September 2015 in review

This is the twelfth of my month-in-review posts. I started month-in-review posts in October 2014. You can see my first post here and my previous month-in-review post here.

Some overall background

This month was quite busy for me work-wise, so my non-work output was very limited.

Wikipedia editing

For background information, see my site page about Wikipedia

I created the following Wikipedia pages this month:

I also made edits to Wikipedia pages I had created previously, including Doing Good Better, Gusto (software) (renamed from ZenPayroll), and Tracy Chou.

I also started a draft of the Wikipedia page on consular nonreviewability, which I hope to publish in October. Realistically, I don’t expect to do any more Wikipedia work this month.

The numbers below are for pageviews in September 2015, and are based on data collated by stats.grok.se and further summarized at Wikipedia Views. As with all numbers from stats.grok.se, note that these numbers exclude mobile pageviews but include bots.

Comparison with forecast: The number of pageviews (217,908) fell outside of my 95% probability interval of 115,000-200,000. All the unexpected component of the variation came from Internet.org, which became a big news subject in India after being associated with the Digital India Initiative. The pageview count for this page was 62,536 in September, compared to 11,437 in August. Even excluding this page, there appears to have been a slight overall increase in pageviews, which might reflect the fact that July and August were “summer months” whereas September is a “back-to-school” month. There was also a slight increase in traffic to pages about venture capitalists and angel investors, which might have been coincidental or may again reflect seasonal cycles.

October forecast: The extra traffic to Internet.org persisted through the first few days of October. Accounting for how this shades the traffic estimates, here are my estimates:

  • My point estimate (for the median) is 157,500 pageviews. In other words, I believe there is a 50% probability that the number of pageviews will be above this number, and a 50% probability that it will be below or equal to this number.
  • My 50% probability interval estimate is 145,000-180,000. In other words, I expect a 50% probability that the number of pageviews will fall within this interval, a 25% probability that it will fall below 145,000, and a 25% probability that it will be above 180,000.
  • My 80% probability interval estimate is 133,000-200,000. In other words, I expect an 80% probability that the number of pageviews will fall within this interval, a 10% probability that it will be below 133,000, and a 10% probability that it will be above 200,000.
  • My 95% probability interval estimate is 120,000-225,000. In other words, I expect a 95% probability that the number of pageviews will fall within this interval, a 2.5% probability that is will be below 120,000, and a 2.5% probability that it will be above 225,000.

I’ve also described my estimates in terms of values at particular percentiles in my probability distribution below:

  • 2.5th: 120,000
  • 10th: 133,000
  • 25th: 145,000
  • 50th: 157,500
  • 75th: 180,000
  • 90th: 200,000
  • 97.5th: 225,000

WikiHow

For background information, see my site page about WikiHow

I created a new WikiHow page How to Use Amazon EC2 Spot Instances. As of October 5, 2015, it has 75 views.

I also made some edits and updates to WikiHow pages I had created previously. The pageview counts as of October 5, 2015, as well as the increments since September 5, 2015, are provided below:

Subject wikis

General background information: My site page about the subject wikis

I did not spend any time on the subject wikis this month. Year-on-year traffic growth has reverted to about 20% after slumping to 10% in August.

Below is the traffic information for Groupprops.

Metric Sep 2015 Aug 2015 Jul 2015 Sep 2014 Aug 2014 Jul 2014
Pageviews 73,510 41,813 38,388 60,637 36,844 34,973
Sessions 37,313 21,775 19,400 31,475 17,778 16,495
Pages/session 1.97 1.92 1.98 1.93 2.07 2.12
Pageviews in sessions with at least 5 pageviews 23,066 13,046 12,616 18,157 13,205 12,887

Here are pageview counts for the other subject wikis:

  • Market: 20,745 pageviews, versus 19,550 for September 2014.
  • Calculus: 21,579 pageviews, versus 17,843 for September 2014.

Comparison with forecast: For Groupprops, the total number of pageviews (73,510) was close to my point estimate of 66,500, and well within my 50% probability interval estimate (54,000-80,000) and 80% probability interval estimate (45,000-90,000).

October forecast: Last year, Groupprops for 104,663 pageviews in October. My point estimate for October 2015 is 113,000 pageviews. My 50% probability interval estimate is 95,000-130,000 pageviews and my 80% probability interval estimate is 80,000-150,000 pageviews.

Entertainment

I re-watched some episodes of Gilmore Girls. I also bought the MP3 for Wrecking Ball. I also enjoyed listening to Can’t Forget You, Arjun and Jonita Gandhi’s remake of my all-time favorite song, Tujhe Bhula Diya.

Notes: (a) Apologies for delay with publication; I had a bunch of other stuff I wanted to get done. (b) I’ve shortened the update to exclude domains where I didn’t add anything this month and where the passive impact of my cumulative work (as measured in e.g. number of pageviews) was insignificant. Of course, some of these may reappear in future monthly updates if I make contributions on those fronts in those months or their cumulative contribution becomes big enough. This selectivity keeps the update short enough for me to squeeze in the time to publish it.