in reply to Re: Rating System for Modules
in thread Rating System for Modules

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.

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(maverick) Re 3: Rating System for Modules
by maverick (Curate) on Jan 09, 2002 at 22:45 UTC
    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');"

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