493257 - you've earned ? points if not on the top 250

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Websites Graveyard :: spreadfirefox.com, defect)

Description

[jamey]

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/affiliates/homepage
I have has member ask me how do they find out how many point they have that are not on the top 250 page 

is it me ? or did we not include this on our update 
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/affiliates/top_250

I don't see it in my account foxiewire username page

Comment 1

[Ken Saunders]

Even if one is in the Top 250, their total points are not displayed.
I currently do not see any way to view total points.

Comment 2

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

As Ken says, even if you are in the top250, you still don't know how many pionts you have. It has disappeared from user profiles completely AND the top-250 list.

The top-250 only shows totals over the past 7 days.

Also see Bug 493257

Comment 3

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

So, basically what people are asking for is an all member historical total list or a way to tell how many points you have, even if you don't have enough to be in the top 250?

If that's the case, I am talking to Metrics to figure out a way to try and get the most accurate historical totals possible.

Comment 4

[Ken Saunders]

(In reply to comment #3)
a way to tell how many points you have, even if you don't have enough to be
> in the top 250?

Yes. That has always (well as long as I can remember) been available to SFx members on their profile/account page and in a side block on the front.
Having their point totals on their account page should be fine.
It would also be nice to add their 7 day totals the same as they are displayed for members in the Top 250, but not necessary.

Comment 5

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

I just saw that I posted the wrong bug number in comment 2 it should be:

bug 474976

It's related to this problem, as there have been issues with the points for quite some time, but we had hoped that they had been fixed.

Comment 6

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

I've added a section to the user profile page that will give the numbers we currently have for hits/downloads/points.

e.g. https://spreadfirefox.authstage.mozilla.com/user/238363

bug 486209 should handle adding 7 day totals where appropriate.

bug 474976 should handle fixing any stats missing from the weekly top 250.

I think that covers this bug, so marking it closed.  If I missed something, please file a new bug or reopen this (if appropriate).

Thanks!

Comment 7

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

Shouldn't it be marked resolved fixed only once it's live in the production environment? When will it go live?

Comment 8

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Shouldn't it be marked resolved fixed only once it's live in the production
> environment? When will it go live?

Our usual workflow is to mark bugs "resolved fixed" when the patch hits stage.  That way QA knows it's OK to start testing.

This will probably go live either tomorrow, or next thursday.

Comment 9

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

Can we please add a disclaimer under the Affiliates header  on each member's page that says:

Note*: These  are only partial totals--All-time totals are coming soon!

Comment 10

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

will do.

Comment 11

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

r48207 add the all time totals message, a link to the affiliates home page ("What are Affiliates?"), and changes the "This Affiliate's ID is..." to only show when a user is viewing their own profile.  (All this was mentioned in today's SFx meeting).

Comment 12

[krupa raj[:krupa]]

looks fixed to me.We also have a link explaining what affiliates are and an alert-"Coming soon: historical totals for all Affiliates."

Comment 13

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

I think I am utterly confused as to the meaning of these numbers:

23,303 people have clicked one of your Affiliate buttons.
7,942 of those people downloaded Firefox.
You have 2,079 points.

I always thought, 1 download = 1 point

Comment 14

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Yes, I agree, this is confusing, although technically the numbers are correct.

The difference comes from a rule we have to prevent cheaters from racking up fake points (not saying that you're cheating :)

For example, in comment #13,
7,942 downloads is every download we've ever found that looks like it's coming from one of your affiliate badges.
We have a rule that says a user is only allowed 1 point per IP address per day.  So, of those 7,942 downloads, not all came from unique IP addresses, which makes your points lower than your total downloads.

There are a couple ways to resolve this,

1) Only count 1 *download* per user, per IP, per day.  This would keep downloads an points in line, but you lose the view of multiple downloads per IP per day, which can be useful.

2) Explain this difference clearly, which is why bug 486523 exists.

3) Come up with a better rule for preventing cheaters that doesn't involve filtering by IP addresses.

Although confusing, this rule is important and is effective in stopping some cheaters.

Comment 15

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

Thanks Alex for the explanation.

Regarding your suggestions:

1) I agree with you, it can be useful to have these different numbers, so this is probably not a good solution.

2) Definitely.

3) I have a feeling the problem may be somewhere else, and as such we may not need to look for an alternative.

I'll explain point 3 a bit more: I have always known about the single download per IP rule, and it probably makes sense. However I am very surprised by the proportion of downloads to points though, this suggests on average an IP number makes 3 to 4 downloads in a day. I've looked at other SFx members and they have similar ratios.

That seems odd to me, why would anyone even try to do multiple downloads, usually one is more than enough. Unfortunately I don't have anything concrete, but I do suspect something is not quite right when all SFx members have similar ratios.

Is there a way to see the distribution of these "multiple" download IPs? Basically is it possible to know if many IP numbers are doing several downloads, or is it a few IP numbers doing a lot?

Is there any chance some of these are robots that don't respect robots.txt directives? I ask because I have seen some robots do downloads from my site.

Robot downloads obviously shouldn't count at all.

Comment 16

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Yeah, while I was working with the Metrics team last week, we noticed that downloads often occur twice or more per IP and/or referring domain.  

I'm not sure why yet, possibly it's a trait of our infrastructure, or maybe there are multiple people downloading from the same IP.  I'm sure there are some robot downloads too.  Most likely it's a combination of all 3.  

We're working on new metrics tools that could possibly let us look into data more clearly, but I'm not sure we'll find anything telling.

All in all, I think the difference in downloads to points is OK, as long as we explain it clearly.

Comment 17

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

I just saw a user that has zero points, in spite of having 4 downloads. If the single IP rule was the cause of this, he should have at least 1 point.

4 people have clicked one of srinivasgumdelli's Affiliate buttons.
4 of those people downloaded Firefox.
srinivasgumdelli has 0 points.

There has to be something else going on, than merely applying the single IP rule. How else can this person have zero points?

Comment 18

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Otto, I'm seeing 1 point,

http://www.grabup.com/uploads/38c49f2c6a0f284c545e85673e18a27b.png

I'll take a closer look.

Comment 19

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Otto,  it looks like you happened to catch srinivasgumdelli's point total before the daily points tally had completed.  Looking at today's database, that user is new as of 8/9/09, so their first point hadn't been counted yet.

Comment 20

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

So I conclude from this that the downloads and clicks are real time but the points aren't. That's something new for me.

Comment 21

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Neither are real time actually.  Rather, the downloads are counted and updated before the points are, and there can be a noticeable gap of time in between.

I have some plans to make these update at the same time.  When the Affiliates Metrics System gets updated, this gap between updated downloads and points should be fixed.