User Reviews In Synaptic?

[Francesco Fumanti]

Hello,

The idea seems quite interesting. It reminded me to the reviews that 
you find on versiontracker.com

Sometimes, when looking at applications on versiontracker that don't 
work well, there are indications in the reviews of alternative 
applications. So by expanding the idea, this idea could also be 
enhanced by also including an indication to alternative applications 
for applications with a restrictive license. (The question about how 
to inform/educate people about the license issue is not new in 
Ubuntu.)

In versiontracker you see the user reviews of the current version; 
but there is a popup-menu that allows to view the reviews of other 
versions.

I would think that the user should not have to turn to launchpad to 
write a review. He should be able to write it from the gui of the 
application that he uses to install new applications (Synaptic in 
Ubuntu). This would also simplify the procedure for the user to write 
a review as it could be connected automatically to the 
package/version he is currently looking at. (The user should not have 
to know launchpad in order to write a review.)

Of course, there should be a central database on the internet to 
store all the reviews. (I don't know enough to judge whether 
launchpad could be a candidate.)

Have a nice day.

Francesco Fumanti


>I started writing a little bit on this spec so I wouldn't forget it.
>
>What do you think?
>
><https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserReviewsInSynaptic>https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserReviewsInSynaptic
>
>Here's the text from the wiki pasted:
>
>There could be an additional tab in Synaptic / Gnome App Install 
>where users could see reviews about the program by other users. This 
>could include a score/rating.
>
>The reviews should probably be per source package, like changelogs.


>Perhaps a launchpad interface to edit them? This would probably be 
>text-files (or stripped html?) on launchpad and downloaded on demand 
>by Synaptic or GAI.


>The reviews would probably have to be moderated.
>
>Since capabilites and bugs change, reviews for a package from a 
>previous release of Ubuntu should not be shown by default. New 
>versions in the same Ubuntu release shouldn't throw away reviews 
>though. How to integrate this with -backports is not clear atm.