Преимущества

Расширение предоставляет редакторам обратную связь в виде измерения аудитории. Редакторы могут определять и улучшать популярные статьи, зная их примерный размер аудитории. Служебная страница HitCounters PopularPages также позволяет редакторам сосредоточить внимание на улучшение статей с наибольшей посещаемостью и помогает читателям узнавать наиболее курируемый контент проекта.

Расширение HitCounters включает определение wikiFactor — примерное определение популярности вики-сайта.

Расширение HitCounters минимально навязчивое с уважением к безопасности данных и опасениям по поводу конфиденциальности. The extension handles metrics on the server side, so aggregated data stays within the site's security boundary. The extension does not inject JavaScript to be executed by the client and does not ask a client to download additional un-audited code from a third party, like GoogleAnalyticsMetrics .

Расширение не следит за пользователями, посещающие страницу. As such, there's no need for special handling of "Do Not Track" browser requests or Global Privacy Control settings. The extension also does not use third-party services like the GoogleAnalyticsMetrics extension.

Расширение не имеет зависимости, от которых могут возникнуть конфликты. Other extensions, like GoogleAnalyticsMetrics, can cause problems during a Composer update. Also see P6481.

Отличия от изначальной реализации MediaWiki

Before MediaWiki 1.25, the page views counting functionality was in core MediaWiki. This extension is based on that same code but was deliberately made lighter to speed up processing time. Many lines of superfluous code were removed. Also, the old MediaWiki core code performed numerous database queries on every page hit; these have all been removed. This change may lead to some inaccuracies in the data.

The core differences that wiki administrators need to know are:

• The hit counts are stored in the cache.
• The visible hit count at the bottom of each page is updated only once daily. (Pages with a hit count of less than 100 are updated once per minute.)
• That hit is ignored if you refresh your browser on a wiki page.

According to tests conducted by several MediaWiki operators, a view is counted if a page is accessed (action=view), as well as action=render and when accessing a page revision.

A view is not counted with the other actions, such as action=raw, action=edit, and action=info.

Migration