Manual talk:$wgPingback

Commit message for this feature

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Quoting Ori's commit message:

Add option for sharing info about this MediaWiki install via pingback When $wgPingback is true, MediaWiki will periodically ping https://www.mediawiki.org/beacon with basic information about the local MediaWiki installation. This data includes, for example, the type of system, PHP version, and chosen database backend.

The pingback is sent via a deferred (post-send) update whenever $wgVersion changes, using the updatelog table to ensure we don't send duplicate pingbacks. A database lock ensures only one thread attempts to send the pingback, and a cache key throttles attempts to no more than once per hour.

$wgPingback is false by default. The web installer has a checkbox for controlling this option, and it is checked by default. This nudges new installs to turn on pingbacks, but does not sneak this decision past sysops of existing installs.

Do we need to incorporate this information in the page? How/where do we document the data we plan to collect (other than in the code)? RobLa-WMF (talk) 01:18, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I added a table indicating what data would be collected, and some examples of what the data might be. Legoktm (talk) 08:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It should be more than just examples....I think it's crucial that we clearly document every piece of data that's included, and when we add a new piece of data it must be added here. 😂 (talk) 02:26, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up @^demon. On first read, I thought "it looks like @Legoktm has a really complete set of examples". However, it's possible to accidentally create a monster here. For example, the HTTP User-agent field has a mess of layered ad hoc information, and has been prone to years of engineering and analytics abuse. ^demon, when you emphasize "every piece of data", do you mean that each possible value for each field should be enumerated? RobLa-WMF (talk) 00:12, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that's even possible. For example, php_uname( 'r' ) on my system returns "4.6.6-300.fc24.x86_64", which changes on every kernel update. Legoktm (talk) 00:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Nah, not ever possibly value, just every type of data (with an example or two of possible values)....like Lego says, it's impossible to be exhaustive here. And yeah, it's up to date now, I was mainly making sure they're not forgotten in the future. See [1] 😂 (talk) 01:21, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, I think the current table should cover everything. Please edit the wiki page if something is missing :) Legoktm (talk) 02:27, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rationale for data sent

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I added a table indicating the data sent and why we wanted those data points. I couldn't come up with reasons for two of the fields, so it would be helpful if someone else could fill those in. Legoktm (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Document persistent wiki id

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• How it is generated
• How it is used
• What is the purpose of it
• How to reset it, and what the effects of doing so will be Legoktm (talk) 08:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Location of and access to pinged back data

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I guess the page should also state were the collected information is stored and if it is publicly accessible or not. [[kgh]] (talk) 10:01, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Legoktm @Ori Livneh Does anybody know? [[kgh]] (talk) 14:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Updated the page with the basic info that I know of...hope that's helpful. Legoktm (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It indeed is. Thanks a lot!

Enabled this feature on one wiki a couple of weeks ago so there should already be some data available. :) [[kgh]] (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Auto-checked box

I dont like that the box "share data" is auto-checked. It's easily overlooked, especially if you just want to set up a quick test-wiki, for which you certainly dont want to share data. 89.0.132.59 (talk) 11:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Search box doesn't autocomplete this article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I noticed this article doesn't get suggested in the search box when typing "wgPingback". Other wg variables do work -- e.g., I type wgSitename and it suggests Manual:$wgSitename. This is in the Vector 2022 skin.

Is something misconfigured on this page? I thought it might be because there was no $wgPingback redirect page, but I created that and no change. Jacob Steffler (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Works for me. The search takes a while to update its index, which means it doesn't appear immediately after creating the redirect Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 09:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Good for me too now, marking as resolved! Jacob Steffler (talk) 19:04, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.