Last modified: 2014-10-12 23:26:47 UTC
It would help immensely if there was a gadget usage statistic implemented in MediaWiki. Knowing the usage patterns of gadgets would allow to identify rarely used and too exotic gadgets that would be better used as a traditional user script. This would help in maintaining the gadget selection list at a user friendly size and would also help to prioritize gadget development. In addition to the absolute numbers, the most meaningful information would be about "active users", with single-use testing-only accounts and dormant accounts excluded. A simple definition of "active user" could be someone who has registered more than two months ago and was active during the last month.
Oh on yet another definition of an "active user". But seriously, it should be very easy to query how many have enabled some gadget in the new preferences system. It can be done with the old preferences system too, or both [1], but that has some performance concerns. [1] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:UserOptionStats
This exists! (Use this date format: 2014-05-01) Old version (works intermittently; can take up to 1 minute when it does work) https://toolserver.org/~liangent/gadget_usage/ New version (broken, waiting for bug 58196 to be resolved) http://tools.wmflabs.org/liangent-django/gadget_usage/ @liangent: I'd suggest adding the "total number of accounts" to the output. Currently it takes 2 queries to do that, and it's nearly always a useful comparison number. I.e. The top item at Enwiki, has 9002 total users, and 1724 users active since 2014-05-01. See also bug 25302 (as Helder linked), which aims to give stats for all user-preferences, but also seeks to add a "limit to active users" option.
(In reply to Quiddity from comment #2) > @liangent: I'd suggest adding the "total number of accounts" to the output. > Currently it takes 2 queries to do that, and it's nearly always a useful > comparison number. > I.e. The top item at Enwiki, has 9002 total users, and 1724 users active > since 2014-05-01. Hmm it does have to take 2 (SQL) queries, and as it's already running very slowly with one query I'm afraid it'll be slower or eventually timeout (not sure about configurations on the webserver) if I add more.
(In reply to Liangent from comment #3) > Hmm it does have to take 2 (SQL) queries, and as it's already running very > slowly with one query I'm afraid it'll be slower or eventually timeout (not > sure about configurations on the webserver) if I add more. Would it be possible to save [cache?] that "total accounts" number for [1 month]? Maybe even in a log file, so that we can track the overall growth over time? There's a lot of interesting stats, just waiting to be graphed. :D
This feature is also requested for https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global-Wiki#Plan_for_scripts
Since Toollabs doesn't have gadget usage info, I guess we could instead generate this as a report on stat1003 and make it available on an ongoing basis as a CSV from there. I could work on it if there's still interest.
(In reply to Yuvi Panda from comment #6) > Since Toollabs doesn't have gadget usage info, I guess we could instead > generate this as a report on stat1003 and make it available on an ongoing > basis as a CSV from there. I could work on it if there's still interest. Uptodate stats on gadgets (and all preferences), would be very appreciated. Ideally, it would save monthly totals, so that we could compare changes over time. Ideally, it would be filterable by (wiki / user activity / user right / account age / etc ) See also: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gadgets (last updated in April) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/User_preferences#Gadgets (last updated in June) http://tools.wmflabs.org/liangent-django/gadget_usage/ (broken, waiting for bug 58196 ) Re: All Preferences, see (2012) https://trello.com/c/o2sdB6BI/15-user-preferences-stats and (ongoing) https://trello.com/c/HxlbhRzm/88-analysis-of-preference-logged-data (Tangentially, see my ramble about what we should also do with gadget-usage numbers, at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#Gadgets
(In reply to Quiddity from comment #7) > Ideally, it would be filterable by (wiki / user activity / user right / > account age / etc ) ...and also by default status: enabled / disabled for all users.
(In reply to Yuvi Panda from comment #6) > if there's still interest. There is! I believe we need to know more about the most used gadgets and templates -- for many reasons. This, in turn, will allow us to know more about who develops those gadgets and templates, a type of work that is essential to Wikimedia.
(In reply to Yuvi Panda from comment #6) > if there's still interest. YES PLEASE! In agreement with comment #7 here too.
My spare time has currently been taken up by providing public 'edits per country' data (see the analytics mailing list), so will try to get to this in the next few weeks.