When you download a package from the AUR, do you generally pay attention to the votes or the popularity rating of the package?
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I virtually never go to the AUR itself for anything - yay whatever is good enough for me 
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If I find an app Iâm interested in and Iâm not familiar with it and itâs available in the AUR, I do go and check whether or not itâs flagged out of date. Thatâs about it, though.
Similar to using alternativeto.com, occasionally those stats help pinpoint whatâs at least popular, when reviewing a range of alternatives.
I wouldnât make that the final word on the matter though, itâs just a start.
Agreed. The reason I even bothered to ask this question is I see an inconsistency between the two ratings. Was just curious how users here generally perceive it.
It can help you to know how widely used it is.
It may be useful, for example, when comparing different options for the same software.
yay also shows you votes and popularity. That is what the numbers in parens are:
1 aur/librewolf 130.0.1-1 (+136 4.76)
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Huh, TIL. I have never even questioned what those numbers mean 
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great question except I always thought the +number was # of people with downloaded/installed package.âŚnot popularity etc⌠silly rabbit.
@dalto
so with my ignorance it really mean nothing at all. those numbers are meaningless.
EX:
package A performs well but small following +22
package B performs well and large following +100
per capita whatâs the difference? i.e. no correlation between popularity and performance.
the only number per capita (I know I am using that loosely) that matters now is how many people think itâs a sucky app. then you might have a rounded pictureâŚ
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It isnât intended to tell you if the software/package is good or bad. If you were thinking it was similar to a like/dislike system, that isnât what it is at all.
the notion of âpopularityâ sent me on that good/bad tangent, of course. these numbers still murky to me but its ok
I tend to look at a range of things, whether or not itâs out of date (and by how much and when the last update was/update consistantinty), the comments and if there are multiple packages for a similar thing is when I look at the popularity and votes. Using the combined info is a pretty good way of determining whether to install or not)
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âPopularity is the sum of all votes with each vote
being weighted with a factor of 0.98 per day since its creation.â
It only shows votes cast by people - so itâs not necessarily an accurate reading.
It sometimes helps when comparing similar items though, and votes are weighted down over time which stops a popular package from 1995 dominating the field:
audacious-vortigo-themes, for example, got 19 votesâŚ
if no more are cast, after a month thatâll go down to 10 votes, making it a âliveâ rating.
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Yeah, I pay attention to it and make sure to upvote it if I think it is good. Over the many years that I have been using an Arch based distro. Nothing makes me happier than seeing AUR packages become official packages.
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Donât tell the wife 
Today you get the 
Geek award.
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No.
Most software is a âno choice, no problemâ scenario for me. Iâm willing to take the minor risk of it breaking my system (nothing has, yet), and if it doesnât work, well, at least I tried it.
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For me I take in to account both but I also check the update history to see if itâs the same person under the changes area for a while. Comments are good to check too in case there is a current issue that is flagged that needs fixing. The other is the date, I havenât come across any but thereâs bound to be an outdated package at some point.
And I also have a quick look, especially if itâs a new package I am downloading, the PKGBUILD so see what it does to see if there are any obvious issues, if an updated package you can see the changes made to it. It doesnât necessarily mean the issue is malicious, sometimes mistakes can potentially happen when making them. Even Steam wasnât immune to a mistake, such as wiping out the whole OS.
And if someone wants to then I also check the upstream URL to double check.
It seems like a lot, but quite quick for me to do now, mostly for new packages. If itâs any relief I havenât come across a single dodgy program yet. But itâs not like this isnât an issue with any other package, I just like checking this stuff since I can and itâs transparent while on windows I couldnât.
If Iâm mistaken someone will let me know, I donât exactly do this often as I donât download packages all the time.
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Yes, once you get used to doing this, it is very fast to do some basic checks.
I have never found anything malicious, but I do occasionally find packages using unofficial upstream sources which I avoid.
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Iâm a bit late for this reply, but good you mentioned this. I mentioned I checked the upstream URL source but not what I checked for.
I usually take into account both metrics, like pikaur does by default when it shows package list.