[Did I not reply to list in my previous message?]
Eric Wilhelm wrote:
# The following was supposedly scribed by # Randy W. Sims # on Thursday 22 July 2004 10:45 pm:
- Module Version: 3.05 + Module Version: 3.05 Source ****
The ratings are one click away on the dist page.
Yes, but as I said on the 'tour', I don't want or need to click there unless I'm trying to download the tarball. And, since I use the command-line CPAN to do the install, I don't need to download the tarball from my browser. So, I almost *never* see that page.
Lincoln D. Stein > CGI.pm-3.05 > CGI ^^ click ^^ ^^ here ^^ Module Version: 3.05 Source
My point in putting the star-bar here --^ is that it makes the ratings visible.
This accomplishes two things:
1. makes ratings more useful (e.g. while I'm reading the manpage (which is what drives the decision as to whether it is what I'm looking for) I can see the rating (and maybe I should also see a count of how many have rated it.))
2. raises awareness about ratings (oh! there are ratings?), thus getting more people to rate/review modules.
I think one of the best ways to raise awareness is to add the ratings to the search results from Search. I'm still not sure that I agree about putting it on the documentation page, but I have added it to the outline. If it does get added, does it get added to all the documentation pages or just the main documentation page?
If ratings are good for anything, they are going to be taken with a grain of salt. A 5-star rating vs a 0-star rating is not going to swing me away from my own judgement. They simply give me something else to consider.
I would also like to see a simple yes/no count in addition to the rating/reviews. If you have a list of "35 people use this::module" and "700 said 'use this::other::module instead'", that helps raise awareness about the other module, and allows you to make a decision more quickly based on the experiences of others.
Are you referring to the amazon.com-ish "N persons recommend X instead of (or in addition to) Y" type recommendations? I'm not sure CPAN is worth the added complexity. I don't think the target audience is big enough to justify a lot of "extra" features; the ratings should be enough, but I could be wrong...
Maybe we need to start prioritizing and weeding out the list at this point?
I hope others are interested in helping to implement these improvements. I'm going to try, but I have two obstacles: 1) the usuall problem--time, and 2) this is not my area of expertise. I have no experience with CGI, setting up Apache, etc. It's an area I've never really gotten into, but I hope to use this as an opportunity to learn a little.
Regards, Randy.
