Hi Jay, Jason and everyone - I'm glad this conversation is going on, and happened to start just as I joined this list. :-)
> I'm beginning to get a little worried.
I also vote for some way of noting activity and development of plugins. If there was a way to get a bug tracker for each plugin (maybe something like Esther has for her plugins on her site, or some other specially designed bug/feature tracker), that would be great too. I found it very confusing to try to parse through the plethora of comments at the bottom of each plugin page, each comment possibly including snippets of code and replies and replies to replies.
I'd like to add that I've had similar experiences with plugins, and have to say I have most confidence in Esther's plugins simply because her website is so well designed and appears to be very up to date. Kudos to her for that! The idea of an issue tracker is good. I would like to also suggest that rather than creating a bunch of new infrastructure (custom web database etc) that you instead follow the example of Joomla, which has a very active forum at http://www.joomla.org where you can ask questions and discuss common issues with plugins. I like having a mailing list, esp for devs that need to be in more immediate contact, but for users trying to follow issues and resolutions with specific plugins and features, especially when you're jumping into a conversation and are looking to solve problems that have already been dealt with... a forum is simply amazing. Joomla btw also has a review system which is tremendously confusing - many developers of joomla plugins have asked to have their plugins removed from the list because it turned into a huge mess of complaints, confusing tech support queries, old comments about old versions that had serious bugs that were resolved, etc. The forums are good because they create a history, like the mailing list archives but searchable etc, which clearly shows the level of activity and questions/problem solving around certain issues. Cheers, Tobias -- Tobias Eigen Co-Executive Director Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa http://www.kabissa.org -- DokuWiki mailing list - more info at http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:mailinglist