Going from 86,000,000 a month to 31,000 a month is quite a drop, and the
shift is pretty dramatic. It goes from 1.7 million one day to 715 the next
and stays flat (http://stats.grok.se/en/201410/Special:Random).

I was also thinking there could be a bot or something that is scraping
Special:Random, but the drop also happens for Special:Random/Talk -- which
hardly anybody uses, but it still drops flat the same day (
http://stats.grok.se/en/201410/Special:Random/Talk). It doesn't happen for
Special:Upload or Special:Log though.

October 16th, 2014 is the day it changes. Anybody know of something that
might have changed that day with logging? Also, there have to be way more
than ~1,000 hits a day to Special:Random. Perhaps pageviews started to be
counted for the page that it got redirected to, rather than the
Special:Random page itself. But then why wouldn't it go to 0? What are
those ~1,000 hits a day?

👻 ~~ it is a mystery ~~ 👻

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Oliver Keyes <[email protected]> wrote:

> A reduction or alteration in automata activity, possibly? Erik's dumps
> contain literally no filtering for scammers or crawlers, and we're a
> hot locale for spammer activity.
>
> On 11 May 2015 at 08:09, Alex Druk <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I just grep monthly totals from Erik Zachte
> > http://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/pagecounts-ez/merged/ (grep "^en.z
> > Special:Random ")
> >
> > On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM,
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Send Wiki-research-l mailing list submissions to
> >>         [email protected]
> >>
> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >>         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >>         [email protected]
> >>
> >> You can reach the person managing the list at
> >>         [email protected]
> >>
> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> >> than "Re: Contents of Wiki-research-l digest..."
> >>
> >>
> >> Today's Topics:
> >>
> >>    1. Re: How to explain drop in random searches (Oliver Keyes)
> >>
> >>
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 1
> >> Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 08:30:37 -0400
> >> From: Oliver Keyes <[email protected]>
> >> To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
> >>         <[email protected]>
> >> Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] How to explain drop in random searches
> >> Message-ID:
> >>
> >> <caauqgda6jvzgs3qqxvvgsh7mfthwxpd97uisdtjmjnugzzx...@mail.gmail.com>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> >>
> >> Using what data?
> >>
> >> On 10 May 2015 at 05:29, Alex Druk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > Hi everyone,
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > I try to learn dynamic of random searches (Special:Random) on English
> >> > Wikipedia.
> >> >
> >> > From 01/2012 to 10/2014 average number of random searches per month
> was
> >> > about 86 millions or about 30% of Main_Page pageviews, but from
> November
> >> > 2014 it drop to 31,000 per month (or 0.008% of Main_page).
> >> >
> >> > How to explain such a dramatic drop? Any ideas?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Thank you.
> >> >
> >> > Alex Druk, PhD
> >> > wikipediatrends.com
> >> > [email protected]
> >> > (775) 237-8550 Google voice
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Wiki-research-l mailing list
> >> > [email protected]
> >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Oliver Keyes
> >> Research Analyst
> >> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> >> [email protected]
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >>
> >>
> >> End of Wiki-research-l Digest, Vol 117, Issue 14
> >> ************************************************
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Alex Druk
> > [email protected]
> > (775) 237-8550 Google voice
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wiki-research-l mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Oliver Keyes
> Research Analyst
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

Reply via email to