AdminBlog
So, you all might be wondering what we're working on next for the PDB. If so, this is the place to look. Also the goal of this page is to have a place where all the admins can easily leave messages for one another, instead of having to look through everyone's edit history to find things that they'd like comments upon.
2018
09-08-18: The PDB, along with CO itself, is still going strong after all these years. I want to give a giant thank you to everyone who not only posts their characters to the PDB, but for those who read the pages as well. Also, I want to give a round of thanks to Cryptic Studios and all of its players, too. You're why we're here.
Additionally, CSS is now enabled on the PDB. Apparently there's a manual of sorts over here. Have fun! --Destructor (talk) 04:14, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
2015
06-15-15: The Mod Blog is not dead! Just needs to be poked into life every couple of months. Hope to be posting some news of interest soon... please look forward to it!
01-05-15: A belated happy new year from your allies at PRIMUS Database! May your 2015 be filled with justice (or chaos, if villainy is your thing).
Today saw the debut of our new page recognition system, as teased over the last month: Featured Article of the Week. It's going to play out very differently than what you Users were used to with PotM of the past-- it's very "hands off" approach that will hopefully shed more spotlight on our creative community. AotW will also be a bunch more work than simply running a one-and-done thing every month, which is why the team of mods will be working together as best we can to update with a new feature each week.
We're more than aware that some people will like this change, and others won't-- it wasn't a particularly easy "issue" to solve, some could say the answer still hasn't been found. There's still a possibility we might hold PotM-like contests on an occasional basis, or other community-driven recognition features, in the future. Time will tell...
I know I have one particular idea I might want to test out on you unsuspecting-- oh, did I say that out loud? --Δ Epelesker (talk) 06:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
2014
12-06-14: It's been quite a while since I've posted anything much on the ModBlog, but here I am with a semi-important announcement about plans in the works for next year.
It's been widely believed for some time, even by us, that the Page of the Month recognition program that's been in place since 2011 has been broken and not worthwhile-- and indeed in the most recent months the participation level in the activity has gone way down from its "glory days". Whatever the reasons for the shift in attitudes, it's prompted some high-level discussion between us to possibly try to make a bigger change than just tweaking the rules-- and what better time to do it than for the start of the new year that's fast approaching?
Whatever December's PotM happens to turn out to be (since it was supposed to be a Theme Month and no one's really taken the bait as of this writing), it will most likely be the last one. All going well, there will be something to take its place come January-- something that all the mods will be collaborating on and upkeeping. Please look forward to it! --Δ Epelesker (talk) 21:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
12-03-14: Okay, so the PDB is back up and running again. I'm sorry to say that there was a period of time between the server dropping due to...issues, and when it came back up from a backup, where things got lost. I'm praying that something like this won't happen again. And welcome to a slightly newer version of Mediawiki as well. Finally, a new Captcha system has been put into place that requires a brain and the ability to read and comprehend English. Here's to hoping it stops spam for now, as Google's thing sure as heck didn't do it. --Destructor (talk) 19:29, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
10-21-14: Fixed. There's a new captcha system installed on the PDB, and all of it is local (short of the Google part, but I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon), so it should not fail again. Now to keep watch of things and make sure it's good enough so it'll keep spammers out. --Destructor (talk) 16:58, 21 October 2014 (MST)
10-21-14: Trying a few things - if successful, this means that new accounts will be accepted again. I'll let you know. --Destructor (talk) 16:18, 21 October 2014 (MST)
10-20-14: Having issues trying to find a replacement captcha that hasn't been cracked already. Might just turn on something generic just so people can make new accounts again. --Destructor (talk) 09:37, 20 October 2014 (MST)
10-15-14: Due to Microsoft changing things up with no notice it seems, the 'cat protection' has been turned offline. Unfortunately this means that you can't make new accounts at the moment. I'm checking into what can be used as a replacement captcha because the site has to have such a thing or else it gets spammed to death. --Destructor (talk) 15:37, 15 October 2014 (MST)
06-16-14: After a few requests and sorta-complaints, the mobile site of the PDB has been disabled. It never seemed to work properly in the first place, and on top of that, more people have a device that is capable of displaying websites properly nowadays than those that do not. So, the mobile site is turned off. If you get redirected there via say Google or something, just remove the mobile part out of the site address and it should work. --Δ Destructor (talk) 08:13, 16 June 2014 (MST)
06-02-14: This issue came up recently, but it's good to talk about it. The wiki has a lot of wonderful pages and people work hard on them. Some of them have amazing code to navigate a page or have an interesting layout that you may want to use on yours. When using this code, please be kind and notify the page's owner to ask for permission first. If you don't hear anything back, then be sure to give credit on your page if you copy someone's layout.
The wiki is indeed a free place where people using coder on their pages helps increase the quality of all pages. You see that in great templates that people offer free of use. It's just good courtesy though, to at least acknowledge and give credit to a player's hard work on their page if you use their layout. Δ FrozenViolet (talk) 10:454, 02 June 2014 (EST)
05-21-14: Finishing up a week long transfer of a large batch of transfers from the old site to here. Getting close to nearing the end of transferring pages over from there since many of the remaining ones don't have any pictures or have pictures and no relevant pagework. Δ FrozenViolet (talk) 15:40, 21 May 2014 (EST)
05-01-14: The nomination period for Theme Month has ended. While the mods will be taking the time over the coming week or so to pick our feature from the handful of votes that we received, there are still ways you Users can help us out: there will be a questionnaire posted really soon that will allow you to give us feedback on PRIMUS Database, as well as the currently contentious issue of Page of the Month (in light of our Theme month proceedings).
You'll be able to view and answer the questions here on the site-- for which a page/discussion will be made and linked to from our home screen-- and I have plans to post this on both the official Champions Online forum and the Champions Online Roleplayers forum for added coverage.
Your voice really does count, as the PDb can't be successful without your submissions! --Δ Epelesker (talk) 01:00, 1 May 2014 (MST)
04-08-14: The first ever Page of the Month themed vote is now underway, and it's gotten off to a bit of a shaky start. I do understand that, while I did try to give enough forewarning about the temporary change to the rules of PotM that we will be observing through April, the shift is a bit sudden and jarring. Be sure to read and follow the current special rules posted on the nomination page, and find awesome magic-themed character pages to nominate for this month's runnings.
Now, if you're wondering why we're doing this theme month in the first place? It's because we are trying to respond to the feedback we have received on how PotM has been run in the past. Theme Month will be our benchmark to combat the criticisms you've pointed out, to see if there is a better way of handling the PotM as a whole going forward. The participation of the PDb community will be invaluable for this "test", just as it has been with the old system. --Δ Epelesker (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2014 (MST)
04-02-14: Apologies for the lack of an April Fool's joke this year. (Well, I did type one out, but it was too late in the day for it to matter. You can read it here.) --Δ Epelesker (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2014 (MST)(postdated)
04-02-14: We passed 2000 registered articles today! Great work everyone! --Δ FrozenViolet (talk) 13:04, 2 April 2014 (MST)
03-25-14: I've moved over a large batch of characters from the old site. If you see a character that I've transferred over (check the history) that has the same name as a character you'd like to use, just drop me a line. Many of these are old legacy pages that had pictures and detailed information, but it is unlikely they are still being actively played. --Δ FrozenViolet (talk) 09:26, 25 March 2014 (MST)
03-16-14: Due to a large number of page display errors occuring, I am currently working through bugged files which are causing issues. As part of this I have updated the information on the File Upload page detailing some "rules" which should be followed when adding images to PDB in order that we can keep everything running smoothly in future. I had already passed this info on to Bob, but if you want to see some queries I have set up to make searching for buggy files easier look here User:Liath/Moderator. Thanks for your cooperation --Δ Liath (talk) 05:29, 16 March 2014 (MST)
- After a lot of searching and some deleting Special:UnusedFiles page now works with no errors. We currently have over 1500 unused files, so as time permits will start from the oldest and begin removing them to clear server space. --Δ Liath (talk) 08:26, 16 March 2014 (MST)
01-23-14: In light of recent events regarding the state of certain character articles, I would like to make clear that users should first attempt to civilly resolve any editing disputes through talk pages.
Otherwise, I hope that everyone is having a good, heroic year so far! --Δ Epelesker (talk) 14:47, 23 January 2014 (MST)
2013
10-24-13: Wanting to start this supposedly quick entry by thanking you very much for your contributions to the discussion regarding Page of the Month! We honestly haven't touched much of the subject recently, due to business of varying natures, but we'll continue to look at it sometime in the future. For now, though, nothing's going to change about the way it works (other than the use of the talk page for voting).
I've posted my recent pet project: an updated guidelines page. I'm hoping that it's somewhat easy to follow along with the rewording and condensing of certain rules of thumb that should really be common sense to most of us. Of course, it's ever a work in progress-- if anyone has any questions or concerns about it, either drop me a line or have one of the other mods pass it along to me. (Keep in mind, though, I'm not as around as I used to be thanks to the lovely thing called a "job", but I'm going to make an effort to contribute as much as I can.)
That's all for now. Happy Halloween! --Δ Epelesker (talk) 20:17, 24 October 2013 (MST)
10-08-13: In recent days, we mods have been in a discussion regarding the Page of the Month program. We know that PotM is something that the PDb community like to participate in, but we are looking into the possibility of changing how it is run for 2014 and beyond-- based on some of the trends that we have been seeing in the last few rounds of voting.
Between the four of us, our opinions of the situation have made it difficult to come to a unified conclusion, so this is where (hopefully) you Users can come in. What do you think of the current state of PotM? If you have any comments or suggestions about this matter, be sure to leave a message on the Discussion page! And play nice about it, too! --Δ Epelesker (talk) 12:19, 8 October 2013 (MST)
09-27-13: Greetings! It seems that the edit bug related to external links has slowed down (or disappeared). Of course, we mods invite anyone who is having issues with PDb to let us know so we can get things back to working order as soon as possible! We must always be vigilant!
Since finishing the main tutorial page (though I'm still finding bits and pieces to add to it), I've personally been making an attempt to update our site guidelines: taking out info that's less relevant now and emphasizing important points. The drafing process has been slow going due to various reasons, but when all is done it's my intent that these new "rules" will be easy to understand and follow for everyone. (EDIT: The work is being done off-site and privately for now, but it will be looked over by the rest of the mods when I'm done.)
Have a good weekend, heroes (and villains)! -- Δ Epelesker (talk) 11:43, 27 September 2013 (MST)
09-25-13: We're looking into the cause of page edits basically failing to work. It's not affecting everyone nor does there seem to really be a rhyme or reason why it's not working. But we'll figure out why. -- Destructor (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2013 (MST)
09-24-13: The creation of this page, along with a Donate button on the lower left. I know said donate button might make some people unhappy, but I've had people ask me how they can donate to the PDB's upkeep costs and such, so I figured it was time to look into it.
That said - the PDB will remain completely and totally free for EVERYONE to use no matter if you pay for it or not. There will be absolutely NO benefits to ANYONE who decides to pay for the site (short of maybe a thank you page somewhere if it comes to it), and people who do not donate will NOT be frowned upon in ANY way. It does not matter to me if I see anybody donate or not - this site is a labor of love and this is why I took the steps needed (with help of my friend who knows web hosting more than I do and the wonderful mods who help keep this place running great) to get it back up as soon as I possibly could.
So again - donate if you wish. It does not matter to me if you do. If you do, I thank you. If you do not, I thank you. Either way, just keep on posting your characters. That's what I want to see most. -- Destructor (talk) 09:44, 24 September 2013 (MST)
