Randy W. Sims writes: > Not long ago I was exploring the cpanratings site and discovered the > unhelpful "rampage" by one particular reviewer > <http://cpanratings.perl.org/a/181>.
Why do you think Randal's comments are unhelpful? Personally whenever I'm (considering) downloading a module I haven't used before I read any reviews it has. It would never've occurred to me that an author would've have put default phone-home behaviour into a distribution's installer, but on reading Randal's review of a module I'd then be aware of it in advance. That's certainly useful information to have. Admittedly when you look at the page giving all Randal's reviews there is a fair amount of repetition going on, but the information he gives is pertinent to every one of those modules, so it's the only way of ensuring the message reaches potential users of all of the modules. Actually I'm much more concerned by the opposite problem, that people give 5 stars to modules they use lots and don't bother reviewing other modules, or ones they tried a bit but gave up on -- partly, I suspect, cos if you never quite got into a module properly then you feel it'd be unfair to review it. Look at one of the modules that Randal reviews, CGI::Builder: http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/CGI-Builder That's a flurry of 5-star reviews in a very short space of time. I suspect that isn't a co-incidence -- perhaps there's a CGI::Builder mailing list somewhere that had a recent post encouraging users to review the module? There isn't anything wrong with that[*0], but it could distort the value of reviews over all. Cpan Ratings is still young. Let's give it some more time to pan out; I think it's one of the better ideas out there. There's also some degree of a chicken-and-egg situation going on, but once the site has more reviews in it there'll be more reason for people to consult it and for places to link to it more prominently. [*0] Well, there are ways in which such a mail could be phrased that would be wrong; but simply soliciting genuine reviews from genuine users can hardly be faulted. Smylers
