Alright, it's no secret we have a bit of a problem with overly large disambiguation pages (Wolverine, Mr. Fantastic, and Iron Man to name a few). Some of these characters just have SO MANY counterparts that they won't all fit on one page. Trying to alter the template to display more is problematic as several of the bigger disambigs have problems loading as it is, and many of those aren't even at capacity. So here's a proposal: Tabs. Create two or more pages for characters who have more than a certain number of counterparts (say...30? 40?), and start by only putting characters who have made more than one appearance on the main disambig pages and move those who only have appeared once to a tabbed page. This takes a huge burden off these pages, but still keeps the most-searched characters in a visible place, it allows us to find a use for the tabs system, and it allows us to better organize things. Obviously, this is a bit of a general idea, but I'm mostly just trying to find us a working solution to a system that's really not working as well as it should.

Ha! You love those tabs.

I'm thinking that the real issue is the template. In my attempts to make creating the disambig pages easier to view and edit, I've inadvertantly made them more complicated and a burden on the system.

I could theoretically crack into the code and attempt to redesign it, especially with the new gallery features that have been installed by Wikia. The original idea for the disambiguation template was to simplify the way the data is entered while making the images nice and uniform as well as clickable to get to the character. I believe images can be linked to characters now, so we might not need the setup we're currently using.

I'd like to see a homemade example of what the tab solution would look like, if you can manage one.

Peteparker wrote:Ha! You love those tabs.

Yes, and I WILL, someday, find a use for them that everyone likes.

I'm thinking that the real issue is the template. In my attempts to make creating the disambig pages easier to view and edit, I've inadvertantly made them more complicated and a burden on the system.

I could theoretically crack into the code and attempt to redesign it, especially with the new gallery features that have been installed by Wikia. The original idea for the disambiguation template was to simplify the way the data is entered while making the images nice and uniform as well as clickable to get to the character. I believe images can be linked to characters now, so we might not need the setup we're currently using.

I'm up for any solution to the problem. Both with the load times when saving and the inability to display every version. The tabs portion is merely me bringing an idea to the table to solve the problem. That way I'm not just complaining, I'm offering a possible fix. I'm MORE than up for hearing/seeing other solutions, though. Especially since my lacking of coding knowledge means that my contribution largely ends at the planning stage.

I'd like to see a homemade example of what the tab solution would look like, if you can manage one.

If I remotely knew how to code for the tabs, I'd have whipped up a test page, but my coding knowledge is sketchy past HTML (which is why I've yet to whip up my much-wanted Robot template for use with Robotic "species" like Sentinels). I just like mentioning them whenever possible.

I cooked up an example of what it could be like to use the galleries instead of the homegrown disambiguation template.

This is just a first draft, but I'm betting I could rewrite the disambiguation template to use all the same fields but display as galleries instead, which may make page loads of disambiguation pages go down significantly.

Check out the differences in load times between:

Iron Man

and

Iron Man using Galleries.

I made a minor edit to the one using galleries (added a space, purely to simulate someone adding a minor bit of data), and I ended up with the same loading issue I'd have with the regular Iron Man disambig age (it won't load the new page, it just sends me to a white page. USUALLY the save goes through anyway, but not always, and if I'm not getting sent to the saved page, I'm either forced to use the ol' bookmarks to go back to the main page, or hit the ol' back button to the pre-edit page and then reload).

Hmm. Then there's some other kind of issue.

The only template that's used on both pages is the Number to Name template, which switches the universe number with a description and a link to the first appearance of the universe.

Try the same thing with this page, which has no templates in it whatsoever. If you're still getting the same issue, than it's fundamental to displaying that many images on one page (which seems insane to me).

That must be it. Not only was there a significant speed increase (I noticed a SLIGHT difference between the previous two, but this one truly breezed by), but it actually saved and loaded like I usually expect.

So I tried to break up the massive Number to Name template into several in an effort to speed it up.

Could you do the same tests you did before again to see if any speed issues have changed?

I wish there were a way to time the page loadings before and after these changes, since it's hard to tell the difference otherwise.

So I used this site with these parameters:

http://marvel.wikia.com/Iron_Man
http://marvel.wikia.com/User:Peteparker/coolio
http://marvel.wikia.com/User:Peteparker/coolio2
http://marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title ... t#EditPage
http://marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title ... t#EditPage
http://marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title ... t#EditPage

and got these results:

Code: Select all

#     Domain name                                                                       Size      Load Time     Average Speed/KB
1    marvel.wikia.com/Iron_Man                                                       200.94 KB    0.43 seconds    0 seconds
2    marvel.wikia.com/User:Peteparker/coolio                                         135.43 KB    0.4 seconds     0 seconds
3    marvel.wikia.com/User:Peteparker/coolio2                                        118.63 KB    0.41 seconds    0 seconds
4    marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title=Iron_Man&action=edit#EditPage                   36.53 KB    0.83 seconds    0.02 seconds
5    marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Peteparker/coolio&action=edit#EditPage     43.48 KB    0.93 seconds    0.02 seconds
6    marvel.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Peteparker/coolio2&action=edit#EditPage    40.23 KB    0.84 seconds    0.02 seconds

Much, much, much better. Though I'll get a better idea the next time I add an alternate counterpart, it seems like there's a definite speed improvement (coolio actually loaded after the save, something it didn't want to do before).

Anything we can do about not all of the alternates loading on some pages? Or are you already looking into that/fixed that, and I never noticed?

Examples please! (Or are we still talking about the biggins?)

The big ones. Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Wolverine, etc. Loading times were the more annoying issue, but the fact that not all are showing is still something I'd like to address and, if at all possible, come up with a solution for (whatever solution we can come up with. Doesn't have to be tabs, but I'd like that to be our "we have no other ideas, so let's see if we can get this to work" plan).

GrnMarvl14 wrote:The big ones. Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Wolverine, etc. Loading times were the more annoying issue, but the fact that not all are showing is still something I'd like to address and, if at all possible, come up with a solution for (whatever solution we can come up with. Doesn't have to be tabs, but I'd like that to be our "we have no other ideas, so let's see if we can get this to work" plan).

OH! Not all are showing! I can update the template for now at least...

What did you think about using a regular gallery? Is it uglier to use the full pictures without the rounded corners?

It's not bad. Just not as good. Maybe because it was such a rough draft it just didn't look as nice. It seemed crowded and less informative.