On 5/21/19 11:17 AM, Roman Danyliw wrote:
Hi!
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is seeking community input on implementing web analytics on www.ietf.org ("the website").
There is currently no accurate data reported about visits to the website. For example, it is not possible to understand: which pages are most commonly visited; which paths visitors travel to find IETF meeting registration pages; or whether introductory information, such as tutorials, leads to further exploration of website content. Web analytics would provide insight into overall utilization and inform future improvements to the website.
In consultation with the tools team, Greg Wood developed an implementation plan to integrate a self-hosted analytics package into the existing infrastructure. The full details of this proposal are available at:
https://www.ietf.org/iesg/docs/www.ietf.org-AnalyticsProposal-forReview.pdf
The IESG appreciates any input from the community on this proposal and will consider all input received by June 4, 2019.
The main concern I have is: be careful how you use the statistics. For
instance, don't interpret the frequency that a page is used, by itself,
as an indicator of the importance of that page. If a page is visited
often, it might mean the page is important, or it might mean that the
page is getting in the way - a needless extra click or a dead end at
which people give up. Similarly, if a page is not visited often, it
might still be important - it might be a page that helps the rare user
who needs an answer to a very important question.
There's an unfortunate tendency everywhere these days to place faith in
data that's easy to collect but not a good indication of what is wanted,
because the information really wanted is hard to collect. ("Where did
you lose your keys?" "Inside the house." "Then why are you looking for
them under the streetlight?" "The light is better here.")
Keith
