SPCodex:Pumpkin Patch
Migration to new server
Welcome to our shiny new server! For those who don't know me, I'm MusikAnimal and I founded this site.
What happened?
Long story short, our old wiki provider was verging on collapsing, so we had to move somewhere. When I started SPCodex, I chose to use a wiki provider to avoid having to do maintenance and upgrades, but as time has proven, that decision was a mistake. We've had a lot of issues left and right, and our provider was slow to address them. I work for Wikipedia and happen to be an "expert" per-se in MediaWiki – the software that powers the site. So why don't I just host the dang thing myself, eh? As it turns out, it was pretty simple, and I'm confident we're in a better place now.
Should we be worried?
No! This is mostly good news. Hopefully you'll find things to be running more smoothly than before. Our old provider hosted thousands of wikis, which is why it had a hard time tending to my support requests, not to mention the general unreliability. Now that I full control over our server, it should mean more stability as I'm able to adjust things to fit our needs and tend to problems more quickly. Nonetheless, if you see any issues, please let me know!
The bad part is that it's no longer free. I will be billed monthly. For the time being, I will cover all costs, which is only around 30 USD a month. However depending on if we have to increase our resources, I may face higher costs in the future, and be forced to occasionally ask for donations. I will avoid this as much as possible. Additionally, while I'll accept them, I do not feel our editors should have to pay anything, as you're already donating your time by contributing. Anyway, we'll worry about that if and when the time comes, which is hopefully never!
Notable changes
Some things are different now, hopefully for the better:
- Communication uses the DiscussionTools extension instead of Structured Discussions. The latter is poorly maintained and I don't see a true need for it. Hopefully the new discussion system is intuitive enough. As a result of this change, all previous discussions have been lost. I can try to convert them to the new system if anyone wants.
- Our URLs no longer contain the
/wikiportion. I.e. a link to "Today" will be simply https://spcodex.wiki/Today. Much nicer! - We can host our own bot now, which I plan to power our social media posts. This was something that has been in the works for some time now. See SPCodex:Social media for more information.
- Tour history pages now show maps on the mobile version of the site.
- We are hosted in New York City instead of England, so most users should now see faster speeds.
Thanks!
That's all for now. As always, thanks to our editors, readers and supporters for making SPCodex possible. I look forward to watching SPCodex continue to grow for many years to come.
Cheers, MusikAnimal (talk) 04:28, 14 June 2023 (UTC)