We (the PowerShell community) need to have a conversation about how the current default sorting algorithms in the gallery affect the development community (module authors) and user's perceptions of popularity and quality.
Currently the PowerShell gallery highlights the "Top" modules by download count:
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/192942/47049086-463de480-d16a-11e8-8c0e-776f58bd7b64.png)
This table is ruled by modules which are needed in Builds, CI, test automation, and to a lesser degree, automation of the environments needed for those activities. Modules which get picked up and used in builds will float straight to the top.
The system is inherently exploitable: all you need to do is set up a build on an Azure Pipeline that runs on a schedule and downloads a module each time ... the gallery doesn't care that all the downloads come from one build server because in fact, most of the downloads do come from a relatively small number of servers.
The problem with this is that the community's perception of module popularity is being governed not by how many users a module has, or how useful it is, or how many commands it has that people use every day, but by whether or not it has a command that is useful in builds, continuous integration, or continuous deployment/testing.
Modules that aren't used in CI processes are simply never going to show up in the "Top" module list, and are handicapped relative to other modules in search results as well (although the default search is sorted by "relevance", it's not clear what the "popularity" metric is using #31).
As a consequence, we are strongly encouraging PowerShell module authors to focus on CI modules and management installs and testing, rather than on management of production resources -- and to produce modules that work from build servers and required installation oneach server, rather than modules that work from your desktop....
What else do you see?