Dear Analytics Mailing List, Recently while querying pageviews of various pages, I discovered that the page whose title is a single hyphen character (i.e. with the title "-", with URL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/->, which redirects to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus>) receives an unusually high number of pageviews under the Pageview API. Taking October 2015 as an example, the page received 5.4 million pageviews during that month according to the API: <https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-art icle/en.wikipedia/desktop/user/-/daily/20151001/20151031>. However, according the stats.grok.se (which was still operational in the same month), the page received only 1209 pageviews: <http://stats.grok.se/en/201510/->. Looking at the tabulation of pageviews on Wikipedia Views, the increase in pageviews for this page coincides with the change to the Pageview API in July 2015: <http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths.php ?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all>. As I understand, page titles must be URL-encoded before the query, but the URL-encoding of "-" is itself. I looked at the API documentation but did not see this behavior listed, so I am wondering where these numbers are coming from. Best regards, Issa _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

Hi Joseph, Thanks for the clarification. Any ideas why this number is much higher for some months? In particular, on desktop, it's high in the months of July to September 2015 (around 10 million, compared to the usual 5 million) and then high again in October 2016 (45 million, about 10x the usual value). Data is from http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths .php?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all which summarizes results from the Wikimedia API (and stats.grok.se for data before July 2015). Vipul On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:46 AM, Joseph Allemandou < jallemandou(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: > Hello Issa, > > Thank you for your question. > The very high number of views of the "-" page is explained by this > dash value being used as a special value for "no page title found" when > extracting titles from urls. > We definitely should document this in the API, creating this task: > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150249 > Best > Joseph > > > On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Issa Rice &lt;riceissa(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > >> Dear Analytics Mailing List, >> >> Recently while querying pageviews of various pages, I discovered that >> the page whose title is a single hyphen character (i.e. with the title >> "-", with URL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/->, which redirects to >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus>) receives an unusually >> high >> number of pageviews under the Pageview API. Taking October 2015 as an >> example, the page received 5.4 million pageviews during that month >> according to the API: >> <https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-art >> icle/en.wikipedia/desktop/user/-/daily/20151001/20151031>. >> >> However, according the stats.grok.se (which was still operational in >> the >> same month), the page received only 1209 pageviews: >> <http://stats.grok.se/en/201510/->. >> >> Looking at the tabulation of pageviews on Wikipedia Views, the >> increase >> in pageviews for this page coincides with the change to the Pageview >> API in July 2015: >> <http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths.php >> ?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all>. >> >> As I understand, page titles must be URL-encoded before the query, >> but the URL-encoding of "-" is itself. >> >> I looked at the API documentation but did not see this behavior >> listed, >> so I am wondering where these numbers are coming from. >> >> Best regards, >> Issa >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Analytics mailing list >> Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics >> >> > > > -- > *Joseph Allemandou* > Data Engineer @ Wikimedia Foundation > IRC: joal > > _______________________________________________ > Analytics mailing list > Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics > > _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

wrote:

Maybe the high value in October (45M) has something to do with the last changes in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T145922 ? On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:25 PM, Nuria Ruiz &lt;nuria(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: > This is documented now here: > > https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Analytics/PageviewAPI#Gotchas > > On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 7:25 AM, Vipul Naik &lt;vipulnaik1(a)gmail.com&gt; > wrote: > >> Hi Joseph, >> >> Thanks for the clarification. >> >> Any ideas why this number is much higher for some months? In >> particular, on desktop, it's high in the months of July to September 2015 >> (around 10 million, compared to the usual 5 million) and then high again in >> October 2016 (45 million, about 10x the usual value). >> >> Data is from http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths >> .php?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all which summarizes >> results from the Wikimedia API (and stats.grok.se for data before >> July 2015). >> >> Vipul >> >> On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 3:46 AM, Joseph Allemandou < >> jallemandou(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: >> >>> Hello Issa, >>> >>> Thank you for your question. >>> The very high number of views of the "-" page is explained by this >>> dash value being used as a special value for "no page title found" when >>> extracting titles from urls. >>> We definitely should document this in the API, creating this task: >>> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150249 >>> Best >>> Joseph >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Issa Rice &lt;riceissa(a)gmail.com&gt; >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Dear Analytics Mailing List, >>>> >>>> Recently while querying pageviews of various pages, I discovered >>>> that >>>> the page whose title is a single hyphen character (i.e. with the >>>> title >>>> "-", with URL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/->, which redirects to >>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus>) receives an >>>> unusually high >>>> number of pageviews under the Pageview API. Taking October 2015 as >>>> an >>>> example, the page received 5.4 million pageviews during that month >>>> according to the API: >>>> <https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-art >>>> icle/en.wikipedia/desktop/user/-/daily/20151001/20151031>. >>>> >>>> However, according the stats.grok.se (which was still operational >>>> in the >>>> same month), the page received only 1209 pageviews: >>>> <http://stats.grok.se/en/201510/->. >>>> >>>> Looking at the tabulation of pageviews on Wikipedia Views, the >>>> increase >>>> in pageviews for this page coincides with the change to the Pageview >>>> API in July 2015: >>>> <http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths.php >>>> ?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all>. >>>> >>>> As I understand, page titles must be URL-encoded before the query, >>>> but the URL-encoding of "-" is itself. >>>> >>>> I looked at the API documentation but did not see this behavior >>>> listed, >>>> so I am wondering where these numbers are coming from. >>>> >>>> Best regards, >>>> Issa >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Analytics mailing list >>>> Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> *Joseph Allemandou* >>> Data Engineer @ Wikimedia Foundation >>> IRC: joal >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Analytics mailing list >>> Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Analytics mailing list >> Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Analytics mailing list > Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics > > -- *Marcel Ruiz Forns* Analytics Developer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

Dear Analytics Mailing List, Recently while querying pageviews of various pages, I discovered that the page whose title is a single hyphen character (i.e. with the title "-", with URL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/->, which redirects to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus>) receives an unusually high number of pageviews under the Pageview API. Taking October 2015 as an example, the page received 5.4 million pageviews during that month according to the API: <https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia/desktop/user/-/daily/20151001/20151031>. However, according the stats.grok.se (which was still operational in the same month), the page received only 1209 pageviews: <http://stats.grok.se/en/201510/->. Looking at the tabulation of pageviews on Wikipedia Views, the increase in pageviews for this page coincides with the change to the Pageview API in July 2015: <http://wikipediaviews.org/displayviewsformultiplemonths.php?page=-&allmonths=allmonths&drilldown=all>. As I understand, page titles must be URL-encoded before the query, but the URL-encoding of "-" is itself. I looked at the API documentation but did not see this behavior listed, so I am wondering where these numbers are coming from. Best regards, Issa _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics