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Notes From Gaia
Random thoughts from inside Gaia
Development Update 10/15
Hey! This journal is updated through the week! So check every so often.

Some hot issues that we're working on this week:
Site Is Slow For You?

UPDATE 10/18
- problem with forum messages getting truncated is being worked on; we expect it to go out next Tuesday
- optimizations for ad loading goes out today
- found problem with donators seeing ads in certain countries! Turned out to be a problem with the ad server. This fix should go out Tuesday and will speed up the site for donators, to boot.

Kaya the Indefinite Feline
I wanted to clarify the Kaya the Cat issue, since there's a lot of confusion over it.

The Kaya the Cat (not Tiger, it changed at the last minute) is a bonus item when you purchase a $25 Gaia card from Target. You still get $25 of Gaia Cash to spend on MCs (or whatever). Only the $25 Target card gives you the tiger -- the $10 Target card doesn't give it to you, nor does the Rite-Aid card, or anything else.

In my humble opinion, the current market prices for Kaya are nuts. They'll be flooding the market as soon as people start getting the cards.

Outages
We've had bad luck with outages lately. We had the flooding from the first rain, and our upstream provider cut a link and failovers didn't, and then today we have a database burp in journals. Amazingly, there were a bunch of different causes, and we're fixing the underlying issues.

Speed Issues
We've been tracking down extraneous loads and ads and tracking pixels and whatnot. We removed some last week, and will be removing more this Thursday, so we're hoping that the site will be much smoother for people. But, as always, if you're having issues, please post your information in the thread mentioned above; the information from that thread has been very useful, and we've ended up working directly with a handful of users.

Patch Schedule
I don't think I've ever mentioned the patch schedule. In general, we patch the site twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays around noon -- that's when a bunch of bug fixes go out, small UI changes, so on and so forth. Emergency fixes or quick graphics changes or whatnot can go out at any time, but for the most part the site will change the most on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Ads Being Served for Donators
The wrong ads are being served in some very specific geographic locations -- basically, donators are seeing non-donator ads. We're working with the ad server on this and hope to have it resolved soon!

Theoretical Discussions
One of the things that we've been talking about is this: how do you measure the "wisdom of the crowds" when you're dealing with a society within which members can clone themselves at will and completely arbitrarily?

For example: the notion of a "democracy" doesn't apply when people can create arbitrary numbers of mules. So, one-vote-per-avatar doesn't work, and then you postulate restricting to particular IPs, but it's obvious that won't work either. Eventually every discussion about this leads to either a) a karmic-based system with various elaborate adjustments, or b) some notion of validation which is unworkable.

Any interesting links about this topic would be appreciated!

Other Stuff We're Working On
- more fixes to the BBCode stuff that causes forum posts to go all whack
- new posting form (next week at this point, not this week)
- miscellaneous query optimizations to speed up different sections of the site
- some seriously cool stuff will be hitting in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned






User Comments: [13] [add]
soldaten
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 12:28am
thanks for telling some people this blaugh ive seen alot of threads talking about the mysterious kaia the tiger ninja . also thanks for also saying their was a $10 card sweatdrop i didnt know that.well anyways keep up the good work razz

edit:woot!first commenter! rofl


commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 12:29am
I'm holding off on donating until I can get my hands on one of those cards. eek

I haven't seen anyone wearing the tiger yet.

Question though: I've seen conflicting spellings, both "Kaia" and "Kaya" and now it's a cat instead of a tiger.

I assume this has something to do with the item being released before it was finalized?



rayinte
Community Member
Luin Eau
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 01:37am
Kaya the Cat looks so cute! I'm about to get a job and will have to buy a card when I get my first paycheck. ^_^

But this also means that I can get monthy collectables, too. heart

Oh, the possibilities.


commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 02:19am
Well, the Target here doesn't have the card. So I'm not able to participate in flooding the market place. .-.; It would have made getting MCs so much easier..

Oh well. I didn't have a lot of extra time this morning but tomorrow school is closed for some dumb reason. Maybe my sister and I can hunt for it. |D Is it at the Target Super Center or just Target? That could probably be a reason but I'm not sure.

Lawl. Prices are always extreme when the first few items are placed. >.> It should be expected.



Infamous
Community Member
123jimmy321
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 02:21am
yeah i may buy one when they get to be 100k or less lol


commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 03:25am
ninja For the benefit of Mr. Kite...


I have a question...why change "Kaia the Tiger" to "Kaya the Cat"?
Are you guys leaving a future Tiger plush to be possible or something? o.O;;


...there will be a show tonight. domokun



jfnbhgurkddhj8
Community Member
Riddle-Me-This
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 04:37am
More seriously cool stuff? You're going to kill me. I'm already so happy. gonk


commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 07:12am
Seriously cool?
Jinkies.

I'm all excited! :]

Thanks for the journal update!



ratpeets
Community Member
Anastasia Manahan
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 10:19am
User Image


That last bit you have there about the mules and voting would be an excellent Idea for a storyline.... Which reminds me I have to write a short story for some of my class.

And more cool stuff is coming our way? With the awesome MCs and the store update I am feeling like a very spoiled gaian. I mean really everything has been very nice: the forum are looking good, cool items and everything. I can't wait for the new posting form to... It's all so exciting!


commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 02:11pm
Pannagrammic:
Other Stuff We're Working On
- more fixes to the BBCode stuff that causes forum posts to go all whack

For some odd reason, there is a filter on the words "That'll" and "Window." Period included.
This filter removes any words posted in the same sentence before the two key words.

We in the C+T and C+T:TT use the word Window alot, and if we happen to use the word that'll we'll bork our post to hell.

Any fix or notice about this please?



Kiyoske Dante
Community Member
Panagrammic
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Tue Oct 16, 2007 @ 03:11pm
@Rayinte, @Otakkun: We first heard it was Kaya the Tiger, and then it changed somewhere along the way. The reason for the change may have been a focus group in New York, a childhood phobia about tigers coming to the fore, the ramblings of two elderly gentlemen playing chess in the park, or more likely something else entirely. Marketing is a mysterious thing, the inner workings of which I know not.

So, I wouldn't read the name change as meaning that we will have a tiger, but don't read this explanation as meaning that we won't have a tiger.

I think I've muddied the waters enough here!

@Kiyoske Dante: that is exactly one of the bugs we're fixing this week. See this thread for details.


commentCommented on: Sat Oct 20, 2007 @ 04:09am
I think this needs to be worked on too please.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/bug-reports-technical-support/issues-with-the-server-for-towns-and-games/t.33183717_1/



GutterBear
Community Member
black lucario
Community Member
avatar
commentCommented on: Sun Oct 21, 2007 @ 03:24am
heres a problem i cant change my page!!


User Comments: [13] [add]
 
 
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