In the process of applying an update to the 'page' table schema to prepare for improvements to the language variant code (from SerbianVariants branch), I somehow managed to horribly wedge ariel, the database master for en.wikipedia.org.

en.wikipedia.org was in and out of read-only mode for a couple hours while first I, then Domas, looked it over.

In the end, Domas switched masters for en.wikipedia.org over to db3. Ariel's been a bit flaky, and this gives us a chance to retire or re-stripe it.

So far things look ok on db3; Domas can provide more details on the horror I'm sure.

I've backed the code out of trunk for now; most but not all of our databases have had the extra field added, which should be harmless to stay until we get the rest fixed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)