For those with an active interest in the SWDb or those working on it, I will use this topic to post updates or changes (mostly technical, but also sometimes in terms of structure, organization, etc.). If you’re interested in Forum updates, visit here.
May 10, 2015: The big relaunch (has its own topic here)
December 24: Updated the Mediawiki Software to 1.26.2 and the Skin to Foreground 1.2. This is a pretty huge upgrade actually, it should have boosted loading time, compatibility and performance. Do report problems where you encounter them.
January 13: The SWDb currently sends no emails (password reminders, change notifications). I am relatively certain where that problem is coming from. Not sure yet when I can fix it.
May 6: This was a minor tweak but it is a huge change overall. From today on, the SWDb is available through https only, thus adding extra security and privacy to your SWDb experience.
This update was also rolled out to the Grindhouse Cinema Database.
It will come to the Forum very soon!
There’s a bigger technical upgrade ahead for the SWDb, so if you can’t access it or it looks funny, check back a while later or the next day. We’ll post an announcement once the upgrade is complete. It might come with some nice new features, better security, better performance, some minor visual changes, etc.
May 4: The SWDb has received the first major software upgrade in almost four years. This was necessary to ensure the security, integrity and usability of the website and future development. It brings the SWDb up to the latest version of the Wiki software used.
What’s new? Most changes are “under the hood” so there is very little you will actually see. But it’s tons of changes in the software. The website should run faster, load better, look better on mobile devices and should work better across different browsers.
We’ve also updated the “skin” that give sour wiki the way it looks (it is called Foreground). This is still a bit of a work in progress as you can see, we’ll tweak some colors and other aspects over the next few weeks. Most notably, there is
There’ll be some minor tweaks to come, and we’ll use that to fix up a lot of pages in the SWDb. But of course we need YOUR HELP. Report problems, let us know about pages in the SWDb that need cleaning or fixing, and join our staff!
Seems like a persistent issue was left unresolved and that was: articles starting with a period being inaccessible. We are currently working on this, and in that course we will change all articles. Please let me know if you run into any problems - the issue stems from the fact that some Italian movie titles started with “…”
A larger upgrade was performed on the software the SWDb runs on. I am still trying to fix the embedding of YouTube videos, but overall it seems as if it all went… fine. Please report any snags you might encounter. If in doubt, empty your browser’s cache aka temporary files and refresh certain pages, to see if that might not fix the problem. Overall, to much changed under the hood to sum it all up, but I plan on reporting a few detailed upgrades soon, and in the near future one big project will be to improve the site’s search functionality.
The page should however, whethe you notice it or not, run faster, better and that also goes for viewing it on mobile devices.
Yesterday saw a smaller update. All should work normal. Please as always, do report things that seem broken.
The SWDb adds an average of five new reviews per month, but that’s not enough. We’re looking for contributors that want to review (even the most obscure) spaghetti westerns - in any language. Get in touch with us
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Category:Reviews
There will be a regular update today on the SWDb, editing (maybe also usage) may be temporarily limited.
Update went rather smooth, everything should work well, please report any problems. Make sure you delete your browser cache first / temporary files.
I was able to identify what caused performance issues on the site and will work to improve it
Yesterday, the SWDb was switched to “3.0” for all visitors, one of the most drastic updates to the website in years. Now, as you can see from two topics on the matter of “SWDb 3.0”, the work is far from finished, but since I don’t have a team of co-workers on the software side of things, it seemed a better idea to “experiment on the living thing” and just roll with it, while we’re still making improvements. For all feedback and changes, please have a look at the “Testing 3.0” and the “What’s new” topic
We’re testing out Mastodon, so if you use this federated Twitter alternative as well, stop by and say hello at
Performed a major upgrade under the hood of the SWDb, let us know if something seems fishy. No switch to PHP 8.x yet, might follow at a later point.
Edit: The upgrade went wrong (these things happen) and was reverted. Will be attempted another time.
Quality control month: I am doing a lot of small and large fixes all around on the content side. For example fixing broken redirects, fixing orphaned pages, abandoned categories, dead ends, dead links, etc. If you see ANYTHING weird/fishy/broken in the SWDb, please let me know!
