SpaceDock.info (Mod Hosting Site)

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, VITAS said:

Solution: after trying to get more disk space allocated and failed ive disabled it.

Im still away so ive to put a propper fix in place once im back home.

That'll do us for now. Don't worry about it, you'll get to it when you get to it. The only reason I even pinged you was because I worried we might end up overloading the alternative node with our DNS/hostfile workarounds. Thanks for the intervention and the continued service, it is appreciated.

[Mokmo]

Is there no 1.1.3 flag for the updated mods ? 

 

[Snark]

5 minutes ago, Mokmo said:

Is there no 1.1.3 flag for the updated mods ? 

The site currently doesn't have any way for a mod to say "1.1.3" -- the list only goes up to 1.1.2.  Presumably this will get updated fairly soon.  I assume it's a manual process that needs a live human to push the button, and depending on timezones an awful lot of live humans are asleep at the moment.  Give it some time.

(says the author of a mod that needs updating for 1.1.3 compatibility, finger eagerly poised over the update button...)

[Mokmo]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

The site currently doesn't have any way for a mod to say "1.1.3" -- the list only goes up to 1.1.2.  Presumably this will get updated fairly soon.  I assume it's a manual process that needs a live human to push the button, and depending on timezones an awful lot of live humans are asleep at the moment.  Give it some time.

(says the author of a mod that needs updating for 1.1.3 compatibility, finger eagerly poised over the update button...)

Basically anything published after RoverDude's mods' updates are for 1.1.3

[VITAS]

i dontr have any easy way to add 1.1.3 to the db atm. either nag darklight or wait till the weekend.

my fear is that the dl req. put additional load onto the frontend server (cpu not bandwidth is the bottleneck) and slow down the website. the cdn nodes only server the files and are overkill (so no worries you could overload them). but because of the diskspace issues i disabled the cdn for now. 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

58 minutes ago, VITAS said:

i dontr have any easy way to add 1.1.3 to the db atm. either nag darklight or wait till the weekend.

Take your time.  This early in the release, any statement of compatibility is suspiciously optimistic, and many people will hold back on installing the update anyway.  And not marking mods as updated just stops CKAN.  Users can still download and install the (super difficult) old fashioned way.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Take your time.  This early in the release, any statement of compatibility is suspiciously optimistic, and many people will hold back on installing the update anyway.  And not marking mods as updated just stops CKAN.  Users can still download and install the (super difficult) old fashioned way.

What do you mean, "suspiciously optimistic"?  And how are users supposed to download the mod if SpaceDock won't let the mod author post an updated version of the mod that is 1.1.3 compatible?

My own mod is broken due to an API change in KSP. The fix is trivial to make it work again, I already have a fix in hand and the new 1.1.3 compatible version is ready to post. I just want to put up the new version so that all the people who are on 1.1.3 (e.g. everyone on Steam) can continue to use my mod. Except that I can't do that, because there's no way to mark the mod as being for 1.1.3.

So until SpaceDock updates to be compatible with the current shipping version of KSP, my mod will just have to stay broken for thousands of users.

[VITAS]

if i did it right there should be a 1.1.3 version on sd now.

(had to do it the complicated cmd way)

Edited June 22, 2016 by VITAS

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

What do you mean, "suspiciously optimistic"?  And how are users supposed to download the mod if SpaceDock won't let the mod author post an updated version of the mod that is 1.1.3 compatible?

My own mod is broken due to an API change in KSP. The fix is trivial to make it work again, I already have a fix in hand and the new 1.1.3 compatible version is ready to post. I just want to put up the new version so that all the people who are on 1.1.3 (e.g. everyone on Steam) can continue to use my mod. Except that I can't do that, because there's no way to mark the mod as being for 1.1.3.

So until SpaceDock updates to be compatible with the current shipping version of KSP, my mod will just have to stay broken for thousands of users.

That's a bit snarky.  :-)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, VITAS said:

if i did it right there should be a 1.1.3 version on sd now.

(had to do it the complicated cmd way)

It is fixed.  There's a 1.1.3 available with the "this mod is outdated" message for 1.1.2 mods.

But....

Aren't you on some sort of holiday?   It's not important enough to mess with your life.  (Depending on how much time it took of course.) 

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

What do you mean, "suspiciously optimistic"?

It's always my first thought when I look at your forum avatar... "Man, that is one suspiciously optimistic looking tardigrade." Face it, you just have that look.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

It's always my first thought when I look at your forum avatar... "Man, that is one suspiciously optimistic looking tardigrade." Face it, you just have that look.

HA!  There's no such thing as optimism for tardigrades.  They're invincible, so any idea they have is at worst realistic.

1 hour ago, Snark said:

What do you mean, "suspiciously optimistic"?  And how are users supposed to download the mod if SpaceDock won't let the mod author post an updated version of the mod that is 1.1.3 compatible?

My own mod is broken due to an API change in KSP. The fix is trivial to make it work again, I already have a fix in hand and the new 1.1.3 compatible version is ready to post. I just want to put up the new version so that all the people who are on 1.1.3 (e.g. everyone on Steam) can continue to use my mod. Except that I can't do that, because there's no way to mark the mod as being for 1.1.3.

So until SpaceDock updates to be compatible with the current shipping version of KSP, my mod will just have to stay broken for thousands of users.

OK, for the record, I meant that it seems odd that any mod author can have thoroughly tested their mods in the available time.  I get that with modules, most of what probably needs doing is checking that all the variables used still exist, maybe tweaking them a bit and recompiling.  But that gets it to run.  It's not really been subject to testing at that stage. 

This might be coloured by the amount of spare time I've had at my computer since the release (~20min).  I'm assuming mod authors aren't working on some type of on-call arrangement, where they leap into action within 20 minutes of a new version release, and devote all their time to it.  If there are any out there following this scheme. I suggest you ease up, and remember you're making add-on bits to a game people play to relax.  The moment you stop being relaxed, you're taking it too seriously.

So, @Snark, your thousands of users will just have to wait (if @VITAS hadn't jumped in and fixed it anyway) for updates.  It won't kill them.

[VITAS]

im in the countryside making strawberry cakes. (for real)

if i want to be the owner / admin of a popular site ive to monitor it and fix stuff (if noone else does it for me)

my main problem is that all my tools and data is on my desktop at home and inet is slow here (to put it mildly).

 

i posted the fact that i added 1.1.3 in the chat rooms but note to myself: check if theres such a thing as "alert mod authors via email about new game versions added to spacedock"

 

[Snark]

3 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

OK, for the record, I meant that it seems odd that any mod author can have thoroughly tested their mods in the available time.  I get that with modules, most of what probably needs doing is checking that all the variables used still exist, maybe tweaking them a bit and recompiling.  But that gets it to run.  It's not really been subject to testing at that stage.

Except that unless you're the author of the mod in question, you're really not in any position to be able to say that.

Some mods are very complex and affect many aspects of the game; those will take a long time to test.  Other mods are quite simple and affect things in a very limited way, so they're very quick to check.  For example:  My own mods tend to be in the latter category:  small, focused, designed to do just one thing but do it really well.  So it only takes me a few minutes to check "does this still work in the new KSP version."

3 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

This might be coloured by the amount of spare time I've had at my computer since the release (~20min).  I'm assuming mod authors aren't working on some type of on-call arrangement, where they leap into action within 20 minutes of a new version release, and devote all their time to it.

Of course mod authors don't do that (at least, I sure don't).  But again, the time required totally depends on the mod.  It only took me a few minutes to patch my mod to the updated version, it was literally a one-line fix and the error message in the old version immediately told me exactly where the problem was.  And it wasn't an "update within 20 minutes" scenario-- in my timezone (western North America), the mod came out early afternoon yesterday, I had plenty of hours available, so it's no big deal at all to spend a few minutes that evening to fix a broken mod.

3 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

If there are any out there following this scheme. I suggest you ease up, and remember you're making add-on bits to a game people play to relax.  The moment you stop being relaxed, you're taking it too seriously.

Well, sure, and I agree with that philosophy completely.    However, tactics need to be on a case-by-case basis.  I've written some mods that have very low usership (just a few dozen people), whose mod threads can go months without a single post-- so if one of them gets broken, there's no rush to update it.  On the other hand, the broken mod I've been referring to here is my most popular, with literally thousands of users, one of the most popular mods on SpaceDock.  So the logistics of the situation are considerably different.  In particular:

3 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

So, @Snark, your thousands of users will just have to wait (if @VITAS hadn't jumped in and fixed it anyway) for updates.  It won't kill them.

Sure it won't kill them, and of course no mod user is ever entitled to an update.

But a delay in updating will waste my time.  For a really popular mod, the longer the mod author takes to update, the more time he has to spend in fielding well-meaning "bug" reports and queries about updates.  If it only takes me a few minutes to actually update the mod, then I'd prefer to just push out the update sooner.  Everybody wins.

...All of which is mainly just to say that:  situations really vary from mod to mod and mod author to mod author, so please don't generalize.

5 hours ago, VITAS said:

if i did it right there should be a 1.1.3 version on sd now.

Thank you for the quick turnaround!  It was above and beyond, especially considering that you're on vacation.

3 hours ago, VITAS said:

if i want to be the owner / admin of a popular site ive to monitor it and fix stuff (if noone else does it for me)

my main problem is that all my tools and data is on my desktop at home and inet is slow here (to put it mildly).

Well, it's kind of a gray area.  You shouldn't be chained to your computer, and I don't think anybody (myself included) has a right to demand instant service.

After all, if mod authors can post their mods to your site for free, and aren't giving you anything, then you really don't "owe" them anything in return.  It's not as if anybody twisted their arms and forced them to use SpaceDock as the hosting site for their mod.  If they wanted a commercial, 24/7, fully-supported-by-operational-staff website to host their mod, they could go use CurseForge or something.  They've freely chosen to host their mod on SpaceDock because they like the features they get there, and by so doing, they've implicitly accepted the risks inherent in using a site that's a labor of love by an individual or a small group of individuals.

There's simply no way that a little, artisanal site like SpaceDock can have the same level of operational responsiveness as a commercial site like CurseForge.  Yes, it means there will be unfortunate hiccups from time to time.  If it bothers mod authors too much, they can vote with their feet and move their mod to be hosted elsewhere.

That said, even without commercial resources to draw upon, there are ways that small "indie" sites can mitigate operational risks such as "crisis happens while the chief maintainer is away on vacation":

• If it's possible to find an alternate administrator or two, and arrange that one of them is always reasonably available, then it takes the pressure off any individual person; vacations and such become a non-issue.
• If there's a predictable type of crisis (e.g. KSP updates, where, first, one knows that it's going to happen from time to time, and, second, there's a fairly predictable lead time of a few weeks when one knows that the next update is coming), set up the site so that it's easy to update (e.g. have stuff prepared ahead of time so that it's just push-a-button-to-update-to-1.1.3).

Those are a couple of examples, there are others.  Of course, I'm in no position to say how practical those or any other particular solutions would be for SpaceDock specifically; it depends on who's available, how difficult the software is to update or maintain, and how much time is available to implement such mitigations.

The simplest mitigation, sometimes, is just communication.  For example, if users know ahead of time about events that can impact them, it becomes a lot easier to accept bumps in the road than when they're unexpected.  Something as simple as a little banner you can put up at the top of the web page with relevant announcements, e.g. "Note:  Owing to personal vacation, SpaceDock will have limited maintenance support from <date> to <date>. Thank you for your patience during this time."  Or whatever seems appropriate.

Anyway, thank you for the update, and I hope the remainder of your vacation is much less eventful!

[DStaal]

As a feature request, brought on by the latest update: Would it be possible to have an option to sort our own profiles?  Perhaps by 'most recently updated'? 

The sort on the landing page is nice, but it only shows the six most recently updated mods in my profile.  A KSP update comes and a lot more than six mods update - but not all of them.

[VITAS]

Thank you for trying to take away the presure guys.

As with many projects interrest in contributing is high in the beginning but gets less over time. For some time now its mainly Darklight and me working on the site. Now Darklight has to work again and ive to clean up the mess i call life we both have nearly no spare time to put into SpaceDock. But i i sank so many hours, weeks and month of time into this project and also feel a responsibility towards the trust that was and is invested in me and the Site, that i check it at least once a day and keep it working in its present state.

 

Its true (and i alerted to that fact many times in the past) that were seriously understafft and need any help  we can get. There is so much to do:

• Monitoring the site
• Checking the Forums
• Answering Support mails
• Developing the next major version of the software
• Fixing bugs in the current version
• Finding Infrastructure resources
• and so on

Sadly i had next to no response (and the ones i had where good tips on how to do things but no actual offer for help with the above points).

 

Adding New game versions or games to the site is fairly straight forward (flags and entries in the db) but a gui for it isnt implemented in the current site (but will be in the next version if i have time to finish it).

So ive to do shell limbo to put it in there. Doing so makes me nervous because its the production system and raw db changes with hand written inserts can easily mess up stuff.

 

Finaly theres the problem of me having more Projects than SpaceDock that take up time.

But i wouldnt have started SpaceDock if i wouldnt stand behind it for a long time to come.

Also the donations i get give me the feeling of appriciation and i just look at their amount from time to time to give me a boost to pull another all nighter coding (And theres the aspected of showing the commercial world that real free things (no selling of userdata or ads) can exist and are sustainable).

Bottom line is:

I Realy thank everyone for beeing supportive and understanding when stuff stops working.

p.s.

@DStaal Theres a dev version (that isnt public atm) where i compleatly redid the layout. My goal is to fill every screen with the max amount of usefull content (if you have a phone or a 30" 4k display). So larger screens mean more mod previews on the main page.

You can always click browse to see more mods (in the current version)

[DStaal]

9 minutes ago, VITAS said:

@DStaal Theres a dev version (that isnt public atm) where i compleatly redid the layout. My goal is to fill every screen with the max amount of usefull content (if you have a phone or a 30" 4k display). So larger screens mean more mod previews on the main page.

You can always click browse to see more mods (in the current version)

Clicking to browse more doesn't help much - since they don't sort, I have to figure out manually which have been updated since I last looked.  (And which ones have just updated their 'works with' tags...)  'Newest Mods' is a different list - they may not have been updated all that recently, they're just the latest that have been added.  Even just having more on the screen isn't always enough of an answer - if you run enough mods, sooner or later the screen size isn't going hold them all.

That said, it's a minor issue.  Just a feature request for whenever someone has time.    It's a bit of work for me as a user to deal with, but it can be done.  (And there's always the nice emails you send out to help as well.)  Thanks for all your work.

[VITAS]

its sorted from new to older. to be able to track what youve allready seen would require to track you. this can only be done (in a non stealthy data collecting way) if youre registered and loged in.

this could be a future feature....if i get the rewrite done

 

After about two weeks and 3 strawberry cakes baked im heading home today.

Edited June 25, 2016 by VITAS

[Guest]

Is there any way for the CKAN flag to be removed from my mods so I can continue to use SpaceDock?  I have already removed the metadata from the repository.

[VITAS]

uhm cant you uncheck the checkbox in edit mod?

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, VITAS said:

uhm cant you uncheck the checkbox in edit mod?

Nope.

[SilverlightPony]

Site seems to be down.  o_0

[VITAS]

thx it was only ungodly slow. (still seemsx to be) im home in about 2h ill try to improve it then. (i hate python)

@CliftonM its best if you ask in #ckan AND darklight for help. i dont know if its enouch to manualy change the ckan flag in the db.

Edited June 26, 2016 by VITAS

[Guest]

2 hours ago, VITAS said:

thx it was only ungodly slow. (still seemsx to be) im home in about 2h ill try to improve it then. (i hate python)

@CliftonM its best if you ask in #ckan AND darklight for help. i dont know if its enouch to manualy change the ckan flag in the db.

It appears that this whole CKAN thing is starting to wind down.  I'd expect it to be over before I post an update, anyway.

[VITAS]

@CliftonM Did i miss something?

Spacedock needs some servicing too. but as soon as i left for some vacation everyone working on it decided to do the same (or something like that). Im a bit upset about that.