Aaron--
I tried to access an article published 21 August 1999 under the title Episode 2: You Can’t Please All The People All The Time, Part One. The odd character throws off the system, I think, as the link winds up being http://gamingoutpost.com/article/episode_2_you_can8217;t_please_all_the_people_all_the_time_part_one/ and the system errors, error message reads Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENDIF in /home/.niggs/aresteia/gamingoutpost.com/wp-content/themes/livewire-20/404.php on line 47
I'm thinking the problem is in that link, but when I remove the code completely I get the same error, so it might be in the article itself somehow.
--M. J. Young
Fixed it. The system stores the article's URL in the database, which is how it knows to find it when you pull up that link. The trouble was that the weird character was in that, as well, and that was breaking things. Furthermore, while the URL is based off the title, it is only saved when the article is first created, and then not updated when changes to the title are made (so that such changes don't end up breaking any links to the article out there).
Should you come across something like this again, it's pretty easy to take care of. On the edit article screen, right until the box for the title, you'll see a little line of grey text that says "Permalink" and highlighted in yellow is the URL of the article. You can click Edit next to that to change it. Then his save and then the regular save change changes to the article button and that should do it.
I remember editing one or two article links when I detected problems in them, but this time I couldn't figure out how to get to the edit screen. Usually, though, I go from the archive index to the article to the edit screen--I'll bet that I'm overlooking an edit link in the archive index (because usually I want to see the article before I edit it). I'll remember that next time.
Thanks.
--Mark
You can also get to the edit screen by going to the site admin area (where you post articles), clicking the "Manage" tab, and then "Posts" (which is what it defaults to, I believe). Clicking on an article title in that listing will take you to the edit screen.
New observation.
Every once in a while I hit a title that winds up having no text.
Usually I just skip these; after all, it's difficult to give content tags to articles without content.
However, I just hit one, Episode 3: You Can’t Please All the People All the Time, Part Two, which is clearly one of the articles in John Wick's Game Designer's Journal series. No text appeared. I was about to add the standard tags for the series (such as the series name) but realized that when I hit save, it would save the entire edit. Not being certain whether that would cause the database to lose data that was actually there somewhere but not coming to the title, I decided not to do that.
What's the deal on these blank articles, and what should I do about them?
--M. J. Young