Bridge operators - Number of bridges, network size, and community
I'm opening this ticket to discuss the current number of Tor bridges and what's or should be the reference number, so we can plan and prioritize actions.
I'm counting the average number of bridges per month instead of looking daily. The reason is that sometimes people are just 'playing around' or testing how to set up a bridge, and counting that number won't be very helpful.
Average number of Tor bridges by month (2019 - 2021)
| Month | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 915 | 1328 | 1562 |
| Feb | 949 | 1326 | 1563 |
| Mar | 973 | 1345 | 1543 |
| Apr | 985 | 1316 | 1535 |
| May | 1031 | 1259 | 1498 |
| Jun | 1027 | 1340 | 1463 |
| Jul | 1049 | 1450 | 1454 |
| Ago | 1077 | 1554 | |
| Sep | 1155 | 1608 | |
| Oct | 1229 | 1619 | |
| Nov | 1244 | 1634 | |
| Dec | 1286 | 1568 |
Source: Tor Metrics January 2019 - July 2021
Notes
- In August 2019, we had a Tor Bridge campaign Run Tor Bridges to Defend the Open Internet. Here's a summary: outreach#30777 (comment 2560560) and retrospective legacy/trac#33007 (moved).
- Between September and November 2020, we've reached a peak in the number of bridges.
- As of December 2020, the number of online bridges started to decrease. In July 2021, we've returned to the same number of bridges as in July 2020.
I think we should discuss:
A. Bridge Operator Retention. In the retrospective it was said that some volunteers were sad because didn't see many users. Maybe we could announce that we're going to select 10 bridge operators to send a Tor swag. That way we reward relay operators who are already part of our community.
B. Number of bridges. How many more bridges do we need/want? Or should we focus on promoting Snowflake add-on?
C. Next Bridge campaign. Should we do a campaign this year?