Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[katateochi]

1 hour ago, jost said:

Hm, the error message was "table co-remembers is crashed"

The error I was getting was:
"Table './kerbalsp_ips4/core_members' is marked as crashed and should be repaired"

Which did raise some questions in my mind. How does a table crash? I understand a whole database crashing, but a single table, that's kinda odd.  So my guess (and this is total guess) was the whole database crashed, but the error each person saw was down to which ever table your request tried to fetch data from. Maybe (I already see plot holes in my suggestion as I write this, so....?).

[Vanamonde]

All we know is that the forum was down and then somebody fixed it. We have no inside info. We're not just being flippant. Sorry if it seemed that way. 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, katateochi said:

I understand a whole database crashing, but a single table, that's kinda odd.

Why not, the tables are just files/sequential parts of a single database file.
Maybe some parity check or reference integrity error was detected when some byte was unexpectedly changed or partially written.

Edited December 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[jost]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Why not, the tables are just files/sequential parts of a single database file.
Maybe some parity check or reference integrity error was detected when some byte was unexpectedly changed or partially written.

This. Imagine you created a images album for a website ( as everybody did before ingurl was a thing). One image get broken. Result: Album is not working as expected although most of the data is just fine. So you upload the insge abd the slbum is working again.

 

I guess something like this happened.

[Deddly]

Our forum hero @ManeTI fixed it - on the weekend, too!

[jost]

2 hours ago, Deddly said:

Our forum hero @ManeTI fixed it - on the weekend, too!

Great job thanks @ManeTI!

[kerbiloid]

All hail @ManeTI !

[Vanamonde]

He's got a job to do. Please stop pinging him, guys. 

[adsii1970]

Many of you were asking for the latest reasons why the forum went down with the strange error message of

"Table './kerbalsp_ips4/core_members' is marked as crashed and should be repaired"

And a few of you were upset by the answer provided by @Geonovast:

On 12/15/2019 at 1:37 PM, Geonovast said:

It was broken.  Now it's not.

And a few of you speculated we were trying to prepare him to become the second banana around here, providing the kind of answers we normally hear from @Vanamonde, our ever vigilant and fearless leader:

On 12/15/2019 at 10:24 PM, Vanamonde said:

All we know is that the forum was down and then somebody fixed it. We have no inside info. We're not just being flippant. Sorry if it seemed that way. 

And apparently the short answers didn't do well with a few of you...

On 12/15/2019 at 2:21 PM, Poodmund said:

To be fair to forum members, responses that like help no one and are unhelpful, especially when you're just repeating an unsubstantial phrase that you've posted just above. If moderators or staff are not at liberty to say, then just say that. It comes off that you're purposely trying to aggregate the forum member that has asked the question.

 

And even a few of you wondered what the real story was regarding the forum issue...

On 12/15/2019 at 1:35 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Yeah I was wondering what happened. Are you allowed to say anything about that or is it top secret code stuff?

And one forum member found the entire thing funny...

On 12/15/2019 at 3:51 PM, The Minmus Derp said:

I just read this conversation, and it's funny for some reason.

Oh, but if you knew the reasons the forum went down, you'd really find it funny. So, without anymore adieu, here's why the forum really went down.

Before I tell you what really happened, I need to apologize to my fellow moderator, @James Kerman. As you may recall, a few posts ago, I claimed it was his fault the forum was broken for a bit. That's not quite true.

Being a moderator is difficult work. Sometimes things are easy to deal with. We have to clean up threads. Sometimes, that's accomplished by tossing them into the thread cleaner, put in the anti-viral detergent, and turn on the contraption. Out comes threads shiny and clean - all the off-topic strings, forum rule violation strings, and all the other things you can imagine get taken out of the threads. But here's what most of you may not know - sometimes the strings get a little restless!

The wayward strings - those which violate the forum - can grow out of control if they are not handled exactly the way @Vanamonde and @Snark have taught us younger moderators, things can get pretty crazy fairly quickly. And to be honest, it was my fault the forum crashed! I was taking the clean threads out of the thread cleaner, and hung them all back up nicely, right where they belong. But the problem was what I did with the bad strings from the thread cleaner... Instead of putting them into the reinforced container where we put those unruly threads in, I decided to toss them into the trash can. And that's where the fun begins!

See, the bad strings soon take a life of their own. They trigger other bad strings, and soon, before you know it, they can infect any thread they come in contact with. I wasn't paying attention to the threads but was watching some Scott Manley KSP videos with @Geonovast - you know, to perfect our landing techniques. @Gargamel was over on the couch, taking the opportunity to take a nap, and @Dman979 was sitting in the recliner trying to do some last-minute studying for the exam he was taking that week. @James Kerman and @Deddly were over at the ping-pong table recently added to the moderator's lounge. It was kinda funny listening to Deddly's rant, "See, back in my day, being a moderator meant being in the forum, looking for rule-breaking strings and threads... not hanging out in the moderator's lounge!" And the entire time he was going on  his rant, the rest of us were making a face similar to and . About the time Deddly caught us making faces at him, that's when things took a turn for the worse!

What we couldn't tell you at the time was why things happened the way they did. As we sat there behind Deddly's back, making faces at him, the bad strings began to grow and take on a new life and identity all their own. Soon, it began to grow, adding aluminum cans, candy wrappers, and even empty potato chip bags to its form. All James Kerman could say was,"I'm gonna ping Snark and Vanamonde," to which we all added a healthy and loud "NO!" See, James Kerman is one of the newer guys here and he loves trying to get us older moderators in trouble with the bosses.

So, myself and @Gargamel sprung into action. After all, we are notorious for taking action first and then wondering if we did the right thing. So, we simply did what we normally do with forum issues. At one point, he asked me, "Do we know who did this act of great stupidity?" And I did the only thing I could do... I passed the blame on to @Starhawk. After all, that's what I was told to do by @goldenpeach - whenever you screw something up, never take the credit for it... always blame Starhawk.

Well, about that time, Geonovast decided to spring into action. He decided to provide us some time by pretending to give Vanamonde-type answers. And many of you called him out on it. So, he began to panic and that's when Vanamonde came back into the moderator's lounge. And needless to say, he was quite mad. When he responded why the forum had been down, he simply didn't have all the facts. I hope this clears up the misunderstanding about why the forum was down.  

 

 

[Poodmund]

39 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

I hope this clears up the misunderstanding about why the forum was down.  

I think it raises more questions... mainly what do you guys drink and where can I buy some?

[adsii1970]

13 minutes ago, Poodmund said:

I think it raises more questions... mainly what do you guys drink and where can I buy some?

The details on that are still a little bit fuzzy for me as well. But whatever it is...

[Vanamonde]

[Starhawk]

I have only this to say:

"It was like that when I got here."

Happy landings!

 

[Guest]

Has anyone ever uploaded malware KSP addons to the forums, like malicious .dll or some other form of addon that has destructive behaviour? If so, how many times has that happened?

 

This is a thought that came up to my head while downloading addons for a new install, genuinely curious about this

[Vanamonde]

We are not going to give out information about which sorts of malicious actions did or did not work on the forum, silly. 

[Guest]

Well, based on that response and previous posts by others I'm assuming it has happened and the only way you can know about it is by receiving a report. I'll just scan/compare the checksum of whatever I download from now on then.

 

what's the most liked post in the entire forums?

Edited December 24, 2019 by Guest

[Dman979]

This one:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/111158-ask-the-mods-questions-about-the-forums/&do=findComment&comment=3720437

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by Dman979
Updated formatting

[Snark]

Many posts have been removed from this thread, due to completely derailing the thread into off-topic discussion.

Folks, this is the "Ask the Mods Questions About the Forums" thread.  It is not any of the following:

• the "I Think We Should Discuss Security Issues Here" thread
• the "How We Should Protect Ourselves From Viruses In Mods" thread
• the "Why I'm Right And Everyone Else Is Wrong" thread

If folks want to discuss other topics in other places, feel free to do so-- if there's no thread that addresses the topic you want to discuss, you can spin up your own.  (Also, please don't try to "backseat moderate" by telling others what they should or shouldn't do.  If you see something that you think is out of line, please just report the post and we'll have a look, thanks.)

 

And to be crystal clear about the exchange that derailed everything, Vanamonde pretty much summed it up when he said,

On 12/22/2019 at 4:29 PM, Vanamonde said:

We are not going to give out information about which sorts of malicious actions did or did not work on the forum, silly. 

We are not going to discuss any security-related matters about the forums, now or in the future.

Sorry, folks.  "No comment" means "no comment". So don't bother asking.  The above is all the answer you're gonna get.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Arco123]

How do you guys clean the forums when there are so many topics? Do you have a bot or something that helps you flag ones for human inspection?

[Vanamonde]

New member posts require approval and are set aside for us to look at. As for other kinds of problems, we just look around and respond to your reports. 

[FleshJeb]

32 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

New member posts require approval and are set aside for us to look at. As for other kinds of problems, we just look around and respond to your reports. 

This is why I pray for your souls, daily.

[VoidSquid]

Dear moderators, on behalf of my fellow Kerbals, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, have a good time with your family and loved ones.  

Edited December 24, 2019 by VoidSquid

[Snark]

12 hours ago, Arco123 said:

How do you guys clean the forums when there are so many topics? Do you have a bot or something that helps you flag ones for human inspection?

That's actually a great question!

It's basically impossible for any sort of simple bot to reliably spot "things needing moderation".  Insults, threats, license violations, flamebaiting, trolling, political rants-- these are all things that require human intelligence to discern (well, until/unless AI gets a lot better, anyway). 

And there are only a tiny handful of us moderators, and we're just part-time volunteers, so it's not even vaguely possible for us to read everything in the forums, and we don't even try.  The only posts that reliably get a moderator's attention are from folks who are "queued" (i.e. the first few posts of new users, or occasionally if there's some user who's been temporarily queued for repeated bad behavior), and that's a tiny minority of total traffic on the forum.

So the fundamental dilemma, here, is that it's basically impossible for moderators to actually fully moderate a forum that has any sort of reasonably large user base, like this one.  Which is why your question's such a good one.

The answer, as Vanamonde mentions above, is:  we rely on reports from the users.  If something doesn't get reported, there's a strong chance that no moderator will ever see it, regardless of how heinously rule-breaking it might be.

 

So... in other words:  in a manner of speaking, yes, we do have

12 hours ago, Arco123 said:

a bot or something that helps you flag ones for human inspection

...and that "bot" is you.  Yes, and you!  And you over there.  And you, too.  All of you!  (...okay, sorry, this is starting to sound like a scene from It's A Wonderful Life)

We basically have to rely on the eyes and ears of all the users of the forums.  There are only a few of us, but there are tens of thousands of you.  You guys, in the aggregate, are far more vigilant than we can ever possibly hope to be-- the math is just overwhelming.

So, the way it works is:  you fine folks supply most of the eyes and ears, and we supply the judgment call.

It generally seems to work out pretty well, largely because most of you are really, well, nice.  If there were tons and tons of bad-behavior posts, we'd get bogged down dealing with them all.  However, because the vast majority of folks here are so darn nice, then our workload dealing with the small number of "strays" is fairly manageable, and we can properly devote time and attention where it's actually needed.

So: on behalf of the moderator team, please allow me to say a big "thank you" to all of you for doing so much to keep an eye on things for us... and also for being such good people, in the aggregate, that there's not all that much stuff that actually needs to have an eye kept on it. 

[LittleBitMore]

Question for any mod: how do you personally play KSP? Favorite mods? Types of craft you especially like to create? Types of missions you run often?

Question for @Vanamonde specifically: what's the story behind your banana profile picture? The angry banana?

Question for any mod: outside of the Welcome Aboard subforum and posts which require moderator action, how often do you use the forum like others do?

[Gargamel]

56 minutes ago, LittleBitMore said:

Question for any mod: outside of the Welcome Aboard subforum and posts which require moderator action, how often do you use the forum like others do?

Some days, I'm browsing just like I always have, posting stupid uniformed, possibly slightly inaccurate, help in the variety of questions threads.  Other days, We're busy enough that I don't get into the forums on a casual level.    Also depends on the amount of time I have for the forums that day.

58 minutes ago, LittleBitMore said:

Question for any mod: how do you personally play KSP? Favorite mods? Types of craft you especially like to create? Types of missions you run often?

Still playing my 1.3.1 career save, when I do play, with 80+ mods to it.   KW rocketry, Final Frontier, bunch of others.   I have dabbled with 1.7, but my bandwidth limits my downloads, so I haven't touched 1.8 yet.