"Extra" developers would benefit from a partner, and from a "review board."

Ralph,

Sorry about the poor experience with abandonware Extras. This is something we'd like to address somehow. I am not sure what the solution is. Some people have to move on from MODX work and their Extras suffer as a result. Some might be willing to turn over the maintenance to another developer and some don't want their work in the hands of anyone else. I do think we need to be able to flag Extras as unsupported by author and caution people from using it. That being said I don't think a time based warning like WP uses is necessarily valid either, as there are many Extras that haven't been updated in ages but work perfectly and may continue to do so indefinitely.

Adding comments to the Extras is not a bad idea at all and one that we've discussed. I personally think it's a sensible solution, so long as comments or criticisms are not just ad hominems against when they can't get it to work in 5 mins or their expectation of author support is free coaching on implementation. I have seen comments on other add-on repositories that are nothing more than: "this is crap" with zero substantiation or reasoning. I am not suggesting that is the case for your criticisms of the Extras you describe.

I think ratings and reviews would be good so long as we can be cautious of malicious downrating (which we have actually seen for some of the eCommerce Extras).

Not everbody should be able to add comments or rates.
Perhaps a community-group of experienced users should have that permissions only.

Hi Jay,

I totally understand your reasoning and i think its valid up to a point. Adding comments to the extra's pages will most certainly result in the occasional 'This is crap" review but most of the comments wil be positive in nature.
And the alternative, not having comments, is resulting in bigger problems i think. When someone wants to rant about an aspect of MODX they will, in a blog, on the forums or personally to you at the MODxpo.
'Comments' is community driven content and all sorts of things will be said, but the overall value of such content will reflect the character of the community. I know the MODX community for a while now and its a good crowd so have faith.

Modx is sitting on a goldmine of knowledge, namely the collective knowledge and experinece of the community but imo we are not taking full advantage of that knowledge. I know the forums are the weapon of choice at this moment but i think it would be an advantage for the community if more tools were available to tap into that knowledge. Comments are a great tool for that.

Your hesitation to use Comments as an community tool resembles the POV corporations have nowadays with 'transparancy', LLC is of course a business . You feel like you need to keep control over the message where in fact you no longer do.
The 'This is crap' rant could result in more comments saying the Extra is fantastic, or discover there is indeed a bug, or a spelling mistake in the documentation, it might inspire the author to go at it once more and mak it awesome, someone might comment back its not crap but just not working in MODX 2.3.
Either of these is valueable knowledge that is, at this moment, not fully used and hidden from the community.


RDG

The 'This is crap' rant could result in more comments saying the Extra is fantastic, or discover there is indeed a bug, or a spelling mistake in the documentation, it might inspire the author to go at it once more and mak it awesome, someone might comment back its not crap but just not working in MODX 2.3.

The better place for discussing issues like that, is on github, IMO

Quote from: Bruno17 at Jul 09, 2014, 12:43 PM

The 'This is crap' rant could result in more comments saying the Extra is fantastic, or discover there is indeed a bug, or a spelling mistake in the documentation, it might inspire the author to go at it once more and mak it awesome, someone might comment back its not crap but just not working in MODX 2.3.

The better place for discussing issues like that, is on github, IMO

It would if the author had a github repo.

The problem we're trying to solve is to provide adequate information to Extras users to make an informed decision on the quality and usefulness of an Extra before downloading it.

It could be better to just use the existing forum thread that is created when the add-on is added to the repository, and then pull that thread into the extra description, that way the comment's can still be moderated by the existing forum team with no extra work load.

Quote from: smashingred at Jul 09, 2014, 12:46 PM

Quote from: Bruno17 at Jul 09, 2014, 12:43 PM

The 'This is crap' rant could result in more comments saying the Extra is fantastic, or discover there is indeed a bug, or a spelling mistake in the documentation, it might inspire the author to go at it once more and mak it awesome, someone might comment back its not crap but just not working in MODX 2.3.

The better place for discussing issues like that, is on github, IMO

It would if the author had a github repo.

couldn't this count allready as a plus point for an Extra, if there is a github repo for the Extra?

@PaulP: that sounds like an Idea. i don't now if this is feasable. But the result would be the same i guess.

@Bruno: It probably would be a plus point for a certain clientele but not everybody is equally GIT savvy . I think most of the targeted audience are wedevs that are happy enough they found an extra to accomplish that, what was too hard to achieve on their own. There is, i think, a big community out there that needs help in managing all the technical stuff involved in getting a MODx up and running.
Jay said it perfectly

The problem we're trying to solve is to provide adequate information to Extras users to make an informed decision on the quality and usefulness of an Extra before downloading it.

A second point i was trying to make is about activating/energizing the less tech savvy part of the community by giving more tools to communicate.
I'm speaking from my own experience since i'm not tech savvy.
It took me 6 years to gain more tech- and MODX experience to be able even ask the right questions, about the right topic in the right forum thread and
i always figured getting information about MODX stuff could be more accessible. Augmenting existing information about the Extras (but also the RTFM) with community input is something i think would benefit the whole community.

And the communication with, to and from the community could do with an upgrade.

RDG