Forum:Optimizing the usage of DPL

Hi folks, I'm PanSola, a Wikia Helper. I am dropping by to chat about DPL (Dynamic Page List) usage practices. This site is among one of the most popular Wikia wikis that use a large number of DPL calls, and as DPL queries can sometimes pose quit a load on the servers, being careful with the usage of DPL can help improve the general user experience at Wikia.

One of the most simple ways to reduce the demand of DPL on the servers is to enable caching of the results. The more often a page with DPL calls get viewed, the greater the effect caching has. And so on a popular wiki such as this one, enabling caching is likely to help reduce the server load quite a bit.

Unfortunately there is a downside: caching means the results won't immediately update when information on the wiki changes. Sometimes the information can be out of sync by several hours. If you are worried about technical accuracy, you can place a note warning the visitors "new changes may not be updated immediately". For mission-critical usages of DPL that are time-sensitive such that any delay is unacceptable, enabling caching wouldn't be a good idea.

I'll drop by again later with more tips on how to improve server performance via optimizing DPL usage. If you have any questions, concerns, or think it's a good idea but need help implementing the change, feel free to discuss here. If you need a fast response from me, please ping me on my talk page (but still keep the main discussion here, so everything is in one place). Thanks. (you can also check out more tips here). -User:PanSola(talk/history) 23:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)