` :I don't see a good spot to jump in there, so I'll opine here instead. ) :I think that my ``overload`` comment referred to how much more text there is in the wiki-text compared to what you see on the final screen. My point there was about the bit at the top of the edit screen that advises you that maybe this article should be split into separate articles. As far as I'm aware, that's a raw byte count and I bet I could even find the config directive that triggers the warning. The problem with that advisory is that it assumes an arbitrary content ratio. :For instance, a featured list will often consist of one or several sortable tables, each list entry having a cite template. And CSS styles are applied to make headings have colours, styles are used to emphasize list entries, blah blah. In this case, the byte-count will far exceed the visible character count. :Dr pda's counter on appearances does an accurate count of the actual screen output - though I would love to see the input/output ratios, since they would inform my views on the raw number warning shown at the edit screen. Basically, the raw number has no necessary relation to the length of the article you actually see on the screen. :As far as download times go, those are actually vastly dominated by image download times. For instance my talk page right now shows as 142KB, and the actual HTML download is 233KB. However, put four images in there at 60KB each - you've just doubled the download time. For a dialup user, you'll get 5KB/second at the best of times, so my page with four images will take ~10 seconds to load. Realistically, double that. It's not a pretty picture. Get yourself a dialup connection and have a peek at AN/I at peak drama. I start hacking away at the Reference Desks when I see them topping 800KB - I can tell, 'cause even my system gets shaky. :Another pointer - if you have a pretty good computer and you're noticing that things are getting slow and shaky, the page has already gone long beyond what most of the world can handle. I'm not even going to check if it's right, try clicking on WT:WPSPAM. Actually I did click, 41K on the edit screen, 967K actual HTML. Did I mention templates? :If any of this maundering could be possibly relevant to your discussion, pin it down, I'll research it thoroughly and give up the specifics. I hardly think though that you intended this general and lengthy comment to be placed into a discussion! )   `