You’ll be pleased to know that the Recent Annotations page is back. It used to be re-built every time an annotation was posted, which might have been one of several factors contributing to the Internal Server Errors. The page is now built whenever the page is viewed which will take some load off Movable Type’s comment-handling script (actually, the page is never built more than once every two minutes, so it may occasionally lag a minute or two behind).
I think it’s working correctly, but let me know if you notice anything particularly odd. Also, if there’s anything about the page that could be improved, so it’s a better quick overview of all that’s happening on the site, do post below or to the new discussion group.
I’ve spent the evening trying to work out why “Internal Server Errors” are generated so often when annotations are posted. I’ve tried simplifying the templates Movable Type uses to generate the site’s pages, to the point of reverting to the software’s default, very simple, templates. Although I saw some improvement I was still seeing errors around 10-20% of the time.
I’m about to start work on the site, to find out the cause of the “Internal Server Errors”. The appearance will change dramatically and test comments will be posted. I’ll post again when I’ve finished.
Early on Thursday evening, UK time, I’ll be doing some work on the site to try and find what’s causing the relentless “Internal Server Errors.” This means that the look of the site will change drastically, as I try out some simpler templates, and there will be a lot of test annotations appearing from me.
I’ll post a message on the front page when I begin work, and again when I’ve finished. Hopefully with some positive results…
Everyone on the SmartGroups discussion group should have been notified already, but for everyone else… The Discussion Group is moving to Yahoo! Groups because SmartGroups seems to be increasingly unreliable — messages often arrive days after they’ve been sent. So if you want to join the new group, you can sign up here.
I’ve switched the ability to annotate back on. There’s no more spam appearing right now, but it’s possible it will appear again. If so I’ll have to think of some better solution to the problem.
Due to a huge flood of spam, that shows no sign of stopping after an hour of me fighting it, annotations are currently disabled. I’ll post an update when they’re enabled again.
A couple of months back I said that the references in the Encyclopedia — which link back to the diary entries on which a person, place, etc was mentioned — were no longer updating. I’ve just finished some work that means these should now be complete and up to date at last! It’ll be a couple more days before I get round to making this happen automatically for new diary entries, but by next week everything should up to date on a daily basis. As ever, let me know if you spot anything that’s broken.