ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Niklas Wenzel <nikwen.developer@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to all of you for answering here while I was sleeping.

To me it seems that we agree we should improve the sorting algorithm. I
acknowledge the problem of having no way to deal with unfair reviews but I
believe this should overall be separated from the sorting problem, even
though a better sorting mechanism might relativise some bad reviews.

Until now, we've had two suggestions: the Bayesian average and the solution
mentioned by Selene, where each app would get a 3 star rating by default
which would be adjusted later when people start reviewing the application.
In my opinion these are pretty good solutions, with each of them having
their individual advantages or disadvantages.
The Bayesian average tries to predict what would happen if plenty of people
were asked to rate the app but apps without bad reviews only still rank
better than those without any reviews.
Selene's method solves the latter, but depending on the implementation it
might be disadvantageous for apps with few reviews. It would be nice to see
a code example here. Selene, is your music player open source?

My next question: I'd love to help implement the new ranking mechanism. Is
the code for the app store backend available somewhere so that I can
retrieve and modify it? If not, who is the person to talk to?

Cheers,
Niklas

2015-04-09 0:44 GMT+02:00 Rodney Dawes <rodney.dawes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 18:12 -0300, Sergio Schvezov wrote:
> > On miércoles 8 de abril de 2015 17h'54:04 ART, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > > OK. I don't think we should add more ways of calculating things to
> solve
> > > these problems though. I think there are a few distinct problems here
> to
> > > solve, and sorting is only one of the issues. There's also the social
> > > problem of people trying to use reviews as ransom for features or bug
> > > fixes. That is not how reviews should be, and I think the solution to
> > > that is mostly one of policy, and not technical implementation.
> > >
> > > For this I think we need a way for developers to report/flag
> > > inappropriate reviews/ratings on their apps.
> >
> > How should I review? I don't ransom reviews at all but I don't give 5
> stars
> > to something that I feel has things missing and not stated in the
> > description (most apps have poor descriptions so I can think anything I
> > want of the intention of the app).
>
> Well, a poor rating/review is certainly warranted if the app is quite
> bad or malicious. But because it doesn't have extra features is no
> reason to rate it poorly. Reviews should also not be used for feature
> requests (nor demands). There have been other threads on this matter,
> but not really any good solutions either. A 3 or 4 star rating for an
> app that you like, is useful, and works fairly well, but has a small bug
> where something doesn't work quite as expected or described, is probably
> appropriate. Likewise, you probably shouldn't rate apps with 5 stars,
> just because you're friends with the developer, and it's the only app
> currently available that does what it does. But yes, it is very
> subjective, and people are going to do all the wrong things with it,
> because it is subjective. This is why I don't generally like ratings
> systems at all. :)
>
> > I review as I would review a restaurant; e.g.; a gourmet restaurant
> serving
> > regular beers (or wine depending on how you take gourmet) won't get 5
> stars
> > but maybe 4 instead and comment mentioning that if better beers were
> > offered the place would be so much better. I do the same for apps.
>
> But you wouldn't give it a rating of 1 because you wanted lobster, which
> was out of season when you attended, and had to eat something else
> instead. Or because the special you saw one day last week isn't
> available any more. You'd give it a reasonable rating based on your
> experience, and not on your demands.
>
> > Scoring and staring systems are entirely subjective to say the least, but
> > Niklas' request of using ponderation for sorting makes perfect sense to
> me
> > regardless; I don't think we should focus too much on a lone example to
> > divert or expand the focus of discussion, it is a different request and
> > different thing to solve.
>
> Ratings systems are indeed very subjective. As I stated already, I have
> no problem with improving the sorting. I was simply trying to separate
> the issues which Niklas presented in his original mail, into their
> separate concerns.
>
> A) Sorting is not great and it's hard to find apps due to ratings
> B) Some people are apparently making ransom ratings
>
> The former should be possible to solve pretty easily by just having the
> server alter the algorithm used to calculate the average.
>
> The latter is a much larger fix, and is a social one, relating to the
> policies we have in place for how people should behave in the community.
> We can't solve the social problem with code, but we can provide a decent
> way for developers to easily report these sorts of reviews, when they
> happen.
>
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