Forum:Special page disappeared...???

Hi. On my wiki I usually check Special:Activeusers once in a while. Well, I was checking it today, and it says "there is no such special page"...??? I know that this was a special page, and I have found links on other wikis that go to the same page stating there isn't that special page. What happened to it? I thought it was very useful.  Swannie  talk to me 22:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Catherine confirmed that Special:Activeusers is down for maintenance, so fear not, it'll be back soon. :) --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 22:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope that you are right that it is down for maintenance, and I hope that this essential statistic will be back soon. We need this statistic very much in order to have a clear view of how many are the real participatants in our site. IassonBot 14:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Phew! Thanks for the notice! :-)  Swannie  talk to me 22:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Special:Listusers should be doing mostly what Activeusers was doing before (although it is ignoring users more than a few months old, bug being worked on). --Splarka (talk) 08:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you kidding? Listusers has nothing to do with activeusers. Listusers just lists users in alphabetical order no matter how old they are and no matter when they last edit the site, while activeuser lists the most active users in a non alphabetical order. It is a tottaly different statistic. Any operator that has access to the database can simply calculate the active users statistic by executing this simple sql query:


 * SELECT user_touched, user_name FROM user ORDER BY user_touched DESC


 * I really wonder whats the reason you made this statistic a hidden one. IassonBot 14:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I am afraid I am not kidding. Special:Listusers is now (correctly) only showing users who have edited in a particular Wikia. This is pretty much the same as Activeusers (which originally was to show only users who had edited on a particular Wikia, as at the time Listusers would show all users on all Wikia). There are some minor differences, such as the 'last edit' indicator (but this itself was buggy, often showing the last log entry rather than the last edit), and various experiments with sort order. Neither is a 'statistic', they are just lists. What are we making hidden? --Splarka (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And in case it wasn't clear: Activeusers is probably coming back soon, but until then, just try to live with Special:Listusers. --Splarka (talk) 06:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think there is a clear difference between this and this. If you cannot see the difference then.... For those who can see it, the script that produces activeusers from listusers can be found here IassonBot 14:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I really hope Activeusers to come back soon, because, using my script, it takes me half an hour to calculate activeusers from 227 listusers! IassonBot 06:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Not only a special page disappeared, but also some contributors disappeared!
For example, where is Yolfer, a campaigns contributor since 25 October 2006? Can you find him in listusers? And dont answer that he is too old, because here you can see contributors where their last edit dates 5 july 2006. Whats happening here? Can someone explain? IassonBot 12:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

And dont assume that Yolfer is the only case. I can find aprox 466 more cases of campaigns contributors that are absent from listusers! IassonBot 12:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As said, Special:Activeusers is being fixed; it will be back, so don't worry. :) --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 15:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It will be back when? Do you any any idea? The problem has been reported 29 and it is still not solved. IassonBot 21:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, when will it be back? Can someone please give us an idea of when it will be back? IassonBot is right: it's been gone since June 29th (and today is July 14....that's 15 days it's been down so far). Please reply. Thanks. Swannie talk to me 21:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Is Special:Activeusers coming back? I'm just wondering because if I click on a link to it, it goes to Special:Listusers. Is that just temporary? Thanks! Swannie talk to me 21:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is not only that Special:Activeusers disappeared. There is now a bigger problem. Special:Listusers eated 466 users from our campaigns.wikia.com site, as mentioned above (and proved using the logs I fortunately kept during six months). Who knows how many users are missing from your site too when you are trying to list them, and how many from everyone's wikia site ... IassonBot 14:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Special:Activeusers is coming back, but I don't know when. The old Activeusers special page used very database-intensive query, so now the techs are rewriting it to be less database-intensive. And the Special:Listusers filter certainly is not perfect, but at least it doesn't list all offensive accounts ever created now. So, please be patient and don't overuse Special:PokeTechs. :) --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 15:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info, Jack! Sorry if I'm seeming impatient. :) Swannie talk to me 15:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * just to wide a little bit remember tech team does a lot of work they are working hard on improving the slate/smoke skin, they are also doing a lot of stuff that involves adding features to wikia the issue is that some of these features (that are in demand by many people) work like a charm in a single wiki, but when its implemented to multi wiki server it creates issues and for some of them they had to re-coded the full feature, aside from that they have to solve a lot of bugs (that some times those bugs are user created), are reported to the staff members and they send reporting tkts to the tech team, there are times it takes times, in my case we dont worry about our active user list as we cant know who is new or have how many edits made in certain time with out investing a lot of time, but give them a little bit of time and you will see that the newer version will be improve compare to the one we had =p (cross fingers)--Cizagna (Talk) 00:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It is 13 August, and the activeusers special page is still not available. Where is Yolfer, a campaigns contributor since 25 October 2006? Can you find him in listusers? Why is he absent from the list, while Anhhung18901, a campaings contributor since 9 August 2006 is still visible? Whats going on? Why they keep giving us wrong information? Anybody knows? IassonBot 14:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It now 28 September and the above problem still remains. I think this site (and the site's programmers) has(have) lost all credibility...:-( IassonBot 19:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Activeusers vs. Listusers
August 4, 2008 and still nothing. Is listusers exactly the same as activeusers was? swannie http://images.wikia.com/logocreation/images//e/e1/Globeicon.png  talk  22:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. The problem still remains...IassonBot 22:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * How can I prove it? Look at Yolfer, a campaigns contributor since 25 October 2006. Can you find him in listusers? Not! He is absent from the list, while Anhhung18901, a campaings contributor since 9 August 2006 is still visible. The bug remains, I still wonder why they don't want to fix it. IassonBot 22:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

As previously mentioned, the old Activeusers page was very resource intensive, and was disabled. I do not know the current situation of it, but it's not a high priority fix. I'll see what I can find out. See also w:c:help:Help:Active users. Update: so as far I can tell the only difference is the last edit indicator, between the old Activeusers and the current Listusers. 10:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Come on! it is very simple to fix this bug. Give me access to your database and it will be fixed immediately. The media wiki database keeps records of when a user last logged in! There is an appropriate field in the database, located in every user's record. Even if the old activeusers script was resource intensive, to present the appropriate field from the database and reveal the active users is not at all resource intensive. The reason you put the bug in low priority and the reason you refuse to fix it, is because you don't want us to know who really participates to a wikia place and their exact and real number. Let the smart one understand the reason why you don't want to give us such information. IassonBot 21:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This information is acessible on the new stat page under the first table. Click the links (not the file icon) about user information and a new table will be shown.
 * I can see you have 3 recently actives editors and 97 recently absent users in thoses tables. You can even have a table for anonymous (third one).
 * Hope that helps. See ya. — TulipVorlax 11:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information, but I am afraid it is not the same thing. WikiaStats shows just the number of activeusers.  Activeusers script not only shows the number of active users but also let us know WHO is active, and this information is very essential in order for a community to be formed. A community is formed by persons, not by numbers. IassonBot 14:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Active users is shown :
 * [[Image:active users on wikia stats.png|250px]]
 * — TulipVorlax 02:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you very very much! Let the people know that this new statistic works only with the new skins (like the Sapphire skin) and not with the old ones (like the Standard skin) IassonBot 04:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course there are still some minor problems, for example why only main namespace edits are counted? I think it is not fair Ngach (and all the rest users that contribute only in the talk page) not to be mentioned as active users. IassonBot 11:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe you're right... — TulipVorlax 11:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The statistics have no relation to the skin in use - I don't see how it possible could. It covers the main namespace because that is the main content area (actually, it covers all namespaces marked as content, the text needs to be updated) - it is not a contest, nor is a reflection on "worthiness" of users. I would personally do terribly on my own wiki - however, stats about admin-style edits are just not that important. For acive users, yes, I agree it's unfortunate that the last edit information is missing, but I don't have anything else to tell you. I also don't see that knowing exactly when people have edited the wiki is that important - besides, there is a minor privacy issue here: why should it be easy to find out when people are online? 22:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Wasn't there plans for a "who's online" widget ? I think we just need a new pref so people could activate "show when i'm online" (so the defaut is not to show). — TulipVorlax 21:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This is true, I will see what I can find out. 23:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not asking a "who is online" widget, I am asking a "last logged in" widget (it is very easy to implement by executing a simple sql query: SELECT user_touched, user_name FROM user ORDER BY user_touched DESC). I think it is important to know when each-one last logged in, this gives the feeling of community, and let us find out the real number of participants within a time period. IassonBot 12:29, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I know you weren't, but you're not the only one here :P In any case, I reported it when I made the reply. No update yet, but it's in the system :) 13:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't want to disappoint you, but it was in the system since the beginning of this request. The final stable release of the appropriate mediawiki plugin is there, since 15-10-2007. Unfortunately wikia admins consistently refuse to make it work. The above plugin is very essential for my work. I am trying to recalculate the votes at adopted Campaings_wikia policies. I want to consider as valid votes only the votes of the active users. It is very common for many communities, after voting their rules, to keep them applied even if the people who voted for them have left the community. I firmly believe that this is a huge mistake, and I really wonder why everybody accepts it. We should not take into account the votes of the "dead", rules voted by "dead people" should die along with their voters. Of course in order to separate the fallen rules from the applied ones, I have to find out the active and the inactive users. And this is exactly what the wikia admins prevent, by refusing to load the SpecialLastUserLoginEx plugin. They prevent this rule-deciding prototype method to flourish. IassonBot 20:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * How can we refuse to load something we don't know about? :) We don't use a standard MediaWiki system, especially in the case of user accounts, and we try and avoid adding new extensions as much as possible. I certainly do understand your reasoning, and I can see how it is important for you (I have not come across such vote methods before, but it makes sense). It is not something we are against doing, it's just a case of finding the time to get the ability in again. It has benefits for us too, as it would help us identify which wikis needs more help.
 * In any case, I will pass on the link you've given, in case it is of use to the techies. 11:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)