'Parallel Universe' Wrongplanet Site?

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I spent ages looking without success for an old thread in one of the forums, so I ended up googling it. The search engine located the thread, but the site address given was 'https://dev.wrongplanet.net' as opposed to the usual 'https://wrongplanet.net'. Furthermore, when I tried to access this site, Firefox blocked it, flashing up a security message about the site being 'unsafe'.

I took the option to bypass this message and proceed to the site anyway, and it appears to be identical to the main WP site - I was even logged into it. Presumably there's a straightforward explanation for what's going on here, so does anyone have it?

https://dev.wrongplanet.net/forums/view ... start=4640

It refers to a defunct development version which was run in parallel with the live site for a while.
See - viewtopic.php?t=399306#p8842619

Okay, thanks for that - it sort of makes sense, but I'm still not sure how I was already signed into the 'development version' when I accessed it, unless I'd unwittingly used it in the past and signed in without realizing it wasn't the 'official' WP site.

Also not sure why the development version seems to be bang up to date, even though it's been long defunct.

EDIT: And I've just checked the development version again, and discovered that I'm once again signed into it, despite having signed out on my previous visit.

Is this making any sense?

....and when I sign out of the development version, I find I'm automatically signed out of the 'live version' too.


I know none of this makes any difference, but it still sorta bugs me a bit.

I think the problem was caused by allowing the development version to update the live version's databases - ideally it should have run on its own separate data. As a result locational data would have been based on that version's URL and "polluted" the databases.

Maybe it's easier to view it on a timeline basis: at some point in the past data was added for a while using the dev URL, along with data added using the live URL, so there's a cluster on the timeline where these dev URLs appear.
But there is still only one set of data, including your login status; it can just be viewed from a different URL.

As you saw, Firefox (and probably other browsers) complained about the security certificate used - because wrongplanet.net is not dev.wrongplanet.net.

It seems like there were quite a lot of posts and some threads that were on the old Wrongplanet site that for some reason, were lost when the site was updated to the new one and don't appear on the current version of the website. I've seen a number of old threads here that have half their original posts missing but those missing posts still appear on the dev.wrongplanet.net site. Do you know anything about that?

Sorry - no, I don't. I was away during the full update of the site.

That may well be so, but I know for a fact that many of the posts which vanished are still missing in the 'dev' version. Several from the Latin thread in the Languages section, for instance.

Also, take a look at the massive gap which appears between the dates in the sections of the following thread:

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=251370&start=80 (last post on 5 June 2014)

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=251370&start=96 (first post on 29 Sept 2016)

The effect is obscured somewhat by the fact that consecutive page numbering is maintained, despite the hiatus.

I made a post in this thread on or around 11 June 2014, and the infamous 'Tarantella 64' replied to it. A fragment of her post remains in her posting history, but that's all.

Both the regular and 'dev' sites omit these posts, and probably many others.

Date gaps, usually massive, occur when someone necroposts to an old thread so I'm not sure that gap indicates anything in particular.

But consecutive page numbering is maintained on the basis of... consecutive pages, nothing more. If two pages of posts were removed following page ten, the next page would still be numbered as page eleven after the removal.


I think we're just going to have to accept that posts were lost; the transfer from the old to the current version of the forum software wasn't perfect and could probably have been managed better - but unfortunately, wasn't.
I lost 1,897 posts in the transfer process. What to do? They're gone now.