From: Gregory Brown Date: 2008-08-07T10:05:24+09:00 Subject: Re: perl and the culture of libraries On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 8:50 PM, David Masover wrote: > On Wednesday 06 August 2008 10:31:51 Shadowfirebird wrote: >> > And I agree. The trick is, how do we embarrass people into writing that >> > English? We can't force them to, and we can't simply ignore their library >> > (how would they know?) -- my favorite idea so far is to drag them into the >> > cold, harsh light of crowd review, and allow ratings and reviews on >> > Rubyforge. >> >> Well, you can't force them; this is the *internet*. > > If they are on a public system, like Rubyforge, and the admins of Rubyforge > (Tom?) decide to include a rating feature, then yes, you've effectively > forced them. RubyForge already has an Advogato style rating system for developers, I can't remember if it's enabled or disabled by default, but it's optional. I think it *should* be optional, but it does allow people to rate each other on a few different metrics. I don't personally take much stock in this sort of thing, and I don't know that many people even know this system exists on RubyForge, let alone whether or not they care. But I don't like the idea of centralizing developer / project review. I think that if you want to critique a project, that's great, but you can do it by using the public mailing lists that most projects have, or by posting a clear description of your complaints on your blog. Or even better, if you feel like a library is poorly documented, rather than complaining, document it! Keep in mind that there are no responsibilities associated with being a free software developer. Many of us have set high standards for ourselves and seek to live up to the expectations of others. However, there is no benefit in forcing this view on others. > Or, more accurately, they can't force you to stop writing bad reviews. > At that point, they have three options: > - Ignore the reviews (but it's unlikely anyone will want to use their gem) > - Fix their library, so people start giving it good reviews > - Remove their library from the public system (again, reducing their > potential users) > > Right now, I have no way of knowing the consensus on a given gem or plugin, > short of word-of-mouth and actually doing the research myself. I find that google blog search and google groups do a fantastic job of pulling together positive and negative reviews of my projects. I just need to search for inlinks or keywords and I can easily find what people think of me. :) -greg -- Technical Blaag at: http://blog.majesticseacreature.com | Non-tech stuff at: http://metametta.blogspot.com