Last modified: 2014-10-24 17:30:38 UTC
The view counter was removed in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/150699/ But this is an essential to determine which pages are most useful to users or just "popular". The reasons for it having flaws do not apply to company / intranet wikis. On my company wikis I use a list on the start page "30 most popular pages" as a quick jump link list for unexperienced users. Every shit blog, CMS etc has a list of the most popular pages. This cannot be done with trackers. Furthermore you hereby encourage admins to use evil tracking software. That is so super backward thinking... Please bring it back and leave it an optional decision for the admin to use or not to use it. MEDIAWIKI IS NOT WIKIPEDIA!
Setting priorities is left to developers, hence resetting. The commit message says "For proper metrics, it is suggested to use something like Piwik or Google Analytics." Why is Piwik not an option? And do you volunteer to properly rewrite the hitcounter implementation?
It already was optional. If an identical implementation is desired for some reason, I'd suggest implementing it as an extension.
How do you come to the conclusion that it's useless and can be removed? If WP used the counter it wouldn't have flaws...
And still, the counter may not read the exact number of "views", but in comparisson with other page view counts it's just perfect enough to get an idea of the propularity and esp. the most popular pages in a wiki. I totally respect the dev but I hate to see all these WP only changes while punching the face of the standard MW users with such drastic changes. What was the story before this change? Who was involved and asked for opinions?
"Setting priorities is left to developers, hence resetting." Then the form shouldnt give me the option...
(In reply to Subfader from comment #5) > Then the form shouldnt give me the option... You can remove your own 'editbugs' permission at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/editusers.cgi?action=edit&userid=10124> if you wish not to use it. We generally rely on common sense rather than strict access control, if possible.
(In reply to Subfader from comment #4) > I totally respect the dev but I hate to see all these WP only changes while > punching the face of the standard MW users with such drastic changes. > What does this have to do with WP?
(In reply to Subfader from comment #5) > "Setting priorities is left to developers, hence resetting." > > Then the form shouldnt give me the option... Your patch to fix the Bugzilla code is welcome; another workaround would be to remove your 'editbugs' permissions. In general, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla/Fields#Priority explains how Priority is used. I ask you to respect the planning and only set priority to a higher value if you plan to work on this issue. Thank you.
(In reply to Chad H. from comment #7) > What does this have to do with WP? I mean making such drastic decisions without thinking of the normal MW users. All developments on MW core are only done if it suits WP. As I said, if you would consider the needs of the normal MW users or if WP useed the view counter, this would have been fixed long time ago rather than removed completely. That's how I see/feel it, sorry i that's not the case.
On my private wiki I use the view counts together with Extension:Favorites to calculate propularity of all articles. Devs might say: Who cares how popular an article is?! Well, not every wiki is WP nor related to encyclopedian content. Just think of all the fan wikis... They need a way to present the most poluar pages. For me this change is like removing the ranking stars on IMDb. But I might waste my time here. WP doesn't need it, so throw it.
(In reply to Subfader from comment #9) > (In reply to Chad H. from comment #7) > > What does this have to do with WP? > > I mean making such drastic decisions without thinking of the normal MW users. > > All developments on MW core are only done if it suits WP. Well, the hit counter has been disabled on WP since...ever. > As I said, if you would consider the needs of the normal MW users or if WP > useed the view counter, this would have been fixed long time ago rather than > removed completely. In my experience, whenever I'm trying to help someone make their site faster, disabling hit counters is one of the first things I tell them to do (as recommended on [[mw:User:Aaron_Schulz/How_to_make_MediaWiki_fast]]). ... In any case, I've adjusted the bug title to something a bit more actionable. I'll try to take a stab at it over the weekend...
(In reply to Kunal Mehta (Legoktm) from comment #11) > In my experience, whenever I'm trying to help someone make their site > faster, disabling hit counters is one of the first things I tell them to do > (as recommended on [[mw:User:Aaron_Schulz/How_to_make_MediaWiki_fast]]). That's a fatal decision you recommend there, imo. Once disabled you cannot enable it again. You can, but then all view counts on the existing pages are wrong. Forever. F.O.R.E.V.E.R. My site is fast enough using $wgHitcounterUpdateFreq and other mechanisms tho.
(In reply to Kunal Mehta (Legoktm) from comment #11) > Well, the hit counter has been disabled on WP since...ever. Ok, fair enough. But enabling it later was impossible anyway (see above) ;)
(In reply to Subfader from comment #9) > I mean making such drastic decisions without thinking of the normal MW users. > > All developments on MW core are only done if it suits WP. What developments are done is decided by the people who are going to maintain these developments later, and it just so happens that almost every person maintaining MediaWiki is a Wikipedia editor or WMF employee. Major features unused by Wikipedia/Wikimedia-wikis exist (such as support for databases other than MySQL), but that generally requires them not disrupting bigger priorities, and somebody stepping up and promising to maintain it (respond to bugs and fix them, provide support). As far as I know hit counters are mildly disruptive and have no MediaWiki developers caring about them.
