On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Oliver Keyes <okeyes(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Actually, I'd argue it's not equivalent at
all, for two reasons:
1. it doesn't present all of the same data. In fact, it presents very
little data, compared to a pageview of the "File" page;
2. The argument behind MMV is, as I understand it, that people are
focusing on the images. It is designed so that people do so, on the basis
that people clicking on images probably want those images. As such, it'd be
inaccurate to weight it as equivalent to say
https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%A7ello_Malpigi
<https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%A7ello_Malpigi#mediaviewer/File:Marcello_Malpighi_large.jpg>
in textual value - we believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that someone
clicking for an image wants a media file, not a wall of text.
MediaViewer hash loads and File page requests have little to do with each
other. File page request happens when 1) someone clicks on a thumbnail, 2)
someone shares the URL of a file page and someone else follows that URL. In
the case of MediaViewer, only the first case results in a text/html request
to the server. The second case (which is about 30x more frequent) only
results in a bunch of AJAX calls and an image request (actually more than
one, due to preloading). Those AJAX calls could easily be made unique, if
that is of any interest.
So basically when you click on an image, MediaViewer uses AJAX requests to
load some of the information from the file page, then creates an <img> tag
so the browser loads a large image thumbnail. When you visit an URL ending
in #mediaviewer/..., that just tells the MV code to simulate an image click
as soon as the page has loaded.