I am not one to complain frequently or quickly. I have been a software
developer, and I know the anguish that often involves, and the meager
thanks that are often received.
However, I am becoming quite concerned about the recent performance
issues on en.wikipedia. I don't know if there are similar issues with
other projects or languages.
As users, we are told (at
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/) that the issues now is
not hardware or the MediaWiki software, but rather load balancing. We
are also told to "try again" when we receive one of many ugly errors.
We are invited to help, but given no indication how we might do that.
This situation is very unsatisfactory, and is damaging to Wikipedia.
I know that the developers are very busy, and are volunteering their
time. I do not "blame" them for the problems. I don't really see this
as a technical issue. Obviously, the solution to load balancing will be
technical, but the solution to the larger issue (reliability rapid
response to problems) is an issue of the will and resources of the
Wikimedia foundation.
We cannot allow en.wikipedia (and perhaps others) to languish for days
with horrible response times and frequent, ugly user errors. We must
quickly determine what we need to do to remedy this situation, and
quickly act to implement the remedy.
With respect and concern,
Rich Holton
(en.wikipedia:user:rholton)
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