On Tuesday 10 March 2009, Frank E Harrell Jr wrote: > Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 6:14 AM, Jim Lemon <j...@bitwrit.com.au> wrote: > >> Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > >>> R-Forge already has this but I don't think its used much. R-Forge > >>> does allow authors to opt out which seems sensible lest it deter > >>> potential authors from submitting packages. > >>> > >>> I think objective quality metrics are better than ratings, e.g. does > >>> package > >>> have a vignette, has package had a release within the last year, > >>> does package have free software license, etc. That would have > >>> the advantage that authors might react to increase their package's > >>> quality assessment resulting in an overall improvement in quality on > >>> CRAN that would result in more of a pro-active cycle whereas ratings > >>> are reactive > >>> and don't really encourage improvement. > >> > >> I beg to offer an alternative assessment of quality. Do users download > >> the package and find it useful? If so, they are likely to download it > >> again when it is updated. > > > > I was referring to motivating authors, not users, so that CRAN improves. > > > >> Much as I appreciate the convenience of vignettes, regular > >> updates and the absolute latest GPL license, a perfectly dud package can > >> have all of these things. If a package is downloaded upon first release > >> and > > > > These are nothing but the usual FUD against quality improvement, i.e. > > the quality metrics are not measuring what you want but the fact is that > > quality metrics can work and have had huge successes. Also I think > > objective measures would be more accepted by authors than ratings. No one > > is going to be put off that their package has no vignette when obviously > > it doesn't and the authors are free to add one and instantly improve > > their package's rating. > > > >> not much thereafter, the maintainer might be motivated to attend to its > >> shortcomings of utility rather than incrementing the version number > >> every month or so. Downloads, as many have pointed out, are not a direct > >> assessment of quality, but if I saw a package that just kept getting > >> downloaded, version after version, I would be much more likely to check > >> it out myself and perhaps even write a review for Hadley's neat site. > >> Which I will try to do tonight. > > > > I was arguing for objective metrics rather than ratings. Downloading is > > not a rating but is objective although there are measurement problems as > > has been pointed out. Also, the worst feature is that it does not react > > to changes in quality very quickly making it anti-motivating. > > Gabor I think your approach will have more payoff in the long run. I > would suggest one other metric: the number of lines of code in the > 'examples' section of all the package's help files. > > Frank
Absolutely. From the perspective of a user, not an expert, packages with a good vignette and lots of examples are by far my favorite and most used. Dylan -- Dylan Beaudette Soil Resource Laboratory http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/ University of California at Davis 530.754.7341 ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.