SearchIRC Updates

Jason · Posted: Nov 08, 2003 3:29am Post subject: SearchIRC Updates

- As you can see, the front page has some new icons for various sections. I'd like to change them to something less "WinXP"ish though. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

- I wrote a network loader/updater program this evening. The result of the loader is that I can now rapidly make network changes/updates. I estimate the update time is cut down to 1/10th what it was previously with this tool. Because of it, I have added all the networks in queue this week and made all the network updates / logo additions for this week and the week prior.

- The disclaimer text on the bottom of all pages on SearchIRC was black text on black background, making it... difficult to see. That's been fixed.

- Forums now have stars! 50 posts = 1 star, 100 posts = 2 stars, 250 = 3, 500 = 4, 1000 = 5 stars.

- Networks with > 5000 avg users will default to the yearly graph. All others defaults to the weekly graph (when you initially load the network page for a given network)

Max_Man · Newbie Joined: 23 Oct 2003 Posts: 67 Location: IRC

Sweet updates Jason thanks!!!

moonman · Lurker Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 212

i like the xp'ish look, and i preferred the old rank images to the new stars thing.

Jason · Posted: Nov 08, 2003 7:50pm Post subject:

One of the reasons for the stars is because of the channel ranking that will be in place likely this weekend. :)

Details to come.

Jason · Posted: Nov 09, 2003 8:01pm Post subject:

The channel review / ranking is up.

Here is an example: http://searchirc.com/irc-darkbot-1

Click on the #darkbot review that has stars in it.

In the days to come, it will be upgraded further, so that fractional stars can be displayed, and better documentation, but most of the functionality is in place.

In order to prevent users from rendering the rankings by others useless, only your first review on a given channel counts towards it's total review rank. You may post additional reviews, but only the first matters.

At a later date, I will introduce trimming to keep the number of posts down (so that a channel doesn't have 50,000 posts), when that happens, once your posts are expunged, your new reviews will count towards the channel scoring.

Jason · Posted: Nov 09, 2003 9:05pm Post subject:

More review page updates:

- The review code is now active in the external searchirc.php program, and the top100.php page.
- Review page now displays what network the channel you are reviewing is in
- Users can now click to join the channel using irc:// or the java client
- Uses javascript AFTER the page loads to resize the window, rather than using javascript to open the window at the given size. This allows the web crawlers to crawl the reviews easier.

Jason · Posted: Nov 10, 2003 7:12pm Post subject:

In the database, what we have is expanding garbage ...

If your channel has been seen for 5 months, at 5 users on avg, then your channel went up to 400 users on avg for a month, your avg would still be quite low, since you are avging 1 month of 400 with 5 months of 5 on avg.

The solution that is now in effect is to reset the values of all channels with a seen count over 3500. Setting the avg count to the current user count.

This change will allow channels that have been seen for long amounts of time, to have their avg counts updated quicker, rather than having to work against many months of past avg counts.

Misc changes:
- channels with ' or " in it now function properly in the java applet called from the chan review page.
- Problems with channels containing ' or " are fixed when trying to add the channel to the chat directory using the "Click here" link on the search results.

Jason · Posted: Nov 12, 2003 11:50am Post subject:

Those of you having problems signing into MyChannel with netscape/opera/etc should try signing in again now.

The login code was moved a while back when irc quotes was added. It seems that NS has a problem with the cookie being set from searchirc.com when you are on mychan.searchirc.com

Moving a copy of the login back to mychan.searchirc.com seems to have solved that.

Jason · Posted: Nov 13, 2003 1:36am Post subject:

The "Latest posts" on the front page now can be mouse-over'ed to see who made the post, and in what forum it was posted in.

Jason · Posted: Nov 14, 2003 9:29pm Post subject:

Starting tonight, the server list for networks will start to be formatted according to server->uplink relationships.

Rather than a straight list, they are indented, according to what server is linked to what hub.

Examples:
http://searchirc.com/servers/EFnet
http://searchirc.com/servers/IRCNet

Jason · Posted: Nov 15, 2003 6:53pm Post subject:

Fixed a small bug with the channel reviews that prevented users from viewing the second+ pages of reviews.

Working example: http://searchirc.com/chan_review.php?c=I01hZDQwXCdz&n=1086

Jason · Posted: Nov 20, 2003 3:08pm Post subject:

Unbeknownst to me, the 'network map' indentation broke the java client popup functionality that listed all available servers for a network (allowing the java users to switch servers at a click of a button). This has been fixed.

A sitemap has been added for SearchIRC (finally). You can check it out here: http://searchirc.com/sitemap.php

Jason · Posted: Nov 21, 2003 10:05pm Post subject:

Latest forums text is now clickable on the front page. It leads you to this page:

http://searchirc.com/latest_posts.php

Jason · Posted: Nov 23, 2003 12:00am Post subject:

1) All the networks that were pending this weekend have been added! *phew*

2) I've been finding more problems with users trying to add dup networks. For example: If there is a network called "SearchIRC", a user might try to submit "irc.searchirc.com", or "SearchIRC.com", or even "Search". We now check for more than just network name, we compare the server that is being specified with our motd list (all the servers we've seen) and to the connect_server used on networks. This will prevent someone from adding a network more than once because all the physical servers and round robins will be used to verify that we do not already list a network.

Jason · Posted: Nov 26, 2003 9:03pm Post subject:

Updated the channel review code to require users to have validated their email address before being able to use their newly made loginID to post reviews. We had a guy posting lots of obscene and slanderous feedback on channels, and thus had to be removed. It turns out he never even validated his loginID.

And, work has started on the User Profiles (since they include more than your profile, it will be called your Control Panel)