Image Bloat Overkill – Poor Carbon Footprint

halfspiral
(@halfspiral)

8 years, 9 months ago

I have complained about this for years and never had a satisfactory anwser. WordPress for all its glory is still bloatware. So many features and files that most people don’t use. I am a developer and just finished a WordPress site 18 pages!! All so the the lady can update her blog and price list for a few months until she buggers it up or gets bored!

A fresh install of WP is about 1500 files and 18Mb + plugins and media. The site I did is barely 2 weeks old and the media folder already has about 250 images in it and is 19MB IN TWO WEEKS! Yet the site only shows about 30 images! BLOAT, multiple sized images that will never be used.

If 35% of the world’s websites are runnning on WP that’s a mammoth amount of resources. Now is it me or is that a blatant waste of server space, electricity, bandwidth and processing??? WordPress come get carbon footprint aware – it put’s your FREE price tag to shame – it’s costing the planet for **** sake.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)

WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

8 years, 9 months ago

Just so you know, you’re not talking about a company. You’ve downloaded software from the wordpress.org website and that software is called “WordPress”. The software is contributed and supported by a community of volunteers. Hope that’s clear.

leejosepho
(@leejosepho)

8 years, 9 months ago

If 35% of the world’s websites are runnning on WP that’s a mammoth amount of resources.

Thirty-five percent of the resources required for running the world’s websites is certainly significant, but do we have any reason to believe the resources required to run the world’s websites is a mammoth amount with any truly-significant carbon footprint or whatever in the first place…and especially today when the required hardware that used to be the sizes of refrigerators now fits in a teaspoon?

Clayton James
(@claytonjames)

8 years, 9 months ago

“Now is it me or is that a blatant waste of server space, electricity, bandwidth and processing???”

It might be just you at present, because, all of this…

“If 35% of the world’s websites are runnning on WP that’s a mammoth amount of resources. Now is it me or is that a blatant waste of server space, electricity, bandwidth and processing??? WordPress come get carbon footprint aware – it put’s your FREE price tag to shame – it’s costing the planet for **** sake. “

..is just dripping with personal opinion, rather than factual information.

Remove the appearance of a personal agenda, supply factual, supported, reproducible data that supports your assertions, and then formulate a plan of action that will contribute to the improvement of the WordPress software as a whole for the benefit of the ~74 million WordPress users (take that with a grain of salt of course, because after all – you read it on the internet! LOL!) and at the same time address your concerns regarding “carbon footprint” issues.

Everyone has a good idea, and all you have to do to make a difference is contribute. https://make.wordpress.org/ 🙂

Thread Starter halfspiral
(@halfspiral)

8 years, 9 months ago

Interesting views so far … please continue.
If Internet data was charged for, like electricity or water, we wouldn’t be so wasteful or flippant. I’m old school, when hard-drives were measured in MB and copper Internet was KB per second, so every bit and byte counted. Low prices, lots of choice and capacity in most commodities makes us wasteful and WordPress (the software) is bloated and does a bad and wasteful job of the media library. I wouldn’t dream of having 4 different sizes of shirt just in case I put on/lost weight.

I think all software should be modularised so you can take only the bits you need… come on, 1500 files to create an 18 page website is wasteful. PERIOD. I had to download the zip, unzip and upload again, configure, set-up, etc. It elongates web site creation to give one user the ability to edit a few sentences or add a few blog posts of content that no-one reads per year!! IT’S MADNESS and I don’t need science to tell me all that effort uses resources locally and globally (hardware, electricity and humans) that might be saved or not needed should I have created the site in box-standard HTML/CSS! Blogging in general is a waste of time – very few blogs are read in sufficient numbers to warrant their existence. STOP GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE and I am convinced there would less ***p clogging up the web.
Don’t get me started on jQUERY and other libraries – more bloat just to make a slideshow or a bells & whistles catastrophe.

Web developers in my day knew how to optimise code to a minimum but now we seemingly have an abundance of free resources – sod the code and bloat.

Have you seen the computer hardware dumps … my real point is that this modern tech seems to encourage people to be wasteful and not give a hoot about what it might do to the planet… everything has a cost, even when it appears to be free.

leejosepho
(@leejosepho)

8 years, 9 months ago

I’m old school, when…every bit and byte counted. Low prices, lots of choice and capacity in most commodities makes us wasteful and WordPress (the software) is bloated and does a bad and wasteful job of the media library. I wouldn’t dream of having 4 different sizes of shirt just in case I put on/lost weight.

Now we can agree upon principle as well as logically and prudently. I think I have seen a plugin or two trying to make a difference there, but I doubt many people would make use of it voluntarily. So yes, media optimization would have to come from the core in order to be effective in any way that could ever be noticeable overall.

I think all software should be modularised so you can take only the bits you need…

I believe that is part of the argument for plugins, is it not?

…download the zip, unzip and upload again, configure, set-up, etc…to give one user the ability to edit a few sentences or add a few blog posts of content that no-one reads…

What was your justification to yourself for doing that? 😉

…should I have created the site in box-standard HTML/CSS!

Had you suggested that alternative?

Blogging in general is a waste of time…

But it is not a waste of time to set them up for other people anyway?

very few blogs are read in sufficient numbers to warrant their existence.

You believe “the blog police” should be formed?

Have you seen the computer hardware dumps … my real point is that this modern tech seems to encourage people to be wasteful and not give a hoot about what it might do to the planet…

It is all scheduled to burn anyway, but no, even that would still not justify the madness.

edit: Proposed new Developer motto: “Let there be green on earth, and let it begin with me!”

Clayton James
(@claytonjames)

8 years, 9 months ago

I’ll be completely honest. I should have stopped reading right here:

“If Internet data was charged for, like electricity or water, we wouldn’t be so wasteful or flippant.”

I guess we should stop writing the checks to our residential ISPs, stop complaining about the additional charges we pay when we exceed our mobile communication plan data caps, refuse to pay any additional charges for exceeding bandwidth allowances on web related services, etc.. – because internet data isn’t being charged for?

You have some interesting thoughts, but you’ve also made some pretty firm yet completely unsupportable statements. And clearly you have an environmentally oriented personal agenda. All of that’s okay of course, but unfortunately it really has nothing to do with the WordPress software. Really.

Moderator James Huff
(@macmanx)

Volunteer Moderator

8 years, 9 months ago

I think all software should be modularised so you can take only the bits you need.

That’s why there are currently 38,958 plugins free plugins at https://wordpress.org/plugins/ It’s pretty cool. Can you image if that was all in core? Oye. 🙂

multiple sized images that will never be used.

I won’t reply to the other specific points, seems like a waste, but if you want to disable the image re-sizing, go to Settings -> Media in your blog’s Dashboard and enter just 0 for each dimension setting.