Laura Creighton wrote: > In a message of Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:13:45 +0100, "M.-A. Lemburg" writes: > > <snip> > >> That said, I don't think it's a good idea to try to reinvent a >> wheel that has already been invented many times over. Just look at >> the successful systems running on e.g. Amazon and eBay. We don't >> really need to go through all the pain they've gone through to >> build successful systems again. >> >> -- >> Marc-Andre Lemburg >> eGenix.com > > I don't think that the Amazon system is successful. I think that > you are confusing two things -- 'people like to rate things' with > 'the rating is meaningful'. I think that the Amazon rating system > satifices people's desire to rate things, but is a detriment to > actually finding a technical book that will help you do what you > want to do.
I wouldn't generalize that. I've often found information in those reviews that was otherwise hard to find. My overall experience with the Amazon system is more on the positive side. However, perhaps Amazon is the wrong comparison: their review system focuses on longer comments, whereas the eBay system has a focus on very terse comments. Most users will probably only look at two things: the overall rating figure and the negative comments. The PyPI approach appears to follow the eBay example, or at least the comments I found so far (not that many) go in this direction. > Only fairly detailed reviews can help with that, and > only to the extent that they exclude certain works, leaving you > to review the remainder on your own. > > Why should software be any different? > > Also, remember, amazon makes money no matter whose books are > purchased, But we would rather help people find the best packages > for their purposes, no? I think that a rating system harms this > goal, and therefore we should not do it. I tend to agree. Discussions on newsgroups, user reports in blogs, etc. are far more informative than an eBay style rating system. Perhaps requiring at least 50 words for the comment would help ;-) -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Services directly from the Source (#1, Nov 04 2009) >>> Python/Zope Consulting and Support ... http://www.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC.Zope.Database.Adapter ... http://zope.egenix.com/ >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ... http://python.egenix.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ ::: Try our new mxODBC.Connect Python Database Interface for free ! :::: eGenix.com Software, Skills and Services GmbH Pastor-Loeh-Str.48 D-40764 Langenfeld, Germany. CEO Dipl.-Math. Marc-Andre Lemburg Registered at Amtsgericht Duesseldorf: HRB 46611 http://www.egenix.com/company/contact/ _______________________________________________ Catalog-SIG mailing list Catalog-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/catalog-sig