I think there has been some misunderstanding with the mention of the word "analytics". Server side analytics are very common, and I think probably every website on a public webhost uses them, like it or not, no opt out is possible. Not that I know of anyway. I would guess Martin has something for the website, although I don't really know for sure.
What we are NOT talking about is tracking IP addresses and snooping on activity. Analytics such as Piwik (now called Matomo, for some bizarre reason) does perform this kind of tracking. But Piwik is open source, and it provides an opt-out, as well as respecting the browser's Do Not Track setting. Also, currently features are being added to respect the new European privacy laws. I use it on my site (opt-out is at the bottom): http://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php?page=29.
The only reason I use it on my site is because it's open source and provides real-time visitor tracking. I use it rarely if I need to follow a potential spammer (who got through the net) or a member or visitor who is causing trouble. Once in a while it's helpful when a newbie can't figure out what to do. I can see what they're trying to do, and help them.
I also like it because it seems to only track human visitors, while server side analytics shows everything that hits. So it gives a little more realistic pictures of visitor stats. But honestly, I rarely use it to follow a particular visitor. Mostly I just watch the graph showing daily visitors.
Now, even though Piwik (and others) provide this kind of tracking, doesn't mean it's users are snooping on their sites' members. In my opinion, collecting information about website visitors only becomes wrong when the person using it (forum admin, site owner, manager, webmaster, etc.) has bad intentions.
(I think google analytics was made with bad intentions in mind, and would avoid it at all costs. I don't know for a fact, but I think it reports back to google whatever it collects.)
Anyway, since we are the ones who would....let's say theoretically, be using it, does it make sense to be worried about what we might do with the information that's collected? We don't trust ourselves? Certainly if something like this were to be installed, only admins would have access to it. I would not give moderators access, and certainly not members!
However, my opinion is that server side analytics should be sufficient. For that, I like Webalyzer. I don't know if it costs to install it....I suppose it probably does. But there could be open source server side analytics.
But Bryce is setting up the server, as far as I understand. So I would think it would be up to him and the board.
All best, brynn
-----Original Message----- From: Ryan Gorley via Inkscape-devel Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2018 9:16 AM To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Visitor analytics
If we want Google Analytics level reporting (without sharing information with Google) then Piwik/Matomo is the best solution I'm aware of. It is still going to put cookies on the machines of our site visitors, which they may not appreciate, which does have some notice requirements in the EU as well. I wonder if we couldn't derive almost everything we need from an archaic log analyzer like AWStats that works without cookies. I think there is enough there to help us make better decisions about content and to understand our users better without some of the privacy concerns. Just my $0.02.
Ryan
On 02/24/2018 04:43 AM, Robert Sterbal wrote: I think we are on plenty of platforms with intrusive analytics.
I think we should just publish the analytics that we are willing to share with everyone.
I'm looking forward to the discussion of this issue.
Thanks,
Robert Sterbal robert@...3541... 412-977-3526 call/text
On 2/24/2018 6:26 AM, Shlomi Fish wrote: Hi!
On Sat, 24 Feb 2018 09:23:12 +0100 Mihaela mailto:mihaela.jurkovic@...400... wrote:
Hi all!
During preparations for forum migration (inkscapeforum.com) a topic of tracking website user statistics came up as worthy of deeper discussion.
It seems that a lot of Inkscapers are against using analytics, or they prefer more open and transparent ways of getting information about our visitors.
It would be useful if we could come up with a very clear set of guidelines that would apply throughout the Inkscape project regarding this topic.
Some suggestion topics for discussion: • Which services should be avoided (Google Analytics, server side logs, ...) I'd rather use one of https://duckduckgo.com/?q=open+source+alternatives+google+analytics&ia=w... instead of GAnalytics. I dont see a problem with analysing server-side logs.
• What kind of tracking (if any) is allowed to be implemented? • If it's implemented how should the users be informed (up front before registering, as part of official policy or as a separate notification)? possibly in the ToS. See http://www.shlomifish.org/meta/privacy-policy/ .
• Should it all be 100% opt-in for each person individually? With fine-grained control over which data is free to be collected?
i think opt-in would be overreacting.
Mihaela aka prkos
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