there should somewhere be some stats about number of downloads, clones.
while npm has its fair share of problems i like that it shows how many weekly downloads it has.
Download count is a reasonable proxy for use... But if someone is happily using the package in production, that won't tick any download numbers even though it's arguably the thing anyone considering a package would really want to know.
Maybe there could be a new curated repo for packages, where users are asked to regularly vouch whether they are still using the package? The problem of course is motivating users to give those answers. Without a critical mass of users regularly vouching, the data isn't much help.
