20% of requests for Wikimedia Commons are for one image of a flower (phabricator.wikimedia.org)

Article summary

Wikimedia Commons noticed a large number of requests for a specific image of a flower, accounting for 20% of all requests. The image was being fetched by a mobile app in India, but the app was not displaying the image. After investigation, the app developers were contacted and they agreed to update the app to stop fetching the image. The issue has since been resolved and the traffic to the image has decreased significantly.

Main themes

• Wikimedia Commons traffic
• mobile app behavior
• image hotlinking
• scaling and resource management
• debugging and troubleshooting
• photosensitive epilepsy concerns

What commenters say

• Some suggest replacing the image with a different one to identify the source of the requests, but others argue that this could be problematic for users with photosensitive epilepsy.
• Serving a slow-loading version of the image could help identify and deter abusive requests without affecting legitimate users.
• The large number of requests may be due to a vestigial appendix in the app's code that fetches the image without displaying it.
• The issue highlights the challenges of scaling and managing traffic for large websites like Wikimedia Commons.
• Some argue that the app's behavior is an example of inefficient coding or a failure to optimize resources.
• Others suggest that the issue is not unique to this app and that many large companies have similar problems with scaling and resource management.