Analytics/Unique Devices

FAQ

Differences between unique devices and unique users

When we talk about uniques in WMF we are referring to unique devices. Since we count our uniques using cookies and you do not need to be logged in to use wikipedia we are restricted to count uniques using http cookies. This means that if a user uses both his mobile phone and desktop to access wikipedia we are counting two "devices" (mobile and desktop) . There is no way to count unique users using cookies, regardless of the method.

Why the name unique devices

We play with the idea of publishing our numbers under "unique clients" now, the main objection we have to 'unique clients' is that it feels different to IT people and non IT users.

Technical people people would think of client as in 'client-server' and think mostly of it as a software instance, even one app could create several clients in different threads. But non technical people would think of 'client' as a 'person' e.g. a person visiting a store. That's what makes 'client' so tricky as it means different things to different people. And all nuance gets lots. So if we say "we mean 'client' as 'piece of software', and one can have several clients even on one device"

Our idea publishing these numbers under the 'unique devices' label is that everyone will immediately grasp that one human can have several devices. Even when they probably don't grasp or remember the further breakdown into several software instances per device.

Can we count unique users instead of devices?

The answer is no, regardless of method. We could only do that if we ask everyone to login to use wiki projects.

How do we count unique devices?

We use a very private conscious way to count unique devices, it does not include any cookie by which your browser history can be tracked. Analytics/Unique_Devices/Last_access_solution