Today we had a very successfully maintenance day on the wiki’s and the servers all at the same time. (Go figure…)

In any case, if you didn’t notice already, the servers never went down. That’s because the servers where not to go down, but the backed for us to access their support system was down. Go figure (as I said before.) So this is done.

After many many months of the Task Perl Bot not working, it now is working and will start automatically updating the open task list on the English wiki, thanks to our newest bot installed, Media Tag Bot (By Carnildo). I used the new perale backend code to re-code the Task Bot, and it worked fine. A few errors, but working those out with Carnildo.

The Media Tag Bot examines all recently updated media files and checks to see if they are tagged with the correct copyright tags. If not, it will notify the user and tag the media file according to the rules we have set forth in it’s logic based upon the set polices on the Media Wiki. This will help us make sure we are covered legally and have no issues in the future.

If you have any questions on what went on in the past 48 hours, just give us a shout out on the cheif’s board and we will get back to you!
So say bot us all!

We have been very laxed on enforcing the policies on the Media Wiki, however, the longer we wait, the harder it will become later. As of today, if you do not properly tag uploaded material to the Media Wiki, it will be deleted outright and without warning. Any material found in the media wiki, not properly tagged after our downtime on Saturday will also be deleted.

There are copyright issues and legal issues at stake if we do not tag the images without the copyright notice that comes when files are properlly taged. Saying “Fair Use” and stating where it comes from is not enough no more. You can review the polices of tagging and the Media Wiki policies here. If you have any questions on how to tag, review the templates them selfs as they provided detailed instructions on what to place and how to tag them.

Questions can be brought to the Media Wiki administrators board or the English Wiki Chief’s board.

Our data center is making upgrades to the infrastructure on May 10th, 2008. When the servers are down they estimate that it will be as long as eight hours our more. We hope it’s a lot less time. However, we have two servers on two different areas of their data center.

Since there is nothing we can do about this, please check the Case Orange blog, itself on another server, for updates. We are getting this message out now so you don’t think we have disappeared on you!

If you have any questions, post them here.

I’ve been looking over the web server’s statistical data for the month of April, which ended yesterday, and I’m pleased that we’ve more than doubled our viewing audience that month.

Our usual viewership during the off-season months is 140,000-160,000 people. In April, we ended up with exactly 285,327 people that visited our website over the month. (Please note, this is in the number of unique visitors, not the number of visits, which are two different sets of data.)

We’ve also doubled (or nearly) tripled in every measurable as well since the start of Season 4.

So I’m excited.. and want to thank each and every person who visits this website and helps to drive us on!

So say we all

It’s our pleasure to announce that we’ve broken ground on a new language edition of the Battlestar Wiki for Malay speakers.

The head senior chief on the Malay wiki is “Starkiller” and he’s steadfastly working on much of the basic structure. Of course, one man can’t do it alone, so any Malay-speaking nuggets who can report to him and help out would definitely be appreciated!

The site already has 20 articles posted, with much more to come — particularly with your help.

Snap to it, nuggets!

I am unsure how long the MySQL Database was down in the middle of the night, but it’s back up and running. I am looking into this since the MySQL server was running when I checked the services page.

We can now announce the winners to our survey raffle.

They are as follows:

• David S., USA, Season 3 DVD Set (Grand Prize)
• Keith T., USA, $10 USD Gift Certificate from NewEgg.com (Second Prize)
• Elizabeth L., Australia, Free One-Year Membership to Battlestar Forum and Battlestar Wiki (Third Prize)

The last two recipients who also won a free one-year membership to Battlestar Forum and Battlestar Wiki have not yet given me permission to add their names to the winner’s list, so I’ve withheld that information until such time as I get permission from them to do so.

To the thousand+ people who participated in the survey, we want to thank you for your opinions and feedback! We will be having another survey in June, after the first ten episodes of the fourth season have aired! So keep an eye on the blog for future announcements!

So anyway, for those of you that missed the fun last night, you can download the MP3 of the show from here (or listen to it stream from the site).

Anyway, I thought it went fairly well. Except the point where I had a brain freeze during the portion where I tried to verbalize why I feel Battlestar Galactica Original Series (TOS) fans and New Series (TNS) fans who hate the “opposing show” so much that they have to negatively comment on it ad nauseum need to get a life. Of course, it didn’t help that I couldn’t use some profanities, since the whole “TOS vs. TNS” thing ranks up there with the absurd “Star Trek vs. Star Wars” arguments, and the whole “Old Trek vs. New Trek” arguments that have shown the scummy side of the online fandoms over the decades.

Here’s the thing, if you don’t like a show… do yourself a favor and don’t watch it. Hell, even ignore it, if you must. (Original BSG fans did this with Galactica 1980, so why not take a page from that book!?)

That’s the point I was getting at.

Nor did it help that I was on various flu medications, which didn’t help with the whole mental concentration bit. Still, people could hear me (and apparently it didn’t sound like I have the flu, from what Shane said anyway) and it seemed to go well.

However, I was a bit rushed. Particularly at the end when Rudy called in and threw fifty different questions at my direction that jumped all over the frakking place.
Oh well… Listen and feel free to rip me a new one, at your discretion, of course.

Now, for the bad news, Mike has invited me on the show sometime in the summer. (He has a thing about not repeating the same guest in the same quarter, which is understandable, and keeps the show fresh.) So, hopefully, I’ll be more in the game in my next appearance. And hopefully we won’t have discussions about that horrendously overrated “Last Supper” promotional shtick.

As far as first outings go — and having never participated in a live radio interview before — it went well. Can’t expect a perfect game, though.

So… before I ramble on any further, I want to thank everyone who came out for the live airing, phoned in (Shane and Rudy), and jumped into the chat room. According to Mike Hinman, it was the show with the most listeners they’ve had yet. I guess I’m a draw.

Or it may be because the phones were working. Who knows.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Tonight our very own Joe B. was a special guest on SyFy Radio. The show started at 10pm EST and you can click here to listen to the show. You can call into future shows by dialing (646) 200-3642.

You can also catch the archives via iTunes (search for “SyFy Radio”) and via BlogTalkRadio’s own archives!

Then head over to Joe on SyFy Radio April 23rd! on Battlestar Forum to discuss Joe’s appearance.

Folks,

I’ll be on SyFy Radio tonight. I should be there starting around 10:25 P.M. Eastern time (for those of you that want to or can listen live).

So remember: tonight at 10 P.M., click here, and listen to the show. Call into the show by dialing (646) 200-3642.

You can also catch the archives via iTunes (search for “SyFy Radio”) and via BlogTalkRadio’s own archives!

Be hearing you!

A quick reminder. My appearance on SyFy Radio will be this Wednesday. The show starts at 10 P.M. Eastern Time and my appearance will be starting around 10:20 to 10:25 P.M., once Mike Hinman reads through his scripted material.

I’ll be there anywhere from 20 minutes to the whole show, depending on how many people start calling in and give us stuff to talk about. The main topics of discussion will be Battlestar Galactica’s fourth and final season, and I’ll also be talking a bit about Galacticruise. (And for all those people on the fence, I must stress that you really need to get moving on this, since the deadline for booking cabins and event payments is July 1st!)

The show will be streaming live from BlogTalkRadio’s website for SyFy Radio, which is here. The call-in number is (646) 200-3642.

Also, SyFy Radio has a chat room running in concert with the live show, so if you don’t like hearing your voice (or if your voice brings doom upon all mankind… kidding… seriously, I hope I’m kidding!), then you can send us questions via the chat room. Or discuss the content of our show there as well.

So remember: this Wednesday at 10 P.M., click here, and listen to the show. Call into the show by dialing (646) 200-3642.

We’d better see you there, or else the Old Man’s gonna beat your ass with a flashlight.

Update: Catrope brought up a good point… Those if you in way different time zones (such as those in Europe) will probably be asleep during the broadcast. So, to address the issue of whether or not you people can hear the show as well, the answer is: “Yes, you can.” All the shows that are on SyFy Radio are archived for playback at a later date!

In reaction to Assistant Professor Bob Rehak’s blog post on his website regarding J.K. Rowling’s lawsuit against Vander Ark and the publisher of the book version of the “Harry Potter Lexicon”, I wrote the following reply. As of this writing, you will not see it up on his website, since it has yet to be approved from its moderation queue, despite the fact that he responded to another post that supports his own position… which is visible on his website… Anyway, I want to post what I wrote here, in the hopes of discussing my thoughts on this issue and getting people’s thoughts on this.

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