Any time anyone clicks to download Vanilla, it goes to a page where the download is recorded and then PHP serves the file. The same way that downloads are counted for the add-ons directory.
I presume that the upgrader will handle some installation statistics in the future if it doesn't already. Am I right, mark? Record the number of old installations vs new ones and show a proper count all neatly recorded and indexed.
@lech - that's the idea. I didn't want something pinging back at my server every time a page is loaded on every single Vanilla installation. So, the updater will record when administrators ping back here looking for updates and it will record what the request url is and what version of vanilla they are running.
Mark, sounds like an obviously good idea :) That would wreak havok on things unless you have a server dedicated to do that (which I can guess you don't). I suspect that A nifty feature would be to create a row in the extensions table or something to record a timestamp, and when an admin logs in, have it check for updates on a regular basis in X ammount of days from the last check. Then if there is an update (for those lazy admins not minding the application settings) it can fire a warning or something on login.
Krak, Hmmm, I suspect then a level of private vs non-private forums could be listed if they're being recorded to some degree. Along with an option to display the address of your forum if you'd like it indexed publicly on lussumo or something. That would be Marks dept though, configuring where the option is and how reporting is handled. However, I would say to keep users really concerned about privacy and whatnot, leaving an option not to report anything at all would be wise, however, by doing that they couldn't check for updates or something.
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The latest stats for Vanilla are: