[crossposted to wikipedia-l]

Brion Vibber wrote:

When I stare at mysql's process list to see the slowpokes, who comes up on top?

Search, search, search.

Some say we need to buy another server, others say the developers need to speed up the code. I think we need to to both.

We're growing very fast, but we could have grown even faster if we wouldn't have speed problems since far over a year now. It's not only that our editors could write more articles in fewer time, many articles don't get writen because people leave the project out of frustration or presumably more often don't even start editing. Many edits got lost because the server didn't respond or people didn't wait long enough.

So the Wikimedia Foundation needs money to buy new servers. Besides waiting for donations I suggest that we take part in as many bookshop affiliate programs as possible. It doesn't have the downsides of banners, because it's totaly unobtrusive and neutral. Many Wikipedians would visit their favourite online bookstore through our site if they knew the foundation will profit from it. I can't predict how much money we will make in the end, but it's worth trying.

Kurt