[pmwiki-users] a simple rating system for recipes

[Sandy]

Dr Fred C <drfredc <at> verizon.net> writes:

> 
> Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> > There's been a lot of discussion in the past about coming up
> > with a rating system for cookbook recipes.  Ben Wilson has
> > a recipe at [2], but I wanted to try something even simpler.
> >
> > Take a look at http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/SimpleRating
> > and tell me what you think.  

Looks neat. Requires comfort editing pmwiki pages -- ie the cookbook audience,
not some end customers. Agreed on amount of trust required.

> Another way to gage utility (or at least interest in a type of utility) 
> would seem to offer some info about # of downloads or # of 
> downloads/time period.  The logic for # per time period rather than just 
> total number of downloads is to give some recognition to up and coming 
> recipes. 

Number of downloads can be deceiving. E.g., on tucows, the first on the list has
millions of downloads, promises miracles, only 9kb to download. Sure, lots of us
will download it, learn it crashes our system, and most likely move on rather
than comment. (I keep promising myself to read those lists from the bottom, and
to actually comment if there's a real problem, but that would mean verifying the
problem and giving the vendor a chance to reply.)
 
> It also might be useful if each recipe_xxx had it's own review link -- 
> cookbook/recipe_xxx_review.

> Each recipe's 
> review page would be in some sort of blog format, perhaps that offered 
> polling for the value of the recipe.  If one could then average polling 
> for that recipe, one might have something of good value.

Many of them have Talk pages already. I'm of two minds whether a blog/
date-order system, with form, would work as well. Easier for new users, but the
"conversations" are usually informative. Imperative that maintainers monitor the
pages, and that all recipes have a maintainer, even if it's a default person who
replies "sorry, no knowledgeable maintainer"; better than silence for a new user.

Sandy