Jay
Active member
Really bad, that this great suggestion was moved because of "lack of interest"
Would love to see this in the core.
I wonder whether it's really a lack of interest or if it just got lost in a massive pile of suggestions.
Dealing with suggestions
- Thread starter Jay
- Start date
I wonder whether it's really a lack of interest or if it just got lost in a massive pile of suggestions.
Forsaken
Well-known member
Think it is mostly just getting lost with the general noise here...
There's 75 pages of lack of interest prefixed threads, and some of those are actually things that honestly should be implemented.
The whole like/post to support a suggestion only works if people are pro-active and only for larger more mainstream suggestions. Suggestions that are expansions, or refinement of existing features generally go ignored and rarely see the same amount of support which leads to them being being shrugged off as not popular.
Martok
Well-known member
I wasn't aware of this suggestion until I saw it today. It seems others weren't either going by the number of likes it has - 13 currently.
45 pages currently in Small Tweaks and Features and 9 pages in Bigger Features, it's a lot to trawl through to see if there are suggestions you agree with.
45 pages currently in Small Tweaks and Features and 9 pages in Bigger Features, it's a lot to trawl through to see if there are suggestions you agree with.
I have split these posts off so the discussion can be had.
It is up to the members to look through the suggestions and support the ones they are interested in.
I personally have spent hundreds of hours going through both forums merging duplicates, moving out non-suggestions, etc.
Ultimately though it is up to the members to put some effort in by liking the first post and adding their comments to the thread to let the developers know which are the most popular suggestions.
The developers can hardly be blamed for that.
It is up to the members to look through the suggestions and support the ones they are interested in.
Before the purge, there were many thousands more threads in both the small and large suggestions forums, so it was even more work to look through them.
I personally have spent hundreds of hours going through both forums merging duplicates, moving out non-suggestions, etc.
Ultimately though it is up to the members to put some effort in by liking the first post and adding their comments to the thread to let the developers know which are the most popular suggestions.
Martok
Well-known member
I see these posts have been split off to make a new thread - good call! 
I was just thinking about starting a thread about this anyway.
There are an awful lot of suggestions, too many for users to trawl through to see what they like. Yes, in an ideal world we all should go through them but with real life and time constraints, we don't go through the 45 + 9 pages in Small Tweaks and Bigger Features forums.
So, here's a suggestion that might help. It's by no means perfect but at least it gets the ball rolling:
How about a "Last Chance Saloon" forum for suggestions? An additional forum is set up and each week, a month's worth of the oldest suggestions are moved into this forum. A sticky thread is also added to this forum with a post made each week reminding folk about the suggestions moved into this forum (e.g. saying how many are in there, deadline for liking them etc). Forum members then have a week to look at these and like them and make comments. Any that don't receive enough likes or comments (as determined by staff) are then marked as "Lack of Interest". The rest are moved back to their original suggestion forums if that interest is there. Over the course of a year, pretty much all of the suggestions would have been moved to the "Last Chance Saloon" forum and whittled down, making the Small Tweaks and Bigger Features forums smaller and more manageable for both staff and forum members.
Now you could say that all of this isn't necessary, it's extra work for the mods here (which I admit it is) and folk should simply just look at the oldest suggestions where they currently are. Yes, we could do that but as we know, it just doesn't happen. This would give a bit more prominence to the 'about to be dropped' suggestions, would hopefully get folk into a habit of looking at them in the "Last Chance Saloon" and if any don't get implemented, they can't complain as they have had the opportunity to speak up on these (well, OK, folk will still complain but they've had their last chance, so tough).
Anyway, that's my suggestion. Feel free to like it or shoot it down in flames.
I was just thinking about starting a thread about this anyway.There are an awful lot of suggestions, too many for users to trawl through to see what they like. Yes, in an ideal world we all should go through them but with real life and time constraints, we don't go through the 45 + 9 pages in Small Tweaks and Bigger Features forums.
So, here's a suggestion that might help. It's by no means perfect but at least it gets the ball rolling:
How about a "Last Chance Saloon" forum for suggestions? An additional forum is set up and each week, a month's worth of the oldest suggestions are moved into this forum. A sticky thread is also added to this forum with a post made each week reminding folk about the suggestions moved into this forum (e.g. saying how many are in there, deadline for liking them etc). Forum members then have a week to look at these and like them and make comments. Any that don't receive enough likes or comments (as determined by staff) are then marked as "Lack of Interest". The rest are moved back to their original suggestion forums if that interest is there. Over the course of a year, pretty much all of the suggestions would have been moved to the "Last Chance Saloon" forum and whittled down, making the Small Tweaks and Bigger Features forums smaller and more manageable for both staff and forum members.
Now you could say that all of this isn't necessary, it's extra work for the mods here (which I admit it is) and folk should simply just look at the oldest suggestions where they currently are. Yes, we could do that but as we know, it just doesn't happen. This would give a bit more prominence to the 'about to be dropped' suggestions, would hopefully get folk into a habit of looking at them in the "Last Chance Saloon" and if any don't get implemented, they can't complain as they have had the opportunity to speak up on these (well, OK, folk will still complain but they've had their last chance, so tough).
Anyway, that's my suggestion. Feel free to like it or shoot it down in flames.
erich37
Well-known member
All members have already "liked" the first posts of all suggestions during the last 3 years.
Just sort them by "First Post Most Likes" and look through the "Top 20 Suggestions" and you will know what people want.
Just check if the "Top 20 Suggestions" have already been implemented or not.
EQnoble
Well-known member
I am not arguing that the system is what it is as far as suggestions go and that you like the first post as an indicator and all of that.
A couple problems with that though.
As there is always new members joining the community there will constantly be the need for reminders of liking the first post. In that group of people that need to be told or reminded there will be a good % of people that don't like the first post because they didn't know or remember. There will be some that will get reminded in another thread and never go back to the original thread that they missed the like on.
Then there is the cases of suggestions that people simply don't understand fully and don't want to respond to for fear of looking like they have no clue what they are talking about.
I personally don't really make any more suggestions since the first year here nor do I respond to many suggestions as I don't run a forum and I am just here and to be honest I don't really feel it is my place to make a suggestion for software that other people use for real while I just hack my copy of it up.
There is some cases that I see having real value and in the thread this was split from I can see real value in that addition and in these instances I speak up. Case in point...
But again...on that note...I am not actively making suggestions nor do I complain about functions that don't exist but if I was and not checking the suggestions I would be completely at fault for not doing my job.
In the end, when there is hundreds or thousands of suggestions there really isn't much you can do about making members look through them.
The only thing I think would make it easier would be to add three buttons to the suggestions threads for members to vote on which of course would require a customization unique to xf as a site not included in the software which may or may not confuse people who think that would be included kind of like the footer had some people0 thinking that the big footer would be included.
Anyways.....[Support] [Don't care ] [Don't support] , provides a way of seeing the ratio for opinions of voters. A 'like' or 'not being liked' doesn't give you that much information. There really is no comparison value.
Currently
If I go to a suggestion and like it, it is one more like out of (unknown opinions)
If I don't like it, it offers no opinion or insight and I have to speak up against a suggestion which may or may not piss someone off and if I don't comment my negative view of the suggestion is not made and basically anything but a like is unknown
With the three buttons
I could click [Support] and it is one + out of (X opinions)
I could click [Don't care] which says I don't need it or want it but have nothing against it and it is out of (X opinions)
I could click [Don't support] if I don't want or it could negatively effect me and it would be -1 out of (X opinions)
This would allow you to see an overall % of opinion of people who took the time to reply and if decisions for the software were based on that more people would be inclined to vote be it positive neutral or negative. I know I would respond at least with a click of one of the buttons on suggestions I had nothing to add to or didn't feel strongly either way about.
I am tired so I have a feeling that I will need to be editing this post so that it is readable once I am more awake.
A couple problems with that though.
As there is always new members joining the community there will constantly be the need for reminders of liking the first post. In that group of people that need to be told or reminded there will be a good % of people that don't like the first post because they didn't know or remember. There will be some that will get reminded in another thread and never go back to the original thread that they missed the like on.
Then there is the cases of suggestions that people simply don't understand fully and don't want to respond to for fear of looking like they have no clue what they are talking about.
I personally don't really make any more suggestions since the first year here nor do I respond to many suggestions as I don't run a forum and I am just here and to be honest I don't really feel it is my place to make a suggestion for software that other people use for real while I just hack my copy of it up.
There is some cases that I see having real value and in the thread this was split from I can see real value in that addition and in these instances I speak up. Case in point...
But again...on that note...I am not actively making suggestions nor do I complain about functions that don't exist but if I was and not checking the suggestions I would be completely at fault for not doing my job.
In the end, when there is hundreds or thousands of suggestions there really isn't much you can do about making members look through them.
The only thing I think would make it easier would be to add three buttons to the suggestions threads for members to vote on which of course would require a customization unique to xf as a site not included in the software which may or may not confuse people who think that would be included kind of like the footer had some people0 thinking that the big footer would be included.
Anyways.....[Support] [Don't care ] [Don't support] , provides a way of seeing the ratio for opinions of voters. A 'like' or 'not being liked' doesn't give you that much information. There really is no comparison value.
Currently
If I go to a suggestion and like it, it is one more like out of (unknown opinions)
If I don't like it, it offers no opinion or insight and I have to speak up against a suggestion which may or may not piss someone off and if I don't comment my negative view of the suggestion is not made and basically anything but a like is unknown
With the three buttons
I could click [Support] and it is one + out of (X opinions)
I could click [Don't care] which says I don't need it or want it but have nothing against it and it is out of (X opinions)
I could click [Don't support] if I don't want or it could negatively effect me and it would be -1 out of (X opinions)
This would allow you to see an overall % of opinion of people who took the time to reply and if decisions for the software were based on that more people would be inclined to vote be it positive neutral or negative. I know I would respond at least with a click of one of the buttons on suggestions I had nothing to add to or didn't feel strongly either way about.
I am tired so I have a feeling that I will need to be editing this post so that it is readable once I am more awake.
Forsaken
Well-known member
Yeah I totally didn't mean to undermine your work or anything, and I know it's impossible to see every suggestion. It just feels that there are many good suggestions that get ignored because they're too niche, or because they get lost in comparison to other more mainstream suggestions.
erich37
Well-known member
which is why I have made this suggestion, which I think is more intuitive..... as not everybody knows about our "internal system" here to "like the first post".
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/subjective-seo-with-star-ratings-for-threads.49877/
Jay
Active member
That's funny, I don't quite recall making this thread.
So what happens in the off chance that a closed suggestion which previously had no interest suddenly picks up steam?
Jay
Active member
Wouldn't it make more sense to move the discussion back rather than create a duplicate? Not to mention the likes wouldn't transfer over.
