Take the Pandora Pledge

[Mr_Loon]

As a Pandora owner I pledge that I will provide a rating for all Apps I download. Signed Mr_Loon.

Who will join me?

If you download a Pandora App from the Repo it is incredibly easy to give a rating of between 1 and 5 stars, it's also very easy to give feedback and comments of support / derision.

Think of all the time the porters & developers put in for your benefit and give a little time back to help them. If the ratings system becomes widely used then it could also be of great benefit to the community / new users when trying to find a bit of Pandora food.

Just think how cool it would be to be able to use a future version of PNDstore and tell it to install all emulators rated 4* and above or all 5* rated platform games etc.

Hopefully if more people start rating apps then more comments will be added too, but you've got to start somewhere.

Get rating them Apps!

 

[Bosbeetle]

Yes but first I have to play it for a while

 

[Blue Protoman]

Perhaps I'll go around the Repo and leave my thoughts on everything.

 

[foxblock]

Taking the time to rate and/or comment on every app you use is an exemplary idea, especially comments help us developers stay motivated and spot flaws in our programs.


But as bosbeetle stated, please take some time to actually play around with the program beforehand, there is little use for "ooh this looks nice" comments (sure they are nice to read and also motivate, but they do not help as much as any more elaborate comment be it positive or negative).

 

[-Tj-]

I'll join you. I usually make it a point to leave ratings for software I like, and especially for software I have to pay for (done so for a while now on both Android and WinMo's marketplaces). But first I need my Pandora. :unsure:

 

[AquaAnalogue]

I, AquaAnalogue, pledge to rate and give my feedback on every single non-default, community-contributed software package. (EDIT: that I install of course; that was a bit vague.)


When I get my Pandora, that is. A long way off yet, it seems...

 

[DaMummy]

the 200 comment character limit will prohibit me from making comments on stuff i like, and stuff i dont like is definitely out of the question

 

[PeeZapp]

I'm in just went to the repo and did a fair bit of rating and commenting

 

[Prometheus]

I pledge to rate all of the stuff that I use regularly. In fact, I've just paid a visit to the repo and gotten started on exactly that!


I'll probably post a few comments if I have anything much to say, too.

 

[Longjam]

Seems like a very good idea. All in the name of progress.


I'm in.

 

[sswam]

Agreed, I like to leave (positive) ratings.


As someone who received some low ratings (for a game I wrote, and personally)... please PM the developer with any issues before leaving a bad rating or an overly negative comment. It kind of hurts to write a game, then get negative ratings for it. Maybe my game sucks, but I don't think so! If you can be positive and constructive, the hacker is likely to improve the game and do other stuff for Pandora. And if not, he might get pissed off and go elsewhere - well, I won't, but some might. I did get some positive feedback for my game on the boards, but not on the repo. Someone could say "wow this is hard and weird, it's not my favourite game, but good effort making your first Pandora game mate!" Oh boo hoo, Dredd. Harden up, you wuss!


Sure, the average homebrew / amateur game might not give you as much fun as PCSX-rearmed; but please rate it for what it is. I wouldn't rate down a short-story just because it's shorter than a trilogy, and I wouldn't give a lasagne 1/5 because I prefer cheesecake. If it's a good lasagne, it gets a good rating!


If the developer tells you go bite your momma, instead of explaining how to play the game or fixing the bugs... then you might give a negative rating.

 

[PokeParadox]

I agree with this thread - feedback is the best motivator for a developer. Negative feedback is also good if it is pointing out how software could be improved.


I am trying to make an effort to rate software I have used.


Also it help to make a good effort to get into the software before rating it - no good just loading the titlescreen of a game, thinking "I don't like the way this looks", quiting and then rating it without even playing the game...

 

[Kumaki]

Yes but first I have to play it for a while

Exactly.


Have to play them a while. and I certainly hope there is an area for comments and not just however many stars. because if I give a high or a low rating, I want to explain WHY they got that rating.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

I agree with the sentiment, sometimes I worry that when everything has thorough ratings a lot of software goes to the 'bottom of the pile' and lacks discoverability, which is a shame, as everyone has different tastes so you can miss out on gems. Don't get me wrong, I have no better system to offer that would allow a use to navigate through the large amounts of software available - just saying! Ultimately it is down to the end user to navigate and find software they want, so the more that can be provided can only be a good thing.


I wonder, would it be cool if the Pandora logged how long each PND is run for, then pushed that data to the repo (or somewhere) at a convenient time (maybe on sync in PND Manager)\? That way you could browse software by 'amount of time used, on average, per person' or something along those lines. It still suffers from similar discoverability problems as ratings, but it feels like it would give a sort of automated approach, and also mean that if someone uses something like everyday (their favourite emulator for example), although they only rated 3/5 on the repo (maybe the emulator doesn't have a polished GUI, and other little problems) the fact they play it so much is probably of equal interest to their actual rating. Probably a crazy idea!

 

[_wb_]

Automatic PND usage statistics: big privacy issues, so you have to at least make it opt-in.


Another problem is that "time used" is not necessarily relevant: e.g. for games/emulators it could work, but what about utilities? E.g. some people may like to log their battery charge level 24/7 with my system info program, while they only use my flashlight program when there's a power outage (maybe once in 2 years). Does that mean the system info is "better" than the flashlight?


Maybe "most downloaded" would give a more useful ranking if it would also register when people remove a PND (of course you can only do that if they remove it through PND Manager). Maybe something that was downloaded 500 times and removed 450 times is not as interesting as something that was downloaded 200 times and never removed. There are also some privacy issues with that, but at least it's not as intrusive as actually monitoring how much time you spend in each application. And easier to implement.

 

[klapse]

There are no "big privacy issues" for an opt-in usage tracker: user decides if he wants to track his pnd usage, that's it. Kind of a pain to implement, since it requires modifying xfce and minimenu.

 

[_wb_]

If it's opt-in then there's no privacy issue, but what percentage of the Pandora users would agree to it? Would the results be representative?


You don't need to modify xfce or minimenu, just the pnd run script. Still it's not trivial to implement, because you have to store the results until wifi is available and the central server is reachable, etc.


More importantly, I don't think usage is a good indicator of quality: there's plenty of software I don't use a lot but I still like a lot, while there's other stuff I do use a lot but don't especially like.


What about my idea to not just count the number of downloads (which is about the same as the number of times it was installed) but also the number of times it was removed? This would only require a small change to PNDManager (so that it informs the repo when something gets removed)...

 

[_wb_]

Sorry for the gravedig but I thought it would be useful to bump this thread to remind people to leave ratings and comments on the repo.

Also note that you can do this from within PNDManager, you just need to put your repo login info in the right place, see e.g.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/12264-tutorial-how-to-get-software-on-your-pandora/

Feedback and moral support are great ways to motivate devs; remember that nearly all Pandora devs are volunteers doing their thing in their free time, as a hobby and not to make money out of it. Recognition and appreciation from the community is their only reward (besides maybe the personal satisfaction to get something working).

I also agree with DREDD's remarks about negative ratings (and basically anything other than 5 stars is a kind of negative rating - did I mention the star system sucks?). If you don't like something, don't just leave a bad rating and go away. Give feedback on how it can be improved. If it's just not an application you need or not your genre of game or whatever, that's not a good reason for a bad rating. If something is badly ported (e.g. you get a 800x600 window that you need to drag around, and it doesn't use any of the Pandora controls), or full of bugs, that's a reason for a bad rating. But please keep an eye on updates: if the bugs get fixed and the missing features get implemented, please update your rating too!

 

[ptitSeb]

I completly agree. I don't like the Star rating too.

This kind of rating is usefull on a store where you buy software, and negative feedback from other user is a must-have feature for every store...

But here, there is only a handfull of commercial soft. 98% are free software, made from freetime of a few. Star rating can just demotivate the devs.

There is another thread, starded by porg, about some alternate rating/category. May be both subjects should be linked?

 

[gwaine]

Just went and rated/commented on the software I use