Web Perf Hero: Umherirrender

@Umherirrender has initiated and carried out significant improvements to the performance of MediaWiki user preferences (T278650, T58633 , and T291748). The impact is felt widely and throughout Wikimedia sites. For example, when switching languages via the ULS selector, or exploring Beta Features and Gadgets, or switching skins. These are all powered by the MediaWiki “Preferences” component.

The work included implementing support for deferred message parsing in more HTMLForm classes, and applying this to the Echo and Gadgets extensions. This cut API latency by over 50%, from 0.7s to 0.3s at the median, and 1.2s to 0.5s at p95.

For more details, refer to T278650#7130951.

Web Perf Hero award

The Web Perf Hero award is given to individuals who have gone above and beyond to improve the web performance of Wikimedia projects. The initiative is led by the Performance Team and started mid-2020. It is awarded quarterly and takes the form of a Phabricator badge.

Read about past recipients at Web Perf Hero award on Wikitech.