Repeat or unnecessary requests for related artists from artist pages`

[joeyAghion]

Loading a single artist page (like /artist/lynn-chadwick) triggers 5 separate API requests for related artists. E.g.:

/api/v1/related/layer/main/artists?artist%5B%5D=lynn-chadwick&exclude_artists_without_artworks=true&size=0&total_count=1
/api/v1/related/layer/contemporary/artists?artist%5B%5D=lynn-chadwick&exclude_artists_without_artworks=true&size=0&total_count=1
/api/v1/related/layer/main/artists?artist=lynn-chadwick&size=0&total_count=1
/api/v1/related/layer/main/artists?artist%5B%5D=lynn-chadwick&exclude_artists_without_artworks=true&size=1
/api/v1/related/layer/main/artists?artist%5B%5D=lynn-chadwick&exclude_artists_without_artworks=true&size=15

Some of these are slightly different, but 3 (#1, 4, and 5) are identical except for size and total_count parameters, so could presumably be satisfied by a single request.

I'm not sure where these originate but the repetition causes significant API load and seems unnecessary.

[joeyAghion]

Looking at the page again, there doesn't seem to be any related artists data actually presented. Maybe these could all just go away?

[sweir27]

I was able to identify consistently three places where these requests are happening on the overview page:

• To generate a list of artist statuses to determine which tabs to show on the artist page
• To pull a similar artist to use in the CTA that asks you to create an account
  • This was happening on every pageload (even if logged in already): @mzikherman => Only fetch cta_artists if the user is not logged in #2260
• To determine whether or not to populate (and how to style) a rail of related artists that appears at the bottom of the page (once you scroll through all of the artworks)
  • We actually do need the count here. Currently, the count of related artists comes through metaphysics so there's not an easy way to just swap in the x-total-count header here, so I'm not sure if it's worth digging in further.