Template:Main Page/Message from the Editor
March 26
Yet another release of Pokémon games have come and gone, though unlike many others, this release was a much hyped one, both by the staff of Bulbapedia as well as by Nintendo itself.
Due to this hype, however, Bulbagarden's traffic has increased tenfold overnight. Even with a third server installed shortly before the North American release of the remakes, and a fourth on its way already, Bulbagarden has a hard time outputting all of the connections requested of it by users who visit it. This is the reason for the 503 errors: the servers work as hard as they possibly can, yet still, it becomes impossible to give the information out to as many people as are visiting, like a spokesperson handing out fliers who is surrounded by an eager crowd could be overwhelmed.
Due to this, editing by non-staff on Bulbapedia has, for the moment, been disabled. This is not a malicious act to keep editing in the hands of those in charge and to shut out ideas, as some might think, but as a precaution to prevent more 503 errors, or worse, a complete shutdown of the site. Being a wiki, Bulbapedia requires a lot of resources, with edits to it making for a majority of the stress Bulbagarden's servers receive daily. Under normal load, this stress is negligible, and hundreds of users can be on the site at once, editing any one of our more than 16,000 mainspace pages. Under the increased load, however, even with only some 20 users having the ability to edit, 503's still appear from time to time.
It is unknown when the load from the influx of new members of the Bulbagarden community will begin to ease, though as of this writing it has only been seen to increase, even with the third server's power. As such, it is impossible to predict when the ability for normal users to edit will return. Patience, however, is a virtue, and will be justly rewarded with many new things to do and updates to make when editing returns.
In the meantime, however, the administration of Bulbapedia can still be contacted, through email or over other messaging services such as AIM and MSN, and edits to mainspace pages or templates can be requested of them. Userspace editing, on the return of normal editing, will remain in a restricted state for some time after, with only one edit per day allowed. Your HeartGold and SoulSilver teams, Friend Codes, and so on should be condensed into this edit. Users who make more than this single edit in a day will have their userpages locked down for as many days as they made edits over this limit, and repeat offenders may have their pages locked for longer.
Meanwhile, enjoy HeartGold and SoulSilver, as well as the remnants of the Team Rocket takeover, which will remain as a selectable skin on the Bulbawiki system as well as on the forums.
