[tor-dev] Retiring old user number estimates

[Matthew Finkel]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 08:28:21PM +0200, Karsten Loesing wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> some of you may already know our new approach to estimating daily Tor users:
> 
> https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html#userstats
> 
> This new approach is in beta since April, and I'm quite happy with it.
> I trust the new numbers more than the old ones, both for direct users
> and bridge users.  The new code for direct users is quite similar to the
> old one, but much cleaner.  The approach for bridge users is a much
> better idea than the old hack.  Today I added the missing features like
> the top-10 lists and the censorship detector.
> 
> Why do I tell you this?
> 
> Because the old approach uses resources on our poor, already overloaded
> metrics machine, and I'm planning to shut down the old approach in the
> very near future.  Here's the plan:
> 
>  - Compute user numbers for 2012 and before; the current numbers start
> on January 1, 2013.  This is going to take at least until September 23.
> 
>  - Take out the "BETA" labels and throw out everything above "New
> approach to estimating daily Tor users (BETA)".  This could happen on
> October 1.
> 
> Thoughts?  Did I miss anything that's worth keeping?  Anyone want to
> create an archive of their favorite graphs before I pull the plug?
> 
> All the best,
> Karsten

Hi Karsten,

Awesome work with these metrics. I am curious, however, why the new
metrics are more correct than the old ones. The graphs are definitely
smoother and including the requests to the Dir Auths seems correct,
but are there other specific reasons for this choice?

Thanks for your work on this!
Matt