Oregon Hikers

justpeachy wrote: ↑

December 14th, 2022, 3:27 pm

I've got another weird FG situation. If I do a search for Jefferson Park in the FG I get this page: https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Jefferson_park

But if I go to one of the hike pages (for example) and click the destination page, it takes me to this, the only difference being that this URL has an uppercase P instead of lowercase: https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Jefferson_Park

The content on both pages is similar, but not exact.

The upper case/lower case issue may be pervasive, with some links stuck in time. Look at the Categories page, and you will see all the permutations that have inserted themselves:

https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... Categories

When I did a FG search for Jefferson Park, I got the current page but with a lower case "p" for park!

I have no idea how to solve the upper case/lower case disease. These aren't separate pages, but historical iterations seem to be showing themselves given certain links/searches/etc. It makes me realize that thousands of users out there may actually be accessing old pages and getting outdated information.

jvangeld wrote: ↑

December 14th, 2022, 4:04 pm

Hiker crowding has become so bad that, not only do veteran hikers avoid the trails on a weekend, they now avoid writing about trails on the weekend.

Touché or, just to be sure . . . . touché

Can it be solved with a delete and a redirection? I seem to remember it not being that simple.

This is fallout from using the Mediawiki software which handles Wikipedia. It makes sense in the case of Wikipedia that there may be a necessity to have unique pages based on an uppercase and lowercase version of a word, because it's such a massive resource. I can't think of a good example off the top of my head, but I'm sure one exists.

The two Jefferson Park pages now appear identical? Did someone do something?

my experience is the same - one moment there appear to be two versions, one older

but then when I look again they're both the same

something weird going on

are there really two versions, or does it just appear that way?

Martell wrote: ↑

December 17th, 2022, 11:50 am

Can it be solved with a delete and a redirection? I seem to remember it not being that simple.

No, it's not that simple because they're not separate pages, and a delete will erase the entire history as well (including the current version). It seems that some links are accessing a historical version; in other words, the link or search result finds a version that is stuck in time, kind of like if you knock on my door and my 25-year-old self answers it (shocker), but please don't shoot me because you'll actually kill the current me as well.

Just peachy's link in the post still accesses an older Jefferson Park version, but now if I use the FG search field, typing in Jefferson Park, I get the current version. I can't tell if the problem is ephemeral, dependent upon a certain search at a certain time that directs back to the history (all previous saved versions can be retrieved), or semi-permanent (although I didn't do anything to fix Jefferson Park).

Also, to reiterate, this doesn't happen if you are actually logged into the Field Guide (logged in, you will always see the current page). Very few people ever actually are logged in (we have few active editors), but generally I only look at the FG when I'm logged in which is probably why I haven't encountered the issue myself.

Ok I logged out and I can see the stuck in time page.

I did find that adding something arbitrary to the querystring made it load the newer version.
https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... n_park?v=1

This makes me wonder if it's some interplay between the Cloudflare caching mechanism and the Mediawiki cache. I have something I can try.

That appears to have worked for Jefferson_park. It's not a general solution, but if you have a list of URLs there is a way to fix them. Never mind, I thought it worked, but it didn't do anything.

Ok this seemed to work, adding this to the query string (probably need to be a logged in admin):
?action=purge

https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guid ... tion=purge

Still a manual solution, but at least there is something we can do.

Thanks for checking into this, Dan. We'll keep our eyes open and see if this pops up again.

Just wanted to say thanks. I haven't had any 504 errors since it was worked on. Appreciate it.