-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

Hi devs,

if you're fetching .csv files from Metrics or if you're interested in discussing future .csv files served by Metrics you should read on. (And if you're surprised that Metrics serves .csv files at all and want to learn more, tick the "Advanced" box under "Level" and take a look at all the pages of type "Data".)

I just deployed a new data-aggregating module on Metrics that produces the .csv file here:

https://metrics.torproject.org/connbidirect2-data.html

That .csv file replaces the following .csv file which will go away in the future:

https://metrics.torproject.org/connbidirect-data.html

The main difference between the two files is that the new file contains daily aggregates whereas the old file contained raw statistics as reported by relays, which is why I added the aggregation step.

So, that's news number one: if you're currently using that file for any reason, please let me know, and I'll try to help you generate the same data from CollecTor's data yourself.

But the main reason for changing the format is that I wanted to separate the code to extract and aggregate statistics into a new Metrics module for better maintenance.

And here's news number two: I'm planning to do the same with the following three .csv files:

https://metrics.torproject.org/servers-data.html

https://metrics.torproject.org/bandwidth-data.html

https://metrics.torproject.org/torperf-data.html

If you have any ideas for improving those data formats or adding closely related data while doing so, please let me know.

Also, if you have ideas for adding new .csv files and new graphs based on them, I'd want to learn about that.

Note that I might not be able to include all suggestions. But now's a much better time to make them than when I'm done replacing those three .csv files. (I'll also look through open Trac tickets before writing any new code.)

Thanks!

All the best, Karsten