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Development Update 3/3 Glitches And Monkeys In The Server Room So, you may have noticed a bunch of problems with the site last week. For example, Thursday we pushed out the patch, and the site started to slow down something fierce. We pushed out what was supposed to be a standard patch, and then noticed that a couple of the database clusters had redlined. Usually, when the site is having problems, it has something to do with the backend databases -- so, when it happens, we have a number of tools that we open up, including one that shows us the queries that are going on. We were discovering tons of queries that hadn't been there before. Tracking it down, we discovered it was the fact that we had added a new header to the 404 page. The new header had a bunch of logging information... so we had added logging information to the error pages. Not a problem, right? Well, it is a problem -- it turns out that a frightening percentage of page requests are, in fact, errors, clocking in at about eleventybillion[1] requests a second, so essentially what we saw is traffic suddenly increase by a massive percentage when we weren't ready for it. So, we found the problem, and patched it out late Thursday night, thanks to the rockin' efforts of some devs who stayed late and missed a celebration party that they were supposed to attend. Beta Program Open Interested in the beta program? Are you 18 or older? Have you been with the site for more than a year? Go to this thread and sign up for the beta program! Feedback on A-Z We took out the A-Z index. It was ugly, it was left over from two redesigns ago, and frankly, we didn't think people actually used it -- but it seems that some people do. So, if you care immensely about A-Z one way or the other, please go to this thread and put your opinion on paper... err... on bits! Evil Ads After much heartache, we finally tracked down the ad that was affecting people adversely. You see, we don't actually control which ads show on the site -- we simply have a display area, and then go to one of our ad servers to serve up the content. Well, all of our ad servers were saying that they didn't serve up the content, so we had to go back and forth. Nonetheless, it's been fixed, as far as I know, and the people responsible have been flogged, and we aren't going with that ad server again. I'll be posting a message in Site Feedback with more information as soon as I get a spare minute. Stuff Rolling Out This Week - Simple badge (mentioned a couple of weeks ago) should roll out this week - CAPTCHA in Flash registration, to help stop bots - The new arenas looks like it will make it into beta. Hmmm, did I mention that the beta program is open for applicants again? [1]My previous campaign to promote the word eleventybillion left it considerably shy of total acceptance, so I'm pushing this word again! Use it in your everyday conversation ("he asked me out about eleventybillion times" wink , on your grocery list ("eleventybillion tissues" wink , or in your love notes ("How often do you make my heart run? Only about eleventy-billllllllllllllllyun!" wink .

Posted by: Panagrammic Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:18am

Read my journal!

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Cyanotic
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:21am


	Cool, beta testing apps are open again. I'm already part of beta testing, though. :3 A-Z index? What's that? lol Just kidding. I actually used it for a while during the last layout, when there was somewhat bad navigation. I also use it when the drop-down menus stop working ninja And, CONGRATS on catching the bug! ^^ Good riddance. Also, I could've sworn the badges were already out ,_, When the announcement "Update: New eyes/mouths/hair and the Weekly Poll!" came out, I got a text on my cell phone which actually said "Update: Badge, new eyes/mouth/hair and the Weekly Poll!" o.o" YAY FOR NEW ARENAS :3

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:32am


	Durn it. I'm a month and a year too young. Once I'm 18, I'm applying for everything.

Khap
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dBEf-GAEc-18E-BBAf
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:32am


	Agh. Sucks not being 18 yet sometimes smile About the NDA: May I ask what information Beta Testers could possibly have that Gaia would actually wish to go through all the trouble of punishing them legally for disclosing it? I can understand banning users for disclosing information, but I have doubts about any content Beta Testers seeing actually worth the legal troubles Gaia would have to go through to punish the malicious parties in a manner that they can't do without one. sweatdrop Say some jerk signs the NDA, and reveals information on Beta features everywhere. What does Gaia do that they couldn't do without an NDA? I assume this is intended to protect Gaia against parties wishing to sell information to other companies? It's heartbreaking to imagine that any Gaia would do that.

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:44am


	@Cyanotic: Yah, there was a small communication and the badge was put in the announcement when it shouldn't have been. We fixed it immediately, but not before it got sent to thousands of SMS users. @Pritchard: Our lawyers live in the back of Gaia HQ in a smoke filled room. The windows are completely closed off, and it is dark, and the only thing you can see when you venture back there are their bright little demonic red glowing eyes. Hope and thought and life vanish when you approach them. They insist that beta testers must be 18 or older, and frankly, I'm not inclined to argue with them -- have you seen what they did to the last guy that questioned them?

Panagrammic
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Tutsumi
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:56am


	1) PM me once you get the info on the ad server out, please? 2) The CAPTCHA doesn't make much sense. @_@

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:17am


	Thanks for the tips! "The next time I have a snow day, I'm gonna stay home and fap it eleventybillion timez!" wink

Spirrow
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dBEf-GAEc-18E-BBAf
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:28am


	Yes, even Gaia's Lawyers have no souls. Lanzer now responds to our feedback: Quote: When I and others worked hard to create Gaia Online, we wanted to do much more with the site than any one before it previously allowed. Unfortunately, the law didn't care much. It is and will continue to be the industry standard to remove all souls from lawyers as soon as you hire them. Seriously. I mean, it's not like they're responsible for inflation or anyth-... never mind. Being called to dinner now! See you all next week biggrin

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:58am


	Can I preregister for Beta? Come on! I can preregister to Vote! It's only like, what... 8 months till I'm 18! Plus you need more people who use Non Windows OSes. I've been on Gaia for more than a year! In fact, by the time I'm 18, it will have been two years. I WANT TO BE SUPER COOL AND SECRET! crying

Cube B
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Spriteless Girl
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 04:03am


	The internet as a whole needs to be more accountable with ads. Can you imagine a TV commercial for a credit card scam? The network would be sued! cheese_whine Thanks for responding to my thread about Guilds being broken, and thanks to all the coders who fixed it times eleventy billion! Nice to see that the guild code can be touched... which makes me wonder how the glitch got there to begin with... OMG someone was working on Guilds. Maybe.

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 04:32am


	Although the new 404 page caused problems and they're now resolved, people are claiming any new 404 page is a hack/scam attempt* because it show you logged out, so hopefully having it authenticate won't be too much of a problem for a small future project ^___^ Speaking of the 404 pages, is there a huge fan base for Paul McCartney there? wink Heh, I applied this go around biggrin The old A-Z was a bit bulky but considering some people will have to go one click out of their way and then face a wall of hyper links to find what they're looking for (Because ctrl + F is a pain XD) I'm hoping it'll one day return. Great job on getting rid of the Ads! Now we won't see eleventybillion Threads in the Q&A about Gaia infecting someones computer XP And just for you Tim, I told FF to add eleventybillion to its dictionary =3 * People have come into the Q&A confused and concerned about their Accounts because it shows you're logged out. And Users have actually claimed it's a phishing site (Which of course a lot of people know it's just a mistake) but enforcing the idea that it's fake to someone who doesn't know any better can get into a pretty confusing situation for people who don't know.

Darien S.
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Refurbished User
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 04:39am


	This is madness! THIS... IS... ELEVENTY-BILLION!

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 05:26am


	Looks like I'll have to go exploring the games again to see CAPTCHA in action. I hope it really works. From what information I was getting from the Ask the Admin thread, I thought it was going to be a lot longer before the bot problem was going to be taken care of. sweatdrop I'm also hoping to find my way into the beta program this time. whee I can't see why people don't use eleventybillion... I mean half the noobs on the site are always going !!!1111!1!111!! rofl

Bria_Teragram
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Cid High-Wind
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 05:28am


	Eleventybillion. Right. ninja

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 06:38am


	There's lyke..... ELEVENTYBILLION FLAKES OF SNOW OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. I never used the A-Z... so I don't miss it. I always thought it was pointless... though I can see why tablet and dial-up users would like it.

Riddle-Me-This
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Mindset
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 07:05am


	I said something like this in one of the SF threads, but I thought I ought to repeat it here: While I rarely used the links on the bottom of the page, I think they should return. There should be a basic menu, as well as a A-Z site map. It's only fair to people with browser issues and/or users with disabilities or anyone else not accessing Gaia via the "typical" manner. Not everyone has a middle button to open new tabs with, most people don't know the ctrl-leftclick trick or even about the Home button to return to the top of a page, and right clicking to bring up the context menu doesn't work with the dropdowns as they are right now. (Suckerfish dropdowns don't have that problem, but I'm guessing you guys are using a different permutation of JS/CSS/HTML list.) Most well-designed sites keep a text-based menu in addition to drop-down interfaces -- I'm very surprised it was removed, even if it was obsolete HTML and hard to keep up to date. (Though it shouldn't be that hard... I mean, you guys are using includes for things like headers and footers, right? It'd be crazy otherwise.) At the very least it should be corrected, not totally removed. Do you not have a stats check for pages to see which are most popular, or at least how many hits they get? Or would that kill your databases like the 404 page change did, what with the eleventybillion hits each page gets every second ? Other than the menu issue, I'm glad to learn that the malware ad problem was resolved. Nothing that ever bothered me personally, but it was terrible to hear about. And woot for the arenas, I'm looking forward to that. Please keep up the good work. smile

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 08:22am


	jeez, you wrote like..eleventybillion letters

Trampy McTramp
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Chocobo Princess
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 10:58am


	Hooray! A bunch of stuff got fixed; the devs should get a raise. I think about eleventybillion dollars would be the right amount. 3nodding They do know about Home Arranging being down since the latest Adobe update, right? Q&A has quite a few threads full of traumatized new Gaians unable to arrange their homes. sweatdrop Anyway, congrats again on the malware-bashing action. Keep up the good work!

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 12:33pm


	I'm 17 D: It seems like eleventybillion months until I'm 18 DDD:

Cleocatra
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Inti Castro
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 01:41pm


	I'm reaaaally looking forward to the new arenas!

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:02pm


	sighs why am i never old enough for this stuff!? emo I hav ebeen on the site over a year and I love this site a lot, i want to get more involved with different things on the site, and everything has that age restriction! Soemtimes i hate being 16 emo though thanks for the update smile

Lord Burandon
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Lollipop Revolution
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Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:49pm


	Woo Hoo! I wanted to help flog the ebil ad people!! gonk Thanks for every thing. heart --Lolli <-~Q&A Reg/SCAS~-> <//.The greatest disappointment in the world.\> >>{..is realizing you love her more..}<<

Commented on: Wed Mar 05, 2008 @ 05:47pm


	They missed a party just to fix Gaia for us? Someone should throw them a make-up party. Or perhaps..a make-out party?! Oh, and I'm re-adding eleventy-billion to my brain database, because I totally forgot about it the last time.

Gamine
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France Hopper
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Commented on: Thu Mar 06, 2008 @ 07:50pm


	Honestly I think it's really nice A-Z is gone. It was basically a repeat of the header (Home, My Gaia...), some times even confusing, and a waste of page space. As for the slow down, so that's what it was. Phew. It sure was annoying and I thought something on my Network was being a bandwidth hog again. I still wish I was 18 so I could be part of the beta program. How secretive is the stuff on there or are you guys just paranoid that there has to be a NDA? LAMO.

Commented on: Fri Mar 07, 2008 @ 07:03pm


	Yes, please leave in the A to Z. I discover Gaian things that have been listed in a simplified, useful way. There are additional instruction-type linkies that could be added, like "What's the OMG in the Accounts about?" Not in the A to Z. Perhaps more like an All-About-Gaia A-Z. on the Home Page.

HitAngel
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Miches
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Commented on: Sat Mar 08, 2008 @ 03:16am


	My art shop's name was Eleventy-Billion! I'm all for the use of this term. :]

Commented on: Sat Mar 08, 2008 @ 03:50am


	How much does your journal pwn? Eleventybillion times any other! ;D I'll put it in my siggy for you. Since that's the most adorable word evarrrrr

Ginger Flare
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Chokin
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Commented on: Sat Mar 08, 2008 @ 11:07pm


	I've used eleventybillion for the past 4 years. Best number EVER.

Commented on: Sun Mar 09, 2008 @ 02:34am


	I just turned 17. D: Eleventybillion is so much moar than nine thousand.

[.Ace.]
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Kenshin_Love
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Commented on: Wed Mar 12, 2008 @ 02:39am


	Yea for the devs who missed their party. The one error when posting was getting a little annoying but funny too. The only error now that I see is when you click on the view store link buttons. I did not know the A-Z Index was gone. I think the site looks better now without it. Yea for Beta Testing. 3nodding I got a pm saying that I was accept but I don't think I'm going to get in. . . . crying I mess up on the form thingy. I fixed it, but got an error. . . Ok, I'll stop whining, now. Wow, I like the new look of the registration. It's a lot cleaner, but I see some new security things have been added.

Commented on: Mon Apr 14, 2008 @ 12:25am


	what? it's all the same thing! rofl

Yuskri
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