Talk:Grade II* listed buildings in South Somerset

Latest comment: 6 years ago by RexxS in topic Content transclusion limit exceeded

Content transclusion limit exceeded edit

The post-expand include size was 2,046,410 bytes (the limit is 2,097,152), before the April 3, 2015 edits pushed it over the top, and the article into Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. Two possible solutions, neither is ideal:

  • Split the article into two separate articles
  • Substitute some of the transcluded templates.

I see from Grade II* listed buildings in Somerset that this list has 266 entries, and the next biggest lists of Grade II* Somerset buildings are:

Wbm1058 (talk) 15:31, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I don't see how it can be split into smaller lists (Somerset has already been split into its 7 districts). I think the use of the nhle template has caused the problem. The same references were previously in place and if needed vcute can be used rather than cite which, on other lists I've been involved with, has resolved the issue.— Rod talk 15:59, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Right, I'd assume that Template:National Heritage List for England entry, which added another layer on top of {{cite web}}, is the culprit. So, the suggestion is to replace {{cite web}} in Template:National Heritage List for England entry with {{vcite web}}? Wbm1058 (talk) 18:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that's a good idea; {{vcite web}} uses Citation Style Vancouver, so you would be imposing a different citation style on all articles using {{National Heritage List for England entry}}. I've reverted the recent edits by DavidCane as that seemed to be the most direct cause of the problem. PC78 (talk) 21:02, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have used vcite on List of scheduled monuments in Mendip making it different from the other sub lists of Scheduled monuments in Somerset, but it looks as if it might be promoted to FL before long despite the difference and I think this is preferable to the further splits proposed below.— Rod talk 13:45, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
That's fine, and by all means use vcite here. I just don't think it would be appropriate to force that citation style on the hundreds of articles using {{National Heritage List for England entry}} simply because of an isolated problem here. There's no obligation to use that template for NHLE citations. PC78 (talk) 17:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I have changed publisher=English Heritage to publisher=Historic England, which I think was the purpose of the edit & there are currently no problems with the number of templates, so I don't think vcite is currently an issue.— Rod talk 17:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I hadn't considered transclusion limits. This is another reason why the name of template {{National Heritage List for England entry}} should be shorter than it is currently. When I created it, the template originally had the brief name {{NHLE}}, but, several moves by others later, the name has grown rather too long. --DavidCane (talk) 09:59, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think it's more to do with Wikipedia:Template limits, the name of the template shouldn't make a difference as far as I know. Even without using {{National Heritage List for England entry}} this article is close to the limit. It looks like it was just the straw that broke the camel's back (so to speak), as far as I can tell {{EH listed building row}} is as much to blame. PC78 (talk) 12:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
If a geographical split isn't possible, consider splitting off, say, Grade II* listed churches in South Somerset. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:30, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
I think this would make it less consistent for the reader and be different to the related Somerset lists eg sub sets of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset, Scheduled monuments in Somerset.— Rod talk 13:45, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Today I changed {{reflist}} to <references responsive /> so that we can at least see what the extent of the problem is. The page is currently rendering 246 out of the 270 citations. This is because when the MediaWiki software expands the templates (i.e. replaces the template with the text that will be displayed), it keeps track of the total size of text it introduces. There is a limit (2,097,152 bytes) to the total size of that text, which is set to prevent possible DDoS attacks and slow performance – see Wikipedia:Template limits for more detail. This page reaches 2,097,150 bytes after the 246th citation has been expanded.

In brief, if we want to see all of the references, then we either need to have fewer references on the page (i.e. split the list) or fewer/smaller templates used (e.g. substitute some templates).

Neither is ideal, as I can see that splitting the list is not wanted – although lists with over 250 entries are always likely to approach or exceed the limits of the software. Similarly, substituting templates will make maintenance harder. Another possibility is to return to a wiki-table format and abandon the use of {{EH listed building row}}, etc. I assume that wouldn't be popular either.

For the moment, I've shortened the text of each reference by removing the publisher and changing "National Heritage List for England" to "NHLE", which is enough to allow all of the references to display (but only just: Post‐expand include size: 2,096,323 used; limit is 2,097,152 bytes). To offset the loss of information, I've added a note at the end of the references section: "The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is published by Historic England." If you don't like it, feel free to revert any and all of the changes I made today.

This is, of course, only a work-around, not a real solution. Adding another few rows to the list will push it over the limit again. But for now, I hope it helps. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for all your work on this. Splitting the list or removing {{EH listed building row}} would ruin the consistency in sub lists of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset and Grade II* listed buildings in Somerset and I was hoping to avoid this. I'm not sure I totally understand why a particular limit (2,097,152 bytes) would stop a DDoS attack but a higher limit wouldn't - but I'm probably never going to understand all the techie bits which run in the background. What you have done achieves what I was aiming for (all references displaying) so I think it is great but will be interesting to see if there are any comments when I finally get around to nominating this list at FLC (Grade II* listed buildings in Taunton Deane is currently nominated & Grade II* listed buildings in Sedgemoor got its star when I was away on holiday). Thanks again.— Rod talk 17:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
You're welcome, Rod. As for why exactly 2,097,152 bytes is chosen as a limit, it's 0x200000 or 2^21. Of course it's an arbitrary limit, but one which is at right sort of size to prevent the parser from taking too long over any one page. That helps stop the software from timing out, which a higher limit would let happen more often during very busy times. It won't stop a DDoS attack, of course, but as I understand it, it will reduce its ability to cripple the server by continuously causing it to time-out. Hope that's a little bit clearer, anyway. --RexxS (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

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