Following the discussion for a while I like to add a comment now
I’n my personal experience the use of star ratings are very limited. Seen from both sides as a user and a developer
- “It is easy to criticize” as on shopping sides you will get all kind of criticism which is often not related to the product itself. Without a descriptive text you now nothing. Was the one star rating by accident, because of not reading the doc or because the node do not fit the individual purpose. (On my node i have one one star rating without any feedback no issue no discussion no nothing)
- You get negative feedback more likely than positive. When was the last time I went back to the library and gave a 5* rating for a node that helps me a lot?
The main reason why I switched from another home automation system to Node-RED is the freedom and the possibilities out of the contrib sphere. So many great nodes so much hard work. We should think twice to give this up. A review mechanism will put up a huge barrier for innovation and fresh ideas. Even the idea to take the ownership from the beginning will take a lot of the motivation to participate.
But I agree there is a problem with none maintained nodes for beginners selecting the right contrib-node. Most of us will always take a look on comments in the forum, look into the issues and revisions and do tests before relying on a contrib-node. Issues on GitHub only by number gives a wrong impression too as many projects use the issues for discussion, feature requests and many other things. Same for any last updated dates (as mentioned before)
Here are some of my Ideas, hope they are not all duplicates:
- establish a link between the forum and the library by listing links out of the forum where the node is mentioned. A active discussion can say a lot (used by others, feedback, experience, tips and tricks, solutions ...)
- instead of the stars there could be a tag system were users could give a selection of tags to a node: usefull, limited usecase, incomplete, has bugs, well maintained, seems to be dead (i leave the wording to somebody else). Tags can be counted and there should be a small text box to give a reason to the developer and other users to get into contact. The developers should be able to get into contact to the commentator too - so many miss understanding lead to bad things.
So in the end it is a question of social skills to communicate and own responsibilities.
Finally I like to say that Node-RED is my favorite of many projects (not only IT related). Friendly people, always willing to help newcomers. Especially @knolleary and all the others working hard in maintaining not only the code but also the friendly atmosphere: Thank you so much.
