Vote on PyPI comments

[Chris Withers]

Hi All,

Apologies for the cross post, but I'm not sure this has received the
publicity it deserves...

PyPI grew a commenting and rating system a while back, apparently in
response to requests from users. However, since it's been rolled out,
there's been a backlash from package maintainers who already have
mailing lists, bug trackers, etc for their packages and don't want to
have to try and keep track of yet another support forum.

The arguments for and against are listed here:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyPIComments

To resolve the future of the commenting and rating system, a vote has
been set up so everyone can have their say.

To vote, please log in to:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi

....and follow the instructions you'll be presented with.

I would like to remain neutral on this, and for me that means giving
package authors the ability to choose whether they want to receive
comments, ratings or neither rather than either forcing package authors
to accept comments and ratings or abandoning the idea of comments and
ratings completely.

The closest option to that is:

"Allow package owners to disallow comments (ratings unmodified)"

I hope the majority of you feel the same way...

Chris

 

[Michele Simionato]

PyPI grew a commenting and rating system a while back, apparently in
response to requests from users. However, since it's been rolled out,
there's been a backlash from package maintainers who already have
mailing lists, bug trackers, etc for their packages and don't want to
have to try and keep track of yet another support forum.

I am skeptical about the utility of both rating and comments. If
somebody wants to know
if a package is good, she should ask here.

 

[Daniel Fetchinson]

PyPI grew a commenting and rating system a while back, apparently in

I am skeptical about the utility of both rating and comments. If
somebody wants to know
if a package is good, she should ask here.

Hmm, do you really think subscribing to python-list should be a
prerequisite for people who want to have some clue which python
software they want to use?

Cheers,
Daniel

 

[Diez B. Roggisch]

I am skeptical about the utility of both rating and comments. If
somebody wants to know
if a package is good, she should ask here.

The ratio user to posters certainly speaks against that - for any given
package, there are so many users that never appear here - but they stil
might share insights about the package.

Diez

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I am skeptical about the utility of both rating and comments. If
somebody wants to know
if a package is good, she should ask here.

Because unlike people writing comments, people here are never
incompetent, misinformed, dishonest, confused, trolling or just wrong.


But sometimes sarcastic.

 

[Michele Simionato]

Because unlike people writing comments, people here are never
incompetent, misinformed, dishonest, confused, trolling or just wrong.

But sometimes sarcastic.

All right, but the newsgroup has interactivity and the presence of
true Python experts too.
A blind vote given by an anonymous person does not look more
informative to me.

 

[Daniel Fetchinson]

I am skeptical about the utility of both rating and comments. If

All right, but the newsgroup has interactivity and the presence of
true Python experts too.
A blind vote given by an anonymous person does not look more
informative to me.

You are right about a single vote, but the way these things usually
work is that out of 1000 votes the non-informative ones average out
("wow! awsome package!" vs "this sucks bad!") and the net vote result
is generally indicative of the actual thing that was voted on
especially when there is no direct financial incentive to cheat.

Cheers,
Daniel

 

[Jonathan Hartley]

You are right about a single vote, but the way these things usually
work is that out of 1000 votes the non-informative ones average out
("wow! awsome package!" vs "this sucks bad!") and the net vote result
is generally indicative of the actual thing that was voted on
especially when there is no direct financial incentive to cheat.

Cheers,
Daniel

I haven't used the PyPI rating / comments system at all. Can comments
accrue which complain about bugs or missing features of old versions
of the package? If so, they could be misleading for users coming to
view a package before trying it.

Or do comments and ratings only apply to a particular version of a
package, and get removed from the package's 'front page' every time a
new version is released?

Thanks,
Jonathan Hartley