It's a known problem, Meredith. It's the first quote on the database and for some reason the randomizer chooses that one more than any of the others. It'll get fixed at some point, but it's not high on the priority list.
t edit x-posty goodness
Yes. Lucky for you, people may be in danger.
Buffy ,'Him'
Buffistas Building a Better Board
Do you have problems, concerns or recommendations about the technical side of the Phoenix? Air them here. Compliments also welcome.
Jon B. - Mar 01, 2003 9:04:32 pm PST #3292 of 10000
A turkey in every toilet -- only in America!
Noumenon - Mar 01, 2003 9:21:54 pm PST #3293 of 10000
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
And what is high on the priority list?
t strike
CVS
t /strike
t blink
MARCIE
t /blink
<noodge noodge>
Meredith Chace - Mar 01, 2003 9:56:15 pm PST #3294 of 10000
"I'm sorry, your honor. I'll try not to have a sense of humor." - Mark Geragos
brenda m
Meredith, that's the first quote in the database, and for some reason the program really likes quote No. 1, so it comes up more often than others.
Ahh. So it's not me. Cool.
Many thanks, brenda (and amych and Jon B.). Paranoia's not my style lately, but it was seriously pursuing me, and my back was out, and it had me down on the tile floor in the bathroom, and...
So, um, have the Powers-That-Board considered using a less obnoxious quote as Quote Number One And Most Likely To Be Repeated?
Jon B. - Mar 01, 2003 10:01:24 pm PST #3295 of 10000
A turkey in every toilet -- only in America!
Lots of us like that quote...
P.M. Marc - Mar 01, 2003 10:32:18 pm PST #3296 of 10000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
We've switched it once. It was the "all about the coat" quote for a while.
(By We, of course, I mean ita, after we whined at her a lot.)
I would move that the Number One Quote be changed to something about monkeys.
Elena - Mar 01, 2003 10:34:25 pm PST #3297 of 10000
Thanks for all the fish.
I think it should be something about the Chosen One.
Noumenon - Mar 01, 2003 11:10:38 pm PST #3298 of 10000
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
How 'bout
Buffy: I'm sorry. Am I repeat-o-girl?
John H - Mar 02, 2003 2:05:49 am PST #3299 of 10000
for some reason the program really likes quote No. 1
Just for the record, if you're interested, we use the built-in RANDOM feature of the SQL database, and it seems to be broken in some way in this version.
That random feature is very database-intensive, because it does something like assign a different number to every row in the db, then sort them by that number. Somewhere in that process something goes wrong, and it's not just us, there are other people in newsgroups whinging about it.
It's been proposed before that we generate a random number in the PHP and fetch just that one record instead, but ita doesn't think it's worth the effort for something that's not an essential feature.
Noumenon - Mar 02, 2003 2:12:41 am PST #3300 of 10000
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
It's been proposed that you just hack it so it tries again if it comes up with that quote. Somebody second me so I'm not allowed to bring this up again for six months.
John H - Mar 02, 2003 2:25:27 am PST #3301 of 10000
It's been proposed that you just hack it so it tries again if it comes up with that quote.
OK that's just doubly illogical. If we do something database intensive and it doesn't work, the solution is to do it twice a pageview, not once? What if it comes up with the "baby Jesus" thing again? You're going to make me wait for it to come up with an original quote, when people are reporting 6 out of 10 "baby Jesus"?
The beauty of my approach is, you note, once, how many quotes in the db, -- six hundred or so? -- you generate a random number, on load, from one to six hundred and the job's done. ita has to remember to change the upper limit when new quotes get added to the db, but as that's only ever happened once, and nobody would know if she forgot, it's not onerous.
This way we're hammering the database on every pageview in order to get something random, but we're not getting something random. It'd be more sensible to adopt one quote and stick with it...