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The Quality of Our Archives
Posted by Michael on 4 March 2004, 22:29 GMT

You may have noticed the low numbers of new files added to our archives. We're having a debate about what to do with a growing problem: Programs that simply aren't very useful to anyone. There are more quadratic solvers in our archives than should ever exist, notwithstanding the fact that most models have this as a built-in feature. Our possible solutions are:

Currently, all files that meet the site policies are processed and uploaded to our archives. Since this doesn't seem to be working well, here are the ideas under consideration:

  • The file archivers could manually screen programs for those deemed "junk", in the sense that they lower the signal-to-noise ratio of our archives rather than increase it. Authors would have to e-mail an appeal for rejected programs. This would cause a longer waiting time for processing files.
  • We could implement a rating system and organize programs by rating. This allows all programs to remain on the site, but the most useless could be filtered out. A method of dealing with new programs and low/high numbers of votes would have to be developed.
  • Our current folder system stops at games, programs, math, et cetera. For ease of browsing, this could be expanded to sub-categories like games/board, games/shooter, and games/guessthenumber. This doesn't limit the number of files added, it only categorizes them so folders are more concise and relevant.
  • Lastly, we could just leave everything as it is now.

We're asking for your input on what to do. There is a survey posted in conjunction with this article where you can vote on this issue. Thank you.

Update (Archiver): We will not be deleting files (at least not this time around), that was never one of the options. If you do want some of your programs deleted e-mail filearchive@ticalc.org.

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The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.


Re: The Quality of Our Archives
nxp1  Account Info

I agree that there is too much useless junk clogging up the system. I suggest we have polls, and people vote for programs. This way, only what is needed, or what people want is kept. Either that, or you could have a section for "bad" files. I wouldn't want to make someone feel too bad about having their work placed in these folders, though.

Reply to this comment    4 March 2004, 22:41 GMT

Re: Re: The Quality of Our Archives
Lewk  Account Info

I agree. I think that there should be a poll. However instead of making diferent folders for the programs based on quality I would just add a little "satisfaction gauge" next to the file description. That way you won't have to put someones program in a "bad" folder but it would be alot easier to look for the good programs.

Reply to this comment    4 March 2004, 23:31 GMT

Expanding on your idea
Doug Temple Account Info

Yes, I agree that a rating system would be very handy, maybe have a system where people can vote on a scale of 1 to 5 stars on a program, and when you view a folder, you can set a filter so that you only see programs rated at a number of stars you specify.

I think this would definitely help people to sort out useful from useless without having to take the time to look through lists of hundreds of BASIC files.

So what do you say?

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 00:46 GMT


Re: Expanding on your idea
Lewk  Account Info

I don't like stars, how about 1 to 5 smilie faces?

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 04:35 GMT


Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
no_one_2000_  Account Info
(Web Page)

Nah, smileys are too corny. I like the stars.

For more flexibility, you could do 0-10 stars :)

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 21:00 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
Lewk  Account Info

Yes smilie faces are corney. It was late at night. I really need to get more sleep

How about check marks? Or maybe just numbers?

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 22:57 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
molybdenum  Account Info

or hexadecimel FP numbers...

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 01:19 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
jrock7286  Account Info

or digits of PI?

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 05:30 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
Final_Epsilon  Account Info
(Web Page)

good idea. :-P This is a calculator site, isn't it?

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 17:59 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
molybdenum  Account Info

how bout digits of G, to show how close the program is to perfection?

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 23:59 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
Chivo  Account Info

G? Gravitational constant? What?

Reply to this comment    8 March 2004, 02:38 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Expanding on your idea
Joey Gannon  Account Info
(Web Page)

I'm guessing he was referring to the golden ratio, in which case he meant rho, not G.

Reply to this comment    9 March 2004, 00:08 GMT


# of programs
Ryan Scadding  Account Info

This still doesn't solve the problem of having 2245 basic 83+ games and 1550 basic 83+ math problems. It takes a minutes to load those pages at school with a relatively fast connection. It takes like five minutes at home. We either need to sort out "bad" programs or sub divide each of those categories.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 18:12 GMT

Re: # of programs
PlaidPhantom Account Info

perhaps items with a low rating for a certain number of weeks could be automatically deleted.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 19:27 GMT


Re: Re: # of programs
ti_is_good_++  Account Info

Yet again, this runs into the problem of specialty programmers with a narrow audience getting their very good stuff deleted.

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 05:54 GMT

Re: # of programs
no_one_2000_  Account Info
(Web Page)

That's what the subfolders are for.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 21:01 GMT

Re: # of programs
no_one_2000_  Account Info
(Web Page)

And actually, yes it does. Say, you only want to view the programs with the highest rankings? There goes most of the files, and therefore, your page to load is much smaller. See? Problem solved.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 21:01 GMT


Re: # of programs
Adam Rust  Account Info
(Web Page)

I agree, maybe programs should be put in order of rank. The one file i have ever uploaded now is near 1000 downloads, which i think is great. If this were to get deleted, it wouldn't be good for me, its like a back up copy for me, when my PC or calc has an issue, which it frequently does.

I use this program all of the time (See link) I created it, and help a ton with geometry or any kind of math involving area. Please look at it.

Adam

Reply to this comment    9 March 2004, 03:54 GMT

Unique IP downloads
nicklaszlo Account Info
(Web Page)

TICalc.org could log the IP from which each downloaded file is requested. If a file doesn't recieve a certain number of downloads in say, six months, it is moved from the main directory to a special "junk" directory. People who download a file and don't like it should be able to remove their IP from the download list. Of course, robots would have to be banned. Perhaps the threshold should be the current uper quartile of files in order of number of downloads.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 00:52 GMT

Re: Unique IP downloads
angelboy Account Info
(Web Page)

But then TICalc.org would have to keep a huge database for every file and their downloads. Besides, would <i>you</i> like to have your IP address recorded every time you download a file? I wouldn't. As well, there are ways of hiding your IP address.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 01:01 GMT


Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
Drantin  Account Info

Um.. it actually is recorded, just in a 'flat' document... nearly every site out there does this... (unless they turn it off... but considering the statistics probably aren't real-time, but generated from the logs, I doubt it)

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 02:26 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
Nick Disabato  Account Info
(Web Page)

That's how we figured out we had 500M requests in the first place! :D

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 15:30 GMT


Re: Unique IP downloads
TI83andTI89Owner Account Info
(Web Page)

I don't like this idea. There are too many unknowns. Take, for example, a file from the archives that we ALL have and love, yet there's no need to download it because we already have it (except for the rare times where our computers die and we need to redownload everything, for example). If it gets removed, then people will have a hard time finding it. There should be permanent ratings on the usefulness of a file as it is.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 15:02 GMT


Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
no_one_2000_  Account Info
(Web Page)

I agree. You don't need to download VTI more than once. Still, I'd like to know why it appears to be downloaded thousands of times per week. That seems a bit excessive.

Reply to this comment    5 March 2004, 21:04 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
joeman3429  Account Info

people just love it that much i guess....

Reply to this comment    6 March 2004, 00:41 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
Lewk  Account Info

That, or someone uploaded a cyberbot to the cite with the sole purpose of downloading it several hundred times a day. If you look close enough you can find a conspiracy anywhere. :)

Reply to this comment    6 March 2004, 03:58 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
jrock7286  Account Info

I have referred VTI to multiple math teachers who now use it frequently in their classes...people really still do download it...

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 05:34 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Unique IP downloads
Eugene Talagrand Account Info
(Web Page)

I think it might be linked to from a bunch of emulation websites -- bandwith leeches.

I've seen links to the page from some websites with no connection to ticalc

Reply to this comment    6 March 2004, 23:55 GMT


Re: Re: The Quality of Our Archives
Nick T.  Account Info

The perfect plan! Leave the current archive alone but make a new one with only Kerm Martin files in it. That would severly reduce the amount of files in the regular archives :) This is meant totally as a joke and is not meant to "flame" Kerm Martin or the quality of his programs. I respect everyone on this website and the quality of their work.

Reply to this comment    7 March 2004, 07:45 GMT


Re: Re: Re: The Quality of Our Archives
KermMartian Account Info
(Web Page)

Then why did you post it?

Reply to this comment    8 March 2004, 14:57 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: The Quality of Our Archives
Nick T.  Account Info

to make a few people laugh ;)

Reply to this comment    10 March 2004, 01:06 GMT

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