[Foundation-l] Should we go into read-only mode during peak periods to deal with slowdowns?

[Daniel Mayer]

As it is and in spite of very admirable efforts by our volunteer developers,
the site is still effectively dead during peak periods. NOIE: I know more
servers on on the way, but it will be a couple weeks - at least - until they
are on-line. 

The slowdown does not make us look good to clueless visitors to our site who
are only looking for information. A great many of those people will simply not
wait and move on while us Wikipediaholics spend hour upon frustrating hour
trying to police the site and contribute content. 

As a temporary measure in situations like this, I propose that all the wikis be
locked into read only mode with no log-ins accepted and a sitewide message be
displayed on the top of each page saying what is happening, why, and how they
can help by donating (with a donation link). 

This could be phased-in with the English language sites going read-only first,
and then for all other wikis as the site message is translated. Read
performance should greatly improve with all page requests cachable and database
usage at a minimum, 

That way we are still available to readers (by far our most numerous users),
everybody is informed, and our editors get a much needed break from a
frustrating editing experience. This should also have a side benefit of greatly
increasing donations. 

So, what does everybody else think? 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


		
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