patrick.net

I need some kind of automated testing, and the ability to get texted if something really wrong.

You could always have a "Report problem" button that only people with enough comments could see and click.

If enough people fill up the problem queue before you flush it, it would text you.

Good idea! OK, I'll do that.

How about calling it "Report a site problem" in the footer?

I'd be happy if I could just lose a few million.

You should have bought some "luxury" housing in 2006!

Did Suzanne research this?

Ah Suzanne. I bet she did cause the public to lose billions of dollars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubsd-tWYmZw

Is commenting broken again? I submitted something on another thread, and it didn't display. When I resubmit, it says it's a duplicate.

Also, HTML is showing up when I edit a comment even thought I didn't put it in there.

Hmmm, this comment showed up, but maybe it depends on the content.

What was the other thread and what did you say there?

If it doesn't show up here either, could you mail it to me? p@patrick.net

corntrollio says

Also, HTML is showing up when I edit a comment even thought I didn't put it in there.

That's the main performance improvement. Before, it was doing all that formatting for every comment before displaying it. That really slowed down the server. Now, I format it before saving it, so it's really fast to display it.

But true, when you look at your comment in an editor, that formatting will be visible.

Hmmm, this comment showed up, but maybe it depends on the content.

What was the other thread and what did you say there?

If it doesn't show up here either, could you mail it to me? p@patrick.net

I just tried to quote my comment here. Didn't work. Maybe it's either the % or / that I put in it? It's on the Vancouver thread that I created recently. The comment starts by quoting kentm and discusses what the CMHC allows for down payments and income ratios for mortgages it insures.

That's the main performance improvement. Before, it was doing all that formatting for every comment before displaying it. That really slowed down the server. Now, I format it before saving it, so it's really fast to display it.

Cool, thanks for continuing to improve the site. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't going crazy. I also noticed that backslashes are not currently being stripped out before quote marks and backslashes upon display -- see the quote of myself below.

Didn\'t work. Maybe it\'s either the % or / that I put in it? It\'s on the Vancouver thread that I created recently.

Hmmm, this comment showed up, but maybe it depends on the content.

What was the other thread and what did you say there?

If it doesn't show up here either, could you mail it to me? p@patrick.net

It was on the recent Vancouver thread I created. Here is the comment:

I not familiar with local laws in BC that would require a particular down payment or income ratio, but that wasn't my impression of how the CMHC works for mortgage insurance -- certainly lower down payments are permitted because you can get CMHC insurance for them:

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/moloin/moloin_003.cfm

You have to put at least 5% down and have a PITH (principal, interest, tax, and heating vs. PITI, I for insurance, in the US) ratio to income of 32% and an overall debt to income ratio of 40%.

Traditional 20% down fixed mortgages in the U.S. require a 28/36 ratio.

Even under the reforms proposed last year to cool down the housing market, I don't see too much deviation from this except that non-owner occupied is required to have 20% down:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/19/mortgage-rules-april-19.html

Can you give us a source for those local laws?

OK, I see now that comments were not automatically being approved.

I approved your comment and it showed up.

Okay, looks like all the comments just showed up. You fixed the problem?

No, I think the problem is that some comments don't get auto-approved, but I can't reproduce it so I can't fix it yet.

Can you post something on this thread that you think will not show up?

Success! It didn't show up!

"I can try to do that." \'How is this doing?' \\\///|'"'"

Maybe it's because those comments have too many links:

http://patrick.net/?p=872954
http://patrick.net/?p=873279
http://patrick.net/?p=874412

Test comment with weird charac(%*@(#;:,.$*#@#(%)/>///.

I approved it after that and it did show up.

Thanks! Now I've got something to work with.

If it's helpful, my comment on this thread also got caught:

http://patrick.net/?p=872284#comment-749318

Another thing, Patrick. Non-Patrick.net URLs that are not linked to words (i.e. with an a-tag) are also showing up strange. For example Troy's comment here:

http://patrick.net/?p=838204&c=749317#comment-749321

The link in that post sends me to:

http://patrick.net/\"http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CMDEBT\"

Reload the page and then they work! Damn strange.

I fixed the first problem though. You can now post any of your previous comments and they should show up immediately. It was a bad regular expression, which thought that you were trying to post more links than you really were.

I'll work on that weird URL formatting.

Let me know if you have any problems getting things to show up now.

I will, thanks!

Reload the page and then they work! Damn strange.

I noticed it's been doing this for quote marks too -- the \" will show up upon posting, then you reload and the \ disappears. I suspect it's the same issue as the URL thing.

Another observation. Some html tag are back, when in the edit mode. I don't mind at all, but some may be intimidated.

OK, I think I cured the backslashitis.

Here are some tests:

My name is O'Brien.

My url is http://obrien.com/

Another problem: suddenly the moderation became very aggressive, holding any comment for moderation if it had more than one link, or had "fuck" or similar words, including someone who quoted Apocalypsefuck.

I think I've killed that bug now too, but it probably pissed some people off when they couldn't see their comments right away. Very sorry about that.

no word measures up to the F word.

I think I've killed that bug now too, but it probably pissed some people off when they couldn't see their comments right away. Very sorry about that.

No worries -- the inevitable bug happens. We're just glad you continue to invest lots of time and effort into improving the site and keeping things going.