Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Traffic statistics

Template for future months
views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views views

Stats spreadsheet
In case anyone is interested, the spreadsheet (use OpenOffice.org) used to create the charts can be found here. JACO PLANE  &bull; 2008-04-3 18:31

Kind of skimpy
The current table isn't terribly informative. Is there any way we can get a breakdown of such things as the number of page views by article quality or importance? The top 100 articles by page views? SharkD (talk) 05:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Other ideas
Some other ideas would be to a) create a bot to automatically update the table (since it seems to be dead), b) use a logarithmic scale and combine all the graphs into a single image, and c) put the image on the main project page next to the quality/importance table. The table should also be transposed so that new entries get added to the bottom instead of to the right. SharkD (talk) 05:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've requested that a bot be created to update the tables. Hopefully the 8 month backlog of missing data will get filled when this happens. SharkD (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll add traffic stats for the other, related Wikiprojects as well. SharkD (talk) 21:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There's also some other pages that were missed and are listed here. SharkD (talk) 22:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added data for the remaining task forces as well as our sister WikiProjects. It would be nice to have data for the task forces that used to be WikiProjects from before they were transitioned. SharkD (talk) 03:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. SharkD (talk) 04:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Different chart format
I've been experimenting with different charts and came up with this one. I was wondering whether it is easier to understand. You get somewhat of an indication of how the volume of activity has changed over time, which is lacking in the current charts. At the same time, you still can see the proportion of activity associated with each page like you can in the current charts. This is better than a simple line graph, IMO, because there are so many lines that you wouldn't be able to make each of them out individually. Also, the big "dip" in the middle is due to a gap in the source data for most of a month. They could be "ironed out" by using an average for only those days that were recorded instead of the entire month (which is something I should do anyway since teh different numbers of days in each month aren't being considered). SharkD (talk) 07:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I updated the test image. The "dip" and other gaps in the data are no longer visible. SharkD (talk) 09:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the new chart better. It gives you more of an understanding at first glance.--ZXCVBNM [ TALK] 20:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * EDIT: Wait...I think I confused it for a regular line graph too. You'd better stick to the first one.--ZXCVBNM [ TALK] 03:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a good question: Why not both? The left is better at indicating proportion of edits views ; the right is better at indicating volume of edits  views . --Izno (talk) 03:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Because the only difference between the two is the fact that the second one has the overall "mountainous" shape as opposed to being fully expanded to the top edge of the graph. In OpenOffice the first chart is called "Percent Stacked" and the second is called "Stacked". The "Stacked" chart also shows proportion: i.e. the thickness of each band corresponds with the proportion of views for that page. It's just bounded by the maxima (the white area). The problem with a regular "Line" graph, however, is that there are so many lines that it ends up just looking like a tangle of yarn. And, if you split the lines into separate graphs (as is done in the first three charts in the actual article), then you loose the ability to directly compare them and you also have to display/upload/maintain three times as many images. (I probably haven't explained things very well.) SharkD (talk) 03:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Second one because it clearly gives us an indication when things are slowing down...like right now. じん    ない   07:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Featured articles
I'm considering adding a section for our featured articles. There's over 100 of them, however, which might be too many. SharkD (talk) 22:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It might also be a good idea to list stats for Talk pages. SharkD (talk) 02:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternate imate format suggestions?
Does anyone have any suggestions for an alternate image format instead of PNG? OpenOffice screws up the text when exporting as SVG. It exports properly to EMF and WMF; however, Commons won't allow me to upload them, and I can't use Inkscape to export them as SVG because it also screws up the text. *sigh* SharkD (talk) 05:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Different set of data
I have another set of data where the task forces that were once WikiProjects are included in the WikiProject tables up until the time they were converted. Not sure whether this data is better to put in the article or not. (It makes the charts a lot more confusing to look at.) SharkD (talk) 06:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Table format
I think the horizontal listing of stats is a poor choice of table design, as it breaks every rule of database design, and means we have to omit dates before 2009 or risk extending the page beyond the browser borders. I suggest changing it back to the way it was before. SharkD  Talk  01:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The way it was was just as poor design from an HTML point. I think an overflow auto would fix the problem of extending the page beyond. Which is still a problem of accessibility, actually, but it's my preferred solution. That said, I think it's undesirable to list every page that's been deleted or is now a redirect, which is what would end up happening (the 0s would not just "fall off" the table). --Izno (talk) 04:09, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course, with that approach, we run the risk of not being able to see the top of the table while we go and scroll. We can set a vertical overflow as well, if I recall correctly; that just requires a min height. But double overflow is quite the big no-no. There must be a better way to do this. --Izno (talk) 04:51, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see the problem with the current way. Do stats matter from more than 2 years ago? Even so, they can be retrieved from the history. Flipping it back has the same problem if pages are added to the project or task forces are created/deleted. MrKIA11 (talk) 14:21, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would like to see data going back to when stats started being recorded in 2007. Truncating the data kind of defeats the point of this article, and you should focus instead on making the page accessible to people who are actually going to use the data. SharkD   Talk  06:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The point of the page isn't the people who want to use the data, else we'd have links to data files (excel and such)... which we don't. The image description pages are broke, and even then, that would be the improper place. From what I can tell, this page is simply to give users of the project an idea of traffic...
 * That said, you are welcome to make a personal subpage with the full data if you really must have it on wiki. But I think the easier method is to add links to the data in non-html form to this page rather than the image description pages. The people who want the data get it and the people who want the html get it; the former in a form which they can use, and the latter in a form which doesn't run into load problems (though I realize this table is small compared to many others I've seen). --Izno (talk) 14:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What should I name the sub-page? Should it use a forward slash? SharkD   Talk  08:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I've tested again with vertical orientation. User:SharkD/Sandbox/Vertical_table_cell_text. It works pretty well and doesn't require SVG for the text. It's a lot more compact than my last attempt and easier to add data to. I can also turn the text 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees for extra readability with a little more work but haven't gotten around to it yet. SharkD  Talk  06:04, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Current data
I was thinking of gathering more data, but http://stats.grok.se/ is too much of a PITA to use. You can only view one month at a time, per article. It would be a lot more useful if you could specify a range of dates. SharkD  Talk  06:11, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There's a new PageView API; see T44259 (I couldn't find a mediawikiwiki: page for it using Google...). It's only populated so far backward, but will be updated going forward, and I don't know what kind of data you're looking for... --Izno (talk) 12:23, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Just a little playing with a user-facing page at, I got , which is the pageviews for the set of days November 1 to November 30 for the main project page. --Izno (talk) 12:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Daily views are even less useful. :( Also, it doesn't go back very far in time. Hopefully they will update the tool. One thing to watch out for is that sometimes there are gaps in the data collected. For instance, in July 2008 data for only 11 days was collected, throwing the stats out of whack for that month. SharkD   Talk  18:44, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * They're working on monthlies. However, this does give you a range to play with, so you can query from May 1 and then do the post-processing to rip out the month-counts. --Izno (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Stats.grok.se also offers JSON pages. http://stats.grok.se/json/en/200910/Wikipedia:WikiProject%20Video%20games/Traffic%20statistics. If I had raw data like this I could probably calculate the totals. I don't know how to write a tool to query a Web page though. On Linux I could probably use wget I suppose. SharkD   Talk  20:07, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I was able to fetch and process the JSON files from stats.grok.se successfully. But there is a problem. Take a look at these values for daily_views;


 * "2008-06-01":	0,
 * "2008-06-02":	0,
 * "2008-06-03":	167,
 * "2008-06-04":	177,
 * "2008-06-05":	163,
 * "2008-06-06":	152,
 * "2008-06-07":	143,
 * "2008-06-08":	150,
 * "2008-06-09":	136,
 * "2008-06-10":	166,
 * "2008-06-11":	160,
 * "2008-06-12":	171,
 * "2008-06-13":	119,
 * "2008-06-14":	134,
 * "2008-06-15":	123,
 * "2008-06-16":	126,
 * "2008-06-17":	162,
 * "2008-06-18":	120,
 * "2008-06-19":	117,
 * "2008-06-20":	160
 * "2008-06-21":	153,
 * "2008-06-22":	147,
 * "2008-06-23":	134,
 * "2008-06-24":	156,
 * "2008-06-25":	152,
 * "2008-06-26":	150,
 * "2008-06-27":	152,
 * "2008-06-28":	162,
 * "2008-06-29":	108,
 * "2008-06-30":	133,
 * "2008-06-31":	217,

There are no page views for June 1 and 2, and there are 217 page views for June 31 even though there are only 30 days in June. This may not mess up the monthly totals much, but I am also calculating views per day. Oh well. SharkD  Talk  06:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think I'd worry too much. Make a note of which days return 0 views and then move forward, IMO. You can post the days with 0 views later--I know there is at least one user who keeps a close track and who makes a bother at WP:VPT on a fairly-regular basis about it. --Izno (talk) 14:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm done. The raw data can now be found at WikiProject Video games/Traffic statistics/Raw data. SharkD   Talk  06:36, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 1. Might be nicer to formulate #N/A as 0. 2. I am surprised by the 6k views per day to Portal:Video games. Wonder if it's a false positive for Portal. --Izno (talk) 12:29, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Short data
Here's the data for the main stats page. I have not formatted it to match the current orientation. I forgot to transpose it before exporting as CSV. SharkD  Talk  08:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)