markm - is there a way to mirror this:
http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/Without getting a login prompt? I've added a receiver files repository to my site, and would like to cron job a script to pull them from your site--is that doable?
I am a file admin as well, what do I have to do?
I am not convinved that all the receiver-file sites "blindly" duplicating whatever garbage some hacker manages to put on one such site is a great idea; indeed it seems to weaken the theoretical robustness that having multiple admins maintaining multiple receiver-file sites ought to be buying us.
One time I noticed Unthinkingbit had left something out, as when I ran the file-generating scripts I happened to notice the resulting receiver-files were not paying me at all; I knew I ought to be getting at least a little something for maintaining a receiver-file site so I questioned what was up.
Despite that I didnt really look hard at all the rounds since, maybe checked the first time I was in the receivers file but then just figured whatever problem had happened before was now fixed.
So I think it is probably a good idea that admins actually run their "get latest receiver file from site X" script manually and take some kind of cursory look at what it gets before defeating the purpose of having multiple admins "maintain" copies by blindly copying whatever hack some hacker manages to get into one site and thus give the hacker automatically a hack of a majority of the sites, as the whole point had been one would have to hack a majority of the sites to accomplish a hack that would effect/affect end-users.
Also even if cron is used at all, it surely ought not to be, like, "every day in case the files changed that day", but, at most, "when a new round is due, to get the correct new files for that round."
Furthermore, typically Unthinkingbit PMs me that it is time to generate the files and upload them to my site, I do that, then he checks them (presumably) before then contacting other admins informing them the next round's files are ready. Or, at least in theory, he notices a problem, such as that he had forgot soemthing on his end before telling me to generate the files, and tells me to generate them again as he has made a fix.
So having "cron" propagate that initial erroneous file everywhere in the meantime while we are still not in consensus even just the two of us that we created them correctly would not be a great idea.
For example sometimes he will PM me to generate them and upload them, I do, then days later he PMs me again to tell me so and so had not put his tip address correctly on his Devtome author page or whatever so now that is fixed I should generate and upload again.
Only once he feels that what I have generated from the component datafiles he has put in his charity-git directory I git pull from is good, and the remaining days of grace authors get for getting their tip address right and all that does he then proceed to tell other admins that a new receiver file (or when we add another host to all receiver files going back in time to make even past history more robust, a new set of receiver files) is available for them to grab from my site.
It isn't a great idea to have "cron" pull the intermediate draughts that are part of Unthinkingbit and I working toward a consensus on what the new files should contain and whether the copy on my site is ready for others to grab yet.
Admittedly changing our working methods so as not to upload to my actual site others grab from until after consensus could avoid that but would then also add another potential place for a glitch in that we could end up in consensus that what we created is good, without it actually being on my site others pull from yet.
The way we do it currently, by the time we think it is good it is already on the correct site others will then be told to grab it from. So he is checking in effect not only that they built correctly but also in the correct place where they will thus actually get grabbed, both by other admins (who hopefully doublecheck them before putting them on their own sites) and by end-user clients.
TL;DR: I think thus admins should not use cron, and should have two scripts/commands: one very seldom used, that grabs all the files, for those rare occassions when we update the entire set of files to make all the files list all the current file-sites; and one for the usual every round case, that just grabs only the latest files. That one they might end up having to use more than once if somehow Unthinkingbit tells them my copy is ready to grab from before the grace days are over and some new author urgently convinces him to squeeze them in at the last moment due to some gltich with their tip address or something.
(For all I know, it might be that Unthinkingbit tells just one other admin the files are ready, and waits for them to confirm we don't seem to have screwed them up, before telling another admin or more admins or the rest of the admins... We should maybe figure out what we'd do if Unthinkingbit got run over by a bus without our knowledge thus we didn't hear from him at all, too, maybe... s/maybe/probably/ ... s/probably/certainly/ ...)
-MarkM-