FEEDBACK forum

[Steve Fabian]

Navigating in the Feedback forum is horrible! Once you start reading a suggestion's thread, there is no obvious way to return to the list of all threads. How you post a new suggestion is not obvious, either. Why does it require a "vote" to make a suggestion? I hate it! It is yet another thing I need to actively search to find out whether or not there is anything new, instead of allowing my computer to gather all the news... Back to the days before automation?
--
Steve

 

[TimButterfield]

You may need a vote to create a suggestion, but after creating it, you can take your vote back. I did that when I ran out of votes but had more suggestions.

 

[rconn]

Navigating in the Feedback forum is horrible! Once you start reading a suggestion's thread, there is no obvious way to return to the list of all threads. How you post a new suggestion is not obvious, either. Why does it require a "vote" to make a suggestion? I hate it!

This has already been discussed in detail, both here and on the private beta forum. The purpose of the feedback site is to both prevent a small number of users from hijacking the features list (as has been the practice in the past), and to generate some more interaction among the users about prospective new features. I think that so far it's been doing much better at both of those than the old suggestions forum.

If you don't have enough interest in your own suggestions to invest your votes, IMO nobody else will either, and they don't merit implementation.

It is yet another thing I need to actively search to find out whether or not there is anything new, instead of allowing my computer to gather all the news... Back to the days before automation?

The last thing in the world that I want to encourage is automated suggestions!

You can continue to post suggestions on the suggestion forum -- but they will be treated as 1 vote suggestions, so unless they REALLY appeal to me they'll remain at the bottom of the list.

 

[Steve Fabian]

From: TimButterfield
| You may need a vote to create a suggestion, but after creating it,
| you can take your vote back. I did that when I ran out of votes but
| had more suggestions.

What contorted logic to post many suggestions!
--
Steve

 

[rconn]

You may need a vote to create a suggestion, but after creating it, you can take your vote back. I did that when I ran out of votes but had more suggestions.

I recently bumped everybody's votes up to 20. (If somebody has more than that at any given time, they should probably be writing plugins!)

 

[rconn]

It is yet another thing I need to actively search to find out whether or not there is anything new, instead of allowing my computer to gather all the news... Back to the days before automation?

As I've mentioned to you previously, you can subscribe to the RSS feed and get everything automatically. You cannot (by design!) post automatically.

 

[Steve Fabian]

From: rconn
| Originally Posted by Steve Fabian
|| It is yet another thing I need to actively search to find out whether
|| or not there is anything new, instead of allowing my computer to
|| gather all the news... Back to the days before automation?
|
| The last thing in the world that I want to encourage is automated
| suggestions!

I meant "another website to search to see whether or not there is anything new there". Cf. posts to the suggestion forum are automatically delivered to my system by email. I need not look for anything but the "new mail" icon.

There used to be a website where you could register your email address, and the list of websites to watch, and it would send me email when for each site that changed. Anyone know of a current service?
--
Steve

 

[Steve Fabian]

---- Original Message ----
From: rconn
| As I've mentioned to you previously, you can subscribe to the RSS
| feed and get everything automatically. You cannot (by design!) post
| automatically.

I tried to do that, but I failed. Is there some place we can look for how to get it?
--
Steve

 

[vefatica]

On Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:40:02 -0400, rconn <> wrote:

|This has already been discussed in detail, both here and on the private beta forum. The purpose of the feedback site is to both prevent a small number of users from hijacking the features list (as has been the practice in the past), and to generate some more interaction among the users about prospective new features. I think that so far it's been doing much better at both of those than the old suggestions forum.
|
|If you don't have enough interest in your own suggestions to invest your votes, IMO nobody else will either, and they don't merit implementation.

Are you saying that a suggestion which has all 10 of the votes of 3 persons will
be treated equally with a suggestion with 1 vote from each of 30 persons. That
doesn't seem right. Do we get to argue later that suggestion A, with N votes,
was implemented while suggestion B, with N+1 votes, wasn't? It all seems rather
artificial and in the end, I suppose you'll decide what gets implemented (using
your good judgement, as you've always done).

If you **must** have some sort of consensus, giving everyone an infinite supply
of votes, and allowing each person to cast 0 (don't care) or 1 (want it) vote
for a suggestion, seems a better idea. You could even have an organized
"election day" to call attention to the suggestions that have been made and get
a larger (though still self-selected) response group.

Besides it's navigation difficulties, I don't like the feedback site because it
doesn't promote discussion.

 

[Steve Fabian]

From: rconn
| As I've mentioned to you previously, you can subscribe to the RSS
| feed and get everything automatically. You cannot (by design!) post
| automatically.

I have just received two comments responding to my entries. Alas! Nothing but the response, not anything else in the thread. These came without my changing anything in my subscription profile for many days (weeks?). Does this mean the RSS only send out responses to my posts? Or do I need to use a different mail client to see them?
--
Steve

 

[rconn]

Are you saying that a suggestion which has all 10 of the votes of 3 persons will be treated equally with a suggestion with 1 vote from each of 30 persons.

Nope -- you can only give a maximum of 3 votes for any suggestion.

 

[TimButterfield]

If you don't have enough interest in your own suggestions to invest your votes, IMO nobody else will either, and they don't merit implementation.

While the increase to 20 votes helps, any time you limit the votes, you risk having more suggestions than votes as I did. That the user values the first X of their suggestions to assign each one vote does not mean they cannot also value other suggestions. As Vince mentioned, which provides a better indicator for you, three votes by one person or one vote by three people? I would guess the latter would provide a more valuable indicator. If using the current feedback mechanism, my preference would be for having an 'I support' or 'I would use' flag on each suggestion.

Something like this might also be implementable using the existing forum software. Adding a poll along with the suggestion topic would allow for a forum user to indicate their level of interest and possibility of their using that feature. It would also provide a more standardized mechanism for our normal discussions of topics.

 

[rconn]

As Vince mentioned, which provides a better indicator for you, three votes by one person or one vote by three people?

I'd consider them about equal -- one person really wanting something is as significant as three people saying "eh, why not". (The beta testers are particularly notorious for requesting a feature with the opening "I'll probably never use it, but it might be neat if ...)

Anybody really wanting a new feature better round up at least a dozen+ votes; anything less is only apt to be implemented if I liked it or was already planning it.

In the past, new features have been split roughly 60-40 between the requests and ones that I came up with on my own (sometimes facing the united opposition of my beta testers). Unfortunately, I've never been able to effectively filter the really noisy tiny minority out of that 60%, so many new features aren't of widespread use (and frequently not even to that noisy minority that originally requested them!). That's the whole point of the limited votes -- I'm not going to implement 47,683 new features in the next version, so I want people to stop and think about what they actually need now.

 

[David Marcus]

I like that I can see all the suggestions in one place. And, I like that I can indicate how much I want a feature. I'm only voting for features I'm sure I'll use.

 

[CSGalloway@nc.rr.com]

One site I used to use is changedetection.com - not sur3e if it's still around...
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Fabian
To: CSGalloway@nc.rr.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: [Support-t-2694] Re: FEEDBACK forum


From: rconn
| Originally Posted by Steve Fabian
|| It is yet another thing I need to actively search to find out whether
|| or not there is anything new, instead of allowing my computer to
|| gather all the news... Back to the days before automation?
|
| The last thing in the world that I want to encourage is automated
| suggestions!

I meant "another website to search to see whether or not there is anything new there". Cf. posts to the suggestion forum are automatically delivered to my system by email. I need not look for anything but the "new mail" icon.

There used to be a website where you could register your email address, and the list of websites to watch, and it would send me email when for each site that changed. Anyone know of a current service?
--
Steve