software-store-developers team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Aaron Peachey wrote on 23/07/11 14:09:
>...
> You may have seen the top-rated has been partially implemented (thanks
> mvo) with a new carousel on the home screen. It may not quite be
> working properly yet and otherwise still needs some work, but in the
> mean time now that the server has histograms for all packages and this
> means we now have a dampened rating for them all too, we thought it a
> good time to take a look at the data to verify the usefulness of the
> algorithm and I have attached a spreadsheet file with the rankings as
> at today (Sat 23/7/11 Australian GMT+10).

Thanks Aaron! This is fascinating stuff.

> It has had an interesting impact, as you can see in the spreadsheet,
> by comparing each package's overall ranking against other packages
> based on the dampened rating to the same ranking if we were using
> average rating. I would definitely say that this algorithm seems to
> provide a fairer approach to determining the 'top rated' apps but it
> is interesting which apps fit into our top 12 (gparted at #1 is not
> exactly what i was expecting!).

I think that over time, the top rated items will balance out in three ways.

First, as Ubuntu's user base expands and gets less techie on average,
they'll give more high ratings to other things (like games and music
players).

Second, even current users will see the "Top Rated" section, will try
out the things in it (like GVim), will not find them as attractive as
people who have already rated them, and will give them lower ratings.

And third, application developers will see the top rated applications,
try them out, think "hah, I could do better than that", and then do it.

It's also possible that the Ubuntu base platform will become more
powerful and flexible, so that people feel less of a need to install
things like Cairo Dock, Filezilla, K3B, or 7zip.

- -- 
mpt
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