Sandbox

Was loking at a few extensions today and I noticedthat the reviews are no longer being displayed in reverse date sort order (ie newest first)

It looks as though the reviews are being sortedby the date last updated. This means that if a review is flagged by a user as useful it movs it up the list

This kind of messes up the display and looks odd. can someone look at this please

Hi brian,

You are absolutely right 
This is actually one of the new features introduced on last update.

Now reviews are sorted by usefullness, which will let helpful reviews be listed up front.

I take the point except the most recent review will now be at the very bottom.
on extensions with many reviews there are often reviews which directly relate to previous ones and this is no longer clear.
also with extensions that have been updated without creating a new entry it is now possible that the top of the list reviews refer to an older version etc.

brian wrote:I take the point except the most recent review will now be at the very bottom.

Sorting by date, newest at top, will start just below the last helpful review listed.

brian wrote:on extensions with many reviews there are often reviews which directly relate to previous ones and this is no longer clear.
also with extensions that have been updated without creating a new entry it is now possible that the top of the list reviews refer to an older version etc.

True, this is a side effect hard to avoid. We definitely should have this in mind in further development. Perhaps some indication of which version is reviewed? Something to be considered. Thanks. 

ot2sen wrote:

brian wrote:I take the point except the most recent review will now be at the very bottom.

Sorting by date, newest at top, will start just below the last helpful review listed.

But when you get an extension like docman with 16 reviews the majority of which have been flagged as helpful or not helpful the most recent review is the 5th one on the list.

Yes thats true too. If tex. 25 reviews have been tagged helpful or not in past, then a new review would come in a 26 place.

Good thing is that neither you or the editorial team have plans for Lee getting out of work in updating and improving 
You could imagine someone suggesting: How about letting users of JED choose different views for reviews By date/By helpful/By reviewers that made other helpful reviews/By ?.

We recieve some good feedback and suggestions and if possible the best of them will at some point be integrated in JED.

Please dont misunderstand me and think i am criticising the extensions site or the hard working team behind it. This is perhaps the biggest and most valuable resource created for the community.

It is what makes joomla different from the rest!!!!

Dont worry brian, I did get that 
Just chatting and encouraging you to continue providing important and highly appreciated feedback.

Thanks for the kind words

Hello Brian,

Clarification: The current review ordering is sorted by 'helpfulness'. The review with the most helpful vote will be rated higher than the rest.

The logic behind the recent change in review ordering is:

1. We want to have the most helpful review on top, and not the most recent one, which we think is more helpful to casual browser looking for extensions. Ideally, a review should be read independent of other reviews.
2. The review system is not a comment system. Previously when sorted by date, a lot of reviews are making comment to each other making it look like a discussion board. JED is not the correct place for this. Sorting by helpfulness will hopefully discourage them from turning JED to a discussion board.
3. Sorting by helpfulness will help users to separate the noise from the signals.

It's not a perfect system yet but I think we're heading the right direction. As always, suggestions are welcome

I do undrstand and i guess it makes sense especialy in the long run. what we need to do now is to encourage people to mark the reviews helpful etc.i know i will do it more now.

Indeed, there is not as much participation as I anticipated which I believe is due to the 'Yes/No' links not available when user is not logged in. I'm planning to make the link visible to non-logged in user in the future to encourage them to register.