Needing YOUR input for a STATISTICS mod

[Greg Robson]

I came up with the idea of a statistics mod the other day and I have decided that I will build it as soon as I have learnt PHP and MySQL  

For the moment I need everyone's input on what the statistics MOD is going to do, how it will look etc etc yadda yadda blah blah blah.

Here are my ideas so far for graphs...

View graphs of topics/replies/viewings/new users on average (or in total) for each hour of the day/day of week. [ This will enable people to see if the board is used by Americans or people in the UK, and whether the board is used more at the weekend than during the week.
Also show topics/replies/viewings/new users during each hour, day, week, month.
Allow specifying of a particular catergory/board for the above (N.B. Not new users)

Horizontal / Vertical graphs

Frequency of posting for registered users.
Average replies/viewings per message.

The ability to create CSV files
E-mail statistics to admin once a day (send when first post of day is carried out)

I'm thinking of having a main graph with drop down boxes at the bottom to set the options.

This sounds like a lot but most of the items just need what's counted changed.

As soon as I begin learning PHP and MySQL I'll start coding it, until then I'll gather ideas and start designing the screens.

Many thanks for input in advance.

UPDATE 3/1/02 - New idea: keep track of notification e-mails sent (might be useful for busy servers?)

[Joseph Fung]

posting in more than one space *will* get you more reponse.  But please don't cross-post into forums where it doesn't apply.

[Jeff Lewis]

It will just take a good idea and make it spam

[Greg Robson]

In my defense it was only 3 forums...(hardly constitutes spam), it wasn't the same message (they were linked), and two were locked (to keep everything on topic).

The boards were:
* What you can do to help (HELP ME!)
* Mod Ideas - the obvious one (hence main thread)
* Mod Writing - help me write mine!

Finally - it would be an important mod (not discrediting anyone else here) and it deserves to be determined by the majority.

Despite my defense, I plead guilty  

Now, back to that mod........

[Jeff Lewis]

No need to defend yourself, you're being told gently

[Greg Robson]

That's alright I know you're just doing you job.

btw, while I've got the attention of two moderators perphaps you can give me your 5 cents on what you think should be going into this mod Any ideas? Layout, extra functionality, problems I might encounter?

[Joseph Fung]

here's some ideas

make a spearate file like Stats.php to hold the code - so that it's not loaded every time the subs.php file is.

Try not to add too much to the DB - as most of the stats you need can be pulled out by some clever queries

Make sure you can change how often stats are mailed to the admin.

[Jeff Lewis]

I agree that you should use a Stats.php file and also try use to use creative queries.  You may want a new table to keep top numbers online etc...

[Joseph Fung]

good point -  new table...stats or something like that would be appropriate

[Greg Robson]

Many thanks for that guys

I thought I'd need a separate file for the code, I want to try and make the code as real time as possible - so I'll use queries where possible.

If I discover that I'll need my own table for the database I'll check the name of it over with you guys first

[Jeff Lewis]

Much appreciated, I know it's a mod I'd like

[Michael]

Yeah, I agree, mods that put big functions into subs.php (or subs.pl in the case of standard YaBB) are real pains when they're not called frequently...

But my suggestion would be to add some "fun" stats, such as number of smilies used or some such thing, although it might be a bit hard to keep track of. I've found from experience, however, that fun stats are something that keep people coming back. For example, I run a Statistics Bot for my IRC chat room that updates the stats hourly and has rankings of people by number of lines, as well as giving special awards such as "most verbose," "biggest action user," etc. It never fails to attract visitors each time it's updated.

[Greg Robson]

Duly noted, I'll start of with simple things like top ten posters of the day or something.

[Joseph Fung]

god...top smilies poster would be hard....you could however, do something like 'person who started the most topics' and 'person with the lowest/highest karma'

[Michael]

Yes, could be a tad difficult, but you could simplify it by editing a running tally of smilies for the user everytime they make/edit a post. It wouldn't be as dynamic as we might like, but it'll work.