[Python-Dev] PyPI comments and ratings, *really*?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
> Barry Warsaw wrote:
>>
>> On Nov 12, 2009, at 8:06 AM, Jesse Noller wrote:
>>
>>> Frankly, I agree with him. As implemented, I *and others* think this
>>> is broken. I've taken the stance of not publishing things to PyPi
>>> until A> I find the time to contribute to make it better or B> It
>>> changes.
>>
>> That's distressing.  For better or worse PyPI is the central repository of
>> 3rd party packages.  It should be easy, desirable, fun and socially
>> encouraged to get your packages there.
>
> I think his point is that a new book announcement servive is different from
> a book review and rating service.  And that mixing the two is 'socially
> discouraging'. I do not know what the answer is

I would say that publishers disagree -- they seem to really like
adding "social" stuff to their book announcement service. See e.g.
Amazon (which combines all functions: announcement/promotion,
ordering/download, review/comments/rate/popularity).

I agree that creating a good social app is not easy, and if we can't
improve the social app embedded in PyPI quickly enough, we should at
least give authors the option to disable comments. Of course, as a
user, I might not trust a module that has no reviews or ratings.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)