Is showing a popup asking to rate addon's banned by Official Anki?

Anki Development
21

I personally don’t see a problem with deletion, for several reasons.

[ If official Anki deletes them ]
It is (probably) rare for Add-ons to be removed from AnkiWeb, but it is much more frequent for shared decks to be removed.
So it is routine for official Anki to remove inappropriate content from AnkiWeb, so I think it is nothing special.
Also, regardless of the content, official Anki can remove content at their sole discretion.

[ Contacting the developer ]
In this case I happened to be active on AnkiForums recently and Glutanimate noticed the problem and contacted me so I could quickly create the thread.
However, I consider this to be a fairly rare case.
Basically, Add-ons authors are volunteers and cannot be contacted immediately, so it usually takes a few months or more to contact them.
There are also a few Add-ons that do not have contact information.

So, for example, if a similar problem occurs, there will be no way to contact the author and the number of ratings will continue to increase.
In this case, I think the realistic option would be to contact the official Anki and ask them to simply remove the author page or add-on.

[ About my problematic Add-ons ]
The Add-ons that have been over rated this time are all fixed or customized versions of popular Add-ons that are broken.
Basically, my fixed Add-ons abandoned development when the original authors reopened development.
In other words, I developed them with the assumption that they would be removed from the beginning, so there is no problem actually removing them.
There are currently 3 Add-ons that I have actually abandoned developing.

[ About the Pop-up feature ]
To explain a little more about this issue, the purpose of this Pop-up is to develop repair toolkits for broken add-ons.

The motivation for this is that many of the broken add-ons I have repaired have been abandoned due to low ratings.

Even skilled and active developers tend to abandon development of add-ons with low ratings.

In extreme cases, a popular developer may remove all their available add-ons.
My guess is that this is probably some kind of retaliation for low ratings.
There are also many cases of authors and users fighting in the comments section.

My idea of a simple solution to this is a rating button or rating pop-up.
It can balance inappropriate low ratings with the actual number of ratings, and positive ratings increase the motivation of authors.

So, the new feature activation button in this pop-up is the most powerful version of this.

This motivation I expect is that old developers will resume development of old add-ons.
For example, even popular add-ons can accumulate too many low ratings due to errors if development is interrupted for a while.
There is no incentive for the author to repair the add-on, since there is no complete prospect of improving the rating even if it is repaired.

Although the development of an activate button is somewhat difficult, but I expect that it will motivate authors to update their broken add-ons.

However, the original plan was to expect that this pop-up feature would not appear so high up or would be counterproductive for these reasons.

[1] Pop-ups are obtrusive and will increase low ratings.
[2] Users are not interested in the new feature, so they will press No.
[3] Users press the Rate button, but do not actually rate.

However, in practice, it worked like these.

[1] Users who previously low rated the site changed their rating to a high rating.
[2] Some users rated low, but some were satisfied with the new feature and later changed their rating to high.
[3] Add-on rapidly reached the top of the list because the number of low ratings was almost 0.

Certainly the pop-up worked as I had developed it, but it worked a little too effectively than I expected.

In other words, if I was unlucky, it was going to be full of low ratings, and in some ways it’s like a bug.
So the removal of these add-ons is not a problem.

[ About my opinion ]
At the moment, there is a large discrepancy between my expectations and Anki’s customary guidelines.

For example, if I were to judge, I would judge that this pop-up is not a problem.
This is in reference to the fact that pop-ups asking for ratings are allowed three times a year in Apple stores, etc.

So the line I consider prohibited is when a high rating is requested in exchange for a reward.
In my case, the user can also rate low and refuse, and still be able to use the Add-on, so I consider this not a problem.
Also, Add-ons are mostly non-profit and do not generate revenue like app stores.

Also, if I were to judge, I would not have a problem with the number of ratings increasing.
The reason for this is that there are currently over 1,400 Add-ons.
Since the only sorting is new and ratings, I think that ratings do not work for most developers and most users will refer to blogs and Youtube.

There are a bit various gaps in perception such as these in my opinion.

However, I am not complaining or questioning Glutanimate’s view or the official Anki’s Dae’s view.
I am in the situation where I expected that if the official Anki or the community were to make a decision, they would make the decision as described above, but in fact it is not at all what I expected.

So I expect that there is probably a significant discrepancy between how I think it should be handled and how Glutanimate thinks it should be handled.
So I would like to simply confirm how to handle this issue.
I am thinking that if I handle it in my own way, it may cause another problem.

I would think of the official Anki Dae’s view as the official Anki guidelines and Glutanimate’s view as the unofficial Anki community guidelines.

For example, even if Glutanimate is of the opinion that only a rating adjustment is necessary, if the official Anki Dae decides that it should be removed, it should be removed.
Conversely, even if the official Anki Dae is of the opinion that it does not need to be processed, if Glutanimate determines that it is problematic in the customary sense of the unofficial Anki community, then I will need to adjust or reset the number of ratings at my discretion.

However, this guideline is not meant to be a formal decision, but rather just a temporary guideline that I will refer to.
Since few Add-ons developers develop GUI’s, I don’t think formal guidelines are necessary and I understand that they will be changed later, depending on the situation.

[ Adjusting Ratings ]
So, from my Add-ons admin page, I don’t think I can delete the number of ratings as Glutanimate says.
If the official Anki Dae is busy, the only way to reduce the ratings would be to reset them by deleting them.

Other alternatives are ways to increase the low ratings.
[1] Make an intentional error for a while.
[2] Popups asking users to give low ratings.
[3] I will create multiple accounts and rate them low.

At the moment, the Add-ons in question are at the top of the list because they have almost zero low ratings.
So lowering the ranking is possible with a small number of low ratings.

However, this is an intentional manipulation of the number of ratings and may be inappropriate.
Also, this method cannot be used if there is a problem with the high number of ratings itself.
So, if the official Anki dae is difficult, I think it is appropriate to delete them.

[ Regarding future processing ]
So, to be honest, it was a bit tedious to explain the background, reasons and intentions behind this issue, so I would like to skip the explanation and process it as soon as possible and I would like to develop the next new add-ons. (This explanation alone is already too long!:sweat_smile:Sorry.)

My hope is that Glutanimate will make a decision and I will handle it, and then if there is the official Anki Dae’s opinion, I will make adjustments.
(Probably because Glutanimate is quicker to reply. Also, in my opinion, since add-ons are not developed by the official Anki, it seems to me that only a minimal check is needed.)

For example, if the official Anki’s Dae later decides that processing was not necessary, I don’t see a problem since the removal of Add-ons is at the author’s discretion.
Basically I agree with Glutanimate’s decision and I understand that it is not an official or community decision.

If the official Anki’s Dae decides that a deletion is needed instead of adjustment, I think the process will need to be redone.

Also, if the official Anki’s Dae handles it as Glutanimate suggests, I do not think these processes are necessary.

[ Others ]
Some of these Add-ons this time around still have the button and other things set up to ask for a rating.
So Add-ons are still in a state where the number of ratings can easily increase.
I think these need to be determined what to do with them.

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22

I’m quite busy at the moment, so I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time to debate the merits of different approaches at the moment. I’ll respond to a few points; if I have missed something important, please give me a TL;DR.

  • I won’t delete the add-ons, and don’t even have an easy way of deleting individual ones.
  • If you wish to delete them, feel free - that means less work for me.
  • If you want all reviews after a certain date purged, please let me know the starting date. It’s a bit unfair to people who took the time to write detailed reviews, but arguably better than deleting the add-on completely. I don’t have time to selectively delete reviews.
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I understand the points and have no further questions from me. I would like to discuss the rest with Glutanimate.
If I want to check on any other details or guidelines, I would like to do so in another thread, such as feature requests. Thank you very much.

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@glutanimate

To clarify, I agree that Glutanimate will make the final decision as there is no enforcement action (for now) from the official Anki Dae.
I consider Glutanimate as an unofficial representative of the Anki community, and if there are other Anki users who disagree with this, I will disagree with them, so I see no need to discuss it this time.
Also, if Glutanimate has already pretty much decided how to handle the issue, I don’t think a discussion is necessary.

First to share the info I have on the pop-up start date, it is “2024-02-17” for Zoom23.
All other add-ons are after this date.

If handled after this date, all 5 problematic add-ons would have a rating of almost 0, this is almost the same as if I had led the user to them and then deleted them. So, in my opinion, there is no problem with my voluntary deletion and re-uploading of the reviews instead of deleting them.

In the case of a more severe process, as suggested by Danika_Dakika, to remove the ratings of all add-ons, not just the 5 problematic add-ons, “2023-09-17” would be the first.
However, I suspect the official Anki removals are probably a one-by-one manual function, or even per Add-ons rather than per account, so this process may not be technically possible.

And the reason I haven’t processed it myself yet is because I don’t know if my thinking is heavy or light processing.

First, if it is heavier than I think it is.
For example, I think there may be a case where an anonymous developer in the Anki community is quite angry with me and is demanding that Glutanimate severely dispose of me.
They are important developers and if this issue is not handled properly, it may affect their future community activities.

In such a case, my suggestion is a bit inappropriate because the disposition is too lenient. I think it needs to be corrected to a proper and serious sentence or something.
Also, if in fact no such contact exists, but Glutanimate is intuitively convinced that such angry developers would already be there, I think such a treatment is also appropriate.

Even if there were in fact an anonymous complaint, Glutanimate would not be able to disclose to me whether the anonymous caller does or does not exist, so I do not need to check this point.
If the developer contacts me directly, I can explain the reason and discuss how to handle it, but at the moment there is no direct contact from the developer to me except from Glutanimate, so this is probably not necessary.

Second, there are also problems if it is lighter than I think it should be.
For example, if Glutanimate thought that my pop-up was too obvious and that a little verbal warning would be sufficient.

In this case, if I voluntarily remove it, it would be an overreaction on my part. After that, if I happen to be inactive, I think it could lead to a situation where users could incorrectly assume that Glutanimate was pressuring me to remove me from the community.

So, if it is the official Anki’s Dae decision, or if Glutanimate thinks that this issue is serious, then I don’t think it is a problem.
Even if I were to be inactive in the future, I think it is rather appropriate because it will be obvious that even developers will be severely punished if they do not follow the rules properly.
I created this thread because I thought it would be clearer to let the official Anki Dae make the decision. I can also confirm where the official guidelines are, which would be helpful. The official Anki decision will take precedence, so even if it is stricter than Glutanimate thinks it is, I do not think it will be a problem.

In summary, I do not know which of the 10 levels of importance Glutamate considers this problem on a scale of 0 to 10, so I need to confirm.
I also don’t want to have a lot of angry developers, or have Glutanimate think it was a 1 or 2 and I’m dealing with an 8 or 9, which could be troublesome later on.

In my opinion, any of 0-10 is fine, and even if I were to delete the account, it would have little or no effect on me. If my earlier suggestion is okay, then it can be handled as is.

1 Like
25

Thanks for updating the add-ons and disabling the rating prompt @Shigeyuki :pray:

I also appreciate your elaborating on your reasoning on why you added the prompt and sharing your thoughts on rating guidelines in general. I think there are a lot of interesting points in there to discuss. Just focusing on the current question for now, however:

(again, as mentioned before, I don’t feel super comfortable being the sole arbiter on this. This is just my best effort recommendation on what I personally think could be a solution that is well balanced between all the perspectives mentioned in my previous comment)

My recommendation would still be to try to normalize the ratings of your add-ons during the time where the vote-to-activate prompt was active. As selectively deleting reviews is not feasible, perhaps another approach could be to try to calculate at which date we would have to cut off the votes to achieve the same result as in the vote compression approach I proposed previously:

So I tried to calculate this briefly now, arriving at the following cutoff dates:

add-on id ≈ prompt launch* drop ratings past
Pokemanki Gold 1677779223 2024-03-27 >= 2024-04-03
Anki Killstreaks 1562475180 2024-03-14 >= 2024-04-09
Progress Bar 1708250053 2024-04-06 >= 2024-04-07
Zoom 23 1923741581 2024-02-17 >= 2024-03-27
Always on top 1045980020 2024-03-23 >= 2024-04-12

*in cases where we don’t know the exact date, this is an estimate based on when the abnormal voting patterns started

If we drop all votes that came in on these dates and later (e.g. for Pokemanki all ratings on 2024-04-03 and later), this should result in approximately the same number of upvotes as if we constrained the number of votes per day over the entire period of time when the prompt was active.

Would applying different cut-offs for different add-ons in this way be feasible time-spent-wise @dae, or would there have to be single cut-off date for all?

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26

I agree about the general rating guidelines, I think it is appropriate to do this in the suggestions thread, so there are no further questions from me. If you need additional information, please ask me and I will explain. (e.g., number of downloads, etc.)

To explain a little more about the reason for the problem, I consider it normal that about 70-80% of AnkiWeb’s add-ons do not increase in number of ratings and have unjustifiably low rating numbers. So in my opinion, not many Add-ons are lucky enough to have a properly increasing number of ratings.

One of my purposes is to repair Add-ons whose development has been abandoned due to this unreasonably low rating accumulation, and to strengthen them by Popup so that they do not break again. If I do not use Popup, the maximum number of ratings I have for Add-ons is 15, so I consider -1 to 15 to be an appropriate number of ratings.

Edit : In short, if adjusted accurately, I think it would be almost the same as 0.

1 Like
27

Frankly, I think the official Anki Dae is developing Anki for Desktop, so he does not use add-ons and may not have enough information to make a decision or may have little or no involvement.

So if Glutanimate thinks this problem is important(e.g., 7-10) and is concerned about making a judgment on its own (though I don’t think it’s a problem), I think it would be appropriate to refer to the opinions of developers or respondents who are active on the AnkiForums.

For now, my only concern is that since I am the cause of the problem, my arbitrary decision may further aggravate the problem. Other than that, I see no problem.

1 Like
28

Interesting. I’ve noticed that my add-on is dropping in rank, while a few others are quickly moving up. I felt uncomfortable when I learned that these ratings were due to traffic redirected by the add-ons. This trick is very common in Chinese App Store (some app even give reward for 5 stars comments), and it’s unfair to some individual developers because they don’t have time to develop an extra module to get more ratings.

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29

Since there was no request from Glutanimate to delete Add-ons, and official Anki Dae said that the number of ratings can be adjusted, so my request is to reset the number of ratings for now. (I leave the final decision to Glutanimate).

In my opinion, a detailed adjustment of the number of ratings is not necessary. This is because I have created a GUI for these add-ons and added a button to rate them.

image

Basically, the purpose of this button is to increase the number of ratings, but it is also to allow users to change their rating to low from here if they are dissatisfied with the new functionality after rating the pop-up.

In other words, it is still easier to increase the number of ratings compared to Add-ons that do not create a GUI. So even if it is reset to 0, the number of ratings for the values that need to be adjusted will naturally increase.

Such a button is a common technique used in Add-ons, but if such a button is inappropriate or deprecated, I will remove it.

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If it’s acceptable to add a button RateThis, I plan to add it and a button for troubleshooting in my add-on, too.

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31

Because these emojis make it easier for users to identify the add-on, and are also pleasing to the eye.
Their use cannot be defined as unfair, as long as any add-on author can do it with almost no effort.
All in all it’s an improvement.

1 Like
32

I already agree with the removal of all of my 5 problematic add-ons (or all of my ratings), so I think it will be resolved in a little while.
Glutanimate is concerned about making arbitrary decisions, so if L.M. Sherlock agrees with his opinion, it might make the process smoother.

The guidelines are complex and time consuming, so currently there is no discussion.
In my opinion, there is no problem. This time my problem is the pop-up with the reward, and it is common for add-ons to have a URL of a rating, and buy me a coffee.

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I am almost the only developer who uses a lot of emojis, so probably no discussion is needed. I can add or remove them upon request.

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Hmmm, I think all the add-ons that are important to the Anki ecosystem need to be pinned to the top. ReviewHeatmap, FSRSAnkiHelper, AnkiHub.
Edit : This is merely my personal opinion.

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Since L.M. Sherlock commented on the thread, I’ll mention a few things about the discussion of the guidelines for the rating system. (Perhaps a discussion of the guidelines might take some time, so please handle my problematic add-ons as they are.)

My popup idea was inspired by the add-on AnkiBrain. (No reward). When users download the Add-on, you get a pop-up that looks like this.

image

The reason I noticed this pop-up feature is that I compared FSRS4AnkiHelper and AnkiBrain. The current number of ratings and ranks for these are thus.

[10] fsrs4Anki Helper +174 -3
[27] AnkiBrain +257 -12

AnkiBrain is a popular add-on that uses OpenAI and I think was released around the same time as AnkHelper. AnkiBrain is also an advanced and useful add-on that I also like, but I don’t consider it to be an add-on popular enough to spike in number of ratings over L.M. Sherlock’s FSRS4AnkiHelper, which developed the FSRS4 algorithm. In other words, as Glutanimate pointed out to me, I consider AnkiBrain to be an add-on with a disproportionately growing number of ratings.(In my personal opinion)

As far as I know, this AnkiBrain is the only one that displays a Popup asking for ratings. I expect it will probably be the Add-on with the most ratings in the future.

If the Popup is less desirable in the official Anki or unofficial Anki community opinion (like the Reddit rules), I think it can be solved by simply contacting the author of AnkiBrain and asking him to adjust it. Or, as with my problematic Add-ons, I think it would be sufficient to deal with the problem only if it is noticeable.

If there were simple guidelines, I or other developers could simply contact the author in the comments when they see a popup, or the developer might remove it themselves.

In my personal opinion, I would like to support the developer’s activities. I would not like to discourage authors from developing if I ban or warn them about AnkiBrain pop-ups. However, as L.M. Sherlock has expressed his displeasure with the drop in rank, I think developers would find it unfair to have such a difference in the rating mechanism.

In cases like this, I would be willing to support development on both sides. For example, I can easily customize my popup in my spare time and provide the code so that it can be used in AnkHelper. There are a few issues with my current popups, but I think these are easily fixable. Ideally, there should be something like the libaddon that Glutanimate provides for Add-ons developers.

Regarding ratings, I think what is important for developers is not the number of ratings, but feedback from users. For example, the Add-ons I have fixed have seen an increase in downloads from the management screen. However, the number of downloads does not tell me if the Add-on was actually repaired properly or if there are active users.

So even if it is a meaningless high rating or a low rating for a complaint about a pop-up, it is useful to guess that the Add-on is functioning properly on the latest Anki and cross-platform, if the user has not reported an error. It is also possible for developers to reply to and interact with comments from these users.

Also, the total number of Add-ons has increased from 750 to about 1400 in the last two years, thus ratings do not count except for the authors of the top dozens of Add-ons, which provides little incentive for development.

Since I am an individual developer, ideally I would like to be completely free of any restrictions such as guidelines.

For example, this feature that rewards new features for rating is intended to motivate me to develop. Adding a simple pop-up to all Add-ons would easily increase ratings and be faster. But if I set a new feature as a reward, I have to think and develop some new feature for the Add-ons I want feedback on. This is an inefficient system because I also have to check if the reward button works or not. But since my purpose is development, this method works better.

Plus, even Add-ons with low demand, such as those with a dozen or so active users, provide an incentive to continue development. Even if the number of ratings does not increase, the updated comments confirm that there are active users. This has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of ratings, which I consider a mere byproduct of the project.

However, this does not mean that I am eager to create guidelines or promote popups. It also does not mean that I do not intend to be considerate of developers and users, and I am considerate in other ways. If there are official decisions or unofficial conventions, I will be flexible to change to accommodate them.

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And to be clear, I would prefer to have my 5 Add-ons processed first, because development of these Add-ons has currently stopped. If the conclusion is changed later, no problem.
Edit : In other words, my explanation above is not intended to delay the process.

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I really agree with that. This can be a very powerful boost for developers. However, there should be equality between the developers, in their possibility of how to get the users to give feedback.
That’s why I think there should be a popup ready for developers, who can embed them in the plugin. (With certain restrictions, for example: not to jump more than once per Anki user And two popups won’t pop up in one day.)

That is very noble of you! Appreciate it and support very much!

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38

Hmmm, I’m not sure. Basically, developers don’t interact with each other, and since they are volunteers, it is common for them to be out of touch for months or more, so I don’t think there is an easy way to distribute or notify everyone equally. Everyone has different development preferences, so even if officially allowed to pop up, developers may want to create their own. And perhaps many developers are not interested in rating so they don’t want to use it. Users use Add-ons for free, volunteer developers don’t make money like common free apps through ratings, they are just learning. Also, pop-ups are common in apps, so developers will come up with them quickly. Perhaps the number of add-ons will double in the next few years, so the number of new developers will continue to grow. Since Anki does not generate revenue from Add-ons, there is no financial incentive to manage AnkiWeb’s Add-ons. So it seems to me that there is no control over them.

Thank you, I will look into the add-on that you requested to fix in another thread later.

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I have removed reviews from the suggested ranges. Killstreaks accidentally got cut off at 07. The totals won’t update until someone makes another review on those items.

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In my country, Amazon packages come with cashback offers if you give them 5 star rating lol.

In any case, I agree with @Shigeyuki that add-ons that are important to the ecosystem can be given special treatment.

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