The first thing I proposed is innocuous (gathering stats on (revision_id,
clicked_link)), and in fact can be done easily with a minimum of
instrumentation.
The second is very different from the AOL search data. The AOL search data
was problematic because it associated data on a per-user basis, so you could
use some queries to figure out who the user was, and then see the other
queries of the user.
I am suggesting here to instead gather anonymous statistics on:
(<was on page A>, did a search, <landed on page B>), keeping track only of
the (A, B) pairs, without user information.
But the problem is that gathering such anonymous logs takes effort, is
difficult to do securely, is difficult to avoid someone tamper with it and
add back information that should not have been there, and it is difficult to
then present the information to Wikipedia editors in a way that helps them
meaningfully improve pages.
So perhaps the first statistic is the only useful one.
I would also be curious to know, once a user enters, what % of next visits
are due to the visitor clicking on links, vs. doing a search.
Luca
On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Luca de Alfaro
<luca(a)dealfaro.org> wrote:
I guess that Wiki(pedia|media) could very well
gather statistics on
(revision_id, clicked_link)
pairs without compromising the anonimity of the visitors. It would be
very useful to have indications on which hyperlinks are most useful. For
example, I am always curious whether the large editorial effort to curate
categories is worth it. And also, if one had data on:
(revision_id, "search terms used in next search"),
one could infer which links are actually missing.
Seems to me like that (especially the latter), would need to be done
extremely carefully to avoid compromising the anonymity of the visitors.
Although it's not quite as bad it seems reminiscent of the "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal"quot;, especially with
regard to "search terms used in next search".
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