Talk:Most active Geohashers/old

Geohashers who spend a lot of time standing in fields might like this image tweaked from xkcd.

Thank you!

Thank you for this page! --Q-Owl (talk) 14:45, 14 January 2015 (EST)

Seconded. Would be nice if this could be automated, and for that matter, extended back to the start. --Thomcat (talk) 16:44, 14 January 2015 (EST)

I'm currently working my way through past years (at July 2013 at the moment). When I have the whole year done it will be added to the totals. I'm also planning to give each year a sub-page so it will be easy to look back and see totals and monthly leaders without clogging the main page too badly. Fear not, it will get there in time. Mystrsyko (talk) 22:32, 14 January 2015 (EST)

Hello Mystrsyko,
at "Most Active Users By Coordinates Reached" (bottom of the page):
I think, I found only 4 hashes in November 2014.
Best greetings
--Q-Owl (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2015 (EST)

I'm wondering how you deal with an expedition where one geohasher reached the coordinates and another did not. I'm also wondering if the Category:Coordinates reached (or not) could be replaced with a template that included the date, graticule and user name. Then the stats would be much easier to work out. How hard would it be to retro-edit all the expeditions to follow this format? Or is there an easier way to solve this problem? In all cases thanks for your effort and the interesting results. --Sourcerer (talk) 05:26, 5 March 2015 (EST)

Automated by NWoodruff.

I just found this page. I'll automate it. I already do something similar by the automated interactive map of users. [1] --NWoodruff (talk) 10:47, 6 April 2015 (EDT)

It is now Automated--NWoodruff (talk) 21:03, 15 April 2015 (EDT)

Hello NWoodruff. Well done, but something must have gone wrong. Although I'm absolutely fine with my success-rate of nearly 120%, I still can remember some progress for the posted achievement. Or in other words, 50 successful expeditions is still a little less than the 51 (until end of January) in my personal census, but it is much better than the automated 42 expeditions that should have taken place at all (and yes, these expeditions are also missing on the interactive map). DODO (talk)

I think only the top table (expeditions) is correct; the bottom still has Mystrsyko's manual count. Also, if you have 51 expeditions (aka 9 unreported) then get to your editing, young man!  :) --Thomcat (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2015 (EDT)

Yes, I'm with you. Only the top table is automated and the lower one is still Mystrsyko's manual count. But I have to disagree about the correctness. In 2014 there has been 54 reported expeditions that I was involved in as you can see here, and the 45 successful ones are almost exactly what Mystroko counts. So there are obviously some errors in my reports, so Woodruff doesn't find them, but I have no idea what it could be. And given the count of them, I'm afraid, I'm not the only one with missing expeditions. DODO (talk)

I'm fairly certain that NWoodruff's automation isn't pulling the full amount of data. I'm curious what it uses to pull it's information. The main reason I've been doing this page manually was because I found a number of issues that would cause bots to have trouble trying to pull accurate data. That being said, I'll go over DODO's expeditions again, because I'm not sure why our counts differ. Mystrsyko (talk) 12:29, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

I can tell it's not picking up everything, because out didn't get any of Robyn's, and I know she did at least 20 or so. Not to criticise too much, this is a work in progress --Jevanyn (talk) 11:18, 18 April 2015 (EDT)

DODO's totals are different because he stores his 2014 results on a different page. Both the Users Map program AND this most active users program only see expeditions on the current user page. I have to manually add an exception to go look at different pages. Trying to automate that would then go searching through the entire internet if someone posted a link off of the XKCD website. A manual entry has been made for DODO's second page and his results will be updated to the full amount next time each program runs. --NWoodruff (talk) 20:33, 15 June 2015 (EDT)

Only 54 (or 58) users counted?

Yeah, something is definitely wrong with the automation... just looking at the top table, it only counts 54 geohashers who ever did an expedition!! If you go over to Meetup graph you can see far, far more than 54 users who did expeditions with other users (and that doesn't even count the ones who have never met other users.) Robyn is just the tip of a very large iceberg... -- OtherJack (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

Looking further, I guess it must be that NWoodruff's program only searches over the specific 58 geohashers who Mystrsyko had put into the manual tables. I guess all the other users don't have any post July 2013 expeditions (?) -- OtherJack (talk) 19:34, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

And finally, if Mystrsyko is just using pages like 2014-10 to do his manual counts, he is missing lots of (maybe even most?) of the posted expeditions for each month, because those monthly pages *only* archive the photo-galleries that appear on the main page. A lot of people don't bother adding a photo to the main page galleries. For example, you can see only one expedition for Wednesday 1 October 2014 on 2014-10, but if you go to the date page 2014-10-01 or Category:Meetup on 2014-10-01 you will discover 2 expeditions that day. But one of them didn't bother adding to the gallery. It is a bit of extra work to do so. :> -- OtherJack (talk) 19:45, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

I actually do use the daily archive pages for exactly that reason. There are still a few I've missed though, that for some reason didn't show on those either Mystrsyko (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

Ah ok, sorry about that! -- OtherJack (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

But wait... then why isn't Haberdasher in the tables? Both 2014-10-25 and Category:Meetup on 2014-10-25 link to an expedition that she clearly did (with user link and coordinates-reached.) She was just the first example I thought of for someone who wasn't in the tables, but I know has been hashing in the last couple years... -- OtherJack (talk) 20:31, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

These tables (currently) are all from NWoodruff's code. I have said expedition in my manual counts. See Most active users/2014

OK... so everything on the main Most active users page is automated (and potentially unreliable) right now. Above discussion was saying only the first table was automated. Apologies again -- OtherJack (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

How the program works.

Okay, here is how the program works, It only pulls from the page Sepcial:ActiveUsers. If it pulled all users every time, it would take a whole day for the program to scrape XKCD user pages when the majority of them haven't changed in 5 years. The program is slowly building up a database of users who are currently active. I will eventually go back and do everyone. The interactive use maps are done the same way. No need to update a users map if they haven't geohashed since the last map update.

So, I'm not skipping over anyone, I'm only getting current active users. --NWoodruff (talk) 22:46, 14 June 2015 (EDT)

OK, makes lots of sense now. Thanks -- OtherJack (talk) 22:49, 14 June 2015 (EDT)

Counting active users (= users with account)?

It seems that users have to be active and have to use an own account, to be listed here. Example: Q-Owla is active, but hasn't an account. She is not listed here. --Q-Owl (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2015 (EDT)

She is not active because you are the one making the edits for her using your account, not hers. It took me awhile to figure out why she is not listed in the special:ActiveUsers list when there is activity on her page. I could put a link to scan her page when the program scans your, but her totals would add to your totals and not hers --NWoodruff (talk) 19:34, 19 October 2015 (EDT)

I manually added her user into the program and now her user will always be updated for the foreseeable future. Since she only has 16 expeditions and not 400 or more, there isn't any reason why she can't be updated every time the program runs. --NWoodruff (talk) 21:50, 19 October 2015 (EDT)

Thank you! --Q-Owl (talk) 08:54, 20 October 2015 (EDT)

[User:Q-Owla|Q-Owla]] has got an account of her own now. So her expeditions max be counted without problems or exceptions.--Q-Owl (talk) 08:07, 14 January 2016 (EST)

Counting retro expeditions?

Do you intend to count retro expeditions, too? If so, you may find some to test your program at Fippe#Other_Expeditions and Mannheim,_Germany#Retro. The same question could be asked realting to Most_active_graticules.
--Q-Owl (talk) 02:41, 19 November 2015 (EST)

Counting all expeditions 2015?

Hello,
DODOs hashes of 2015 are not in this table, but there are a lot: http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mannheim,_Germany#2015
Q-Owla misses 4 hp in Nov. and three in Oct.
My entries of 2015 are ok.--Q-Owl (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2015 (EST)

I think we all do this for fun and not for the statistics - but when there are statistics, then they should be correct. Mystrsyko explained his algorithm which uses the pages of the photo gallery. Obviously not any geohasher puts his photos into the gallery so this is not a good base to measure activity. It all comes down to the question - what is activity anyway? For me, it's expeditions. (I wouldn't make a separation between expeditions and reached coordinates because reaching coordinates is not a success factor. The rules specify that we shall not trespass or walk into dangerous areas so not reaching coordinates may be a result of caution, of following laws or something else. It's just an activity because someone was on an expedition.) So I found a simple way to count users which were on an expedition. Instead of using the gallery I just used the days. Due to the strict structure of daily expedition listings (http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/YYYY-MM-DD) there are only 365 pages per year to look at. In these, I counted the participants.
Straightforward... and done. In my case, all my 5 expeditions from 2015 are found and counted. I hope all your numbers are right, too.
How can we integrate the results into this wiki as a permanent option? For now, it is a web-scraping perl program generating a HTML table (which I converted then into a wiki table, thereby losing the links to the users). An admin could use it on a monthly base to update the results. Or I could change it into a mediawiki extension (in PHP. On the other hand, an extension would be able to get direct results from the database which would be faster). Or someone just changes his current statistical method to the way my program works. I could compute other years, too. It is open to you. And: I'm not here to cause any disturbance among you, I only wanted correct statistics. Burgman (talk) 17:44, 5 January 2016 (EST)

DODOs is missing expeditions on this page because he stores his expeditions in a non-standard way, see discussion above. If you want your non-standard stored expeditions to be included in the results of this page, send me a message of the method of your madness of storing expeditions and I will add an exception to the program just for you, also see the discussion above.

After many years of doing this, I've been here since a month after the start, the best way to do this and get it right is from each users page, Also see discussion above. Not everyone lists their name on the expedition page. But almost all list their expeditions on their users page, also see the discussion on my user page and most active graticule pages. So, if you are only getting your information from the days list, you are also going to be horribly wrong. Just thought I would let you know. But, you are welcome to do it anyway that you want in your own list.

I'll tell you right now your count for me is wrong. --NWoodruff (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2016 (EST)

I am sorry. I only wanted to help and did not know that simply writing an expedition is not enough to be counted. You know the system far better than me. Will see to update the user page. I removed my alternative table for now. Burgman (talk) 18:46, 5 January 2016 (EST)

You are more than welcome to have your own list here. My first attempts at doing the lists took lots of tweaking to get correct. I am trying to help you out to better understand how to get it correctly. I was thinking that you assumed that just parsing the days events would produce a correct list every time. I was pointing out that my totals are incorrect as a way of letting you know that others may be incorrect also.

Also on the expedition page lots of people that attend the expedition do not put their user tag and only their name on the page. If you would like to keep a list of peoples real name and their user tag that would help make your page more correct, but doesn't guarantee that it will be always correct. The only real way to be mostly correct is to parse users pages and if their totals are not correct, they can update their respective users page. But reading everyone's user page and then the expedition pages listed on users pages can be taxing on bandwidth. That's the reason why this page is only updated once a month. --NWoodruff (talk) 09:14, 6 January 2016 (EST)

Hello, it seems users with automated user page updates are excluded from the list, eg user:Elisa has been as active as me over the last two years, but her user page is updated automatically by user:AperfectBot. Would it be possible to include those expeditions in the count too? Thanks and regards, --Crox (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2016 (EST)

Hi Crox, It would be very time consuming to update every user on this page, especially if they have not Geohashed in 4 years. All I need to do is update the users since the last change. I parse the special:ActiveUsers list page to find the current users and parse those users pages. Since user:Elisa has no activity under her user account she is never parsed. But as you can read above, I made an exception for Q-Owl and parse Q-Owla's page each time because it is short, I will add the same exception for user:Elisa. If she would make one change to her page once a month activity for her would show up. You will see her results next time the program is run. I keep a database of all previous results so once I have parsed through a user, they will display on this report from the results in the database that I keep. --NWoodruff (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2016 (EST)

Counting expeditions reached / not reached at the same day&graticule

I don't know how you count those expeditions. If you need a few examples:
2016-01-08, 2015-12-23 and 2015-11-15
--Q-Owl (talk) 11:23, 16 January 2016 (EST)

Expeditions May to September 2016

Hello,
would you like to run the counter of this page?
--Q-Owl (talk) 15:48, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Please let it run a little bit.  :-)
--Q-Owl (talk) 09:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)