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Investigate how best to track data on users changing email address, password, and notification settings [8hr]
Closed, ResolvedPublicSpike

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Authored By
Samwalton9-WMF
May 18 2022, 10:46 AM
Referenced Files
Restricted File
Jun 16 2022, 4:27 PM
Restricted File
Jun 16 2022, 4:27 PM
Restricted File
Jun 16 2022, 4:27 PM

Description

Per T308656, we want to collect data on certain high priority preferences so that we can understand the usage of this page on desktop and mobile. Currently, to the best of our knowledge, the only data available to us is of the allowlisted preferences defined for PrefUpdate.

We would like to track (anonymised) data points for how many users are making changes to:

  • Their password (Special:ChangeCredentials)
  • Their email address (Special:ChangeEmail)
  • The checkboxes in the Notifications tab (The "Notify me about these events" section on en.wiki)

Because we don't want to store any identifying information for password and email changes (the only data points we need are that a change occurred, the date of that change, and a signifier for whether the change happened on mobile web or desktop), simply adding these options to the PrefUpdate allowlist may not be the path forward.

Questions

  • How can we track changes to these three preferences while collecting the least amount of information possible about the user making the change?
  • Pages to be modified:

{F35247116}
w/index.php?title=Special:Preferences&useskin=vector-2022#mw-prefsection-echo

{F35247115}
/wiki/Special:ChangeEmail

{F35247114}
[/wiki/Special:ChangeCredentials/MediaWiki%5CAuth%5CPasswordAuthenticationRequest

Event Timeline

Restricted Application changed the subtype of this task from "Task" to "Spike". · View Herald TranscriptMay 26 2022, 9:56 AM
Samwalton9-WMF renamed this task from Investigate how best to track data on users changing email address, password, and notification settings to Investigate how best to track data on users changing email address, password, and notification settings [8hr].May 26 2022, 9:58 AM

On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 16:48, Ellen Rayfield <erayfield@wikimedia.org> wrote:
So Sam

We are wondering if we are looking for actual CHANGING of email address, password, and notification settings, or just if the user clicks into the textbox [regardless if there are changes made or not]. The reason for the ask is that it is fairly easy (according to my peers) to track clicks - and click would happen if the user clicks into the textbox (or whatever). That would be a click. The actual change would only be able to be seen during the form check prior to submission. There is an assumption that there is a form check of some sort, and that is where a check on the current value vs. the submitted value can be performed.

The question:
What is to be tracked, the click into the section of the form being tracked or the actual data being changed?

Regards,
Ellen

​On Tue, Jun 28, 2022 at 10:32 AM Sam Walton <swalton@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi Ellen,

This is a great question. I think if it's much easier to track clicks then that totally works for me - we don't care about the actual values of what was changed, unlike some times are interested in (e.g. "did our beta feature get enabled?"), so I think it's absolutely fine to only be collecting data on clicking into those settings.

Sam

Sam Walton
Senior Product Manager, Moderator Tools

So, looks like click is ok