I've been thinking that maybe the up/down voting isn't the best measure for packages.

Maybe a system like the one on codeplex would fit better? So packages are ranked by the number of downloads, and then there is a star-rating system next to it to determine if it is a quality package, also with a comment for each rating, explaining why it is/not good.

Hi Lee,

For people to start rating or giving a thumbs up, they need to be able to access that rating easily. As it is right now, it isn't really visible anywhere other than on the package description, so there is really no point voicing your opinion on a package.

The tag cloud is an issue... it is simply too big. I can't really get a good overview from it. I think it would be a good idea to group the tags somehow. I am not sure what the weight is based on right now, but if it is just the usage count of a tag, then it really isn't worth anything in the package repository. It would be better to base the weight on the download count somehow, maybe just based on the single highest downloaded package in the tag set, since an average would be misleading and a total count also. Also a tag index might be good when there are so many tags. This could be a number of tag tabs:

• [download weighted]
• [rating weighted]
• [count weighted]
• [contributing user tag cloud]
• [a-e], [f-j], [k-o], [p-t], [u-z]
• [comment count weighted] ?!?

In the weighted tabs the tags should be sorted by weight as well. The alphabetized tabs should be sorted alphabetically like they are now. Also when listing the contents of a tag, then make sure to sort that list by the tag weighing used, so a tag clicked from the download weighted cloud would list the most downloaded package at the top AND display that information in the list.

I would also like to see a list of "related" packages based on the tags. This could very well be placed under the project summary. But that is a minor thing.

Allowing people to rate a package from the Umbraco Admin tool is a good idea, and optionally letting people send information when they uninstall a package. Knowing that people have uninstalled a package makes a difference. Give people a radio button of five reasons for uninstalling the package, as well as a comment field. Comments are always good, very few people leave useful comments, so I don't think it is that important.

For the rating to work from the Umbraco Admin, a link to the package repository needs to be created. As it is right now I don't think there is any way to know what project in the repository a package originated from. The Umbraco team would need to open the package on submission to the repository and place that information in the package if that is to work.

In closing, I don't think it really matters that much how you rate, with either a star rating or thumbs up or down. It comes down to whether the rating information is communicated to the other users of the repository. When it is, then people will start seeing a reason for rating.

/RasB

PS. Good topic Lee! I gave you a thumbs up for it ;-)

Agree with everone here about the fundamental issue. The listing and rating functions for projects could really be improved.

The codeplex version mentioned above is one way of improving.

The mozilla/firefox add-on site works great I think despite the very large number of firefox addons. That could be a source of inspiration.

And yes, as mentioned above, the tag cloud on the projects page is extremely annoying. It is way to big and hard to get a good overview of. The first thing I do is click the link 'Show all projects'. I have heard others mentioning this huge tag cloud in a not very positive way also.

Multiple views of lists and tag clouds as mentioned above would be very useful. Listed by rating, downloads, tags, category etc. While tags is a very flexible way of categorising content, the current tag cloud shows why it cannot replace predefined categories. I miss some sort of predefined categories to more easily get an overview of the available project.

Great discussion! First of all this is *really* hard. Codeplex voting doesn't work either - in fact most projects here does have a better download/feedback ratio. On Codeplex the average Umbraco download receives one rating per 10.200 download(!) so the ratio here is much better than you'd expect ;-)

We've considered implementing automated e-mails for both discussions and projects, so people would be (kindly) nagged to vote for either projects they've downloaded (after say a week) and posts that have gotten answers (mostly to mark a post for a solution). It'll be an experiment to see if we can find the right balance between participation and nagging!

I agree that the tagcloud have gone out of control. If this discussion could turn into a list of <10 categories we'd implement it instantly. So make a wiki and start making categories and descriptions. Once enough people agrees, we'll implement (but only if we can keep the number below ten and optimally around five-six).

Hi Niels,

Haven't you already created those categories yourself? Or at least some of them.

The Umbraco Package Repository has these categories

• Starter Kits
• Collaboration
• Website utilities 
• Developer tools
• Datatypes
• Umbraco PRO

I only started voting after I created my own package :-)

I did note the download counter removed count for old downloads if you deleted them.

The unscrupulous could get additional count by adding multiple downloads (perhaps just the primary download and past primary downloads count)

I think a lot more info on the 'my profile' page would encourage people to interact in more ways. In particular perhaps it could list packages you've downloaded and solicit votes for them.... (although it would miss ones you downloaded when not logged in)

As a side issue that may affect the download tracker.... I've noticed when the 'keep me logged in' session times out I get one page that thinks I'm not logged in before going back to being logged in.

I think the tag cloud just needs a bit of weeding (perhaps only list items that have 2 or more packages tagged with that tag)

P.S. Stack overflow is an example of a great 'my profile' page that works well for me.

Obviously a lots of inspiration for our.umbraco.org is already drawn from S.O. :-)

Stack also has a nice feature where you can add a profile widget on other websites which shows stats about you. I wondered if it would be cool to have a "Packages I've released" widget which would allow use to show up to date numbers for downloads and up votes on our site?

Peter, not a widget exactly, but thinking of our member profile page as an XML source, you could do something like this with XSLT...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [
    <!ENTITY nbsp "&#x00A0;">
]>
<xsl:stylesheet
    version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:umbraco.library="urn:umbraco.library"
    xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    exclude-result-prefixes="msxml umbraco.library html">
    <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />

    <xsl:param name="currentPage"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:variable name="member" select="umbraco.library:GetXmlDocumentByUrl('http://our.umbraco.org/member/3042', 300)" />
        <xsl:apply-templates select="$member/html:html/html:body//html:div[@id='body']" />
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="html:div[@id='body']">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="html:div[@id='profileHeader']" />
        <xsl:apply-templates select="html:div/html:div[html:h4/text() = 'Projects']" />
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="html:div[@id='profileHeader']">
        <h1>
            <xsl:value-of select="html:h1" />
        </h1>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="html:div[html:h4/text() = 'Projects']">
        <h2>
            <xsl:value-of select="html:h4"/>
        </h2>
        <ul>
            <xsl:for-each select="html:ul/html:li">
                <li>
                    <a href="http://our.umbraco.org{html:a/@href}">
                        <xsl:value-of select="html:a/text()"/>
                    </a>
                </li>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </ul>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

The HTML namespaces make it look a little hardcore, but its a straight-forward case of navigating the XHTML document to display the data.

No data for the voting or downloads is on that page though :-(

Cheers, Lee.

On a slightly unrelated note, its nice to see practically every post in this topic being voted on =)

Hi elspiko, that's my fault... I get overzealous with the voting on replies to my own topics. ;-)

well why not :-). Congrats on MVP status also

I like the idea of the "nagging" email for a period of time to encourage people to vote on the package.  Maybe a one-click, vote

for this package (up or down), or rate this package directly from the email or w/ auto login.  Make it as easy for them as possible

to reward a package developer.

Would like to see a slightly different approach to being allowed to vote, which currently is based upon a minimum karma of 70.  You may have some

individuals who are more lurkers than posters, but do get value from package. Perhapes a combination of (Time since registration && Karma).   I know it's a tricky algorithm to protect again the "unscrupulous" as someone else said.

-Chris

is working on a reply...