User:Aperfectring/Portal

From Geohashing
< User:Aperfectring
Revision as of 04:35, 30 March 2010 by imported>Aperfectring


news archive • Edit What's new on the wiki?

  • The Skate geohash achievement has been added.
  • The Climb achievement has been added.
  • The most active graticule for 2024-04 was 52,7.
  • The Eclipse achievement has been added.
  • The renaming process for the MNIMB, MNB, and Virgin Graticule achievements/consolation prizes is ongoing.

More pages needing discussion • Discussion archive • Edit Now discussing - please join in: 


AperfectBot Bugs

Please use the following bug tracker to report bugs found with the bot. http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing. I have opened bugs for all outstanding issues on this page. This will be a much easier way for me to keep track of bugs, and let me try to group similar ones together. I have preserved the sections below for now, but they will go away in a while. Please do not make any further updates to these sections.

User expedition lists have extra entries

I myself have noticed two issues with the user expedition lists that I need to address.

  • Planning pages should not be included in the list.
Added ticket: [1] --aperfectring 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
  • If an expedition was erroneously put into the list by the bot, and it no longer detects said user for that expedition, it should remove that entry if it is updating the date the expedition supposedly took place on.
Added ticket: [2] --aperfectring 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

--aperfectring

Missing expeditions

APBot doesn't think I went on the Mouseover Day expedition 2009-05-21_45_-123 Nor 2009-06-10_45_-122 Nor 2010-01-10_45_-122 It does (currently) think I went on 2009-11-24_49_-123 but I've changed the page to see if I can get it to make a better guess.

However, having just pointed out some problems, I think I should also say that it does an amazing job of making the lists of expeditions. Thank you, APR (and Relet) for all the hard work Jiml 02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Mouseover Day expedition: This is a retro expedition, which the bot doesn't look at
Created a ticket for it: [3].
2009-06-10: This is likely due to 3riador showing up linked so bloody many times, and confusion with the participants section. This is an actual problem.
Created a ticket: [4]
2010-01-10: This is most definitely to do with you not having a link to yourself on that page anywhere.
2009-11-24: The bot should ignore old dates that are nothing but "Expedition planning" pages. This is an actual problem.
Created a ticket: [5]

Minor parsing issue

The bot doesn't understand that the "and" on 2008-08-03_52_6 is between participants. - Jim

We will add a test case, and fix it relatively soon (we have a backlog of test failures, but this might get moved up due to its simplicity). --aperfectring 15:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Created ticket: [6]

This page Template:Expedition_summaries/2009-01-31 is showing the AperfectBot/UpdatePage(sp?) text Jiml 20:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Created ticket: [7]

The 2010-01-01 Page says that the Montreal hash was done by "someone", but it looks like a good name on the expedition when I look at it. Jiml 00:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Created ticket: [8]

I can't figure out how to open a ticket anymore.

This expedition: 2010-07-25 45 -122 has two groups of participants. I used a sub-heading for each, but then it didn't put it onto my list of Expeditions. I changed it to a different type of breaks and now it shows up. Jiml 06:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Malformed output

This page 2008-06-14_32_-117, is producing funky output on this page 2008-06-14. I think it is having parsing trauma with the page. I can fix the page, but I figured I'd let you take a swing at the bot first. Jiml 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I will look into it, but my general thought on those older pages is to just leave them alone. I don't think there is a whole lot I can do about the malformed output there without breaking desired functionality elsewhere. --aperfectring 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

2009-11-24 Huh?? Portal? I think I confused it somehow with that page, but I'm not sure how.... Jiml 15:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the ape has been getting confused a lot recently. Haven't gotten the chance to fix it quite yet. --APR

I think I've got another data point for you. It seems to get confused with a completely blank expedition template. Maybe it is looking for data in a section, but the section is empty. ("And good old bot's were reading wiki's and would cry..." Never mind) Jiml 19:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Could be, but I thought I had it rigged up to ignore empty sections. ("Singing this'll be the day that I die u'Unparseable section';" Sorry, just had to continue the song) --aperfectring 22:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


Not updating in October 2009

APR - the Current events page isn't getting updated. It still ends with Oct 6 for now. Jiml 05:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This has been confirmed. I will fix it when I get home from work this evening. Likely its just that the bot isn't running. --aperfectring 15:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

APR restarted the bot, and all looks better. Jiml 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This was due to the new way I am running the bot in a cron job. There is still a code fix needed here to prevent this from happening again. Basically, when I lost power (I am told this rarely happens in the Portland area, but it happened within a month of me arriving), the bot didn't clean up its lockfile. When I turn the computer back on, it was continually seeing the old lockfile, and deciding that it shouldn't start the bot. --aperfectring 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)


Not updating in June/July 2012

The bot seems to have stopped again on June 30. Pages are not being updated and, even more indicative, manual update requests aren't processed either. Could you try restarting it? Thanks! (reported here because the bug tracker link is a 404) --Calamus 03:08, 2 July 2012 (EDT)


Not updating in July 2013

The bot seems not to be running at the moment. Could you maybe restart it? Thank you :) --LeslieHapablap (talk) 09:26, 11 July 2013 (EDT)

I've just moved (hooray)! Unfortunately, though, my ISP lost my first appointment to get my internet connected, and they didn't have another one until next Thursday (18th), so the bot(s) will be down until then. =/ --aperfectring (talk) 10:43, 11 July 2013 (EDT)


Not updating in September 2013

Don't want to nag, just report :) The bot is currently down, last update was 2013-09-08. LeslieHapablap (talk) 10:17, 11 September 2013 (EDT)

No worries. Power went down this weekend, and I forgot to start it back up. Thanks for letting me know, should be up again shortly. --aperfectring (talk) 11:07, 11 September 2013 (EDT)
Thank you! --LeslieHapablap (talk) 11:32, 11 September 2013 (EDT)


Not updating in December 2016

The current events were not updated for one week now. Could you please check the bot? --Solli

Thanks for letting me know. The computer which runs the bot has been having some major issues, so I've kept it powered down for probably about a week now. In the next couple days I hope to pull the bot along with other critical things off of it, and get the bot going temporarily in another place. --aperfectring (talk) 15:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Any news? Thanks and regards, --Crox (talk) 21:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Computer that ran it has died, working on getting a new computer, but end of year, beginning of the new one has been (and will be for a bit longer) busy. I wouldn't expect anything for a couple weeks. at a minimum. --aperfectring (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the update. Let me know if I can be of any help (I'd be happy to provide you with a virtual machine for instance). --Crox (talk) 22:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
And APBot appears to be alive again! Yay! Jiml (talk) 23:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
woo-hoo! --Crox (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Not updating in November 2018

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited in the last 32 hours. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 18:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I restarted that computer yesterday, and forgot to re-kick the bot. One of these days maybe I'll bother to make it so it automatically starts. --aperfectring (talk) 21:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, that was quick! --Fippe (talk) 21:53, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Participant names in lower case

If the list of participants of an expeditions contains names that are not Wiki user names, those names appear in lower case in generated lists. For example "Shany the Hashdog" visited 2017-09-02 48 11. In the generated list in München, Germany/Expeditions and on the Main Page it appeared as "shany the hashdog". Is there any way to prevent this? --Solli (talk) 08:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I noticed this too and wonder if it can be fixed. --Fippe (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Not updating in May 2019

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last week. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 19:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 10:07, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last day. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 09:49, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Yup, everything is fine. The computer went down while I was gone for a long weekend. Everything should be back up and running. --aperfectring (talk) 12:50, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --Fippe (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Not updating in March 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 11:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in July 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 20:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to restart that computer multiple times over the long weekend, and I had remembered checking to make sure it was running, but apparently I only did that the first time? Should be going now. --Aperfectring (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --Fippe (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 09:19, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 07:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in September 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 10:24, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Baarde (talk) 22:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 13:26, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it please? --Fippe (talk) 09:25, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Done. It seems to be hanging, which it never did before. I quickly looked at gdb, and I think I know where it hung this time. I put in a timeout there, so hopefully it doesn't hang anymore. Thanks for the quick reporting! --Aperfectring (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! --Fippe (talk) 16:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
I think it has stopped working again. --Fippe (talk) 21:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
APR? --Fippe (talk) 20:51, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in October 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you please restart it? --Fippe (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Welcome back!

Welcome back, AperfectBot! --Fippe (talk) 19:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I noticed that the AperfectBot does not always use the most current graticule name, for example here. It would be a good idea to regenerate the graticule database. --Fippe (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm working on updating the bot to python3, and as a part of that, I'll have it regenerate the DB. I'd have it do it more often, but it takes a LONG time to update. I'm getting close to done with the python3 update, so should be soon. --Aperfectring (talk) 03:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Done! for example here =D and here are the python3 updates to pygeohashing --Aperfectring (talk) 04:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Unreproduced Bugs

This section is for bugs which were not explicitly fixed. The symptoms of the bug don't seem to show up anymore, so there are two possibilities: 1) The bug was fixed with other updates to the bot, or 2) It was a transient error which repaired itself on the next pass of the bot.

Line Concatenation

Currently on Current Events it has: 

2009-07-05

"McMinnville, Oregon - Jim, 3riador - A patch of woods close to Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course, in North Plains, Orego...

Davenport, Washington - Someone is, why not join them? - A farmer's field, 9.5 km east of Davenport.Courtenay, British Columbia - Elbie, Rhonda, Xore - Side of Inland Island Hwy, between Courtenay and Cumberland. "

For some reason the Courtenay line is gettting concatenated to the Davenport one. Jiml 22:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like that was a transient error. I don't know why it concatenated those two together, but I will look into it when I get home. --aperfectring 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


Feature request: per graticule expedition lists

It would be nice if the bot could maintain per graticule expedition lists similar to the per-user ones... --Crox 12:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Notification test

Test to see if the ape's notifications are still coming through for me. --aperfectring (talk) 21:16, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Notification Bugs

The notification program automatically e-mails users to advise them of each day's coordinates, or to notify them when the coordinates fall in a particular area of a graticule. Users can specify whole graticules or any centicules (hundredth parts) of graticules. It is very useful for people who don't have time to check the coordinates every day, but who would be interested in geohashing, given the right opportunity. It can also be very helpful in quickly identifying accessible hashpoints in graticules which have few of them.

This page is to describe the implementation and testing of the notification program. For discussion, please use the Talk page. Credit goes to Robyn on the original idea.

Alternative Notification Systems

There are a number of limitations with my system (the one on this page). It is harder to figure out how to sign up, and it can take me a little while to make sure people have been added. It also lacks some features (like globalhashes) that I haven't had the time to implement, and is just run on one of my home computers (so unscheduled downtimes can occur). Before taking the time to figure out how to sign up for this service, it might be worthwhile checking out the one(s) in this list first to see if your needs can be met with it.

Please feel free to add any other notification services to this list.

Quick summary

  • 1. Choose a number of "centicules" (there are 100 per graticule) that you're interested in, based on the table below. Centicules MUST be 2-digit numbers.
  • 2. This helpful map tool, is a good reference to figure out what centicules you're interested in.
  • 3. EITHER 
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"
|-
!Latitude!!Longitude!!Centicule!!Message
|-
| 26 || -80 || 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09  || Comment
|-
| ...
...
|}
    • b. OR write some text in this format:
26 | 80 | 37 38 39 | youraddress@someplace.com | the mall

(the 37 38 39 are centicules you found in the table)

  • 4.Send an email to the geohashingnotifications email address with either:
    • The address of the wiki page you created in option a, and your email address; OR
    • The text in option b. (Aperfectring doesn't insist on that neat format. But be nice to him.)
  • 5. If you don't receive confirmation from the geohashingnotifications email address within a couple of days, send an e-mail to aperfectring through the wiki.

Current Implementation

The current implementation is based off of the tenths digit of the latitude and longitude for the area(s) notification should be generated for. This is your section ID. Take the tenths digit of the latitude, multiply it by ten, and add the tenths digit of the longitude.

e.g. If your coordinates were 26.026599°, -80.196111° then your "notify me" number would be 01. With 26.324963°, -80.845496° it would be 38.

You can also use this table as a reference. The coordinates for W-30 will all notify the same section ID on the same day, and the coordinates for non-W-30 will notify another (possibly different than W-30) section ID. The table is not intended to be placed on top of a graticule and give a reference for the coordinates. If you have any confusion on how to determine your section IDs, contact me.

Long *.9* *.8* *.7* *.6* *.5* *.4* *.3* *.2* *.1* *.0*
Lat
*.9* 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90
*.8* 89 88 87 86 85 84 83 82 81 80
*.7* 79 78 77 76 75 74 73 72 71 70
*.6* 69 68 67 66 65 64 63 62 61 60
*.5* 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50
*.4* 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40
*.3* 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30
*.2* 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
*.1* 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
*.0* 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00

The best reference, however, is this helpful map tool. Made by the ever helpful relet, it is an excellent reference to figure out what centicules you're interested in.

How to sign up

There are two options, the first is a wiki-based option, which is much more fully featured, the second is a much more manual (via e-mail) option.

Either way, the geohashing notifications e-mail address is those two words with no space @gmail.com.

General information

You will get an e-mail about any matches. A Section ID of "*" will match any section for that graticule. You may include any number of Section IDs for a single line. When specifying multiple Section IDs, they must be whitespace delimited (amount or type of space between entries does not matter). It is only possible to put one comment per line, so if you want different sections to have different comments, they must have their own line.

I have to add all of these entries by hand, so allow for the fact that it may take me a couple days to get your entry in. Also, please ping me on my talk page so that I get some notification in my normal e-mail.

Wiki option

Note that this format does not require an email address posted on the wiki.

Users of this option will be notified as soon as the notification program can retrieve the coordinates for the day, and will be notified for all coordinates which the Geo::Hashing module is aware of at the time the current day's coordinates become available. The added benefit of this option is greater flexibility in changing what sections you are notified by, the downside is that anyone can see/edit your notification criteria.

I strongly suggest you watch your notification page for edits, and don't post any truly personal information anywhere on the wiki. The wiki pages will be downloaded at approximately 9AM US Eastern time every day, and notifications will go out as soon as the coordinates are available after that.

Any of the previous testers who wish to convert to the new format need only tell me of the page they wish to have their notifications placed on.

The steps to enable this option:

  1. Create a wiki page following the format set out here
  2. E-mail the geohashing notifications address with both your e-mail address and a link to the wiki page you created.

Manual option

This option will be notified at 10:30 AM US Eastern time for the same day for locations west of W30, and for the next day for location east of W30. If enough people bug me, I may add the features from the wiki notification to this one, but that is unlikely. The added benefit of this option is (more) privacy, the downside is that you have to wait for me to make changes or to be removed from the notifications list.

  1. Send an e-mail to the geohashing notifications address with the following information.
  • Latitude of the grat.
  • Longitude of the grat.
  • Section ID(s) (described above)
  • E-mail address
  • Extra notes to include in the notification.

It would be nice, though not necessary, to put it into this format:

26 | 80 | 37 | youraddress@someplace.com | the mall

26 | 81 | * | youraddress@someplace.com | home grat

26 | 79 | 15 16 | youraddress@someplace.com | sister's house

Requests for those participating

All of these rules are not hard and fast laws, but more of I would really appreciate you to follow them.

  • Notify me (email or IRC) if you see any notification problems. These include:
    • Getting a whole lot more information in your e-mail than what is listed below.
    • Getting a notification when the coordinates don't match your section ID.
    • Not getting a notification when the coordinates do match your section ID.
    • The coordinates in the e-mail do not match the actual coordinates for the day.
  • Make suggestions on improving the system. If there is a quirk of the system which you don't like, let me know!
  • Please don't blame me if the coordinates in the notification send you a non-official location, and you do not ensure that the coordinates are valid before venturing to the wrong location. DO, however, blame me/the code about the initial erred coordinates, and make sure I am aware of the error.

I have done my best to try to make sure the coordinates will be correct. However, I am but a human, and could easily have made a mistake.

How many people are using it?

As of 2009-06-09:

Currently there are 18 people, including my debug registration, registered for the preferred wiki format.

There are also 19 people, including my debug registration, registered on the static list.

This makes for 35 actual people registered for notifications.

How to contact Aperfectring in case of questions or issues

Below is a list of the best ways to get a hold of me, in order from best to worst:

  • Post your question or issue on this page, or on the talk page (discussion tab above).
  • I am in the #geohashing channel most evenings US Pacific time. Pop in and ask, or send me a MSG if you prefer.
  • Send an e-mail to the geohashing notifications address. I try to check it a couple times a week, but sometimes it is less often.
  • Send an e-mail using the "mail to user" setup on the wiki.

Testing Effort

I wish to thank all of the people who participated in the testing effort, and especially to those who provided suggestions for improvement.

Future Enhancements

Implemented Enhancements

  • Notification for the whole weekend as soon as it becomes available.
  • Status: Implemented only for the wiki format. --aperfectring 01:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • It's slightly annoying that after I have received Friday, Saturday & Sunday notifications on Friday, I get Saturday and Sunday again on Saturday and then Sunday again on Sunday. I can see cases where this would be the desired behaviour, but ideally I would like to be able to turn this off with a notify of weekend coordinates once vs. notify of weekend coordinates each day option. -Robyn 17:54, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The complexities with this come with holidays. For the weekends it could be implemented by me just not running the program on saturday or sunday mornings. --aperfectring 13:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Most days I would be perfectly satisfied reeiving double notification on Dow Holidays, just not receiving the extra notifications on Saturday and Sunday, but you'd need to make sure that someone who joined on a Saturday still got their weekend points. And some people may still prefer to get the daily mail. -Robyn 22:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I would like to prevent the multiple notification on all accounts if possible. I think it would be acceptable to not notify people until monday if their request gets processed over the weekend. The main reason being that it is still a manual process to add people to the list, and many times I forget to check on weekends. If I make a way to automatically process requests, I will set it up to immediately send all available coordinates starting with the current date (by server time) to the user only before adding them to the list. --aperfectring 23:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I have implemented this option. --aperfectring 20:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't get any notifications except for the current day. This last weekend, I didn't get anything until I got a message on Sunday. Jiml 20:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • The weekend at once option is only for users of the wiki format. --aperfectring 20:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Requests for future enhancements

  • Automatic processing of notification request e-mails so Aperfectring doesn't have to code them by hand
  • Status: If a requester uses the wiki format, they can add or remove notifications without any interaction by me, beyond the initial inclusion of the e-mail/wiki address combo. If they use the other format, and provide it in the requested syntax, then it requires minimal effort for me. --aperfectring 01:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • A cool interface (or any interface) to help determine (and submit?) notification requests.
  • Note: Working with Zigdon and his mapping tool would probably be the best approach here. --Aperfectring 03:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Note 2: Rhonda is working on a prototype, but it is gone in July 2010. -Robyn 17:54, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Note 3: JesseW has written one; it's now under the "cent" link on all graticle pages. JesseW 11:17, 9 May 2012 (EDT)
  • Automatic way to remove notifications once you no longer want them.
  • Status: Implemented only for the wiki format. --aperfectring 01:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • "Only tell me if it's also a Saturday" option.
  • A way to query the system to find out what notification requests the user has on file.
  • Note: If this is intended as a way of confirming if the notification was mistakenly not sent, then there are some assumptions which can be made: 1. If using the wiki option, all notifications should be out by 10AM US EST, usually before, the older format, 10:45AM. The notification program typically runs fairly quickly, only taking a matter of seconds to parse through the whole list of notifications, which contains over 100 test entries for myself. --aperfectring 01:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
It was intended as a way of remembering "did I already set up a notification for Steve's place?" -Robyn 04:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Note: I have a way to manually get this info by logging into the account, and checking the sent mail. It also should be trivial enough (when I get to it) to dump the email addresses receiving notifications into a file.
  • A link in the e-mail to the peeron app or to Google maps with the day's coordinate marked.
  • Request globalhash notifications, with a user-defined threshold parameter of number of kilometres or graticules from a user-specified graticule, and a distinctive subject line. -Robyn 03:21, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Current work

  • I don't have a current work item, but I think my next one might be to add a link to either google maps, or the peeron map in the e-mails. It might also be the globalhash implementation.

Source Code

The source code is available as a part of the pygeohashing module.

Bug reports

</noinclude> Please report any bugs to the github code repository.


I am in the Pacific time zone of the USA. My notification today (2015-08-21) reports centicule 40, but all other sources point to centicule 78 for locations west of -30. (East of -30 is in centicule 98.) - Bravissimo594 (talk) 11:16, 21 August 2015 (EDT)

Retrieved from "https://geohashing.site/index.php?title=User:Aperfectring/Portal&oldid=222953"
Powered by MediaWiki