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Raise the default thumbnail image size from 180px to 220px on remaining Wikimedia wikis
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Description

A two-week RfC here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#Further_discussion

has produced decisive consensus for raising the default thumbnail size on en.WP from 180 to 220px. The RfC was widely advertised and there was little change in overall preferences as the RfC progressed. Many editors would like the increase to be more (including me), say 230px, but in terms of safe, practical decision-making, nothing beats the 80% of participants who found 220px acceptable. This would be a non-controversial and popular action. The yellow-blue graphs half-way down that section show the profile of community opinion from this sample.

Is it possible for a developer to put this into effect?

Thanks in advance.


Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org

Details

Reference
bz21117

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 21 2014, 10:55 PM
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For Rob's convenience, the required LocalSettings statements are:

$wgThumbLimits = array(
120,
150,
180,
200,
220,
250,
300
);
$wgDefaultUserOptions['thumbsize'] = 4;

This would add 220px as a thumb size option and automatically set it for anonymous users and all registered users currently having it set to 180 (AFAIK).

(In reply to comment #1)

This would add 220px as a thumb size option and automatically set it for
anonymous users and all registered users currently having it set to 180
(AFAIK).

I was under the impression that this was not the case, since the default was just copied in when they registered - thus no way of knowing whether or not the user had changed it in the future.

OTOH, presumably if numbers are stored in the user table, they are the index numbers of their choice in the array, and if we change the array... everything goes out of sync? Hence, you may well be correct. I don't know enough to say.

Jarry, with our current prefs infrastructure folks using the defaults will be automatically updated to the new default, at least in theory. :)

Rob, I think I'd be fine with sticking 220 in as the sitewide default. 180 does indeed feel a bit small these days.

Rob, any idea when this will be looked at?

Could someone let us know whether action will be taken, please? It's now three weeks since Brion said "I think I'd be fine with sticking 220 in as the sitewide default. 180 does
indeed feel a bit small these days."

It's just that, also by three weeks ago, the en.WP community decided by a large margin at the RfC that 220px would be better than 180px. Sorry to pester, but I need to report back at that page.

(In reply to comment #5)

Could someone let us know whether action will be taken, please? It's now three
weeks since Brion said "I think I'd be fine with sticking 220 in as the
sitewide default. 180 does
indeed feel a bit small these days."

It's just that, also by three weeks ago, the en.WP community decided by a large
margin at the RfC that 220px would be better than 180px. Sorry to pester, but I
need to report back at that page.

As it seems Rob doesn't have time for it (I've noticed he's busy with other things), I'll roll out this config change around 19:00 UTC (11am PST, 8pm CET) after consulting the ops folks about the spike in thumbnail regeneration this could cause.

Ah, thank you very much, Roan. I won't post anything at en.WP until I know the ops people are OK about it.

(In reply to comment #6)

As it seems Rob doesn't have time for it (I've noticed he's busy with other
things), I'll roll out this config change around 19:00 UTC (11am PST, 8pm CET)
after consulting the ops folks about the spike in thumbnail regeneration this
could cause.

Change of plans: since the guy who knows most about the uploading and thumbnailing infrastructure isn't around right now, I'm gonna wait till I get hold of him.

(In reply to comment #8)

Change of plans: since the guy who knows most about the uploading and
thumbnailing infrastructure isn't around right now, I'm gonna wait till I get
hold of him.

I talked to Ariel, and he's not convinced that the scalers can handle it: all images used on enwiki would have to be rethumbnailed within a relatively short time. Before we do this, Ariel wants to have a few spare machines that can be thrown into the scaler pool at short notice, and wants to be around to do that. Currently, neither is the case.

Summary: not happening right now, we need more servers first.

They could be pre-thumbnailed offline before flipping the switch.

Dear friends,

I've sent the following message to Ariel, asking for advice about when the spare capacity might be available to achieve the increase from 180 to 220 px:

"Ariel, after extensive discussion and an RfC, en.WP decided with overwhelming consensus that it wants to move the default width of thumbnail images from 180 to 200 pixels.

The request to do this technically was filed at Bugzilla on 10 October [link provided] and allocated to Rob Halsell. I refer to Roan Kattouw's 5 November comment, that:

<blockquote>I talked to Ariel, and he's not convinced that the scalers can handle it: all
images used on enwiki would have to be rethumbnailed within a relatively short
time. Before we do this, Ariel wants to have a few spare machines that can be
thrown into the scaler pool at short notice, and wants to be around to do that.
Currently, neither is the case.

Summary: not happening right now, we need more servers first.</blockquote>

The number of queries as to when the change will be made is increasing. I wonder whether you can advise us when the spare capacity might be available to achieve this important upgrade.

I've emailed this message to you at ariel@wikimedia.org and have copied it to the Bugzilla page and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#I.27ve_contacted_WMF.27s_Ariel_Glenn_about_the_thumbnail_increase en.WP's Image Use Policy talk page].

Thanks for your time, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tony1 Tony1 at en.WP]"

ayg wrote:

In discussion in #wikimedia-tech, it was also pointed out that having different thumb sizes for different projects would double the Squid cache usage for Commons images used in multiple projects. If this is an issue, it might make more sense to increase the default globally or not at all. A larger default thumb size probably makes sense on all projects given the increasing resolution of typical monitors.

Aryeh, I was told the Swedish WP, among the largest WPs, is already on a default size of 250px. Looking now, they seem to be generously sized. Is there some way of telling what the defaults are for each WP?

ayg wrote:

Configuration should be here:

http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/

I don't see $wgThumbLimits changed for any wiki, but I might just be missing it.

I just tried the map of the US and the "Teton Range" pics here in preview mode:

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA#Geografi_och_milj.C3.B6

They look exactly the same size when "250px|" is added to the syntax.

The default thumb size is 180 for all wikis but sv wikipedia (250px) and it wikiquote (200px).

InitialiseSettings.php:

'wgThumbLimits' => array(

'default' => array( 120, 150, 180, 200, 250, 300 ),
'itwikiquote' => array( 120, 150, 200, 250, 300, 360 ),
'svwiki' => array( 120, 200, 250, 300, 360 ),

),

chinchi29 wrote:

To save SquidCache I think that all WMF projects should have the same default thumb size. Something around the named 220px.

If the technical infrastructure allows it, I would lean in support of raising the default thumb size globally; 220 or 250 seem to be good choices.

If we turn this request into a global one, we should mark bug 11393 as duplicate of this one.

But WHEN is it going to happen? The Japanese WP has put in a request, too.

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11393

Can the issues raised here – specifically, (1) when there will be enough spare capacity to do the rescaling, and (2) whether it should be done for all WPs, but given priority at the next technical meeting, please?

(In reply to comment #19)

But WHEN is it going to happen?

When it can happen.

I just upped the default size on enwiki to 220px, but this is a load test and is likely to get reverted soon.

We'll want to try and get all wikis to the same setting for the final setting indeed.

This is very welcome, Mark, even if only temporary. Our fingers are crossed for permanence.

(In reply to comment #21)

We'll want to try and get all wikis to the same setting for the final setting
indeed.

I think that we at it.wikiquote would be ok with a 220px default size, so when and if you want to globally change it no problem for us.

Done for Commons on April 6:

10:16 <+logmsgbot> !log mark synchronized php-1.5/wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php 'Add 220px thumbnail size option for Commons'

10:17 <+logmsgbot> !log mark synchronized php-1.5/wmf-config/CommonSettings.php 'Set 220px as default thumbnail size on Commons'

Done for commons and en.wp so far.

jeluf wrote:

*** Bug 23587 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

  • Bug 11393 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Done for all wikis quite a while ago.