Manual:$wgDisableCounters

From MediaWiki.org

[edit] Details

$wgDisableCounters determines whether or not to update the number of times a page has been viewed. If $wgDisableCounters is set to false, each page will have a counter in its footer saying: "This page has been accessed X times"

This setting also determines whether Special:Popularpages is available.

This variable is initialized in includes/DefaultSettings.php. The initial value is false. To override the default value, add the line $wgDisableCounters = true; to the file LocalSettings.php

The value of the counter is updated in includes/Article.php in the function incViewCount(). The variable $wgDisableCounters is also referred to in other script files.

[edit] Alternatives

If performance problems due to high hit counts updating the site_stats table is a concern, a less dramatic alternative to disabling them may be to tweak $wgHitcounterUpdateFreq.

[edit] How to skip update of the view counter when a page is accessed by a particular user

Let's say, for example, you decide that you do not want the view counter to be updated when a sysop views a page. Here's how to implement this change:

• in the file includes/Article.php search for function viewUpdates.
• find the following two lines of code:

global $wgDisableCounters;
if( !$wgDisableCounters && ...

• change them to read:

global $wgDisableCounters, $wgUser;
if( !$wgDisableCounters && ... && !$wgUser->isAllowed('block') ) {