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Star Army Is Fat

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The server needs to go on a diet, lol. Due to high disk-space usage, I'm making some tweaks to the site to slow down the amount of disk space the site is using.

Here's a non-comprehensive list:
  • Reduced max file upload size from about 20 MB to 12 MB
  • Keep less copies of automated backups of the forum
  • Dropped support for non-English languages on the wiki
  • Working on clearing out orphan media files on the wiki (also trying to find a way to find and remove duplicates)
  • Stopped rehosting external images in forum posts (cached instead)
  • Reduced cache duration on externally hosted image
  • Recommended server tries a low-carb option instead of stuffing its face with the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese like its webmaster is doing
Stuff you can do as a user to help:
  • Use reasonably web-sized images on wiki pages, not gargantuan pics
  • Request deletion of unused wiki images (ask me in conversation)
 
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Acewing13 said:
What do you mean reducing cache duration? Like they'll be unviewable eventually?
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Star Army caches all the external images people put in posts (e.g. pics on imgur, etc) so that they can be re-served using HTTPS. This keeps those images from breaking HTTPS like they do on the wiki (this is one reason I'm so pick about wiki images). What I'm saying is the server will keep those local copies around for less time. The image can always be refreshed if someone needs it again, provided it's still there at the original location on the other website. Previously, Star Army would rehost these types of images as attachments, but I've disabled it to save disk space.
 
Will this reduce operational costs? Or is this just a method to prevent future problems?
 
Gabriel said:
Will this reduce operational costs? Or is this just a method to prevent future problems?
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This is me trying to keep from increasing server costs. I can get more resources if we need them, but I'd rather just optimize the existing resource use first.
 
Just for safety's sake, I suggest you keep support for languages other than English. Sometimes, just sometimes when people are feeling fancy, they'll put on some Japanese for an example.
 
CadetNewb said:
Just for safety's sake, I suggest you keep support for languages other than English. Sometimes, just sometimes when people are feeling fancy, they'll put on some Japanese for an example.
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It's not the pages, it's being able to switch the interface (e.g. the edit button, etc) to other languages.
 
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Will you be culling old images that are huge, or just limiting future uploads?

Is this just for forum attachments or the wiki, too?
 
I may cull some very large wiki (e.g. 3MB+) files in favor of downsized versions. But really, getting individual files doesn't solve the overall big picture which is why I'm focused on system changes.
 
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There were over 500 images in the character: media namespace -- I've tried to sort these by year into smaller folders, so you should check your character pages and fix the now-broken image links.

The character images are in the character:2016, character:2015, and character:2014 namespaces respectively.
 
Doshii Jun said:
How does adding the year namespaces help server load?
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It doesn't help with disk space per se but every time someone opened the character: namespace in the media manager view, the server had to display over 500 images, all of which had to be cached, and it was only getting worse as people continued to put their new artworks in the main character namespace and not the subfolders.

Also, look, we made good progress: We got down from over 40 GB (of 60 max for our current hosting plan) to almost as low as 20 GB. Star Army is officially slim again!
upload_2016-10-29_7-3-35.png
 
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I didn't realize I needed to change it until I looked at my wiki and the link was broken. Maybe sending out a message would be helpful in case anyone else missed this thread? :)
 
I don't know why, but on the wiki it now says the namespace that the article is in in things such as the search box and on search results pages.

I do not feel like this is a beneficial change as it makes search results harder to look through.

Ex. "Bahram Wing [plot]" is what I get in the search box and search results page instead of a simple "Bahram Wing" or "Solanii Linksuit [iromakuanhe]" instead of just "Solanii Linksuit"
 
At first it annoyed me, but I actually really like the namespace tag. Helps when multiple articles have the same name (as is the case of some userpages and characters) and helps me get to where I'm going.

But I also have a 1080p screen, and can see how it might be less cool on a laptop screen or something.
 
Wes said:
The character images are in the character:2016, character:2015, and character:2014 namespaces respectively.
Click to expand...

The answer is already in the thread, guys.
 
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