[QGIS-Developer] How are Featured Plugins Chosen?

[Tom Chadwin]

DelazJ wrote
> This statement assumes that having a higher number of
> downloads is more important for plugin devs than having a more featured or
> less buggy plugin.

No, I certainly didn't say it was more important. I think it is important as
evidence not just of size of userbase (indicated by number of installations
of a single version), but also of how trustworthy the userbase finds the
plugin (indicated by the fact that the total of downloads across a long
history of versions is high).


DelazJ wrote
> And while having a large user base is for sure
> rewarding, i'm pretty sure (and I guess you, too) it's not the objective
> of
> most of the developers. I think the best way to have that "recognition" is
> to provide working and stable plugin.

I'm not talking about reward or recognition for devs. I'm talking about
perceived maturity and trustworthiness of software. This is profoundly
important to get traction in corporate/public-sector organizations.
Quantitative evidence is often used/requested for proposals in such arenas
(whether rightly or wrongly). It's easier for me to build a case for QGIS as
a web mapping tool via qgis2web compared to ArcGIS Online if I can point to
approaching 0.25m downloads of the plugin. Yes, it's a questionable figure,
but it has some legitimacy, and definitely some persuasive power.


DelazJ wrote
> one can also argue that the
> current system is a "good" reason to push devs regularly publish new
> versions, whether heavily tested or not (knowing or expecting that their
> user base will update, once again).

Yes, I think that's valid. That's why I'm not talking about this figure as
being the *only* indicator of plugin quality - far from it.


DelazJ wrote
> Maybe a solution will be to show both values (sum and max), but still it
> doesn't help to decide whether a plugin is eligible to the "Most popular"
> list.

No, I don't think we say "popular", nor should we, for all the reasons we
have discussed.

I guess we just need to ask "Is there a problem which needs to be solved?"
before deciding what to do.

Thanks

Tom



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