Research:Daily edits by anonymous users

Standard metric

Daily edits by anonymous users

Specification

${\text{daily edits by anonymous users}}(D)$ is a count of the number of edits saved by anonymous editors on date $D$.

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

Using IP as an identifier

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

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

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

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.