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

[CravingCrates]

@Unlucky-life

The user can choose not to rate the addon and won’t be asked again in future updates.

I think it’s great you added that because it really improves the user experience. I hope you didn’t take offense in me using your add-on as an example, because I think it’s really well made. I was just trying to prove a point.

@Unlucky-life

Creating extensive “rule books” for addons might discourage developers from creating or maintaining addons. Open source projects thrive because community members are free to interpret and create without strict rules.

I disagree. That’s not what open-source means. If you want to fork anki and create an add-on for it and share that locally, you can do whatever you want, but if you use the official ankiweb server to host and share it, it’s fair game to ask devs to follow certain rules the same way you can’t host copyrighted content or other unwanted decks on ankiweb servers. It’s also highly unlikely that this would scare off new devs. Do you think people create less apps for the AppStore because Apple has Guidelines? I doubt it.

@Unlucky-life

The fact that the code of addons is not always open-source and uploaded to platforms like GitHub could also be discussed when considering how addons are developed and shared.

it’s kinda always open source. I guess you could try to obfuscate the add-on code, but in the end it’s just a bunch of python files injected locally and there’s only so much you can hide (This only takes locally executed code into consideration. Anything happening on a server is a whole different topic).

@Unlucky-life

There will always be differing opinions on how things are developed or created. As long as users don’t find the pop-up annoying or a poor UX, there’s no need to discuss hypotheticals.

@Unlucky-life

If there are issues between addons or too many pop-ups from multiple addons, users will clearly comment on these issues.

I think these two statements clash.
Say two (or twenty!) add-ons use pop-ups to nag users and the users complain about too many popups. Why would either of the devs take it down when the other one stays up? Unless there’s a decision made above, both will think that the other one should get the short end of the deal and take it down.

@Unlucky-life

What deserves to be pinned should be decided by the community, not by rule books. Criteria like recency of updates, likes, comments, downloads, and interaction with comments should be balanced to determine which addon should be featured at the top.

100% agreed

[Shigeyuki]

@Unlucky-life

Im still open-minded to discussing this matter.

To be clear, the discussion in this thread is already complete and I already agree with the official Anki’s Dae and Glutanimate opinion. So I think there is no need for additional discussion. (In short, my explanations are just a chat.)

So far what is not recommended is rewarded popups, and there are no clear guidelines or penalties for ratings (There is little need to create guidelines). So if developers want to use rating popups, I think they can do so at their own risk. If you are concerned, you might want to ask questions on this AnkiForums.

[suiyuan]

Probably the discussion merits its own thread, but I just wanted to say that, given what developers are saying here, maybe the downvote should not exist in the review process to begin with.

Maybe having two options (thumbs up and report) plus comment would be enough and would avoid some of the discouragement.

[Unlucky-life]

@CravingCrates

@Unlucky-life

The user can choose not to rate the addon and won’t be asked again in future updates.

I think it’s great you added that because it really improves the user experience. I hope you didn’t take offense in me using your add-on as an example, because I think it’s really well made. I was just trying to prove a point.

No worries ! Then I understood it wrong! Thought you named it as an example of how to not do it / having the pop up routhlessly open up without consideration of user experience.

@CravingCrates

@Unlucky-life

Creating extensive “rule books” for addons might discourage developers from creating or maintaining addons. Open source projects thrive because community members are free to interpret and create without strict rules.

I disagree. That’s not what open-source means. If you want to fork anki and create an add-on for it and share that locally, you can do whatever you want, but if you use the official ankiweb server to host and share it, it’s fair game to ask devs to follow certain rules the same way you can’t host copyrighted content or other unwanted decks on ankiweb servers. It’s also highly unlikely that this would scare off new devs. Do you think people create less apps for the AppStore because Apple has Guidelines? I doubt it.

Personally, I feel like that is a main reason for people creating less apps on the appstore. (Often enough people trying to update / make changes to their apps take a while to be accepted - because everytime its being checked by an apple employee. There are very often issues for developers being in mac / apple development - For example the game heartbound is not publishing anymore to mac os - because the complexity and rules issues to create and develop an app for the app store and games for the mac is just to annoying and tedious to them. => ttps://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/15njgdc/apple_doesnt_want_you_developing_hobby_apps/ - One google search shows you how annoying and tedious it is to develop apps for mac os or iphones; ttps://store.steampowered.com/news/app/567380/view/3333161273926236791 aswell as complexity discouraging developers)

Specifically I was clamining that development of open source Community-oriented projects like addons could be discouraged through long and strict rule books. Meaning rather the amount of rules, not rules in general. (Propably on my end poorly formulated)

@CravingCrates

@Unlucky-life

The fact that the code of addons is not always open-source and uploaded to platforms like GitHub could also be discussed when considering how addons are developed and shared.

it’s kinda always open source. I guess you could try to obfuscate the add-on code, but in the end it’s just a bunch of python files injected locally and there’s only so much you can hide (This only takes locally executed code into consideration. Anything happening on a server is a whole different topic).

Thats the thing: Its “kinda” open source - But not really. Its makes investigations and reviewing code a good bit more annoying and tedious. This could leave malicious addons unseen for awhile… (But this is just my opinion) => Things like open development on GitHub can motivate and contribute to more users turning to development (I had 2-3 Users of my addon actually helping correcting code and willing to contribute due to the realisation that addon development could help them learning coding in-general.)

@CravingCrates

@Unlucky-life

There will always be differing opinions on how things are developed or created. As long as users don’t find the pop-up annoying or a poor UX, there’s no need to discuss hypotheticals.

@Unlucky-life

If there are issues between addons or too many pop-ups from multiple addons, users will clearly comment on these issues.

I think these two statements clash.
Say two (or twenty!) add-ons use pop-ups to nag users and the users complain about too many popups. Why would either of the devs take it down when the other one stays up? Unless there’s a decision made above, both will think that the other one should get the short end of the deal and take it down.

In my opinion these arguments dont clash (or atleast were not ment to).
I believe that users would start downvoting / commenting on these issues. Once these issues would be visible and reported, the developers would need to act.

If the developer wouldnt adapt to these issues reported => the named addons will be “falling down” the rating system.

If the developer cares enough about his hard work being used, he would be willing to adapt => so users will keep wanting to use his addon. (A thing that depicts a good developer is how they communicate with users and issues - in my opinion. - I try to be quite interactive with the users and you can see in the ankiweb comments that a few comments name the interactivity on GitHub and response positively).

=> I was aiming to say: That users and developers often enough clear up the issues between themselves already. That these is some type of “self development” between users and developers that are enough to fix these issues. Either developers adapt their addon or users will stop using them. - Again my own opinion - not the gross opinion propably

All-in-all these discussions can be talked about for ever and I believe opinions differ on this matter alot. It might be a good idea to properly find a way to discuss matters that have influence on user experience not only with single-handedly picked developers but instead with the users themselves and allowing them aswell to interact and develop Anki and its addons by voicing their opinions and thoughts through votes. So maybe we should take this thought to the anki and addon developers and think about a way to integrate the community of anki more into future issues and development path.
@dae