Encourage user participation via a single-line patch to your dist metadata
If you have been browsing MetaCPAN lately, you may have noticed a new shiny red ball ribbon on the left side of some distibution pages. What you may not have realized is that this is a generic feature, and you can add one to your distribution just as easily.
TL;DR: All you need to do is add an IRC resource to your metadata:
- For Meta2.0 (META.json):
... "resources" : { "x_IRC" : "irc://irc.perl.org/#name-of-your-channel" ... - For Meta1.4 (META.yml):
... resources: IRC: irc://irc.perl.org/#name-of-your-channel ...
And that's it! Note that not only irc.perl.org but any IRC network (including irc.freenode.net) is supported.
For the curious the current logic picking apart this part of the dist metadata can be found here.
Many many thanks to @haarg and @oiami for implementing the actual feature, and to all participants of the corresponding ticket.
More questions? Chat with us :)
Musing on the pitfalls of the Swiss Army Chainsaw
Having an IRC link on the sidebar is a great idea, so thanks to haarg and oiami for adding it.
But the current look is too intrusive: I've raised a ticket with some suggestions.
In the ticket you linked above you say (parahprased): It jars visually ... and it draws the attention, as if this is the most important piece of information on the page.
I can not speak for the core metacpan team, but I personally believe the we are over here and want to talk to you piece of data indeed *is* the most important piece of information on the page.
From an earlier comment of mine while this was being discussed:
In my world "Talk to us" is so so so so much more important than say "fork this", or "contribute". We already have tons of shitty code, promoting people to write more shitty code in the dark, as opposed to promoting communication is the main issue OSS has these days. So yes, while "decluter metacpan" is a good idea in itself, please let's not lose sight of the fact that MetaCPAN has an excellent chance to do communication right.
Riba: For some users it may well be the most important piece of information on the page, but it never is for me, since (a) I know about IRC, and (b) that's never what I got to MetaCPAN looking for.
It is helpful for a module's doc to point out where there is a dedicated channel, and all three examples you linked to do exactly that.
As I discussed with you on IRC (where else?! :-), I wonder if it might be helpful for MetaCPAN to have a "newbie mode", which would be the default. The UI could stress different things for newbies compared to non-newbies. I'll write that up separately, after I've had a chance to think it through a bit more.
Yes . this is a cool idea.
as a relative newbie to modern perl, i do come across modules which lack any real reviews so its difficult to decide.
the shitty code another use talked about is such a pain, coz that means i would be passing on the same on to my customers by downloading and using the code base, when there is no clear cpan alternative. This is one area where proprietary scores over perl. IF i were to download a java package with all its dependencies, i can be assured of many things, or at best be insured from causing known bugs to pass on to customers.
Some of the modules are so dated and there are no clear recent alternatives.
I've submitted the MetaCPAN newbie mode idea on a separate issue.