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Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2024 00:10:08 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] PHP.net analytics
To: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>,
 php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: bobwei9@hotmail.com (Bob Weinand)

On 1.11.2024 22:41:29, Larry Garfield wrote:
> In a similar vein to approving the use of software, Roman Pronskiy asked for my help putting together an RFC on collecting analytics for PHP.net.
>
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/phpnet-analytics
>
> Of particular note:
>
> * This is self-hosted, first-party only.  No third parties get data, so no third parties can do evil things with it.
> * There is no plan to collect any PII.
> * The goal is to figure how how to most efficiently spend Foundation money improving php.net, something that is sorely needed.
>
> Ideally we'd have this in place by the 8.4 release or shortly thereafter, though I realize that's a little tight on the timeline.

Hey Larry,

I have a couple concerns and questions:

Is there a way to track analytics with only transient data? As in, data 
actually stored is always already anonymized enough that it would be 
unproblematic to share it with everyone?
Or possibly, is there a retention period for the raw data after which 
only anonymized data remains?


Do you actually have a plan what to use that data for? The RFC mostly 
talks about "high traffic". But does that mean anything? I do look at a 
documentation page, because I need to look something specific up (what 
was the order of arguments of strpos again?). I may only look shortly at 
it. Maybe even often. But it has absolutely zero signal on whether the 
documentation page is good enough. In that case I don't look at the 
comments either. Comments are something you rarely look at, mostly the 
first time you want to even use a function.


Also, I don't buy the argument none of that can be derived from server 
logs. Let's see what the RFC names:

     Time-on-page
     Whether they read the whole page or just a part
     Whether they even saw comments

Yes, these need a client side tracker. But I doubt the usefulness of the 
signal. You don't know who reads that. Is it someone who is already 
familiar with PHP and searches a detail? He'll quickly just find one 
part. Is it someone who is new to PHP and tries to understand PHP. He 
may well read the whole page. But you don't know that.

Quality of documentation is measured in whether it's possible to grasp 
the information easily. Not in how long or how completely a page is 
being read.

     What percentage of users get to the docs through direct links vs 
the home page

That's something you can generally infer from server logs - was the home 
page accessed from that IP right before another page was opened? It's 
not as accurate, but for a general understanding of orders of magnitude 
it's good enough.

     If users are hitting a single page per browser window or navigating 
through the site, and if the latter, how?

Number of windows needs a client side tracker too. Knowing whether the 
cross-referencing links (e.g. "See also") are used is possibly relevant. 
And also "what functions are looked up after this function".

     How much are users using the search function? Is it finding what 
they want, or is it just a crutch?

How much is probably greppable from the server logs as well. Whether 
they find what they want - I'm not sure how you'd determine that. I 
search something ... and possibly open a page. If that's not what I 
wanted, I'll leave the site and e.g. use google. If that's what I 
wanted, I'll also stop looking after that page.

     Do people use the translations alone, or do they use both the 
English site and other languages in tandem?
     Does anyone use multiple translations?

That's likely also determinable by server logs.


And yeah, server logs are more locked down. But that's something you can 
fix. I hope that the raw analytics data is just as locked down as the 
server logs...

I get that "cached by another proxy" is a possible problem, but it's a 
strawman I think. You don't need to be able to track all users, but just 
many.


Overall I feel like the signal we can get from using a JS tracker 
specifically is comparatively low to the point it's not actually worth it.


Bob