in reply to Rating System for Modules

Good idea - counting downloads wouldn't work, though, because of all those pesky mirrors. It would have to be an opt-in system. I could have done with it when I was trying to find a Whois module recently.

The other downside is that as soon as you see a message like: 

If you like this module, visit vote.cpan.org and vote for it.

[download]
You're going to think you've tripped over a porn site - you know, with those pathetic, interminable "Vote for this site!!!" banners.

And then CPAN will turn into a great big vote-whoring exercise and before you know it, someone will write Natalie::Portman and Hot::Grits.

Nice idea though.

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Re: Re: Rating System for Modules
by tomhukins (Curate) on Jan 09, 2002 at 21:37 UTC
    counting downloads wouldn't work, though, because of all those pesky mirrors

    This is true if FTP downloads are counted. However CPAN.pm and PPM could be modified to notify a central server every time a user installs or updates a module. Of course, not everyone uses CPAN.pm or PPM.

    Also, this may be considered undesirable from a privacy standpoint.

[reply]
      The only problem with using this as a metric is that it doesn't measure whether or not you ever used it after you installed it, or what your opinion of it was. I've downloaded *tons* or modules from CPAN, but that doesn't mean that I would rate them all the same. Sometimes I'll download one thinking it may do what I need, but upon closer examination I find that it doesn't (or worse, doesn't even work). I wouldn't want my constant useage of HTML::Template to be rated the same as my curiosity download of (the previously mentioned) Natalie::Portman.

      I don't think counting downloads alone in any fashion is going to provide the kind of info to be really helpful. However, it would be good to have it along side a 'vote' based system, so that you could tell what percentage of the people that downloaded it rated it well.

      /\/\averick
      perl -l -e "eval pack('h*','072796e6470272f2c5f2c5166756279636b672');"

[reply]
        Rather than -- you, I'll point out that this question was already addressed even in jonjacobmoon's initial posting on this node.
[reply]

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