I'm as tired as you guys are of floods of scripts with the same names:

http://userscripts.org/users/54662/scripts

While my proposal doesn't fix the problem (I'm trying to hit things around the problem that will make the problem easier to deal with), it could help curb the users who upload many scripts with the same name.

Thoughts?

Also I think I want to require a description of at least 50 chars. My reasoning is: if you don't describe your script how would anyone know if they should use it.

I agree. But maybe only 20 on the description. 50 is quite long for some simple-minded scripts.

I agree with JoeSimmons. Both of those are good ideas.

+1

+1

+1 - telling a person "you already have a script by that name" could help to reduce the general cluelessness about what us.o is and how it's supposed to be used.

+1 Rather than just telling them that it's a duplicate, it might help the somewhat denser authors to give a brief suggestion/overview of how to add a new version to a script instead of adding a new one.

-Joel

+1
Prefer the 50 chars (HTML included?). The more the better for the readers/users.

0 - This should only apply to the same user, and several characters are a lot if you see it in the "Admin scripts" under the Greasemonkey menu in Tools. Not to mention that scripts can be described with less characters perfectly; as William of Ockham said: "Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything"

Lets take one of my scripts as an example. With this script you can see google's search result in two columns, instead of just one that makes you scroll down a lot to get to the "lastest" results. Is there a better way to explain what it does than "Shows the search results (in google) in two columns"? It has 40 characters (counting white spaces) and i feel like theres nothing RELEVANT to add (and this is not the simplest/easily explained userscript, at all).

The idea (at least mine) of making userscript is to make "our web" better, and not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the Greasemonkey users. If you can not determine what the script does from the description written by the maker, then dont install it. Leave the script writter a comment stating that you didnt install it because you didnt know what it did because the description wasnt properly written. This will most likely make him review the description. After all, we all want to feel useful.

+1

@Pnoexz
Your script description actually has 51 characters (counting white space), so although you seem opposed to a 50 char limit, you have inadvertently shown it to be quite a good number.
I agree your description does not need to be any longer, but any shorter would be too brief.

50 isn't very long, it seems just right to me. And while I could leave the author a comment, I'd rather not have to bother. Is this not the point if uso in the first place - to make things easier.

Maybe 70/80 with HTML?

@Lucideer

Actually it does have 40 characters, dont count the (in google) part as its not on the description.

And feedback is the best way to improve ourselves.

Well... I do welcome feedback. You're right there.

At the same time, if I'm searching for a script, I'd like to be able to find it regardless of how bad the authors marketing skills are (assuming of course their scripting skills are a little better). Better descriptions would help towards facilitating this.

We should never give up on feedback though.

(P.S. Sorry about the jibe on your character count, it did look like part of the description)