[WikiEN-l] Article size considerations

Mon Feb 28 15:31:16 UTC 2005

All of this needs to be taken to Wikipedia_talk:Article_size and Wikipedia:Article_size and MediaWiki_talk:Longpagewarning, where I and some others are Being Bold (and the warning message is consequently in a state of flux...) To summarize what I believe to be true:

The _only_ reason for a _firm_ bright-line limit of 32KB was a technical limitation in some now-seldom-used browsers. Because of the advent of section editing, even users of these browsers can do _almost_ anything needed, and updated versions of these browsers are available. Thus, there is consensus that article size is now limited _only_ by considerations of page-loading speed, ease of navigation, issues of style and organization and preference, etc. There is no longer any urgent need to take action just because an article is 36KB.

The actual wording of the warning is still being wordsmithed. There's general agreement that it should be softened--no more "Danger! Danger! 32769 bytes! Aaaah-ooo-gah! Aaaah-ooo-gah! Split! Split!" People are struggling to find something concise that says everything people think needs to be said.

I've invented some hopefully-non-controversial uh, policy at Wikipedia:Article_size. Rather than repeat it here, I invite people to read it there and discuss in Talk.