When I go to Code Catacombs, I see a list of categories for classifying scripts by their intended purpose, but when I go to most of those category pages, the most recent scripts I see date from 2002.

Meanwhile, I know that new scripts have been posted to Catacombs continuously and quite recently, and people have been assigning "proper" category labels to them. But as time goes by, these recent scripts don't show up on the expected/intended category page.

Instead, they just get pushed down the stack further and further as more new scripts are posted, until eventually they "fall off the edge." Only 300 posts are available via the main Code Catacombs listing page (viewable 10 at a time -- very tedious).

At the moment, the oldest of those 300 is from 2004, leaving a two-year gap for most categories -- any Code posted during that time will only be available (by chance) as hits on some Super Search runs (assuming that someone hits the "continue searching" button enough times to move the coverage all the way back to the 2002-2004 epoch).

Now, I realize that managing the categories may be a difficult task, prone to needing manual intervention and ultimately somewhat thankless. After all, people who post there are given a free-form type-in field to identify a "category" for their script, so anything can happen (still, it would help a lot if just the "easy" cases were taken care of). Or maybe there's even some intrinsic constraint on resources, such that the category pages, outdated as they now are, just can't hold any more?

Oddly, if I try to use Super Search to locate, say, "Fun Stuff" in the Catacombs, I get a server error. In fact, it seems as though the error comes up on any "Super Search" that looks only at Code Catacombs. If I search both Catacombs and some other section (and cheat by searching for text that I know will show up in a Catacombs post), I get the expected hit, but if I search only the Catacombs, I get a server error. (Not intended as a shameless plug, but try searching for "assemble word counts" -- specify Catacombs along with any other section, then try it again searching only in Catacombs.)

Thankfully, I'm informed that the site administrators have been notified of the server errors. (Good luck with that, friends -- I've made a small donation...) Still, I'm curious:

Is there a good way to browse recent code posts by category? Or should the PM site docs be updated to say that the ability to find and keep track of code in the Catacombs is basically limited (and say what those limits are)?

update: Having tried again just now, on jdporter's suggestion, it looks like I'm not able to replicate the server error with Super Search -- either something got fixed, or something was just wacky on that particular night... Thanks!

(Alas, the content in the category listings, like "Utility Scripts", is still seriously outdated, and while Super Search isn't erroring out now, it still isn't finding all the utility scripts that are there.) end update


In reply to Category pages outdated in "Code Catacombs"? by graff

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