[tor-dev] Retiring old user number estimates

[Karsten Loesing]

Hi everyone,

some of you may already know our new approach to estimating daily Tor users:

https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html#userstats

This new approach is in beta since April, and I'm quite happy with it.
I trust the new numbers more than the old ones, both for direct users
and bridge users.  The new code for direct users is quite similar to the
old one, but much cleaner.  The approach for bridge users is a much
better idea than the old hack.  Today I added the missing features like
the top-10 lists and the censorship detector.

Why do I tell you this?

Because the old approach uses resources on our poor, already overloaded
metrics machine, and I'm planning to shut down the old approach in the
very near future.  Here's the plan:

 - Compute user numbers for 2012 and before; the current numbers start
on January 1, 2013.  This is going to take at least until September 23.

 - Take out the "BETA" labels and throw out everything above "New
approach to estimating daily Tor users (BETA)".  This could happen on
October 1.

Thoughts?  Did I miss anything that's worth keeping?  Anyone want to
create an archive of their favorite graphs before I pull the plug?

All the best,
Karsten