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#1 2005-07-28 14:39:25

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Automatic voting

After dibble's call for voting support in AUR, I was wondering if anything has happened on the project to use archstats as an automatic voting mechanism, such that packages that a user has installed (or maybe just recently updated) are automatically voted for.

Voting would still be voluntary, only those users who choose to use Arch Stats would be voting, but it would take a bit of pressue off the user to vote.

Dusty

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#2 2005-07-28 15:01:04

Moo-Crumpus
Member
From: Hessen / Germany
Registered: 2003-12-01
Posts: 1,487

Re: Automatic voting

I would not like that at all. A vote should be done after a wilful decission, and not by automatism. I often install, check and then deinstall packages, and don't want to vote for a package just because I am using it for a short time, and deinstall it because I was not convinced.

If you fear a lot of users may install packages, but forget to vote, then statistic may be helpfull. I would prefer to use such a statistic as a second criteria. If a package shows constant high usage, and little or bad votes, the maintainer might decide to call for a vote.


Frumpus addict
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#3 2005-07-28 15:08:35

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Automatic voting

So don't install arch stats and you won't be using automatic voting.

I was more concerned about people that would be interested. I'm tired of people saying something shouldn't be done when all they have to do to prevent being affected by the action is not use it.

Dusty

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#4 2005-07-28 15:34:08

Moo-Crumpus
Member
From: Hessen / Germany
Registered: 2003-12-01
Posts: 1,487

Re: Automatic voting

So don't call arch stats arch stats anymore, call it voting machine. Didn't realized you decide which motives users shall have to use something. Arch stats was meant to simply give an overview over arch's usage, wasn't it. A vote means a bit more than "how many use it?". My english is not good enough to explain my point of view, let me try it with a saw: "Millions of flies eat crap, therefore it must be delicious".

I am sorry that I have misunderstood your decree to be a question, allthough you used no question mark at all. Forgive me, highness.
:?


Frumpus addict
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#5 2005-07-28 16:12:42

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Automatic voting

Apologies. I forgot to mention that the auto-voting mechanism was expected to be distinct from arch-stats. I'm not sure if it would be a config option for arch-stats or a separate program based on or forked from arch-stats.

Either way, it won't affect you if you don't enable it.

Dusty

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#6 2005-07-28 16:20:56

Moo-Crumpus
Member
From: Hessen / Germany
Registered: 2003-12-01
Posts: 1,487

Re: Automatic voting

Aha, got it. Under these circumstances - I'm up for it. smile

... nah, I am not. I would start to doubt if a vote is based on a sensibly decision or on automatism. In my eyes, votes would loose significance. Call me a quibbler ...


Frumpus addict
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#7 2005-07-28 20:14:06

stonecrest
Member
From: Boulder
Registered: 2005-01-22
Posts: 1,190

Re: Automatic voting

Pink Chick wrote:

I often install, check and then deinstall packages, and don't want to vote for a package just because I am using it for a short time, and deinstall it because I was not convinced.

If you deinstalled it (uninstalled? tongue), then you would be removing your 'vote' for the package. What's the problem with that?

I really like this idea personally. It's a lot easier to set up archstats once and have it vote for me than have to remember all the time. Heck, I've done in the current system what you're worried about in this sytem - I've voted for a package I thought I liked, ended up removing it, and have been too lazy to 'unvote' it. Please keep track for me, I already have too many things on my mind.

And while there is indeed a difference between voting for a package and using it, I think the latter is actually the more important metric for determining if a binary package should be made.


I am a gated community.

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#8 2005-07-29 02:32:04

elasticdog
Member
From: Washington, USA
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 995
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Re: Automatic voting

I'm not too into the automation idea either, as it doesn't really signify if the person uses the package and or wants to have it maintained.  If people install programs to fool around with and subsequently decide they don't like them or prefer another application, I wouldn't think many times they don't get uninstalled right away.

I personally feel that the main issue with the voting system is that people have to register and then login to vote, when there's really no reason to register unless you are interested in submitting PKGBUILDs to the AUR.  I realize that it's a catch-22, as you would not want just anyone to vote with no control (i.e. people could vote multiple times, thus the count loses accuracy), but I still think it's unrealistic to expect most Arch users (who may or may not even be aware of the AUR) to do that, then go through the entire list to weed out programs that they have some interest in...just my $.02

/wish I had a suggestion for improvement

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#9 2005-07-29 02:53:54

iBertus
Member
From: Greenville, NC
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 2,228

Re: Automatic voting

Maybe if the package were present on the users system for more than X number of days or something like that?

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#10 2005-07-29 10:09:42

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: Automatic voting

who frequently uses archstats anyway? I cant remember the last time I ran it.

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#11 2005-07-29 13:45:59

Moo-Crumpus
Member
From: Hessen / Germany
Registered: 2003-12-01
Posts: 1,487

Re: Automatic voting

I run it at boot.

Archstats tells you which packages are popular, so one can decide which should be updated quicker then others etc. Can be of interest for aur packages, too.

A vote tells you which packages are usefull, well designed, without bugs and errors. I use aur packages that are somehow buggy, and until those bugs are wiped out, I won't vote for them. Furthermore, I might vote for a package that I don't use anymore. I was voting for a package to enhance pda support in gnome. The package is without any bugs, and usefull, too. Now my pda is broken, and I will not buy a new one. Should I remove my vote? No, I wouldn't remove it. The package still is worth a positive vote. Archstats voting enhancement would propably remove it. Such an automatism makes no difference to the statistics archstats is already collecting. This kind of votes will result in just the  sum about the numbers of all installations. It includes no proof of quality.

I still prefer human voting. Let archstat add it;s statistics. With this two informations all is done, as far as I am concerned.


Frumpus addict
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#12 2005-07-29 22:02:25

elasticdog
Member
From: Washington, USA
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 995
Website

Re: Automatic voting

It seems that people are confused on the purpose of the voting system in the AUR as well.  I believe this was brought up on the mailing list a little while back, but the votes should be to show interest in a package, not necessarily as a remark on the quality of the package.  That way, if there is an application that a lot of people are interested in, no matter the build quality, it will eventually be taken over by someone with more experience (a TU) and brought into the community repo...if I remember correctly.

Ideally, you shouldn't even have to look at the PKGBUILD or have the program installed in order to vote for something that sounds interesting to you.

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#13 2005-07-29 22:06:32

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Automatic voting

/me cheers for elasticdog

you said it perfectly... basically, "voting" is a misnomer - what we really want is "popularity"... it's an abstract quality and difficult to judge from one thing

I think Pink Chick has the gist of it - we can't use just one method to guage popularity... we'd have to combine multiple methods and take some sort of abstract result based on that data - i.e. we can combine votes, number of AUR downloads, number of page views, and archstats usage for a popularity ranking...

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#14 2005-07-29 22:09:07

citral
Member
Registered: 2005-05-07
Posts: 87

Re: Automatic voting

I disabled the archstats daemon because I couldn't stand having to wait 20 extra seconds when shutting down/rebooting. I guess I could readd archstats to cron, but the archstats site isn't a pleasure to browse anyway.

What I'd personally prefer, would be a system à la demonoid.com and other sites.

Demonoid for example will ask you a couple of days after you download a file , to rate it. It won't go in your way, it will simply sit above your browsing view when you browse the site. And the couple of days delay is used so that you get to test the file before making a judgement.


One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero,
they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.

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