Just got back into this realm data site and thought I'd say heyas.
I've always been fascinated by all the data on this site, but only recently have I taken a more active part in it.
I've read pretty much everything available about it all and it seems pretty straight forward.
I've only been taking census on the 5 realms I have characters on(Terenas,Steemwheedle Cartel, Lothar, Proudmoore, and Undermine), but my main focus has been limited to SC and Terenas. Terenas is my "home" so it'll receive more attention than anything, but SC gets some love.
The other three are far less frequented by me nowadays.
Got any tips or advice for a new guy outside what may already be listed around?
I tend to take census 2-3 times a day; Mornings, noon-afternoon-ish, and evenings.
Is it better to wait for more bulk info to upload, meaning weeks of data vs. days or months vs. weeks, or does it matter?
I'm not looking to be some kind of miracle worker and go seeking every realm I can all the time to gain some surge of data(just no time for anything like that), but I'm fascinated enough by the data to seek lesser covered areas when I have time.
Anyways, hey to everyone and great site. Actually been coming here for quite awhile but never got involved before.
Hey from the new guy and some ??'s...
Hi and welcome, always good to see new people getting interested! 
As to your questions, just upload as and when is convenient really; if other people census the same servers you'll find uploading soon after running the censuses will get you more credits for updates (since if someone else runs a census on the same server and uploads their data before you upload yours, they get credit for the same characters you both saw), but if you've got them to yourself then no rush really, although obviously fairly often (2-3 days or so) is handy for keeping the site up to date. I generally upload every day, sometimes leave it 3-4 days max, but usually each day works best for me.
The Server submissions page at http://www.warcraftrealms.com/server_submissions.php is very handy for seeing how well covered your servers are, by the way - I use it all the time, along with the Most Wanted page
Oh and a nice tip for while you're playing - "/censusplus timer #" (replace # with a number of your choice) lets you change how often censuses run - by default it's every 30 mins, but I have it set to 5 mins, means I pick up a lot more characters while doing my regular playing on my main, etc. Also has the nice effect of making censuses start instantly when you log on instead of several minutes later - I've no idea if that's an intended feature but it's a very useful one!
As to your questions, just upload as and when is convenient really; if other people census the same servers you'll find uploading soon after running the censuses will get you more credits for updates (since if someone else runs a census on the same server and uploads their data before you upload yours, they get credit for the same characters you both saw), but if you've got them to yourself then no rush really, although obviously fairly often (2-3 days or so) is handy for keeping the site up to date. I generally upload every day, sometimes leave it 3-4 days max, but usually each day works best for me.
The Server submissions page at http://www.warcraftrealms.com/server_submissions.php is very handy for seeing how well covered your servers are, by the way - I use it all the time, along with the Most Wanted page
Oh and a nice tip for while you're playing - "/censusplus timer #" (replace # with a number of your choice) lets you change how often censuses run - by default it's every 30 mins, but I have it set to 5 mins, means I pick up a lot more characters while doing my regular playing on my main, etc. Also has the nice effect of making censuses start instantly when you log on instead of several minutes later - I've no idea if that's an intended feature but it's a very useful one!
Hello and welcome from me too!
Balgair already covered a lot things, but I'll throw in one more note. The more often you submit, the more accurate the records will be, even if the number of characters is small. Those of us who like the accuracy, usually submit often, several times a day even.
Using myself as an example... ever since I started using censusplus myself, on November 7th, 2008, the data on my own characters is (barring a few errors caused by various technical problems over the years) accurate to about 16 hours, in a few individual cases of very fast levelups, even less than that.
:D:D
Balgair already covered a lot things, but I'll throw in one more note. The more often you submit, the more accurate the records will be, even if the number of characters is small. Those of us who like the accuracy, usually submit often, several times a day even.
Using myself as an example... ever since I started using censusplus myself, on November 7th, 2008, the data on my own characters is (barring a few errors caused by various technical problems over the years) accurate to about 16 hours, in a few individual cases of very fast levelups, even less than that.
:D:D-
dr3ded
I'm a returning old member (couldn't remember old info, so starting over) from a few years ago with some questions.
I've made 9 or so submissions over the last few days. but, it still doesn't show as processed. How often is our submissions updated?
Also, is there a point that we should delete our Census.lua file? Does it continue to get bigger? or is it changing with each new Census taken?
I've made 9 or so submissions over the last few days. but, it still doesn't show as processed. How often is our submissions updated?
Also, is there a point that we should delete our Census.lua file? Does it continue to get bigger? or is it changing with each new Census taken?
Usually they'll be processed within a few hours, but the database has a backlog of about 5 days currently, so you'll have to wait a few days most likely. It does seem to be beginning to catch up though, so hopefully in a few days time we'll be back to usual on processing speed
As for the lua file, yes it gets bigger with every census you take, as new characters are added to it - you can use the command "/censusplus prune #" to reduce its size, replacing # with the number of days you'd like to keep, or just hit the Purge button on the Censusplus interface if you'd rather delete the lot. You don't have to prune it at all if you'd rather not, but be aware the website can only take uploads up to 10MB; you'd need to use UniUploader if it gets any larger!
Hope this helps, no doubt someone else will be along shortly with something I missed
As for the lua file, yes it gets bigger with every census you take, as new characters are added to it - you can use the command "/censusplus prune #" to reduce its size, replacing # with the number of days you'd like to keep, or just hit the Purge button on the Censusplus interface if you'd rather delete the lot. You don't have to prune it at all if you'd rather not, but be aware the website can only take uploads up to 10MB; you'd need to use UniUploader if it gets any larger!
Hope this helps, no doubt someone else will be along shortly with something I missed