Integrate a usage statistics mechanism

[roata]

To get an idea about how many people are actually using the site, we need to collect some sort of metrics. The requirements are:

1. privacy-preserving: we only need to know the number of visitors, which routes they look at, whether they use a phone or a desktop.
2. public: the statistics must be available to the public.

[ralienpp]

Some solutions are available:

1. Google Analytics has a feature for masking sensitive data, use it as follows: { 'anonymize_ip': true, 'allow_google_signals': false }: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en
2. https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/google-analytics-super-proxy - this makes the stats (or a controlled subset of them) public

Thus, no personal data are collected and there's no need to request consent for anything (in the context of the GDPR); while the public can access the statistics too.

This solution meets the requirements above, though it is all based on the assumption/home that Google really anonymizes IPs. In other words, the ideal solution should be completely detached from any mega-corporations; but the one proposed here is easy to implement and is reasonably good.

[iamandrewluca]

@ralienpp Thinking to integrate https://github.com/plausible/analytics
I will try to reach to them and kindly ask for a free tier 🙂

What do you think?

https://plausible.io/roataway.md (script is not on the site yet)

[iamandrewluca]

@ralienpp @roata I pushed a commit with https://github.com/plausible/analytics script. We have one month free trial. Let's see how it will work. Reverted

Analytics can be seen on https://plausible.io/roataway.md

[iamandrewluca]

I found one more service that has a "2,500 events / month" free tier.
Looking if they have public dashboard, and what about privacy

[iamandrewluca]

Ok. Here are both platforms.

Plausible: (https://plausible.io/roataway.md)

• Public dashboard
• Privacy focused
• Free trial
• Open Source

Splitbee: (https://app.splitbee.io/public/roataway.md)

• Public dashboard
• Privacy focused
• Free tier
• Closed Source

[strdr4605]

We can use Spitbee for now, then if traffic increase we can switch to Plausible, and maybe request free tier. Also can we request payment from RTEC?

[roata]

RTEC refuses to pay for the tracking itself, so there's no way on Earth they'd pay for this. Privacy-preserving analytics is a non-feature for them.

We need this to know how many people actually use it (and maybe what routes are most requested, if our URL schema made it possible, as discussed in #22), and then use these numbers to put pressure on RTEC to change their attitude. + we need to know what devices and browsers are in the hands of our users, to adapt the system to their needs.

[iamandrewluca]

Plausible don't have at all free tier option plausible/analytics#179 (reply in thread)

[iamandrewluca]

I can integrate Splitbee for now. And in case we go past 2.5K events/month I can take payment responsibility on me for some time.

we should open a Roata Wăy Patreon account 🙂