is a community of people that love this stuff.

 

quote:
I'd rather see the staff working on more important issues then spending time fixing logs that contain bad HTML. I think that if a user has broken links then it should be up to that user to go fix his or her own logs.

 

Well, it'd be nice if people wouldn't have to go back and change stuff - since the logs originally allowed the href tags for URLs, one might think that any changes would be made accordingly, with precautions not to damage html coded URLs.

 

Afaik, I have never included any HTML in my log entries - and any URLs that I included, I just typed in as normal - so they should be fine, once the bugs are gone from the app that looks for hotlinks. (edit: I checked my log on the GhostBusters cache and the urls have been repaired)

 

- Toe.

 

--==< Rubbertoe's Webcam, Photo Albums, and Homepage >==--

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Markwell has some valid points. It's not like he dug his claws in or anything.

 

Perhaps we should have a central bug report area, like a forum post. For future builds I'll just put a message in this forum so I can keep the outstanding bugs listed.

 

You may want to try this, but I believe This works for valid links (of course it is UBB, so may not come out. If it doesn't, the UBB URL design should work). I'll be testing the other UBB code to make sure it works just like it does in the forums.

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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quote:
Originally posted by Rubbertoe:

Anyway, take it easy with your whining about the whining. icon_smile.gif Markwell has been an INSANE amount of help to the community here... several times beating me to the punch when I was hoping to provide an answer to a newbie's question. icon_razz.gif


 

No kidding, I've learned a lot from Markwell, both from his posts and from his own geocaching webpages. However, sometimes his quick answers aren't really a solution to the person asking the question, but for the most part you can learn a lot from him. I just found it amusing to see the great Markwell getting frustrated about something.

 

I met Markwell in person and he's a real nice guy, and I know he's big enough to take the high road and not be offended by someone else's opinions. I'm grateful for his contributions to geocaching.

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Markwell you sly devil, you've changed the link. In your original post, which you edited... the link was different, and didn't work as typed. The links you typed above both work. I wonder, however, if the redirect is permanent. I'd hate to edit my links, only to have them not work again in the future. As long as I'm messing with the source, I might as well add an "x" to the link.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy:

...so I can keep the outstanding bugs listed.


 

Hmmm, I don't find any of the bugs outstanding. Some of them are actually annoying. icon_biggrin.gif

 

Thanks, Jeremy, for working with/for us.

 

Jamie

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamie Z:

Markwell you sly devil, you've changed the link. In your original post, which you edited... the link was different, and didn't work as typed. The links you typed above both work. I wonder, however, if the redirect is permanent. I'd hate to edit my links, only to have them not work again in the future. As long as I'm messing with the source, I might as well add an "x" to the link.


 

Like I said, I was rambling in the post that (hopefully) only you read pre-edit. Man I was grouchy before my first cup of java this morning! icon_wink.gif

 

I would think the redirect would have to be a permanent feature. There are too many links outside of Geocaching.com (personal webpages, forum posts, etc.).

 

Thanks for the strokes, folks - but they're unnecessary. I do what I can to help my friends, and yes - I'm human and get my knickers twisted every once in a while. icon_wink.gif

 

Thanks for your help Jeremy. I did have to go back and fix several image links after you locked that bug thread, but all is fixed.

 

I probably won't be worrying about fixing my old posts with HREF links. If we have a UBB link for URL, that will actually work BETTER than the previous links that could only go to other cache pages. That would be a vast improvement.

 

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

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I have learned a fair amount in a short time from reading Markwells posts and his website. Since hes local to me, even hope to meet up someday cache serching. icon_smile.gif

 

I, for one, thank him, and everyone else who posts views, both pro or con, or whatever, for thats how one learns the ropes.

 

Yes, I like to computer geek as well, and would love to know how this whole place is programmed, but I have too much on my plate at the moment, what with Caching and all icon_wink.gif

 

-Centaur

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Being new to Geocaching, I don't know how the site has changed recently, but from my perspective, this has to be one of the most user friendly sites I have encountered, and the ease in which I have been able to get around and find information has kept my intrest and has kept me coming back for more. Any problems I have encountered have been of my own making, but even with those, the users of this site have been more than helpful solving my "issues" Kuddos to everyone!!!

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