should number of downloads then have some sort of knock on effect for Karma in such cases?  where some people might be downloading and then not bothering to click reward, or get caught up in using the package and forget.

it's a good idea though, so voted!

Would be interesting if the downloads could be conbined with the Karma some-how aswell, as you could have situations where lots of people download a package, but it's not quite what they expected. Maybe if there was some kind of calculation, between downloads and Karma you can really see the most popular?

Also, you'll get into the situation where projects that have been around for a while, will have a lot more downloads than newer ones. Agree that I think there should be options though, so you can filter on different criteria.

Matt

+1 for this idea, as the Cogworks - Flexible Navigation package is heavily downloaded but not often given karma. I suspect the 70pt up vote limit may be part of this as the nav package os for beginners who are unlikely to have a big wedge of Karma.

So for selfish reasons this gets my vote ;-)

T

Yes I agree now that the project section is maturing and new projects are appearing on a most daily basis it seems. I think something needs to be done to help calculate or filter/view them in different ways.

I think a semi complex calculation needs to be made.

For example:
Let's say a newer project (under 2months old) for each 30 downloads they get one karma point (vote up)
Where say something like a project thats older than 2 months old they need to get 50-70 downloads each to get one karma point
Where anything that is say a year old that for each 100 downloads they get one point.
For well established projects such as Imagegen that have over say a 1000 downloads, they will only get a karma point for each 200 downloads.

Whats everyone's thought on that?

Warren :)

Yes I think some kind of Karma algorithm would be required and I think your idea Warren is a good basis.

Kind of like the algorithm sites like Digg use to show what's popular. Recent stuff floats to the top but as time moves forwards it takes more to keep an item at the top.

so again +1 from me.

Will the Karma be retrospective ;-)

T

Warren, I think that is genius man. For some users it's not natural to give "props" to the author(s) of packages so having this automated way of assigning karma to projects is ideal. I've given you a "High Five" for the initial post!

-- Nik

What about similar to the new "Please select an answer" emails that go out if you start a forum thread and don't choose an answer after a while. If someone logged in downloads a package, send them an email asking to vote it up if they liked it?

Matt

Glad some of you guys agree some kind of algorithm would help of publicising the hidden gems in the projects section.

Obviously I think it should be kept secret at Umbraco HQ, so it would not get abused.

Just had a very brief chat with the package machine "Matt Brailsford" on MSN and we thought it would be a good idea that maybe the Umbraco HQ could every other week or once a month, write a blog post on a project that think deserves the limelight.

Thoughts?

@Matt just had a very brief chat with Tim Geyssens and he tells me that notification email already exists today.
If you download from a project and do not vote for it, you will get an email reminder the next day (you will only recieve this reminder email once)

I have yet to see this email, so I am going to test this out now.

Warren

-1 on karma based on downloads.

But in our 2.0 we send an email to people a week after download to encourage them to vote if they like the project.

@Matt those emails already exist! If you're logged in and download a package, you get reminders to vote.

IMHO the number of downloads really doesn't matter, if it's a crap package and people ditch it immediately after installing it, it's of no value and should not get karma points. If you really would want to do something like this, you'd have to have more like a star rating system combined with number of downloads maybe. So at least you can see that 1200 people downloaded it, but voters found it either terrible or great. If you vote below 3 our of 5 stars a comment is mandatory. Something convoluted like that would be much more valuable.

@Warren, they used to "promote" the best packages to the repository, but that doesn't help any more now that they get an automated promotion. Maybe an "editor's choice" section would be good, yeah.

Niels,
I can understand why the automated download count karma calculation got a -1

However what do you think the other ideas to help give exposure/promotion to other the less known packages?

• Monthly/Bi-weekly blog post on umbraco.org
• Extra sort view to sort by download count
• Random list of projects

Sorry, but I really hate star rating systems. There is a reason why YouTube dropped it. People just don't take the time to vote that way. I mean, if we can't get them to click a link to say they like it, how can you get them to think about, and rate how much they liked it =)

Maybe you can re-introduce something similar to down voting, where it doesn't actually do anything, but if you get enough of them, it's looked into and karma can be dedcuted if the complaints are valid?

Matt

@Warren I think they all sound like things that would be of benefit.

Maybe a monthly roundup of the most recent packages, or the most useful ones? Even if it's just highlighting what the packages do, it'd be handy, as sometimes new packages can come along and dissappear from the new packages list quite quickly if there's a flurry of package releases (like we've had recently).

:)

All good ideas.

I disagree with karma based on downloaded, as it leaves it open to be gamed.

We definitely need a way to 're-surface' old and forgotten packages.  The new categories are an improvement.

I would like to see a 'featured packages' section, even if that is randomly generated at the start? or based on download-count (+salt)?

Cheers, Lee.

I think as the package/projects section is growing rapidly by the day, this is becoming more and more of a problem and needs to be addressed soon.

Also, when a project/package is updated - it would be good to 're-surface' those too.  There is a lot of v4.5 compat updates at the moment!

Ok so maybe we could have an extra filter along with download count?
One that shows a list of the most recently updated projects (Would this only work when a new "package" file is uploaded, or any file?)

Warren

I think it kinda depends what the update is really. Someone who built a bad package with loads of bugs would pretty much stay at the top as they do bug fixes =)

I like the idea of a 4.5 package list though, maybe list all packages that have a package file set to work with the Umbraco 4.5 scheme, ordered by the date the file was added?

Matt

Maybe projects need a flag to say the update your doing is "announcement worthy"

Matt

Hmm could still be abused, as some other developers could still say that their minor bug fix was noteworthy !
Do we have more categories to help categorise these projects and maybe each category could have the best rated, random and best random views?

Warren

Could do it based on the version number, but then  I guess that is also open to abuse.

I think the only sure fire ones so far Karma based, Newest, Download based, Update based and Random. None are sure fire, but I guess you'll get a constant bubbling of projects at least.

@warren yea, I reckon a global list on the homepage, then filtered by category when you click into one.

Matt

Why not have something like click thru ratings on randomly displayed featured packages.  If they package is displayed randomly and click on X amount of times, it would get a higher ranking.. just brainstorming.. but something like ad tracking call it package tracking.. 

Joining the conversation late but my ideas:

- Most recent packages to include version updates of existing packages.

- A new list called "Random packages" to join top rated and new.

- Some prominent community members to review random packages and be able to add links of their reviews to the package page.

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