[R] popular R packages

[Gabor Grothendieck]

R-Forge already has this but I don't think its used much.  R-Forge
does allow authors to opt out which seems sensible lest it deter
potential authors from submitting packages.

I think objective quality metrics are better than ratings, e.g. does package
have a vignette, has package had a release within the last year,
does package have free software license, etc.  That would have
the advantage that authors might react to increase their package's
quality assessment resulting in an overall improvement in quality on CRAN
that would result in more of a pro-active cycle whereas ratings are reactive
and don't really encourage improvement.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Matthew Keller <mckellercran at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Put me in the camp that says more information is better than less
> information - even if imperfect. Interpretation can be left to those
> using the data.
>
> Also, "popular" can mean many things. An alternative to number of
> times a package is downloaded would be a ratings system, where R users
> can supply starred ratings or something (much as they do on netflix or
> amazon). Combining this with # of downloads would give users some idea
> about the users' perception, impact, and possibly the quality of a
> package. Obviously it would be imperfect, but it seems to me this
> would be better than the even more scant and more imperfect
> information currently available. I wouldn't advocate that such
> information be used in the same way a citation index is, but it might
> prove helpful to users who are confused (even paralyzed) by the ever
> burgeoning number of R packages.
>
> There was a discussion on this a while back in which Bill Venables
> said: "To me a much more urgent initiative [than rating responders on
> R listserves] is some kind of user online review system for packages,
> even something as simple as that used by Amazon.com has for customer
> review of books. I think the need for this is rather urgent, in fact.
> Most packages are very good, but I regret to say some are pretty
> inefficient and others downright dangerous.  You don't want to
> discourage people from submitting their work to CRAN, but at the same
> time you do want some mechanism that allows users to relate their
> experience with it, good or bad."
>
> Find the whole thread here:
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-December/147323.html.
>
> Matt
>
>
> --
> Matthew C Keller
> Asst. Professor of Psychology
> University of Colorado at Boulder
> www.matthewckeller.com
>
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