This is an issue I have been thinking about it, changing the sorting to be based on monthly downloads instead of all time downloads may be a partial solution.
What information do you have in mind?
Right now I think it’s better to follow the (github) link back to the source repository and find the changelog there. The source repo link is not required but most packages include it in their package.
I don’t think requiring publishers to create a changelog for them to be able to publish their package will be a good experience. When you publish the first version of your package the changelog is useless since there are no changes yet. If we enforce a changelog then I just think the people that want to include a changelog will do that, the ones that don’t want to will just fake the requirement and even if you include a changelog link there is no requirement that it will be kept up to date.
Exactly this. You list 10+ items that influence which package you will use for your project. People are not going to agree on how important each item is so it’s hard to have a curated list of “the best packages”, regardless if the list is community maintained or maintained by a few blessed moderators. Deciding on which package to use is a hard problem which requires individual research for each project.
