This is a collection of various graphs of online and registration data.
Trends in NCF usage can be inferred from some of this data.
Please send comments to
idallen@FreeNet.Carleton.CA.
See the notes at the bottom of this page regarding data quality and
"glitches" in the graphs.
None of these graphs account for PPP connections that use NCF terminal
server equipment.
Only text-based, real logins to NCF SunOS machines are counted.
(No connections to Solaris machines are graphed yet. NCF converted
fully to Solaris on January 1, 2000, and the graphs stop there.)
Weekly Unique Users(Weekly Unique Users (text))
shows the number of unique text users of the system in the weeks preceding the
given date, for several
"windows"
of numbers of weeks.
(See below for "windows" using days instead of weeks.)
For example, the line labelled "6 Wk" graphs the number of unique text
users of the system in the 6 weeks preceding each date on the horizontal axis.
Daily Unique Users(Daily Unique Users (text))
is the same idea as above, but the
"window"
is days wide instead of weeks.
For example, "6 Day" graphs the number of unique text users of the system in the
6 days preceding each date on the horizontal axis.
Note the decrease in number of unique users during the holiday seasons.
Daily Member Session Counts(Daily Member Session Counts (text))
is the count of login connections (Sessions) for each day by members.
"Annex" counts connections by members via the Annex terminal server
(modem and library access).
"Telnet" counts connections by telnet.
Daily Guest Session Counts(Daily Guest Session Counts (text))
is the count of login connections (Sessions) for each day by guests.
"Annex" counts connections by guests via the Annex terminal server
(modem and library access).
"Telnet" counts connections by telnet.
Daily Member Connections(Daily Member Connections (text))
is the count of member login connections (Sessions) and the count of
unique members (UniqeMembers) for each day.
The "Session" line counts each login separately.
The "UniqeMember" line counts each member "once" no matter how many
times that user connects that day.
The ratio of text sessions to unique text users tells the
average number of text sessions per member per day.
Daily Guest Connections(Daily Guest Connections (text))
is the count of guest login connections (Sessions) for each day.
Some members started using the guest account to avoid the time limits
on their own accounts;
this may account for the increase in guest usage after mid-April 1995.
Online Registrations and Account Activations(Online Registrations and Account Activations (text))
shows the total number of users who have requested accounts through the online
registration process ("Registrations"), and the total number of users
who actually
followed-through with sending the signed registration form to the office
and received a FreeNet account ("Activations").
Since the activations are processed by the office, changes in the
office (holidays, staff turn over, etc.) may delay or otherwise shift
activations into "clumps" in some weeks.
Average Pledge and Donation per User(Average Pledge and Donation per User (text))
graphs the average pledge and donation amount received in
registrations in each week.
The Pledge amount is the amount of money a prospective member says
will accompany his/her registration form at the time s/he fills out the
online registration.
(There is a lot of "noise" in this data.)
The Donation amount is the amount of money actually
received by the office from new members.
(Donations arriving outside the registration process are not covered here.)
The Pledge amount is averaged among all people completing
the online registration that week.
The donation amount is averaged among all people having
their accounts validated (enabled) by the office that week.
(The "clumping" factor mentioned above also applies to donations.)
Note that between several days and several weeks elapse between the
time a Registration form is filled out online and the account is
actually Activated, so anything that affects people's willingness to
donate will have an effect first in the Pledge graph and some time later in
the Donations graph.
Total Donation Dollars per Week(Total Donation Dollars per Week (text))
is the total amount of money donated each week coming from processing
registrations of new accounts.
(The "clumping" factor mentioned above also applies to donations.)
Donations arriving outside the registration process are not covered here.
The graphs below that show session length haven't been updated in many
years, since they depend on some specialized processing of the log
files to determine when people log in and log out.
Graphs showing simple counts of logins are updated more easily.
Total Minutes Online for Members(Total Minutes Online for Members (text))
is the sum of all member online time for each day.
It is the sum total of all text sessions by all non-guest users for the day.
It is measure of "system utilization" by members.
The higher the number, the more the system was being used to service
online members using the text interfaces.
The decrease in system use visible in the early part of the graph corresponds
with the mid-April 1995 implementation of two-hour online time limits.
Online usage by members declined instead of shifting to non-peak hours.
Total Minutes Online for Guests(Total Minutes Online for Guests (text))
is the sum of all guest online time for each day.
It is measure of "system utilization" by guests only (not by members).
The higher the number, the more the system was being used to service
online guests using the text interfaces.
Some members started using the guest account to avoid the time limits
on their own accounts;
this may account for the increase in guest usage after mid-April 1995.
Daily Minutes Online(Daily Minutes Online (text))
is an average of the total number of minutes spent online in
text mode each day by each member.
This is simply the sum of all online text session times each day divided by
the number of unique text users that day.
The mid-April 1995 drop in average daily minutes online corresponded with
the introduction of online time limits.
Annex: members using a dial-up/library (Annex) line
Telnet: members using telnet connections
Note how the ease with which telnet users can connect and disconnect
without waiting for a phone line permits them to have shorter sessions.
The mid-April 1995 drop in average session length corresponded with
the introduction of online time limits.
Annex: guests using a dial-up/library (Annex) line
Telnet: guests using telnet connections
Time limits do not apply to guests, and the telnet connections show no effects.
Some members started using the guest account to avoid the time limits,
which may account for the increased proportion of short session lengths on
the Annex lines.
Data Quality
These graphs are built from Unix wtmp records collected since
March 13, 1995.
Three weeks' worth of connection data are missing for four out of five
NCF machines between April 7 and April 28, 1996, and many of the online graphs
show a "glitch" down toward zero at that time.
The registration data graphs are not affected.
I hope to recover the data from backup at some point.
Processing this much data using the inefficient Perl language programs
I wrote leads to system resource problems.
Rather than properly process the data in one chunk, I have had to
assemble some of the graphs that attempt to measure "cumulative" or "window"
usage from partial graphs, leading to "glitches" where the two graphs
are spliced together.
One current splice is visible on some graphs around mid-February.
Still to come: WWW server hit statistics, total Donation statistics,
and sample graphs of daily online user load and modem use for various
times of the year.
