[maemo-developers] Download statistics

[From: Cornelius Hald]

Alberto Mardegan wrote:
> Cornelius Hald wrote:
>> Also using the current download count for the "Popular" section of
>> Downloads seems a bit unfair then. Shouldn't it be at least
>> downloads/num_of_releases? Or better
>> downloads_from_extras/num_of_releases?
> 
> I don't think it's possible to know whether it is a new download, or an 
> update.

No, I don´t think either. But if we get numbers for each release, we 
could see something like:

Ver  Downl.
0.2  1000
0.3  1200
0.4  1300
0.5   700
0.6   200

This would at least show, that with version 0.5 people have somehow lost 
interest. Maybe I´ve made some radical UI changes that most people don´t 
like. Or maybe there is another (better) tool for the same task, etc...

> But maybe limiting the download count for the packages downloaded from 
> Extras only makes more sense.

I would think so. I´m often releasing to extras-devel with really 
minimal changes - often primary to test something for myself. Other 
people who have extras-devel activated, will receive this updates as 
well but often it´s just too unimportant to count those as "official" 
downloads.

> But I like the idea that a package with more frequent releases gets more 
> visibility than others. :-)

That could still be possible. We could have "Most frequently updated 
packages" or something. We could also use the number of releases for the 
popularity rating. But I think the numbers first should be separated.

For example:
* AppA 20 releases with 20.000 total downloads. First release 1 year ago.
* AppB  2 releases with  5.000 total downloads. First release 1 month ago.

Which application is more popular? Which has more downloads? This shows, 
that is is especially unfair to young applications.

If we would have downloads/releases the situation would look differently:
* AppA: 1.000 average downloads
* AppB: 2.500 average downloads

Also, if we want to use the "number of releases" for popularity or 
something similar, we could set them in relation to "time on market". 
Having something like "average number of releases in the last month".

I think it would make the statistics between old and new applications 
more comparable and it could encourage community members to invest more 
in their young project if they can see that they basically have the same 
user base as, for example, omweather.

Cheers!
Conny