Was it just me?

Post by **chameleon** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 7:44 pm

Phill_dvsn wrote: Si wrote: Phill_dvsn wrote: Secret leeds is a fantastic wealth of information.The only trouble with it is it's all been allowed to go like a run away train. There's no admin or moderators. All the information is lost in rambling long threads. If the site was kept in check with some nip an tuck the amount of info would be excellent. Most of it being yours, Phill!!! Which bits mine Si? The info or rambling lol Usually warmongering I think Phil Didn't mean that of courseI said a while ago that the site had changed remarkably from its beginings, not least as people grew to know each other a little better, which allowed personalities to come forth and be displayed.Nothing wrong with that but sometimes I think threads can gigress a little too far fom the topic - and I think we've all been guilty of that at one time or anotherNon the less if that is interspersed with some quality material, it can add something to the procedings but, we do seem to be short of 'good stuff; lateley - surely we've not exhausted Leeds in its entirity already?As far taking a copy, it's got quite big you know, mamoth task unless you find a grab application - they're probaly out there, but I've not yet found one that does all it says, but someone might know otherwise......

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 7:44 pm

Sounds a good bit of initiative though Simom. I agree you have an idea!

Brandy · Post by **Brandy** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 9:25 pm

Phill_dvsn wrote: Sounds a good bit of initiative though Simom. I agree you have an idea! have you had owt in the post yet phill?

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 9:55 pm

Not yet mate. It's Christmas post don't forget. Royal mail are [edited for content] cr ap (edit that for content then) at the best of times. I should know. I had the misfortune to work for that shower of shi##sters... for 10 years lol

Brandy · Post by **Brandy** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 10:05 pm

Phill_dvsn wrote: Not yet mate. It's Christmas post don't forget. Royal mail are [edited for content] cr ap (edit that for content then) at the best of times. I should know. I had the misfortune to work for that shower of shi##sters... for 10 years lol yeah we had some cards from my aunt arrived yesterday from cleveleys lancashire and they were posted on the ruddy 5th grrrrHey phill what do you think about a skull related meet up before xmas??we should try and get a few of us together and have a few bevvies for st nick/skulls lol

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 10:13 pm

Sounds good Brandy.I've something planned in York I'd like to get done before xmas too lol

drapesy · Post by **drapesy** » Tue 16 Dec, 2008 10:53 pm

Brandy wrote: Phill_dvsn wrote: Not yet mate. It's Christmas post don't forget. Royal mail are [edited for content] cr ap (edit that for content then) at the best of times. I should know. I had the misfortune to work for that shower of shi##sters... for 10 years lol yeah we had some cards from my aunt arrived yesterday from cleveleys lancashire and they were posted on the ruddy 5th grrrrHey phill what do you think about a skull related meet up before xmas??we should try and get a few of us together and have a few bevvies for st nick/skulls lol I'd be up for that, all being well. Anyone else?

Si · Post by Si » Wed 17 Dec, 2008 8:30 am

I'd be up for it, Brandy. Decorations/shopping/wrapping dependant!

Post by **dsco** » Thu 18 Dec, 2008 12:56 pm

Hello all, long time no speak.Points taken on all of the above, though I'd like to clarify and explain a few things...SecretLeeds is run by Marketing Leeds (not Leeds City Council, but that's another story) and we use a couple of different web servers for various different sites. SecretLeeds was down for a couple of days over last weekend, but none of our other sites were affected significantly - our ecards one went down for half a day or so, and our corporate site was affected for a little while too.The reason it does this every once in a while is because of the rather out-of-date framework we're using for the leedsliveitloveit.com site, which produces very large logfiles (Gigabytes of stats info basically) and makes the server fall over. We do have people keeping an eye on this and we respond as quickly as possible, but most of our sites don't warrant 24-7 supervision (it's expensive that weekend working stuff, and our sites are all non-profit.) So if our main site falls over we get someone on it immediately - for our smaller sites like SL, we tend to do business hours only.Anyway, we've tried a number of long term solutions to the logfile issue, and have now settled on, "if in doubt, chuck it all out". And so you'll be seeing a shiny new site for Leeds coming out at the end of January, which should stop the domino effect on SecretLeeds every six months. For those who care to know, it will be open source PHP loveliness, rather than the .NETnuke horror we inherited four years ago... Well I know I'm excited Incidently we aim for (and achieve, nay - exceed!) a 95% uptime for all our sites. We get an awful lot of traffic though, on leedsliveitloveit particularly, and we don't have a huge amount of resources to play with compared to the commercial sites you are talking about (Amazon or whatever.) As such we have neither the ability nor any real pressing need to ensure that our servers are up 99% or whatever. And anyway - if the BBC can get away with it for a week, we can get away with a couple of days on one site! Regarding Phill's point about editing and admining the site, I put my hands up - guilty as charged. Having lost a few nights sleep over this site in the past, munki and I take a very hands-off approach these days. Barring bad language and personal abuse, we don't step in to do much at all. Mostly this works fine, but I entirely accept that the place has become rather cluttered. However - old hands on this site will also be aware of what happens when we do edit comments and remove waffle - we get roundly criticised by certain individuals. Being compared to Dr Goebbels was a memorable high point! There have been many instances when people have posted long rambling nonsense, off topic waffle and borderline bigotry, and I have not intervened because I can't be doing with the hassle and/or personal abuse that munki and I will get as a result.However! I do have a solution for this if people are interested - I can turn some of you good people into content admins if folk are prepared to volunteer their services. We'd really appreciate the assistance, so if you're interested in helping out, please email duncan[dot]scobie[at]marketingleeds[dot]com. I'll post a separate thread about it elsewhere too.Regarding the search facility by the way - it's not great I know. I am trying to find a solution to all of the technical deficiencies of the site, but unfortunately it gets down to the fact that we need a completely new forum system (more PHP, for all you geeks out there.) The tricky bit is retaining all the information on the site, whilst putting it into a new system - one which can handle PMs, has better image uploads, looks a bit slicker, etc. It's not going to happen any time soon, but I am on with it for 2009.Anyhoo, I think I've gone on long enough - speak soon!dsco

simonm · Post by **simonm** » Thu 18 Dec, 2008 1:23 pm

Quote: Regarding Phill's point about editing and admining the site, I put my hands up - guilty as charged. Having lost a few nights sleep over this site in the past, munki and I take a very hands-off approach these days. Barring bad language and personal abuse, we don't step in to do much at all. Mostly this works fine, but I entirely accept that the place has become rather cluttered. However - old hands on this site will also be aware of what happens when we do edit comments and remove waffle - we get roundly criticised by certain individuals. Being compared to Dr Goebbels was a memorable high point! There have been many instances when people have posted long rambling nonsense, off topic waffle and borderline bigotry, and I have not intervened because I can't be doing with the hassle and/or personal abuse that munki and I will get as a result. Sometimes a mods / admin job is a lonely crappy one eh?