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Bugs on Wikia: Your Role in Making Wikia a Bug-Free Place

DaNASCAT DaNASCAT January 11, 2012

Hey All! I’m Tim "daNASCAT" Quievryn, and hopefully through my seven years of editing wikis and two and a half working here at Wikia, I've had a chance to chat most of you readers. For those who I haven't crossed paths with yet, I am a member of Community Support team and handle the technical needs of the Wikia community. This includes adjusting wiki settings, reviewing extensions, as well as diagnosing and helping fix bugs.

Yes, I also sit this close to my computer. No, I am secretly not a cat.
DaNASCATAdded by DaNASCAT

Helping squash bugs is the most intense but satisfying part of my job. Wikia does the very best job we can to prevent bugs from appearing on your wikis but considering how many features we are constantly tweaking, releasing, and testing, its inevitable that some will always get past us.

Thank you!Edit

Even with all of the testing and as much as I'd like to toot our own horn, the simple fact of the matter is that you, the Wikia Community, are the ones I am here to thank today. You are truly the eyes and ears on the ground of Wikia, the ones who visit the vast number of wikis and the ones who use features in unexpected and unique ways. There’s a big misconception that staff must be aware of every discussion and bug that's going on the site. While being omnipathic would be pretty cool, that's simply impossible.

The primary way we receive bug reports is through Special:Contact. When a bug is reported, a Wikia staff member goes to the wiki the bug is reported on and try to recreate the error. I personally have six different browsers and two different operating systems installed on my home machine for bug testing purposes. Sometimes identifying and recreating the issue requires some back and forth conversations between the staff member and the bug reporter, but we vigorously pursue the issue until we can get it resolved. Through Special:Contact, we collected almost 2,000 bug reports in 2011! Whether big or small, every bug is important to us and every report appreciated, so thank you for working with us!

Bug reportingEdit

Think you found a bug? Be sure to let us know! When reporting, the biggest way you can help us is by asking yourself a simple question: "If someone brand new to Wikia were to read this would they be able to understand exactly what the issue is?" If your bug report says simply "the Theme Designer is broken" or "the editor doesn’t seem to be working", we’re going to have to reply back asking for more explanation. So when reporting bugs please try to include the following:

Firebug is an extension designed for a number of web browsers that let tech-saavy users examine code. Any information from Firebug, Google Chrome's Inspect Element, or a similar extension is useful in a bug report.
DaNASCATAdded by DaNASCAT
  • Screenshot of the bug
  • Description of why it is a bug (What makes you think it is broken? What functionality is missing?)
  • Step-by-step explanation of how to reproduce
  • URL links to where the issue is happening (and multiple URLs if its happening in more than one place)
  • Browser type and version

This will greatly help us in investigating, confirming and reporting the bug to our technical team. We receive bug reports through many methods (Chat, Forums, Blog comments to just name a few) and we try very hard to follow up in all of these places, but this can be difficult. So, we request that you use Special:Contact as your one central location for submitting bug reports. If you’re worried it’s already been reported to Wikia, don’t let that stop you. We always prefer to have ten or twenty reports about an issue than zero. The number of reports is also a way to understand how many people are being affected by this and prioritize our engineers’ time in fixing the issue.

If you are curious if your specific bug is still happening or has been fixed, every Tuesday we publish a technical update for the community, letting you all know what new features and changes are coming out in the weekly code release on Wednesday. You can read the blog at Blog:Wikia Technical Updates and can subscribe to that blog by clicking here.

Thanks again to the Wikia Community for being our biggest asset in fighting bugs!

Want to receive updates on the latest Staff blog posts? Then click here to follow this blog.

Retrieved from "http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:DaNASCAT/Bugs_on_Wikia:_Your_Role_in_Making_Wikia_a_Bug-Free_Place"
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  • Kid Hawk

    Well..... I am speechless

    by Kid Hawk
  • Acer4666

    All the staff never shut up about special:contact: but here's my general experience - the staff responding to e-mail queries seeem completely less bothered, display a level of comprehension less than what they show when responding in public, and spend much more time forming an answer. I don't know why you show so much exasperation when asking people to send reports to special:contact when the support level is so much less transparent and less user-friendly. I absolutely HATE special:contact, because of the level of support I receive compared to posting in a public forum. Thats's the staff's fault - if you make special:contact more helpful, transparent and fair, then you'll get people posting in, but while it's a void of terrible customer service, you have no right to leave irritable messages about people avoiding that service. And if you're wondering, DaNascat, I'm talking about your responses to my special:contacts.

    by Acer4666
    history
    • Godisme

      No need to be rude Acer. I find just the opposite. I use Special:Contact all the time. When I send in a bug report, Tim is usually the one who answers me. I get a quick response that is often asking for a little more detail. Upon sending that in, Tim usually responds swiftly again saying he understands the problem and is filing the ticket. But that is where I think the system fails, I would like to be informed of the progress of my report and when it is resolved. If usernames were attached to tickets and an autoresponse sent out when the bug is resolved to all names on the ticket, I think everything about the contact page would be as it should be.

      by Godisme
    • Kangaroopower

      ^ I know bugzilla would be hard to set up, but maybe collaborate with google translate to set it up?

      by Kangaroopower
    • SpikeToronto

      My experience is the same as Godisme’s. I find TimQ extremely helpful. Our wiki has been very pleased with all our interactions with him. I also agree with Godisme that it’s too bad we cannot track the tickets ourselves after they’ve been filed.

      by SpikeToronto
    • Timeshifter

      Godisme. I find your remark rude. I do not find Acer4666's remark to be rude. Acer4666's remark is frank, but not rude. There is a difference. The problem with Special:Contact is that one sends in info, the staff responds, oftentimes to say your problem/complaint/bug/feature-request is not important to them (in so many words), and so why bother them (in so many words). If they do show interest (and they do sometimes), then great. But even then the good interaction oftentimes does not lead to resolution of the problem. Your info gets sent to the relevant technical staff. The thing is that the brushoffs and bad experiences are so irritating that one feels little incentive to bother with Special:Contact. I am glad that others are having good experiences. I sometimes do too. The real problem in my opinion is that there is oftentimes no back and forth with the actual developers and technical staff that work on the area in question. Or the interaction is cursory and perfunctory. Probably because they get many messages, many of them repetitive. The solution is to use talk pages instead of Special:Contact. Also, develop some kind of open Bugzilla-type of threaded interaction with developers on the staff, others with MediaWiki experience, and general editors. There would be less burnout of staff, less repetition, much more indepth work on problems, etc..

      by Timeshifter
    • The 888th Avatar

      Timeshifter, I found Acer's comment to be undiplomatic and unlikely to create the mood for change that he so desires. There's a subtle difference between politely but firmly demanding better service – explaining the problem in logical terms, detailing some examples, proposing effective solutions – and leaving a message that if translated to person-to-person speech would be interpreted as a diatribe and unreasonable. Bring on a more transparent bug-tracking system as a matter of priority I say, but there's no reason why we can't be nice to each other and the staff.

      by The 888th Avatar
      history
    • Timeshifter

      The 888th Avatar. I find your comment to be rude. You said Acer4666's comment was a diatribe and unreasonable. You said it was illogical. None of those observations are true. There were no insults. It was completely logical and well-reasoned. You said he did not propose effective solutions. He did: "make special:contact more helpful, transparent and fair."

      by Timeshifter
    • The 888th Avatar

      Timeshifter, your accusations of rudeness are no different from others' accusations, and are frankly unconstructive. A diatribe does not necessarily entail a personal attack. Neither did I suggest that Acer intended his comment as a diatribe. I actually called it "undiplomatic". What I did was further remark that if this had been "real life" and if he were talking to staff in person, I doubt many people would still talk in such a candid manner. That's the problem I consider the Internet to have – very few consider their comments on sites like this to be the same as them talking to a colleague at work. And the fact is, we are the same. We're all real people with real feelings.

      And no, I don't consider "make special:contact more helpful, transparent and fair" an "effective solution". That's like saying "make the world fair" is an "effective solution". A good answer to a problem requires real substance e.g. the suggestion from others that Wikia adopt Bugzilla.

      by The 888th Avatar
    • Timeshifter

      The 888th Avatar. You did not accept any of my criticisms of your comment. I rest my case. There are other helpful, transparent, and fair tools such as the various village pumps at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump - there are also various forums and talk pages concerning JS and CSS on Wikipedia.

      by Timeshifter
      history
    • The 888th Avatar

      I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that I was obligated to accept your "criticism". I happened to find your "criticism" unhelpful given your repeated accusations of rudeness.

      by The 888th Avatar
    • Timeshifter

      Maybe you should learn from that. What goes around comes around.

      by Timeshifter
    • The 888th Avatar

      Maybe you should learn that bit about being constructive, as opposed to accusing everyone who you don't agree with of being "rude". "What goes around comes around" absolutely does not apply on this wiki; you do not have the right to make accusations of rudeness because others did first.

      by The 888th Avatar
      history
    • Sovq

      Timeshifter, The 888th Avatar: I find your exchange of remarks quite funny. I'm also sorry if this comment offended anyone. That is all.

      by Sovq
    • The 888th Avatar

      Nah, we should always see the lighter side of things, after all. :)

      by The 888th Avatar
    • Timeshifter

      The 888th Avatar. You are the one making all the unfounded accusations. Just sayin'. :)

      by Timeshifter
    • The 888th Avatar

      Actually, most people on this thread have made an accusation. Whether or not they are "unfounded" is a matter of interpretation and disposition.

      by The 888th Avatar
    • TK-999

      Alternatively, one could formulate what kind of replacement does s/he intend to see. Several people have done so here.

      by TK-999
  • Roads

    Off-topic, but when exactly and why did Wikia switch comments to normal font instead of "Source Mode font" (Monospace, right)?

    ---****--- Roads

    by Roads
    • Godisme

      That was switched with the new editor. If you want to change it back, look at my global css.

      by Godisme
  • The Milkman

    I'm experiencing problems editing. Half of the times i backspace It moves to the start of the line, and deletes a template. If I try to create a link, it turns to whole line bold and moves my link to the middle of the sentence. It's making simple edits extremely difficult.

    by The Milkman
    • DaNASCAT

      Anyway you could take a screencast of this? Have you reported this to Special:Contact? Browser information would be useful.

      by DaNASCAT
    • Kata89

      I have had that happen, but rarely.

      by Kata89
    • The Milkman

      Sorry for the late response. I am using Chrome, and it's difficult to get a screenshot of it. It would just be an image of the I-beam pointer at the beginning of the line. It happens at least once every time I make an edit. At first, I thought it was my laptop, but the same is happening on 2 other computers, so that's not it.

      by The Milkman
    • Kata89

      I have had problems with chrome in general, so I use Firefox and it has never happened on firefox.

      by Kata89
    • Roads

      Try just Source Mode. I made it my default in my preferences, and I rarely, if at all, experience errors in the editing window itself.

      ---****--- Roads

      by Roads
    • Kata89

      Oh, I always edit in source mode. But that occurrence with a bug happened a few months ago.

      by Kata89
    • The Milkman

      I do realise this seems to be an issue with Visual mode. I have yet to encounter any problems in source.

      by The Milkman
    • Kata89

      Yes. I've encountered several bugs in visual. But no problems in source.

      by Kata89
  • KevzMarz

    What we are waiting for now is the fix for the line height errors...

    by KevzMarz
  • Kangaroopower

    I love how people are reporting bugs on the blog instead of using the special:contact form daNascat emphasized in his blog ;)

    by Kangaroopower
  • Tlsonic

    Ok.

    by Tlsonic
  • Sam1207

    Another WYSIWYG bug that has only been occurring for a day or two, is that selecting a heading will move the cursor down from the top of the editor. It has no effect on the actual page, but is annoying.

    by Sam1207
  • KevzMarz

    Yet, using comments on weekly Technical Updates give us a shorter time to report bugs...

    by KevzMarz
    • The 888th Avatar

      Mm, for those yet to learn the wonders of Special:Contact, I guess it does... ;)

      by The 888th Avatar
    • KevzMarz

      Absolutely! it is faster.. I think, and sure users read these updates first after logging in to check what's new (just like me)

      by KevzMarz
    • DaNASCAT

      Obviously, we pay attention to the comments on the TU blog as well, but at a certain point each week we have to move on and stop paying attention to those comments. Again, we're not saying we're not paying attention to other sources of bug reports like the forum or TU comments, BUT Special:Contact practically guarantees your bug report is going to be seen and just as quickly.

      by DaNASCAT
  • Annawantimes

    No need to thank us, although we report bugs, you have the more difficult job of fixing them. :)

    by Annawantimes
  • Acer4666

    When you say "i am secretly not a cat", do you mean "i am not secretly a cat"? I didn't think the fact you weren't a cat was a secret

    by Acer4666
  • WikiPim

    Poor bugs, they look so cute and yet are so hated among the internet community. Undeserved in my perspective. Glory to all the bugs. Long live the Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera. More rights for bugs! Stop discriminating bugs NOW. ( ;) ;) ;) )

    by WikiPim
  • Fandyllic

    How does a user know if their bug is still being tracked?

    by Fandyllic
    • DaNASCAT

      Unfortunately, there's no good system in place for public tracking and viewing of bugs at the moment, but I feel comfortable saying publicly it's on the staff "wish list" and something I see being done given enough time. It is our goal to make this bug-fixing process slightly more transparent, not the other way around.

      You may ask why we are not using Bugzilla for such a purpose. Unfortunately, it is not rigorous enough for the needs of a multi-language, multi-feature, multi-extension company.

      by DaNASCAT
    • Acer4666

      Sarah Manley said, in response to me asking the progress of a bug, that there was a long list of editor bugs and the one I was enquiring about hadn't made it to the top. I think, if you do a bug tracking thing, it should show this list, ie how far down the priority scale the bug that is stopping you working efficiently is, and what is jumping ahead of it in the queue so to speak, to get an idea of what Wikia deems important and not (and whether that matches the community's view).

      by Acer4666
    • SpikeToronto

      DaNASCAT, doesn’t Wikimedia — also multi-language, multi-feature, and multi-extension — use Bugzilla?

      by SpikeToronto
    • Timeshifter

      I rarely report bugs and feature requests. The reason is that I don't see a public, transparent, bug/feature system like Bugzilla. Also, Wikia does not seem to be interested in the features I am interested in. I have no way of seeing any real interest, as in a public, ranked list of priorities. As for bugs I figure others will report the bugs. I have no way of knowing if a bug has already been reported. I don't see how a nuanced discussion about all the aspects of a bug can occur if there are many reports of a bug. Reported in more or less detail. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bug_reports_and_feature_requests - On that page I pointed out how to use a Gmail address for bugzilla reports. Email addresses are public on Bugzilla. But a Google Mail account can be set to forward certain (or all) emails to another email address. That is what I do on Wikimedia's Bugzilla system. It works great. My main email address stays private. It is also a Google Mail address. So Gmail can be forwarded to another Gmail account.

      by Timeshifter
      history
    • DaNASCAT

      Spike, yes Wikimedia does but their scope is still incredibly smaller. They have, once you boil down to it, about ten major projects and then a massive i18n initiative. They have their own features to, but they are both less in number, have a much easier release schedule due to the limited number of projects, and usually are geared more towards one goal (content contribution) while we have a few goals and types of projects we work on (content contribution being one of them, of course).

      Timeshifter, I'm genuinely sorry to hear you feel this way. It's a matter of putting the cart before the horse for both of us. We need you to contact us with your needs so we can actively quantify and qualify the desires of the community, but we also hear you in saying you want it to be more transparent and don't feel comfortable contributing until then. I'm sincerely very keen on getting it more public soon.

      by DaNASCAT
      history
    • Fandyllic

      I'm sort of half-way to Timeshifter's perspective. In alot of ways submitting bugs to Special:Contact is somewhat of a black hole. I still submit from time to time, but have very little expectation of a result. I will sometimes followup a bug, if I get a useful reply about its status. Unfortunately, Uberfuzzy was pretty good at this, but now he's gone.

      by Fandyllic
  • Fandyllic

    Is Special:Contact/bug the best way to report bugs? Does it make a difference from Special:Contact/general?

    by Fandyllic
    • Godisme

      /bug goes into the pile of bug reports /general goes into the same pile as the regular questions, user conflicts and all that other stuff.

      by Godisme
    • Acer4666

      When you say pile, I guess you mean pile of e-mails until they get read? So sending it to the wrong place would get to the right place eventually, but may just take longer to get read & replied to?

      by Acer4666
    • DaNASCAT

      All emails to Special:Contact go to the same place. Using "bug report" just helps us identify and sort mail easier. I also would just say I don't like the word "pile". It makes it sound like we're just dumping it in a corner to go look at later. That couldn't be further than the truth, so I'd prefer the word "queue". We actively look for requests as they come in and try to answer everyone in order.

      by DaNASCAT
    • Godisme

      Ingenious, using a queue and not a stack.

      by Godisme
    • Airhogs777

      How about hoard? Mass? Mound? Oh, I know, conglomeration!

      by Airhogs777
      history
    • Fandyllic

      "Pile" is still pretty accurate, because from a submitter's perspective, it is just somewhere in there.

      by Fandyllic
      history
  • Sam1207

    SOOOO MANY BUGS IN THE WYSIWYG EDITOR, ONLY USING SOURCE NOW :O

    by Sam1207
    • Randomtime

      Following the reporting advice here might get rid of some.

      by Randomtime
    • Fandyllic

      Or not. Bugs have been reported in the RTE for years with very few fixes.

      by Fandyllic
    • DaNASCAT

      "Bugs have been reported in the RTE for years with very few fixes." - No offense, Fandy, but this sounds like the "omnipathic" illusion I was talking about. I'm happy to talk with you all about certain bugs, especially if directly asked for them, but I can't be aware of every bug reported on every forum post, blog comment, or talk page everywhere.

      by DaNASCAT
      history
    • DaNASCAT

      Here is a list of some of the currently known editor bugs, more or less in order of their importance:

      • A few cases of the "Restore Edit" functionality either prompting you to restore an out-of-date "lost edit" (only supposed to keep lost edits for six hours) and conversely missing a few lost edits.
      • Wikitext within divs loses linebreaks
      • H2/H3 issues with pressing [return] in Chrome
      • Button classes are not toggling properly in IE 7/8
      • {C} replacing linebreaks in isolated edits
      • Polish unicode "ś" causes editor to save (IE)

      These are the ones that struck my radar as bugs the community might be noticing. If there are more, please tell us through Special:Contact.

      by DaNASCAT
    • Sam1207

      On Chrome and Firefox, pressing enter at the end of a line jumps back to the beginning.

      by Sam1207
    • Timeoin

      I am sending the ticket now, but theres one that's similar to the {C} problem: sometimes, for no reason, Divs get randomly added to pages, turning content to complete gibberish.

      by Timeoin
    • Fandyllic

      Be careful what you wish for.

      by Fandyllic
    • Fandyllic

      See Forum:Duplicate categories.

      by Fandyllic
  • Colgatecity

    I use contact to report about bugs.

    by Colgatecity
  • Godisme

    You mean we can't just bug you and say "X is broken fix it now"? Come on Tim.

    by Godisme

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