Bug 476461

Summary:	In the GHNS dialog, none of the existing sorting options succeed at bubbling up good content to the top
Product:	[Frameworks and Libraries] frameworks-knewstuff	Reporter:	Reuben <kde>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen <admin>
Status:	REPORTED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	alexander.lohnau, kdelibs-bugs-null, nate
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version First Reported In:	5.110.0
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Reuben 2023-11-02 10:38:35 UTC

SUMMARY

The SDDM theme chooser offers as potential sort options: Recent (default), Alphabetical, Highest Rated, Most Downloads.

Average users are unlikely to want any of these. "Best" (or "Hot") should be the default, which is some weighted combination of "most downloads", "highest rated", and ideally "certified to work" (see sibling tickets). Potentially remove the "sort" option altogether.

The issues with the others (again, for average, non sddm theme enthusiast users):
* Recent - who cares? Any garbage could be uploaded most recently.
* Alphabetical - who cares? A user who has one in mind will search. Occasionally they may come to a new install with a vague memory that there's several C64 themes to choose between and want to browse by name, but search (VERY slowly) actually works well in this scenario.
* Highest Rating - I am going to guess there is no protection against uploading a new theme and rating it 5*. IS it more sophisticated than that? If so, it should actually be named something else. If not, it should be dropped, since it can be gamed.
* Most Downloads - this one is somewhat useful, though it really should be sliding window based. Nobody cares what SDDM themes were downloaded in 2014. I'd suggest a 12 month window.

If the theme choosing feature is kept at all (see sibling bugs/feature reqs) then you _could_ make a "New / Experimental" tab to allow new and unvetted themes to be featured. If a user installs from there, ideally you track them successfully logging in to boost the theme's "certified to work", and _maybe_ proactively ask them a couple of questions on their first login. That way the social proof features are actually useful. (How many people are actually going back to settings to rate their login theme after switching, after the next reboot? Vanishingly few.)