Compression 2021

[rviscomi]

Part IV Chapter 22: Compression

If you're interested in contributing to the Compression chapter of the 2021 Web Almanac, please reply to this issue and indicate which role or roles best fit your interest and availability: author, reviewer, analyst, and/or editor.

Content team

Lead	Authors	Reviewers	Analysts	Editors	Coordinator
@lvandeve	@lvandeve @jyrkialakuijala	@paulcalvano	@paulcalvano	-	-

Expand for more information about each role

• The content team lead is the chapter owner and responsible for setting the scope of the chapter and managing contributors' day-to-day progress.
• Authors are subject matter experts and lead the content direction for each chapter. Chapters typically have one or two authors. Authors are responsible for planning the outline of the chapter, analyzing stats and trends, and writing the annual report.
• Reviewers are also subject matter experts and assist authors with technical reviews during the planning, analyzing, and writing phases.
• Analysts are responsible for researching the stats and trends used throughout the Almanac. Analysts work closely with authors and reviewers during the planning phase to give direction on the types of stats that are possible from the dataset, and during the analyzing/writing phases to ensure that the stats are used correctly.
• Editors are technical writers who have a penchant for both technical and non-technical content correctness. Editors have a mastery of the English language and work closely with authors to help wordsmith content and ensure that everything fits together as a cohesive unit.
• The section coordinator is the overall owner for all chapters within a section like "User Experience" or "Page Content" and helps to keep each chapter on schedule.

Note: The time commitment for each role varies by the chapter's scope and complexity as well as the number of contributors.

For an overview of how the roles work together at each phase of the project, see the Chapter Lifecycle doc.

Milestone checklist

0. Form the content team

• May 31: The content team has at least one author, reviewer, and analyst

1. Plan content

• June 15 The content team has completed the chapter outline in the draft doc

2. Gather data

• June 30: Analysts have added all necessary custom metrics and drafted a PR (example) to track query progress

• July 1 - 31: HTTP Archive runs the July crawl

3. Validate results

• September 30: Analysts have queried all metrics and saved the output to the results sheet

4. Draft content

• October 31: The content team has written, reviewed, and edited the chapter in the doc

5. Publication

• November 15: The completed chapter and all required metadata and figures are converted to markdown and submitted to GitHub

• December 1: Target launch date 🚀

Chapter resources

Refer to these 2021 Compression resources throughout the content creation process:

📄 Google Docs for outlining and drafting content
🔍 SQL files for committing the queries used during analysis
📊 Google Sheets for saving the results of queries
📝 Markdown file for publishing content and managing public metadata

[rviscomi]

📟 paging 2019/2020 contributors: @paulcalvano @yoavweiss @colinbendell @mo271 @jyrkialakuijala @sboukortt @veluca93 @AbbyTsai

Would any of you be interested to contribute to the 2021 chapter? I'd especially like to see more 2019/2020 authors become 2021 reviewers to help ease the transition and similarly I think prior reviewers would make great 2021 authors, being familiar with the process already. And prior analysts would make excellent 2021 analysts 😁

Or is there anyone new you'd like to see?

[rviscomi]

⚠️ Still looking for more contributors to make this chapter viable, specifically authors, reviewers, and analysts. If we're unable to staff the chapter by May 31 we'll have to close it and focus our efforts on other chapters.

[jyrkialakuijala]

I'd be happy to either review or author.

Cédric Louvrier is doing very good work with his Pingo Image Optimization. He writes beautifully and with clarity on his forum posts. Consider including him into the process of creating the next Web Almanac if he has interest.

I hope that in next season Web Almanac will have an opportunity to cover JPEG XL and AVIF.

Probably some focus should go into how to deploy HDR and what is image quality and resolution in the internet.

[rviscomi]

@jyrkialakuijala sounds great, welcome back! Are you interested in being the content team lead for the chapter (responsible for overall content direction and staffing coauthors/reviewers as needed)?

[paulcalvano]

Awesome! Would love to contribute on this chapter as well. I'm happy to be an analyst and reviewer. Looking forward to working with you @jyrkialakuijala !

[rviscomi]

Thanks Paul! I've added you to the reviewer/analyst roles in the chapter metadata at the top. @jyrkialakuijala can you confirm if you're open to taking on the content team lead role for this chapter? You'd effectively be the lead author.

[jyrkialakuijala]

Thank you! I will happily take the content team lead role.

[rviscomi]

@jyrkialakuijala thanks for your interest in authoring this chapter! As the content team lead, you'll be responsible for the scope and direction of the chapter and keeping it on schedule. We automatically monitor the staffing and progress of each chapter based on the state of the initial comment so please keep that updated as you add new contributors and meet each milestone. First, you'll need to go to https://github.com/HTTPArchive/ to accept the invitation to join the GitHub team. That will give you the necessary permissions to edit this issue.

We've created a Google Doc for this chapter, which you're encouraged to use to collaborate with the content team on the initial outline, metrics, and ultimately the final draft.

Next steps for this chapter are:

• Due May 31: Complete Milestone 0: Form the content team—you can check this off now since you've already got at least one author, reviewer, and analyst ✨
• Due June 15: Get started on Milestone 1: Plan content by brainstorming some content ideas in the doc (you will need to request edit access)

There's not currently a section coordinator for this chapter, so I'll be periodically checking in with you directly to make sure the chapter is staying on schedule. Reach out here in this issue if you have any questions about the process.

More information about the content team lead and author roles and responsibilities are available for reference in the wiki if needed.

To anyone else still interested in contributing to this chapter, please comment below to join the team!

[rviscomi]

Hey @jyrkialakuijala, I know we've been emailing but could you give a status update on the outline in the doc? Do you expect you'll be able to get it done by the end of the week?

[rviscomi]

⚠️ @jyrkialakuijala any updates on the chapter outline?

[lvandeve]

Hi, I'm one of Jyrki's reports and would like to contribute.

The outline is the same as last year (with new text but comparable data), with the addition of information about compression levels, and I added in the doc under TOC under outline

For the metrics: it would be interesting to gather data about compression levels used (gzip level 1 to 9 or more optimized such as zopfli, brotli level 1 to 11). These levels are not directly stored in the data (but could be estimated with various methods), and I'd like to check: does it sound feasible to get a proxy for this from the data?

[rviscomi]

Welcome @lvandeve! I'll defer to @paulcalvano on the feasibility of the metrics, but I look forward to seeing the new data.

[lvandeve]

I'm going to drive the authoring side of the Compression 2021 chapter. I propose the following division for analysis:

@paulcalvano to run the same analysis as last year

@lvandeve with the help of other authors to run the new analysis on compression levels

[rviscomi]

👋 Hi @lvandeve @jyrkialakuijala @paulcalvano, just checking in on the chapter progress. How is the analysis coming along?

[rviscomi]

@lvandeve @paulcalvano I see that the results sheet has a lot of data already and Milestone 2 is checked off, but I don't see any queries added to this chapter's sql dir. Could you make sure that any queries used to generate results in the sheet are backed up to the repo?

Besides that, any other blockers or is the analysis generally complete?

[rviscomi]

@lvandeve @paulcalvano ping on my previous comment, any update on getting the PR started to check in the SQL?

[paulcalvano]

Hey @rviscomi . The analysis is complete, and I'll submit a PR with the queries shortly. Apologies for the delay.

[rviscomi]

@lvandeve @jyrkialakuijala @paulcalvano

🎉 This chapter is fully written, reviewed, edited, and ready to be launched on Wednesday! Thank you to all of the contributors who put in the time and effort to make this a great chapter.

When you get 5 minutes, I'd really appreciate if you could fill out our contributor survey to tell us (the project leads) about your experience. It's super helpful to hear what went well or what could be improved for next time. 🙏

Congratulations and thank you all again. I'm excited for this to launch soon!