Michael Rosenthal wrote:
I suggest keep the bug on Wikimedia's servers and
using a tool which
relies on SQL databases. These could be shared with the toolserver
where the "official" version of the analysis tool runs and users are
enabled to run their own queries (so taking a tool with a good
database structure would be nice). With that the toolserver users
could set up their own cool tools on that data.
If Javascript was used to serve the bug, it would be quite easy to only
load the bug some small fraction of the time, allowing a fair
statistical sample of JS-enabled readers (who should, I hope, be fairly
representative of the whole population) to be taken without melting down
the servers.
I suspect the fact that most bots and spiders do not interpret
Javascript, and would thus be excluded from participating in the traffic
survey, could be regarded as an added bonus.
-- Neil