Research:Daily edits by anonymous users

Daily edits by anonymous users
Specification
is a count of the number of edits saved by anonymous editors on date .
WMF Standard
no parameters
Measures
Contribution
Status
completed
SQL
SET @date = "20140101";

SELECT
    SUM(revisions) AS revisions
FROM (
    SELECT
        COUNT(*) AS revisions
    FROM revision
    WHERE
        rev_timestamp BETWEEN @date AND
            DATE_FORMAT(DATE_ADD(@date, INTERVAL 1 DAY), "%Y%m%d%H%i%S") AND
        rev_user = 0
    UNION
    SELECT
        COUNT(*) AS revisions
    FROM archive
    WHERE
        ar_timestamp BETWEEN @date AND
            DATE_FORMAT(DATE_ADD(@date, INTERVAL 1 DAY), "%Y%m%d%H%i%S") AND
        ar_user = 0
) AS user_revisions;

Daily edits by anonymous users is a standardized metric used to measure the number of edits saved by logged-out users in a given day. It's used as a proxy for the rate of overall contribution.

Discussion

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Using IP as an identifier

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The current metric depends on counting IP addresses within the specified period as a proxy for distinct anonymous editors. A unique IP address doesn't necessarily identify a unique user due to IP rotation, IP addresses shared among multiple editors, proxies etc.

Time lag

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As this is a daily metric, a full 24 hours must elapse after the beginning of the date (UTC) in order to calculate an uncensored value.

Edits on deleted pages

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This metric includes edits on existing pages as well as pages that have been or will later be deleted. This allows us to define a metric as stateless, in other words historical values will not change in the future depending on the status of a page (existing/deleted/moved) at the time the metric is computed. Deletion-related activity is tracked via a separate set of metrics.

Edits across all namespaces

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This metric counts activity across all namespaces of a project: whether an edit is a new page creation, a revision to an existing page or a draft, a message left on a talk page or a contribution to a Wikiproject, the edit is counted as a contribution to the project. The metrics is agnostic about the quality, size or purpose of the edit. Specific types of contribution are measured via dedicated metrics or breakdowns.

Analysis

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Discussion

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Notes

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