team map makes browser unacceptably slow

The maps should be disabled by default, if there are over 500 members or so. This limit should be editable on personal settings. Then there would be a button that would warn about the heaviness, but allow seeing the map with all the members.

Curtis, any chance of having an option to disable maps for teams?

I think for Launchpad to have a "Don't lock up my browser" setting would invite ridicule. Instead, I suggest either:
(1) pick a safe limit, and if the team has more than that number of members, choose a random sample of them to display each time the page is loaded;
(2) after the page has finished loading without any members shown on the map, add the members to the map in small batches at ~1-second intervals.

I think Matthew's suggestion is a good approach. I don't think we need to load all the locations unless that user asks for it. Seeing all the locations of a team is an academic exercise; I do not think seeing this helps a user complete a task. Loading a safe sample of users is fine 99.99% of the time.

I have a branch the allows users to disable the small maps on the user and team pages. This might help some users until this performance bug is really fixed

Attached is an image that adds a checkbox, a link, and a message to team maps. Part of this suggestion would be more obvious if the team page was using the one-column layout that user profile pages have. If this page was using one-column design, we would move the action to show team map and timezones under the image.

I propose that the small map be limited to n member, 24 perhaps.
When the team contains more than n members, a parenthetical message follows the map and timezone link.

I don't think the small map is appropriate for show all members. This page is about the team in general, and ew have a page dedicated to the map. The large map is much better for seeing large teams. I don't think it is worth while to added delayed loading to this page. since it could take 20 minutes to load all the members of launchpad-users, and honestly, who is going to wait that long for a small map on page that is about summarising the team.

The checkbox is to address a group of related issues. I wrote code to hide the small maps (reinventing the portlet state code from LP 1.0 UI). After reviewing the many suggestions, I think may users distinguishing between their small map, other user's small maps, and team small maps. I can easily expand my work to offer separate states for user, other-user and team small maps.

Fixed in launchpad/devel r7910.

Fix released in Launchpad 2.2.3.