I would like to propose that we stop using Google Analytics on xwiki.org. I haven’t yet heard of any decision or analysis that we did with the collected data since I joined XWiki now almost three years ago, and therefore I suggest we stop collecting it and ask Google to delete the collected data. If we want to do basic analytics, like knowing which pages are popular, we can also analyze the access logs of the web server.
I don’t know when or how we decided to use Google Analytics, but as I assume that this reverses a previous decision to use it, I’m opening this as a vote.
I’m rather -1 ATM as that would be preventing us to be able to check later on about changes on xwiki.org. We have used it in the past and while it’s true that we haven’t used it recently, I feel it’s good to have a history. We’re supposed to use it to improve xwiki.org, it’s just that we’re not spending the time we should and removing it will not help (it’ll do the opposite).
If the idea is to replace google analytics with another tool (like matomo) then I’m very fine. And using the request logs as a substitute is really a no go for me, you can’t assume that everyone will have access and there’s a lot more info displayed in tools like google analytics or matomo.
You didn’t say why you’re proposing to remove it (except maybe to not send data to google?), could you elaborate?
I’m very much a friend of the principle of data economy, so not to collect data that we don’t use which is also a principle of the GDPR.
There are tools that provide visualizations of the data that is in request logs. If there is a real need for an analytics tool, I’m fine with using Matomo which also has a nice integration in XWiki.
+1 to completely remove analytics if we are not actively using them.
Or, if we want to keep them, I’m +1 to move to Matomo and define what we want to use the data for and define a plan to remove collected data after some time.
+1 to move to Matomo. We do look at XWiki.org data from time to time to see how we evolve in term of usage of the web site and this requires historical data. We’re going to loose the history from GA so we’ll need some export to be able to compare in the future.
I know for sure that data from GA can be imported into Matomo. However, I didn’t yet get far enough to try out this functionality, but it should be possible!
ok so we have 3 +1 (+ gabriel) that are ok to move to Matomo (I’m assuming @MichaelHamann is at least +0 for the Matomo move even if I understand he’d prefer to not move to anything).
AFAIK @gabrielc is working on it and is close to having something ready.
Update: The Matomo instance has been created. The instance is hosted under an xwiki.com domain. The idea is to add xwiki.org as another domain on that instance, alongside other XWiki SAS domains. Data is not visible between domains, except for superadmins, that have access to all the data of all websites. Currently, the only people that have access to the superadmin account are the infra team of XWiki SAS + me.
I’d also like to discuss the issue of access to the data. Since the paid plan we want to buy caps the users at 15, my proposal would be to have a shared account for the XS team.
TLDR:
Use a Matomo instance hosted behind an xwiki.com domain? ( / )
Have a shared account for the XS team on said Matomo instance? ( / )
For me what’s important is that any xwiki.org core committer should get access to it (should they ask to have access) and also we should grant access to some other contributors (like the Documentation Team who could need it to see what pages are the most accessed and improve the docs based on that). So is it possible to get, say, 20 accounts on that xwiki.com instance should it be needed?
A shared account is possible but is less great for several reasons (including auditing of changes and permissions - we need viewers permissions and admins permissions).
ok, thx. However we don’t care about that business bundle FTM (see below) and since Matomo is an open source project, I guess we could have as many users as we want, no?
Note that this forum is for xwiki.org and the XWiki open source community. A lot of info you give in this thread is related to the XWiki SAS company and they’re not very relevant here.
You’re mixing a lot the open source project vx XWiki SAS:
“the marketing team”: You’re referring to the team in XWiki SAS that manages the Matomo instance that XWiki SAS is proposing to lend to the XWiki open source project.
“the infra team”. You’re referring to the XWiki SAS team that is managing the infrastructure of servers that XWiki SAS is lending/donating to the XWiki open source project.
“the XS team”. I think you’re referring to the team inside XWiki SAS that has developers working in the development of XS and Cristal in the open source community. In the context of the XWiki open source project, the “XS team” could also be the XWiki Core Development team (ie the committers of XS).
“for the whole of XWiki SAS + XS Team”. I think you meant “XWiki SAS + the xwiki.org contributors”, unless by “XS Team” you meant the XWiki Core Development Team (and if it’s the case then it’s not enough since we’d also want the Doc Writers to have access for example, as mentioned in my reply before this one).
Obviously the XWiki Core Development team has no money (there’s no official organization with a treasury and money…), which is why I think “XS team” meant “XS team inside XWiki SAS”…
I cannot answer here regarding the XS team inside XWiki SAS but I can answer from the POV of the XWiki open source community: I don’t think we need any of threse plugins FTM. The only use case we have FTM is:
Know which pages are the most accessed so that we can make sure these pages are highlighted in the doc (funnily if they are the most accessed, it probably means that they are already easy to find… ;))
Help improve the documentation in general to find how people navigate and see what pages are not found easily, etc.
Follow up on the activity graphs to see how the situation evolves over time: more users coming or less, see if the new doc we’re working on has some effect, etc.
Just as an update. The alias analytics.xwiki.org has been added to the Matomo instance hosted by XWiki SAS.
A new website “XWiki Community” has been created inside that Matomo instance, and Vincent has been added as an admin to that website.
The instance is ready to use at any time. The only thing left to do would be to add the tracking code to xwiki.org.
There is no traffic data at the moment, but in case committers/other members of the community would like access, you can contact Vincent or me, to request an account.
I think Manuel installed it on the whole farm. I’m not sure of all the domains that are supposed to be there, but I can confirm that in the analytics I see recent traffic from the following subdomains:
/ 
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