Request: show the star history next to a project's community discussions

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DaisyRegular#1

A project page shows the discussions that have been asked about it, and it shows a star count and a star history chart. The two are not connected, and I keep wishing they were.

The request. Where a project page lists its community discussions, show the shape of the project's attention over the same period the discussions cover. A topic from three weeks ago and a topic from three months ago mean different things depending on whether the project was growing then.

Why it is more than a nice chart. A forum question about a project is usually a symptom of something. If a project gained 4,000 stars in a week and the questions cluster in the same week, the questions are about a new release, a new tutorial, or a new population of users, and the answer is in the repository. If the questions are steady and the stars are flat, the questions are about the project itself, and the thread is worth reading on its own.

What would be enough. Not a second chart. A short line: the growth over the last thirty days, next to the discussions. The project pages already have the data, because the daily snapshot records it, and the growth API on this site exposes it.

The honest caveat. Star growth is attention, not usage, and the weekly ranking thread says so at length. So this is not a quality signal and it should not be read as one. It is context for a reader deciding whether a question is about the project or about the moment the project had.

3 replies

IcarusRegular#2

The "questions cluster in the week of the release" pattern is the real use, and it is a genuinely useful thing to see.

We had a thread about a project in the middle of a spike and could not work out whether the question was about the code or about a new integration everybody had just found. The star history would have answered it in one glance.

Liangke LiMember#3

In reply to Icarus (#2)

The data is already there and the API already exposes it, so this is a matter of putting one number on a page in the right place.

One caution worth writing into the design: the line should be about attention, not quality, and the label should say so. A "growth" number next to a discussion list invites a reading it cannot support.

DaisyAuthorRegular#4

Agreed on the label, and "last 30 days" is the right window — long enough to be a shape, short enough that it still means something.

The chart is the wrong size for that place on the page, and a number with an arrow is the right size. The full chart is one click away on the project page already.