PaulaBean backup?
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Continuing the discussion from Getting Wired:
Since @PaulaBean's gone AWOL again:
Given that Paula already caused problems in the past, and that mods cannot contact her (AFAIK), but have to bug @apapadimoulis or one of the Discodevs to fix her up instead, I was thinking: couldn't we replace, or at least have a backup option using already existing bots we now have running around?
From what I gathered @accalia's SockBot is the easiest to write modules for and can be controlled by PMs, and recognize trust levels. So, technically, we could have another @PaulaBean the mods could kick off as needed at the very least without giving anyone the keys to our Discourse install.
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doable, but Paula also does some magic behind the scenes to make the comments interstitial page on the main site work as well as actually link to the comments section.... I'm not entirely sure how that works but, assuming direct DB access isn't needed, there's no reason that it couldn't be implemented as a sockbot.
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I'd prefer Paula be fixed...
Trouble is Paula has access both to the main site and the DC forum - more access than even I (and @shadowmod, to pick the only other non-system admin 'bot) have (or want.)
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but Paula also does some magic behind the scenes to make the comments interstitial page on the main site work as well as actually link to the comments section
Oh, right, I always get to articles through comments rather than the other way around, so I completely forgot about that.
I'd prefer Paula be fixed...
Would probably be the best solution, yes.
Trouble is Paula has access both to the main site and the DC forum - more access than even I (and @shadowmod, to pick the only other non-system admin 'bot) have (or want.)
I always buttumed there's some kind of API on the main site Paula uses for her magics. Does she actually fiddle with files on the server / accesses the DB directly then?
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she accesses discourse through the discourse API but as she runs on the webserver for the main site i think she tickles the DB there directly.
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Does she actually fiddle with files on the server / accesses the DB directly then?
One presumes she has access to the main site DB (either directly or via API) in order to create the interstitial pages between the articles and the topics on here (discussed not too long ago actually.)
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@PaulaBean is really just the main page doing API calls to Discourse, it’s not a separate service or anything; the problems with @PaulaBean are a combination of Discourse outages and Front-Page bugs.
This last one was caused by the discussion id for a new article being 0; not sure how it happened, but apparently that then broke all articles. So, there’s now a check for 0, and if an article has a problem, it shouldn’t break everything else.
