Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki - User contributions [en]

Book:Terry Pratchett's Memorial Folio

2020-06-30T11:08:08Z

Feldegast: the link to the little black book on Discworld.com now goes to a dead page

{{Book Data
|title=The Little Black Book
|cover=[[File:Black Book.png|thumb|240px|Speak His Name]]
|coauthors=[[Rob Wilkins]], [[Rhianna Pratchett]]
|illustrator=
|isbn=
|characters=
|date=April 2016
|publisher=Clays Ltd
|pages=96
|rrp=£50.00 (when briefly sold on [[Discworld.com]])
|series=Reference
|annotations=
|notes=
}}
[[Terry Pratchett]] died on the 12th of March 2015; his memorial was held on the 14th of April 2016 at the Barbican Theatre in London. The event was attended by friends, family and fans, notable speakers included Rhianna Pratchett, [[Rob Wilkins]], [[Neil Gaiman]] and Tony Robinson. This book was given to attendees as part of gift bag along with several other items as a memento of their attendance. A small amount, now formally named as 'The Little Black Book,' were then sold on [[Discworld.com]] with the proceeds going to the RICE Centre charity in Bath.

==Contents==
Introduction by [[Rob Wilkins]]

[[Short Story:The Hades Business|The Hades Business]]

[[Book:A Slip of the Keyboard|Thought Progress]]

[[Book:A Slip of the Keyboard|Terry Pratchett]] by [[Neil Gaiman]]

[[Book:A Slip of the Keyboard|A Word About Hats]]

Terry Pratchett by [[Rhianna Pratchett]]

[[Book:The Shepherd's Crown|A Voice in the Darkness]]

[[Contributions to other works|A Little Advice for Life]]

==Other Items==
The other items that were included with this work were a tote bag illustrated with Terry's silhouette, a bottle of [[Ankh (river)|Ankh water]], a packet of tissues, five postcards in a silver envelope, [[Dried Frog Pills]] (a box of mints) and a [[Lilac|badge of a sprig of lilac]].
{|
|-
| valign="top" | [[File:Tote Bag.png|110px|thumb|Tote Bag]]
| valign="top" | [[File:Water Bottle.jpg|thumb|70px|Ankh Water]]
| valign="top" | [[File:Tissues.jpg|thumb|110px|Tissues]]
| valign="top" | [[File:Postcards.jpg|thumb|120px|Postcards]]
| valign="top" | [[File:DFP.png|thumb|120px|Dried Frog Pills]]
| valign="top" | [[File:Lilac Badge.png|thumb|100px|Lilac Badge]]
|}

==External Links==
[http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/27/terry-pratchett-remembered-by-rhianna-pratchett-daughter-obituary-2015 Rhianna's Tribute]

[http://discworld.com/products/memorial-items/ Memorial Items]

[http://www.rice.org.uk/ RICE Centre]

[http://discworld.com/products/collectables/little-black-book/ The Little Black Book on Discworld.com link no longer works]

[[Category:Reference|Terry Pratchett's Memorial Folio]]
[[Category:Terry Pratchett|Terry Pratchett's Memorial Folio]]
[[Category:Books by Terry Pratchett|Terry Pratchett's Memorial Folio]]

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2020-06-22T02:52:14Z

Feldegast: /* Miner sign up issue */

'''This is a location to discuss non-content matters (what do we do with content disputes, vandalism, etc, what do we want to do with this wiki, and so on).'''

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==Miner sign up issue==
when signing up i noticed a mishandled ampersand it displayed as & on screen on the screen that you enter your sign up details on

==Annoying Scanners & Attackers==
Wiki went down for a bit this morning due to a someone scanning or mirroring the site. CPU spiked to 100% and disk activity went from nil to 3GB/sec within 1 minute. Needless to say, the site crashed... --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 15:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
:Maybe [https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Mightily_Oaks "Discworld Wiki"] decided to take it all at once? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:49, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

==When We Forget==
The whole wiki missed the anniversary of Mr Pratchett's death on Saturday. My excuse is that I'm old and daft; I suppose each has his own. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

==Spam filter again==
Now I'm prevented from editing the Main page because of the supposed content "101,502,138,396" (without the commas), which I don't see in the page nor does the the browser's "find" function. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

[[Category:Wiki Data|Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum]]

==Question==
Depending on usage, I spend ~$40 USD per month hosting this site. That cost has fluctuated as usage has gone up or down over the years. For example, Terry's passage forced a major resource increase for about a week tripling costs that month. Right now the site is sitting on an AWS T1/medium server which hosts both the database and website.

Originally, I had this site setup pretty slick. It sat on a single webserver using a separate Amazon RDS database server and depending on the volume of requests the site spun more instances up as necessary to scale with traffic. I stopped that because using a database on another server doubled the cost and the wife and I were going though a lean stretch.

I'd like to get back to that setup. It's more robust and I don't have to worry about much maintenance. But we're back in that lean time. So my question to the rest of you is would you object to a small paypal donate button being placed on the site to help defray the costs? Donate or not as you see fit. Thoughts? --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 01:31, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:I'm up for it, since you say advertising revenue can't be had. I've had near ten years of free entertainment; I don't know how generous the reading public might be. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:36, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:Sounds good, but we'd need to make sure any donate button was clearly enough displayed that any reader could see it, but not so obnoxiously placed as to be annoying. --[[User:AnnieBudgie|AnnieBudgie]] ([[User talk:AnnieBudgie|talk]]) 09:57, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Go ahead! I'll check the piggybank. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 11:43, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:No complaints here. Thanks for hosting the site. If I ever do get my Pratchett course running -- not gonna happen anytime soon, I'm in charge of our journalism ''and'' physics programs now -- I'll make a donation part of my course budget.[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 11:47, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Got it up! Checkout the sidebar. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 23:18, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
:So, how's fundraising going after a couple of months? Has the reading public contributed the first dime? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

==Featured Article==
It seems to be ages since a Featured Article was nominated as an exemplar of everything that's right about this site. Can I suggest [[Book:Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]] as a candidate? for one thing, it seems to be a rare "completed" book page with no red links leading to empty pages!
:...but that's not the stated objective of the Featured Article. It's a request for improvement, not a commendation. The last thing good articles need is attention from bloat fans and graffiti artists. 
:Since no one ever pays any attention to it anyway, should we change the heading to suggest an exemplar instead? That seems useful and in line with Wikipedia's version, but we'd want to change it a lot more often. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

==BAN HAMMER==
I don't know who you are Mr. "5.9.62.136" but you won't even see this since you've been banned from the server.

I finally got the time to dig around and look into the systems overall stability. Found out >90% of the traffic is from the same IP in Berlin. One ban hammer later, and things are running smoothly now. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:21, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
:Yay! Best part of being a god is getting to smite the evildoer. (Hmmm, [[User:Death|Death's]] in Berlin, could he...?} --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
::Doubtful, it resolves to static.136.62.9.5.clients.your-server.de . Do you know the address of his site? I can crosscheck it. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 15:19, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
:Just wondering if He and Binky could pay the annoyance a salutary visit; sorry...The Diskwiki's address is at the de: link on the Main Page, of course. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
::So I tried to downsize the webserver and we started crashing again. Seriously, this thing gets scanned constantly. I don't mind googlebot or bingbot but AhrefsBot and SemrushBot have got to go. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 05:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
:I suppose there's no wiki attachment to discourage them? I thought anyone could come up with a new IP address pretty quickly. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:07, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
::Updated the [http://wiki.lspace.org/robots.txt robots.txt] file to ban them. But their documentation states it may take up to 2 weeks before they will respect it. In the meantime, I tweaked the webserver config. When one of them hits the server, they get a 403 Forbidden message. CPU & Bandwidth usage dropped like a rock. For the last 6 hours, this server has been running just fine on a micro sized system at 1/4 the cost of the medium sized one it had to be on before. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:18, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

::[[File:2016-12-21 14 20 20-Apache ModStatus PerfStats Sensor Details PRTG Network Monitor (PRTG).png]]

:::And we've been stable for a week now! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 16:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

==Encryption==
FYI: I've installed an SSL certificate from the EFF.org provider (LetsEncypt). You can now access this site securely via [https://wiki.lspace.org https://wiki.lspace.org]. You may get a certificate error because not all providers recognize LetsEncrypt by default --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
:Works for me, once I remember my password. (Russian hackers are everywhere!) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:00, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
::in a couple weeks, once i'm sure this is properly setup and stable, i'll force everyone over to the secure side. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 21:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

==Harder Spam Filter Problem==
We've patched "'''prĭnter'''" before, but you can't do it in a link. This is cruel to the [[Guild of Engravers and Prĭnters]] and pages like {{TT}}, but I don't see a solution. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:40, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
:That's a shame; I'll try this as a workaround for the problem: [[Engravers' Guild|Guild of Engravers and Prínters]] --[[User:Jagra|Jagra]] ([[User talk:Jagra|talk]]) 18:19, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I missed that one. Handy that it had an alternative already. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 19:43, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

==Markup for spacing?==
We don't seem to have Wikipedia's "Pad" or "Spaces" templates. Does anyone have a neater way of leaving a space than a string of &Nbsp;? 
Strangely, nowiki doesn't work on the real form of that. See<nowiki> </nowiki>source. Added [[Template:Pad]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

==Thumbnail errors==
Just in the past month, we have this error message for new images (including ''File:Sliderule.jpg'' although it's linked and working): 
'''Error creating thumbnail: /bin/bash: /usr/bin/convert: No such file or directory Error code: 127''' 
What's that for? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC) 
This continues to be a problem; [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] just ran into it. Image files since 8 Jun can't be inserted as we've been used to doing. See [[Special:ListFiles]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:10, 27 July 2017 (UTC) {{Pad|2em}}Syntax copied directly from Mediawiki Help:Images doesn't work on the newer uploads; it produces the error message above. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

--I'll get to it. Wife's 9 months pregnant so I've got a ton of distractions at the moment. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 01:48, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
----This should be fixed. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:59, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
:It was, but it's back, just in the last couple of weeks. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
:Now upload works, but '''Delete''' doesn't. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
::Deletion of what? images? files? pages? Can you walk me through the steps to recreate the issue? --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:10, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:'''Delete''' image. go to the file list and try to delete the most recent (marked "test"). '''Error deleting file: Could not create directory "mwstore://local-backend/local-deleted/p/i/g".''' --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:23, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:<S>And...uploads work now but still can't create a thumbnail</S> (see [[User talk:Jagra]]). --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:Thumbnails - check. Delete - check. Book and Character templates still a mess. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

==Vandalism==
[[Misuser:MASS VANDALISM]] wasn't kidding. I wonder if '''Move''' should require higher permission. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:07, 11 July 2017 (UTC) 
''Persistent'' bugger, too. I hope something can be done (preferably causing a lingering, painful death). --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:23, 13 July 2017 (UTC) 
...and he's back again. I got him at the first page this time but it's getting tiresome. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:23, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Yea I'm gonna have to do an update. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 05:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Well, that didn't work. [[User:Slashkamr]] is highly suspect but hasn't done anything yet. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

==Something seems to be broken...==

....if you try to register with an e-mail address:

<nowiki>[59181f6c] /mediawiki/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&action=submitlogin&type=signup&returnto=Discworld+%26+Terry+Pratchett+Wiki:About Exception from line 304 of /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/UserMailer.php: PEAR mail package is not installed

Backtrace:

#0 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/User.php(3885): UserMailer::send(array, MailAddress, string, string, NULL)
#1 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/User.php(3862): User->sendMail(string, string)
#2 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specials/SpecialUserlogin.php(314): User->sendConfirmationMail()
#3 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specials/SpecialUserlogin.php(219): LoginForm->addNewAccount()
#4 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(379): LoginForm->execute(NULL)
#5 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(503): SpecialPage->run(NULL)
#6 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(285): SpecialPageFactory::executePath(Title, RequestContext)
#7 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(588): MediaWiki->performRequest()
#8 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(447): MediaWiki->main()
#9 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/index.php(46): MediaWiki->run()
#10 {main}</nowiki>

Might be putting a few folks off joining! [[User:Indulgence|Indulgence]] ([[User talk:Indulgence|talk]]) 23:20, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
:Yep. I don't get quite the same error message, but "PEAR mail package is not installed" seems to be a problem. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:50, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

::An OS update broke part of the wiki. That's okay it made me site down and upgrade the wiki anyway. Sadly, the upgrade broke the lspace skin. I'll be working over the next few days to fix that. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:42, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

==Outage==
So the wiki was down all day today, I knew about it this morning but wasn't able to work on this until I got home tonight. I had the wiki's database server in the wrong pricing tier and it blew through the budget for the billing cycle so things shut down. I've got things straightened out now though so everything is in the proper place at the proper price. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:02, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

== Morag's fate ==
She's a buzzard owned by Nac Mac Feegle, especially by Hamish, although in "Monstrous Regiment" she's owned by Corporal [[Buggy Swires]]. However, in she's still with Nac Mac Feegle in "The Shepherd's Crown". What's her fate then? That's pretty important to me.
--[[User:Ves|Ves]] ([[User talk:Ves|talk]]) 15:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
:The obvious answer is: nobody knows. The next point is that this is not the place for content discussion, so I'm copying it to [[Talk:Book:The Shepherd's Crown]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

==Spam filter...again==
Somebody noticed that the spam filter doesn't work on the page titles. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

==Citations==
Has anyone looked at stuff like [[wikipedia:Template:Cite book]] and [[wikipedia:Template:Cite web]] and thought about converting them over to here? I looked at them and they are extremely bloated and over-complicated with code-spam on Wikiped, and in fact I saw that someone else already tried to make [[:Template:Cite web]] years ago in an aborted attempt, it doesn't work and no one is using it, so I tried to mark it for deletion ( but there is no proper category or template for that either :) )

I looked in the history of Wikipedia's versions to find the old-school simple template versions of them without all the pages of code-spam but the 2008 version can't be used here because it triggers the spam filter ("Spam protection filter - The text you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site. The following text is what triggered our spam filter: display: n0ne") ( I HAD TO EDIT THIS OUT OF THIS PAGE MESSAGE EVEN :) )

I then copied their 2006 version of <nowiki>{{Cite book}}</nowiki> but this doesn't seem to work on [[Book:Discworld's Assassins' Guild Diary 2000]] and I see the <pre><ref></ref></pre> tags visible on the page because I guess those aren't added to the mediawiki version Lspace has or something? :(

I think if these were added however possible it'd add a lot to pages, to be able to easily see where stuff is sourced from

[[wikipedia:Template:Webarchive]] is also really good because most websites aren't around a few years later ([[wikipedia:Link rot|Link rot]]) --[[User:Rise Up Against the Ribbon|Rise Up Against the Ribbon]] ([[User talk:Rise Up Against the Ribbon|talk]]) 12:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

==Time for an upgrade?==
Is it time to upgrade to the latest version of the wiki software? Also, how about requiring all new accounts, and I really mean new ones, to have a valid email address specified.--{{User talk:Myrtonos/sig}}
:Please, no more "upgrades"! We haven't recovered from 2017. As for requiring email addresses, we want to encourage new contributors, not threaten them with spam. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
::Note that nearly all internet forums do require email addresses.--{{User:Myrtonos/Sig}} 02:41, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
:::An upgrade will be coming. To many security holes not to do so... Just not sure when. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:08, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

==Emporium images==
The [[Discworld Emporium]] will allow use of their published material with the acknowledgement "© Discworld Emporium". Thanks to [[User:Discworld Emporium|Discworld Emporium]] --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:25, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2020-06-22T02:51:22Z

Feldegast: small sign up text issue

'''This is a location to discuss non-content matters (what do we do with content disputes, vandalism, etc, what do we want to do with this wiki, and so on).'''

<div class="quotebox">This is the page for current discussions.

Archives
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 1]]
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 2]]
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</div>

==Miner sign up issue==
when signing up i noticed a mishandled ampersand it displayed as & on screen on the screen that you enter your sign up details on

--[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User

==Annoying Scanners & Attackers==
Wiki went down for a bit this morning due to a someone scanning or mirroring the site. CPU spiked to 100% and disk activity went from nil to 3GB/sec within 1 minute. Needless to say, the site crashed... --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 15:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
:Maybe [https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Mightily_Oaks "Discworld Wiki"] decided to take it all at once? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:49, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

==When We Forget==
The whole wiki missed the anniversary of Mr Pratchett's death on Saturday. My excuse is that I'm old and daft; I suppose each has his own. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

==Spam filter again==
Now I'm prevented from editing the Main page because of the supposed content "101,502,138,396" (without the commas), which I don't see in the page nor does the the browser's "find" function. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

[[Category:Wiki Data|Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum]]

==Question==
Depending on usage, I spend ~$40 USD per month hosting this site. That cost has fluctuated as usage has gone up or down over the years. For example, Terry's passage forced a major resource increase for about a week tripling costs that month. Right now the site is sitting on an AWS T1/medium server which hosts both the database and website.

Originally, I had this site setup pretty slick. It sat on a single webserver using a separate Amazon RDS database server and depending on the volume of requests the site spun more instances up as necessary to scale with traffic. I stopped that because using a database on another server doubled the cost and the wife and I were going though a lean stretch.

I'd like to get back to that setup. It's more robust and I don't have to worry about much maintenance. But we're back in that lean time. So my question to the rest of you is would you object to a small paypal donate button being placed on the site to help defray the costs? Donate or not as you see fit. Thoughts? --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 01:31, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:I'm up for it, since you say advertising revenue can't be had. I've had near ten years of free entertainment; I don't know how generous the reading public might be. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:36, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:Sounds good, but we'd need to make sure any donate button was clearly enough displayed that any reader could see it, but not so obnoxiously placed as to be annoying. --[[User:AnnieBudgie|AnnieBudgie]] ([[User talk:AnnieBudgie|talk]]) 09:57, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Go ahead! I'll check the piggybank. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 11:43, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
:No complaints here. Thanks for hosting the site. If I ever do get my Pratchett course running -- not gonna happen anytime soon, I'm in charge of our journalism ''and'' physics programs now -- I'll make a donation part of my course budget.[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 11:47, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Got it up! Checkout the sidebar. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 23:18, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
:So, how's fundraising going after a couple of months? Has the reading public contributed the first dime? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

==Featured Article==
It seems to be ages since a Featured Article was nominated as an exemplar of everything that's right about this site. Can I suggest [[Book:Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]] as a candidate? for one thing, it seems to be a rare "completed" book page with no red links leading to empty pages!
:...but that's not the stated objective of the Featured Article. It's a request for improvement, not a commendation. The last thing good articles need is attention from bloat fans and graffiti artists. 
:Since no one ever pays any attention to it anyway, should we change the heading to suggest an exemplar instead? That seems useful and in line with Wikipedia's version, but we'd want to change it a lot more often. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

==BAN HAMMER==
I don't know who you are Mr. "5.9.62.136" but you won't even see this since you've been banned from the server.

I finally got the time to dig around and look into the systems overall stability. Found out >90% of the traffic is from the same IP in Berlin. One ban hammer later, and things are running smoothly now. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:21, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
:Yay! Best part of being a god is getting to smite the evildoer. (Hmmm, [[User:Death|Death's]] in Berlin, could he...?} --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
::Doubtful, it resolves to static.136.62.9.5.clients.your-server.de . Do you know the address of his site? I can crosscheck it. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 15:19, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
:Just wondering if He and Binky could pay the annoyance a salutary visit; sorry...The Diskwiki's address is at the de: link on the Main Page, of course. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
::So I tried to downsize the webserver and we started crashing again. Seriously, this thing gets scanned constantly. I don't mind googlebot or bingbot but AhrefsBot and SemrushBot have got to go. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 05:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
:I suppose there's no wiki attachment to discourage them? I thought anyone could come up with a new IP address pretty quickly. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:07, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
::Updated the [http://wiki.lspace.org/robots.txt robots.txt] file to ban them. But their documentation states it may take up to 2 weeks before they will respect it. In the meantime, I tweaked the webserver config. When one of them hits the server, they get a 403 Forbidden message. CPU & Bandwidth usage dropped like a rock. For the last 6 hours, this server has been running just fine on a micro sized system at 1/4 the cost of the medium sized one it had to be on before. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:18, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

::[[File:2016-12-21 14 20 20-Apache ModStatus PerfStats Sensor Details PRTG Network Monitor (PRTG).png]]

:::And we've been stable for a week now! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 16:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

==Encryption==
FYI: I've installed an SSL certificate from the EFF.org provider (LetsEncypt). You can now access this site securely via [https://wiki.lspace.org https://wiki.lspace.org]. You may get a certificate error because not all providers recognize LetsEncrypt by default --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
:Works for me, once I remember my password. (Russian hackers are everywhere!) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:00, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
::in a couple weeks, once i'm sure this is properly setup and stable, i'll force everyone over to the secure side. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 21:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

==Harder Spam Filter Problem==
We've patched "'''prĭnter'''" before, but you can't do it in a link. This is cruel to the [[Guild of Engravers and Prĭnters]] and pages like {{TT}}, but I don't see a solution. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:40, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
:That's a shame; I'll try this as a workaround for the problem: [[Engravers' Guild|Guild of Engravers and Prínters]] --[[User:Jagra|Jagra]] ([[User talk:Jagra|talk]]) 18:19, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I missed that one. Handy that it had an alternative already. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 19:43, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

==Markup for spacing?==
We don't seem to have Wikipedia's "Pad" or "Spaces" templates. Does anyone have a neater way of leaving a space than a string of &Nbsp;? 
Strangely, nowiki doesn't work on the real form of that. See<nowiki> </nowiki>source. Added [[Template:Pad]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

==Thumbnail errors==
Just in the past month, we have this error message for new images (including ''File:Sliderule.jpg'' although it's linked and working): 
'''Error creating thumbnail: /bin/bash: /usr/bin/convert: No such file or directory Error code: 127''' 
What's that for? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC) 
This continues to be a problem; [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] just ran into it. Image files since 8 Jun can't be inserted as we've been used to doing. See [[Special:ListFiles]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:10, 27 July 2017 (UTC) {{Pad|2em}}Syntax copied directly from Mediawiki Help:Images doesn't work on the newer uploads; it produces the error message above. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

--I'll get to it. Wife's 9 months pregnant so I've got a ton of distractions at the moment. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 01:48, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
----This should be fixed. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 20:59, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
:It was, but it's back, just in the last couple of weeks. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
:Now upload works, but '''Delete''' doesn't. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
::Deletion of what? images? files? pages? Can you walk me through the steps to recreate the issue? --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:10, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:'''Delete''' image. go to the file list and try to delete the most recent (marked "test"). '''Error deleting file: Could not create directory "mwstore://local-backend/local-deleted/p/i/g".''' --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:23, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:<S>And...uploads work now but still can't create a thumbnail</S> (see [[User talk:Jagra]]). --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
:Thumbnails - check. Delete - check. Book and Character templates still a mess. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

==Vandalism==
[[Misuser:MASS VANDALISM]] wasn't kidding. I wonder if '''Move''' should require higher permission. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:07, 11 July 2017 (UTC) 
''Persistent'' bugger, too. I hope something can be done (preferably causing a lingering, painful death). --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:23, 13 July 2017 (UTC) 
...and he's back again. I got him at the first page this time but it's getting tiresome. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:23, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Yea I'm gonna have to do an update. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 05:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Well, that didn't work. [[User:Slashkamr]] is highly suspect but hasn't done anything yet. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

==Something seems to be broken...==

....if you try to register with an e-mail address:

<nowiki>[59181f6c] /mediawiki/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&action=submitlogin&type=signup&returnto=Discworld+%26+Terry+Pratchett+Wiki:About Exception from line 304 of /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/UserMailer.php: PEAR mail package is not installed

Backtrace:

#0 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/User.php(3885): UserMailer::send(array, MailAddress, string, string, NULL)
#1 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/User.php(3862): User->sendMail(string, string)
#2 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specials/SpecialUserlogin.php(314): User->sendConfirmationMail()
#3 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specials/SpecialUserlogin.php(219): LoginForm->addNewAccount()
#4 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(379): LoginForm->execute(NULL)
#5 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(503): SpecialPage->run(NULL)
#6 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(285): SpecialPageFactory::executePath(Title, RequestContext)
#7 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(588): MediaWiki->performRequest()
#8 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/includes/Wiki.php(447): MediaWiki->main()
#9 /var/www/html/wiki.osiris-web.com/public_html/mediawiki/index.php(46): MediaWiki->run()
#10 {main}</nowiki>

Might be putting a few folks off joining! [[User:Indulgence|Indulgence]] ([[User talk:Indulgence|talk]]) 23:20, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
:Yep. I don't get quite the same error message, but "PEAR mail package is not installed" seems to be a problem. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:50, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

::An OS update broke part of the wiki. That's okay it made me site down and upgrade the wiki anyway. Sadly, the upgrade broke the lspace skin. I'll be working over the next few days to fix that. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:42, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

==Outage==
So the wiki was down all day today, I knew about it this morning but wasn't able to work on this until I got home tonight. I had the wiki's database server in the wrong pricing tier and it blew through the budget for the billing cycle so things shut down. I've got things straightened out now though so everything is in the proper place at the proper price. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:02, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

== Morag's fate ==
She's a buzzard owned by Nac Mac Feegle, especially by Hamish, although in "Monstrous Regiment" she's owned by Corporal [[Buggy Swires]]. However, in she's still with Nac Mac Feegle in "The Shepherd's Crown". What's her fate then? That's pretty important to me.
--[[User:Ves|Ves]] ([[User talk:Ves|talk]]) 15:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
:The obvious answer is: nobody knows. The next point is that this is not the place for content discussion, so I'm copying it to [[Talk:Book:The Shepherd's Crown]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

==Spam filter...again==
Somebody noticed that the spam filter doesn't work on the page titles. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

==Citations==
Has anyone looked at stuff like [[wikipedia:Template:Cite book]] and [[wikipedia:Template:Cite web]] and thought about converting them over to here? I looked at them and they are extremely bloated and over-complicated with code-spam on Wikiped, and in fact I saw that someone else already tried to make [[:Template:Cite web]] years ago in an aborted attempt, it doesn't work and no one is using it, so I tried to mark it for deletion ( but there is no proper category or template for that either :) )

I looked in the history of Wikipedia's versions to find the old-school simple template versions of them without all the pages of code-spam but the 2008 version can't be used here because it triggers the spam filter ("Spam protection filter - The text you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site. The following text is what triggered our spam filter: display: n0ne") ( I HAD TO EDIT THIS OUT OF THIS PAGE MESSAGE EVEN :) )

I then copied their 2006 version of <nowiki>{{Cite book}}</nowiki> but this doesn't seem to work on [[Book:Discworld's Assassins' Guild Diary 2000]] and I see the <pre><ref></ref></pre> tags visible on the page because I guess those aren't added to the mediawiki version Lspace has or something? :(

I think if these were added however possible it'd add a lot to pages, to be able to easily see where stuff is sourced from

[[wikipedia:Template:Webarchive]] is also really good because most websites aren't around a few years later ([[wikipedia:Link rot|Link rot]]) --[[User:Rise Up Against the Ribbon|Rise Up Against the Ribbon]] ([[User talk:Rise Up Against the Ribbon|talk]]) 12:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

==Time for an upgrade?==
Is it time to upgrade to the latest version of the wiki software? Also, how about requiring all new accounts, and I really mean new ones, to have a valid email address specified.--{{User talk:Myrtonos/sig}}
:Please, no more "upgrades"! We haven't recovered from 2017. As for requiring email addresses, we want to encourage new contributors, not threaten them with spam. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
::Note that nearly all internet forums do require email addresses.--{{User:Myrtonos/Sig}} 02:41, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
:::An upgrade will be coming. To many security holes not to do so... Just not sure when. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:08, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

==Emporium images==
The [[Discworld Emporium]] will allow use of their published material with the acknowledgement "© Discworld Emporium". Thanks to [[User:Discworld Emporium|Discworld Emporium]] --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:25, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Piecemaker

2020-06-21T16:36:14Z

Feldegast: the arrows wouldn't be wired together, string or twine would be more likely

There is a tradition, right across the Multiverse, of macho law-enforcers toting ridiculously heavy sidearms, which surely represent overkill for normal policing duties. Dirty Harry had his .44 Magnum; [[Detritus]] carries a siege weapon with a two thousand pound draw.

As Detritus considers this a waste of energy if all the energy devoted to drawing back and cocking the string is only expended on a single arrow (which from a human point of view is a six-foot lance), he has adapted it still further, so that it shoots a bundle of twenty or so arrows bound together around a central core. Due to the violent force acting on them, the arrows tend to disintegrate into a cloud of supersonic (a significant fraction of local lightspeed) shrapnel which bursts into flame from air friction. The resulting fireball scythes everything in its path totally clean. Hence the name. It not only opens front doors, but frequently creates a back door as well.

Especially as Detritus' first reaction on picking the Piecemaker up from the city armoury was to ask "Which bit am der safety catch?", [[Samuel Vimes]] has effectively forbidden him from firing it anywhere within [[Ankh-Morpork|the City]]. But anyone he points it at, in the normal course of policing, doesn't need to know that. Especially with Detritus' haziness about the nature of safety catches and the tortured noise as of metal under great stress that the loaded weapon emits... well, accidents can happen.

Detritus had his chance to see what it could do when fired in anger during the showdown with the [[Überwald]]ean [[Werewolves]] in {{T5E}}. The first shot not only shatters the doors into pieces, but it takes a substantial part of the castle frontage along with them. The ''second'' shot, fired in more haste, creates even more structural damage and leaves [[Serafine von Überwald]] with not only the werewolves' plot in ruins, but their castle requiring extensive rebuilding.

===Piecemaker Mark IX===

The '''Burleigh & Stronginthearm Piecemaker Mark IX''' appears in {{SN}}, as used by [[Willikins]]. It appears to be a small, foldable crossbow that makes no noise when shot, and can be easily concealed within a pocket. Only three of these were ever produced, due to being deemed so dangerous, two of which are kept under wizard-assisted lock and key in the [[Burleigh & Stronginthearm]] vaults. The third one was kept in a secure vault in the cellar of the [[Ramkin Residence|Ramkin residence]] on [[Scoone Avenue]], and it is this one that Willikins seemed to have obtained.

The penalty for being caught carrying one of these in [[Ankh-Morpork]] is to be hanged, unless said person is caught by a member of the [[Assassins' Guild]], in which case (the Guild have implied) hanging would seem like a walk in the park. The reason Wilikins has escaped this fate? Well, for one thing, even his already deemed unkillable master, Samuel Vimes, is afraid of him.

==Annotations==

The [[Roundworld]] reference is to the Colt [[wikipedia:Colt_Single_Action_Army_handgun|'''Peacemaker''']] .45 revolver, a staple weapon of law enforcers and criminals alike in the American Wild West and - similarly to Detritus' weapon - made and kept the peace by making it impossible for the other side to continue being aggressive, which is difficult to do when you're dead.

'''Other policemen in fiction with unfeasibly large weapons:'''
* "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in ''Dirty Harry'' wields the Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver, a weapon somewhat overpowered for police work and better suited for hunting large animals, like five hundred pound grizzly bears.

* Legendary US Marshal Wyatt Earp supposedly (in fictional accounts) carried a "Buntline Special," a Colt .45 Peacemaker with a 12- or 16-inch barrel.

* Macho cop Lieutenant "Sledge" Hammer, toting his trusty "amigo" in a TV series that was effectively ''Dirty Harry'' played for laughs.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledge_Hammer] Hammer, when faced with a random rooftop sniper, once decided the Amigo was not nearly enough, and got an anti-tank missile from the boot of his car, succeeding in demolishing the entire seven-storey building. Watch it here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSr_3E7VWmo|I_Think_I_Got_Him]

* In the TV series ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'', bounty-hunter Josh Randall (Steve McQueen) carries the "Mare's Leg," a Winchester rifle cut down into an oversized pistol.

* In Tom Sharpe's stories about the amoral, corrupt, criminally inefficient and cretinously led South African police force of apartheid days ("'''Indecent Exposure'''" and "'''Riotous Assembly'''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sharpe][http://jim-on-the-web.com/en/timeoff/books/sharpe-riotousassembly.html]"), the worst constable in Sed Effrrika, Constable Els, who is a sort of Afrikaaner Nobby Nobbs stripped of all redeeming virtue, totes a mighty four-barreled hunting rifle used originally to down a charging rhino, with truly spectacular effect.

* In Bernard Cornwell's ''Sharpe'' tales, about a proto-commando in the Napoleonic Wars, the huge and hulking Sergeant Harper totes a fearsome seven-barreled musket, originally designed for close-quarter naval use with the express intention of bringing down a battleship's mainmast and rigging. This failed as a naval weapon because sailors tend to be smaller and wirier men whose talents lie elsewhere. Besides, to fire a weapon like this from the deck of a rolling and pitching ship could be... something of an own goal. But the huge Harper, who has a suspiciously Detritus-to-Vimes relationship with Captain Sharpe, takes to it like a troll to a siege weapon. (Memo: Cornwell may be a Discworld fan?)

* [http://destroyermen.wikia.com/wiki/Dennis_Silva Dennis Sylva] of Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series carries a rifle made from a 25mm (1 inch) anti-aircraft gun; he has affectionately dubbed this the "Doom Whopper."

[[Category:Devices]]
[[de:Friedensstifter]]