[tor-dev] Statistics on fraction of connections used uni-/bidirectionally

[Karsten Loesing]

On 12/18/13 2:03 PM, Rob Jansen wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2013, at 4:51 AM, Karsten Loesing wrote:
>> I also
>> aggregated observations similar to Torperf measurements, by plotting
>> only median and interquartile range.  Here's the result:
>>
>> https://people.torproject.org/~karsten/volatile/connbidirect-2013-09-19-2013-12-18.png
>>
>> The old graph containing the same data is still there:
>>
>> https://metrics.torproject.org/performance.html?graph=connbidirect&start=2013-09-19&end=2013-12-18#connbidirect
>>
>> Do you like the new graph?  Do you have further ideas for improving it?
> 
> I do like the new graph, its much cleaner than the old one. But I like the mostly reading/writing parts of the old one too. Maybe we can create two more graphs like the new one (1 for mostly reading and 1 for mostly writing).

Ah okay, then let's put the unidirectional parts back into the graph.  I
made another graph with all three parts (both reading and writing,
mostly writing, and mostly reading) displayed with medians and
interquartile ranges on the same y axis.  I find it easier to compare
the three parts in this graph than in three separate graphs with
possibly different y axis scales.

https://people.torproject.org/~karsten/volatile/connbidirect-2-2013-09-19-2013-12-18.png

How's this one compared to the other two?

> I also think a stacked percentage area graph (e.g. http://www.highcharts.com/demo/area-stacked-percent) could work here, as a way to get all the data on the same chart.

I'm not really sure how that would work with our data.  We could only
display medians, not interquartile ranges.  And our three medians don't
even add up to 100%; using means instead of medians might fix this,
though I didn't check.

Do you think this graph would be easier to understand than the one I
posted above?

>> This graph is only there to show what kind of data we have.  If somebody
>> is really interested in the data, they'll have to download the CSV file
>> and do their own analysis.  Here's the specification of the file format:
>>
>> https://metrics.torproject.org/stats.html#connbidirect
>>
>> All the best,
>> Karsten
>>
> 
> If the main goal is to show the data that exists, I think the old graph does that fine. But I think an important subgoal is also to have graphs that make it clear how the data is useful, not only that it exists. Perhaps keep both/all versions?

Agreed, the graph should be useful, not just show that we have the data.
 Though I'd want to avoid adding a second or third graph and instead
pick the most useful one we can come up with here.

Thanks for your input!  Much appreciated.

All the best,
Karsten