frequency of list link clicks

[collinbarrett]

Use the frequency of clicks of the View/Add links (unique per visitor per day) from FilterLists to calculate the FilScore.

This data is collected from our anonymized, self-hosted Piwik installation.

[collinbarrett]

Today, I am rolling out the first iteration of this. FilScore is currently calculated as a normalized 0-100 value (100 being the most popular in comparison with other lists of its type) based on the number of unique daily Views/Adds of the list.

Glaring Bug:

Currently, popularity is only tracked by Piwik "downloads" which refer to the "View" and possibly the "Add" links which typically lead to a .txt file. Lists that are not a "download" type (having an extension like .txt) are currently ignored (but shouldn't be).

This should be fixed ASAP as follows. It is possibly as simple as replacing Actions.getDownload with Actions.getOutlink. Alternatively, clicks of any links for a given list should be tagged as the list name in Piwik so that "popularity/interest" in FilScore calculations is determined by a visitor clicking on any of the list's links rather than just view/add. Once this implementation is in place, it should be slowly weened in over a 30-day period.

Other Concerns:

This scoring method is prone to false manipulation as well as false skewing (lists defaulting at the top get clicked more by new visitors not necessarily interested in any given list). But, these are issues I hope we can improve upon over time by implementing the other potential factors outlined in the OP.

[collinbarrett]

Update to "Glaring Bug" mentioned in last comment:
Now, if Piwik returns null for the getDownload API call, try a getOutlink api call. This gets the unique click counts for lists that are not recognized as a download (i.e., don't have an extension of .txt). This code is ugly and will need to get refactored later, but is now deployed to production.

It would still be good to track clicks on any link related to a list rather than just the View/Add links.

[collinbarrett]

Re-opening and re-naming.

Clicks of only View/Add links are heavily skewed because many software tools come with default subscriptions. A uBlock Origin user, for example, would likely never click EasyList's View or Add links even though it is one of the top lists because it is already built into UBO.

To smooth out this skew somewhat, it'd be good to track if a unique user clicks any of the links for a given list (signifying some level of interest) rather than just the View or Add links. Clicking multiple links for the same list (or the same link multiple times) by the same visitor in the same day should be ignored (capped at 1 click).

This still won't be perfect, but it would provide a better indication of visitor interest in a list.

[collinbarrett]

Won't expand to other links besides View/Add for now. Adding other factors to the FilScore calculation is more important and will be more effective.

[collinbarrett]

re-opening for v3

[collinbarrett]

No click-tracking has been implemented in v3. The idea of "tracking" is certainly contrary to the point of this site, no matter how anonymous it is.

In addition, this could be a self-fulfilling data point as lists which have a higher filscore will naturally get clicked on more, thus increasing their filscore.

Closing as won't implement for now.