The star system is not working and the download count does not seem to be representative of the actual number of downloads.

A system of up voting or down voting may be more effective and tracking the actual downloads via browser and pulls via ServiceStudio would be better.

Showing a "Pulse" that could include download activity over time and publishes over time could also help to gauge the health of a component.

The upvote rating and download/pull statistic should be incorporated into the contributors quality rating which can then be used to infer a positive bias for components that they publish or are involved in. 

Associating and linking professional reputation to quality is probably the neatest way to guide this.

This is just one small part of all the problems that the Forge has.  I documented many of these in my post three years ago at https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/Idea_View.aspx?IdeaId=1554.  You'll notice that it is marked as Done in Version 9.  If you look closely, I don't believe any of these suggestions was actually implemented.

The major reason you see a lot of 'junk' in the Forge is because it is the only way (other than making a post) to allow other users to see or use your code, a result of the IPP mechanism Outsystems has.  If there were a better way to share code you would reduce this issue significantly IMHO.

Curt

also had an idea to improve this:

https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/Idea_View.aspx?IdeaId=2310&%28Not.Licensed.For.Production%29=

Like some cleanup, search on forge section is also terrible