k_disk_hog

A typical guideline for a healthy WordPress database is to keep wp_posts table under 80MB. wp_posts is home of revisions.

For database size estimation, SiteHealth is more accurate than cPanel though WP-CLI is /authoritative/. SiteHealth shows many other components of a site’s footprint such as plugins, themes,,,

— revision history
Q: how to go in and edit wp-config.php?
A: I used the standard feature in cPanel. See https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003490852-Using-the-website-file-manager-in-the-panel
A: You can also use ssh.

Q: what if I delete a post having many revisions? All purged?
AA: Yes, when you delete a post in WordPress, all revisions associated with that post are indeed erased from the database.

Q: for a 1000-word bpost, is each revision a delta or a (roughly) 1000-word snapshot?
%A: standard wpress feature keeps “rolling N revisions”, deleting earlier revisions without warning. If “delta” then this standard set-up would corrupt all revisions.
A (from dreamhost): deleting the earliest revision shouldn’t mess up the subsequent ones because each snapshot is independent of the others as far as I know.

To delete a specific revision (or a range), you must use a plugin like https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-revisions-delete/