[metrics-team] A new home for the Metrics Timeline?

[Karsten Loesing]

Hi David and Gaba,

sorry for dropping the ball on this topic last week!

On 2020-08-20 23:48, Gaba wrote:
> El 8/20/20 a las 2:28 PM, David Fifield escribió:
>> The metrics timeline is a database of events that could have an effect
>> on Tor Metrics graphs. It was formerly maintained on the Trac wiki.
>> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/metrics-team/2020-August/001153.html
>> Metrics tools parsed the wiki markup and used the information to make
>> the "Related events" tables under graphs on metrics.torproject.org.
>>
>> But now the Trac wiki is read-only, so the timeline cannot be updated.
>> KuroNeko wanted to add an event but couldn't:
>> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/metrics-team/2020-August/001153.html
>>
>> I was to discuss finding a new home for the metrics timeline. Here are a
>> couple of options.
>>
>> OPTION 1: Use a wiki page on GitLab.
>> There are already a couple of copies of the timeline on the GitLab wiki,
>> one automatically migrated with slightly broken markup, and one cleaned
>> up by Cecylia.
>> https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/wikis/doc/MetricsTimeline
>> https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/Censorship-Events
>> PROS: In principle, interested volunteers can request a GitLab account
>> and edit the wiki. Doesn't require any special tools to edit.
>> CONS: GitLab markup is different from Trac markup, so new parsers will
>> have to be written. It's easy to break the format by accident.
>>
>> OPTION 2: Use a CSV file in a Git repository.
>> My thinking in putting the timeline on a wiki page was to enable the
>> public to add events, without needing to go through a burdensome process
>> to set up credentials. In practice, though, I think not many took
>> advantage of it. We could instead host it in a Git repository.

I remember that your original motivation for putting it on a wiki page
was to make it easier for others to contribute. Still, I have always
checked if contributions are either obviously correct or have been
signed off by you, for example, by looking for minor edits or subsequent
changes from you, telling me that you have acknowledged contributions.

I still think that making it easy to contribute is a good goal. Maybe we
can achieve it in a different way than putting the timeline on a wiki
page though?

How about we create a new Git repository, say, metrics-timeline.git with
just the timeline file in the Markdown format? Ideally, that file would
be rendered nicely by GitLab when looking at the project page. I can
then write a new parser that processes that Markdown format.

And how about we create a new private mailing list, say,
metrics-timeline at lists.tp.o that has you, phw, cohosh, Gaba, me, and
maybe a few other folks on it and that is open for posting to anyone? We
could mention that address in the Git repository, on the News page on
Tor Metrics, and on the graph pages under Related Events. Expect 90%
spam on that list, but if there's 10% ham that points out important
events in the Tor network, then it's probably worth it. And if it's not
useful, we can always turn it off and rely on issues and merge requests.

>> PROS: Doesn't require a specialized parser. More independent of the
>> GitLab wiki; can host tools and documentation in the same repository.
>> Better versioning.
>> CONS: Higher barrier to contribution. A little less human-editable.
>>
>> Any other options?
> 
> 
> The wiki in gitlab is a git repository. We could host the CSV in
> 
> the metrics wiki repo
> (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics/team/-/wikis/git_access) that
> gets parsed into https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/metrics/team/-/wikis/
> 
> or
> 
> the anti-censorship wiki repo
> (https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis/git_access)
> that gets parsed into
> https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/team/-/wikis
> 
> and link it from the same wiki page itself.

My personal preference would be to have our own Git repository (or file
in an existing Git repository) with a file format we can choose and
change as needed. But if putting it on a GitLab wiki makes more sense
for whatever reasons, I'll write a parser for getting the data into Tor
Metrics.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic, and thanks for working
on making this important information available again in the near future!

All the best,
Karsten


> 
>>
>> In the meantime, I have been keeping track of a few new events just in a
>> local copy of
>> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/MetricsTimeline?format=txt
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>>
> 
> 
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