[Wikimedia-l] banner loading optimization

[Ryan Kaldari]

In preparation for this year's fundraiser, I've put a good deal of 
effort into optimizing the speed of CentralNotice banner loading. Under 
ideal conditions (fast connection, no servers acting up, not many JS 
gadgets to compete with), it should take less than a second. Hopefully, 
this will reduce the "banner bump" problem and cause fewer misplaced 
clicks. For all the gory details see:
http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/CentralNotice/Optimizing_banner_loading#2012_update

These optimizations went into place last week and are now live on all 
wikis. If you have any comments or questions, please email me personally 
(I don't read wikimedia-l very often).

Cheers,
Ryan Kaldari