What follows is a semi-abridged chat log from May 21, containing an initial discussion re wiki stats.

It needs to be summarised and an action list produced - volunteers (that's you Sean) welcome!

Colin       BTW, regarding page-fetching frequency ... the page /tcl is surprisingly popular.  In the top 10.
Colin       It would be interesting, perhaps, to capture the referer.
Colin       well, rather, to relate that to referer.
Colin       I was playing 'round with ratcl to analyse the activity log.
Cameron_    Oooo, statistical analysis of Wiki access; loads of fun.
Colin       Cameron, we could learn a lot.  I didn't realise so many total n00bs were using the wiki.
Cameron_    Insights at hand.
Colin       Cameron, so that, and the referer, could be interesting.
Colin       Also some kind of ummm correction for age, so if an old page gets lots of hits, we can see why.
Colin       assume page interest extinguishes linearly, look for spikes, chase it down.
Cameron_    "Me, too" is about all I can say at this point, but I do so with great enthusiasm and conviction.
Colin       What should I do about privacy, though?
Colin       Should I perhaps anonymise the ip?
hypnotoad   Don't keep any personal data
Colin       and remove the cookies?
hypnotoad   Nah, only offer data in aggregate form
Colin       ok.
hypnotoad   Publish counts and stats, and leave the raw data behind the scenes
Colin       Mind you, I don't want to do all the statistical analyses.  Perhaps anonymising would do ... have a ... ok.
Colin       we could also look at it the other way - who's referring people to wiki?
hypnotoad   I used to do a lot of this for Philly2nite.com, but mostly to sell ad space
Colin       hypno, cool.  I think it could help marketing tcl.
stevel      colin, perhaps we could make raw logs available to suitably skilled people via the wikiforum
stevel      in addition to summaries available to all
Colin       Sure.
hypnotoad   I used to have a cute little hack for tclhttpd that would log right to an sql database. Well I still have it, I just don't use it
hypnotoad   Too many fark/slashdot effects.
stevel      the main need is for someone who can recommend which statistical techniques make sense
stevel      and that surely isn't going to be me 
   * stevel bozo
hypnotoad   Little things like this is why I think we need to write SQL right into the server
arjen       A lot of course depends on your goal ...
hypnotoad   The best discoveries are the ones you don't know you are making. That, unfortunately, require mining a lot of useless data
Colin       http://paste.tclers.tk/232
Colin       hypnotoad, that's why I'm exploring ratcl.
   * hypnotoad sighs
Colin       so RSS feed is first, robots are next, then recent, then the home page, then search
hypnotoad   Oh... didn't realize binaries were available for the Mac, and he ported the API to Sqlite
   * hypnotoad unsighs
Colin       http://wiki.tcl.tk/445 is the single most accessed content page.
Colin       Isn't that interesting and unexpected.
hypnotoad   Yes but it's probably what shows up when someone asks "What is Tcl?" in Google
Colin       Mind you, if 1/4 robots started there ... 
Colin       hypnotoad, yeah.
hypnotoad   If fact, we really should sex it up
Colin       exactly!
arjen       That is already one discovery 
Colin       <flash>TCL IS BETTER THAN SEX</flash><italic>if you do it right</italic>
Colin       it would have to be worth working out who's referring people there.
hypnotoad   I prefer to exercise my interfaces, and use Tcl where it's best: quick and dirty foreplay
hypnotoad   Well I'm not so much concerned about where they are coming from as that 445 if the first impression people get of Tcl. And it's fugly
Colin       Wow, this is fascinating.  Most of the referrals are internal!!
Colin       It seems.
hypnotoad   Well the page answers the question: What is Tcl?
Colin       So ... people find something they're interested in, then go 'what is tcl?'
Colin       right.
hypnotoad   Or the type TCL into seach
Colin       No, can tell the difference.
hypnotoad   Or robots are trying to hack the system and thing /tcl is the stubout where the toys are stored
Colin       Man oh man ... this really says we should have a 'what is tcl?' link on every page.
jdc         that's what the TOC should do
Colin       Nope, just normal users.
Colin       jdc, I'd say definitely.  Also in the footer.
hypnotoad   Right, well my tip is to simply answer the question, and leave the (mutliple) links to the sf page somehwere else
Colin       right.  make the /tcl page a simple marketing exercise.
Colin       It would be worth working backwards ... what leads people to ask 'what is tcl?' ?
Colin       so which pages are interesting n00bs.
Colin       enough to want to find out more.
Colin       That's 288 people in about a day.
hypnotoad   It's information theory. People compress ideas. TCL is one of those high-information search terms
hypnotoad   Why does our FAQ simply describe a FAQ as opposed to answer frequently asked questions about TCL?
jdc         700 pages link to [Tcl], hard not to get to that page when you're new to Tcl
Colin       hypnotoad, that's a great NFAQ
Colin       the answer is probably:  we are geeks not marketers.
Colin       I certainly don't know Wtf I'm doing.
Colin       Someone ought to rewrite it, huh.
hypnotoad   Well I'm a half assed geek, and a half assed marketer, maybe I can take two ineptitudes and come up with an eptitude
arjen       These pages were written for people who already know Tcl
dkf         Adding things for people who don't know Tcl so well... be my guest 
Colin       hypnotoad, Yay!
hypnotoad   I'll but some drafts together and see what we think as a collective. I do have to keep the external links on the page to keep the google ranking up...
hypnotoad   Meh, gimme an hour
hypnotoad   And what are some of our other commonly slammed pages?
jdc         696: Arts and Crafts of Tcl-Tk Programming
Colin       that's a complex question to answer correctly.  One has to weight them by age.
hypnotoad   In the last 72 hours
hypnotoad   Meh... getting distracted... assembling elevator pitch for TCL
Colin       http://paste.tclers.tk/233 - top 100
Colin       no, one has to discount recently added pages.
Colin       significance is a function like accesses / age
Colin       err, no accesses * age
Colin       I can run this up so it's more or less continuous.
hypnotoad   I'll let you sort it out... I'm just looking for popular and fugly pages the public would be hitting
Colin       /_stats or something.
hypnotoad   Find 'em, I'll fix 'em
hypnotoad   (Well propose a new form...)