All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXI

[GethN7]

Also, and I address mods here, I changed us from using DynamicPageList3 to the original DynamicPageList (Wikimedia) version, to see if we have improved performance. Both are entirely cross-compatible, and all we use are basic features common to both, so I figured it would be worth a test to see if our pages load faster this way, as DPL3 is resource-intensive. Tested the community portal, which uses DPL extensively, and it works just fine and noticed some page load improvement.

You have broken all of my automation by doing that. Switch it back ASAP.

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robkelk/sandbox
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robke...ing_images
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robke...ses/page_1
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robke...ses/page_2
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robke...ses/page_3
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:Robkelk/sandbox/tmp

EDIT: This is the second time you have done something unilaterally that adversely affected another mod. Please stop doing things unilaterally.

Done.

Just want to mention I knew you used DPL, but not the specific DPL3 functions. Second, this was not something I could have tested without switching it over, you cannot have both on at the same time, they inherently conflict. Third, I left a log entry explaining it was a test so it could be easily reverted, but very well, I'll get the green light before doing any more live tests to make sure I don't break something I may be unaware of.

I set up a localhost clone, but I did not clone all talk pages or user pages so testing it on that would have drawn false results. Given the pattern you pointed out, I will, and you may hold me to this, cease and desist further testing of production features without getting an explicit green light, and if it happens again I shall own myself an ass and take whatever punishment deemed fit by the community for my transgression.

On that note, that brings to mind three things I wanted to talk about in light of this.

1. Much like my bot faux pas led to our new bot policy, this seems like we need to clarify a policy for monkeying around with key internals, and when and how that is appropriate for staff to do (insofar as practicable, reasonable, and does not require intervention of our Miraheze overlords).

In fact, here's a blog post I drew up with those very proposals: https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Blog:Propo...figuration

2. My performance tests did bear out my claim DPL3 is a resource drain compared to the vanilla DPL (pages loads can take up to half a second more for DPL3, this applies even to pages not using it because of expensive caching in the background, while WMF DPL is far less resource hungry). If at all possible, in light of how this broke something I was unaware of, I'd to formally request we switch over to the WMF version for all future usage until the DPL3 version performance is better optimized for page loads, assuming that is both feasible and unobjectionable unless there are specific DPL3 functions we absolutely require. as it would be best to stick with the WMF version since it will receive first-party support and constant updates as MediaWiki updates.

3. I was going to review our Gadget code, update anything that was horribly out of date, and make a tech blog post about all things that need deleted for being broken/useless or replaced with a better equivalent. Since the user blog post system worked so well for hashing out the bot policy issue, and since I'd rather avoiding stepping on toes for breaking something without what is deemed proper notice yet again, I'll post what I wanted to do said blog post and you guys can green light it from there before ANY of the changes are affected.

Blog post on that here: https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Blog:Tech_...e_features