KAM - Please revisit the past

[Adam Howard]

I would like to propose that KAM revisit all the past suggestions and bugs which were marked as

• Later fix
• Won't fix
• Can't fix
• Future fix
• As design
• Design issue

There seems to be enough of these that are duplicate (marked as such or otherwise), to suggest that things are not always as expected and clearly could use some improvements. They're accumulating and perhaps reevaluating could do some good.

Most notably the future fix, later fix, as design, and design issues .... As these are where people clearly would feel the most frustration.

 

[Mike]

Later fix doesn't exist, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

Can't fix/design issue are the same thing. I'm not sure why we have multiple prefixes there so I may need to tweak them. These won't be re-evaluated as they basically mean a completely different approach, generally which isn't warranted to deal with a small issue. (Or that no other approach lends itself well to the issue.)

Any as designed issues can be brought up as a suggestion, but the behavior isn't a bug.

Future fix by definition something that will be looked at.

 

[Adam Howard]

Later fix doesn't exist, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

I think there is another prefix I'm missing (don't recall what is was)

Can't fix/design issue are the same thing. I'm not sure why we have multiple prefixes there so I may need to tweak them. These won't be re-evaluated as they basically mean a completely different approach, generally which isn't warranted to deal with a small issue. (Or that no other approach lends itself well to the issue.)

While you may not have intended to go down X path, the fact that these seem to be duplicating (more than often) suggest that your customer base expects, wants, or needs it. I guess you could ignore it if it was only 1 or 2 things here or there, but they're adding up and again often are reported or suggested more than once (repeatedly)

In ignoring this you run the risk of alienating yourself from your customer. I would hope that you reconsider your stance on that. It doesn't hurt to reevaluate.

Future fix by definition something that will be looked at.

Some of those have been there for a while (year or more). 2.0 would be a good idea to maybe address and re-evaluate them (not expecting it overnight).

 

[Biker]

While you may not have intended to go down X path, the fact that these seem to be duplicating (more than often) suggest that your customer base expects, wants, or needs it.

Or, said users are to freakin' lazy to use the search link and actually LOOK to see if something has been suggested in the past.

 

[Luxus]

Or, said users are to freakin' lazy to use the search link and actually LOOK to see if something has been suggested in the past.

Or, the search function is bad.

 

[Paul B]

GIGO

I use search hundreds of times a month and always find what I'm looking for.

 

[captainslater]

What about JIRA?

 

[DRE]

What about JIRA?

I hope this is a joke!

 

[Mike]

While you may not have intended to go down X path, the fact that these seem to be duplicating (more than often) suggest that your customer base expects, wants, or needs it. I guess you could ignore it if it was only 1 or 2 things here or there, but they're adding up and again often are reported or suggested more than once (repeatedly)

In ignoring this you run the risk of alienating yourself from your customer. I would hope that you reconsider your stance on that. It doesn't hurt to reevaluate.

You appear to be talking across purposes here. You're talking about suggestions, but the prefix examples you gave all relate to bugs. There are fairly few bugs that get tagged as design issue that come up in anything but edge cases. If it weren't an edge case, it would at least end up in future fix.

No suggestions are ever 100% dismissed. Even the ones that get "no thanks" would be reconsidered if necessary. We read all of the suggestions, but I'm not going to commit to what's getting slotted in where. For example, we have an internal list of ideas--some our own, some based on customer feedback--that's a mile long and it gets additions all the time. We use customer feedback to help gauge priority. Just because something isn't implemented right now or hasn't been announced doesn't mean it's not coming, but every person's biggest priority is different.

Some of those have been there for a while (year or more). 2.0 would be a good idea to maybe address and re-evaluate them (not expecting it overnight).

That's why they're in future fix, by definition. They need serious amount of work to fix or at least the changes need a serious amount of testing or they break backwards compatability. They cannot be included in a simple bug fix release.

 

[Luxus]

GIGO

I use search hundreds of times a month and always find what I'm looking for.

Because you are a bot that knows exactly what to put in the search field to get the results you are looking for

 

[Adam Howard]

Or, said users are to freakin' lazy to use the search link and actually LOOK to see if something has been suggested in the past.

This is true, but it doesn't neglect the fact, only further supports it.... That there are some things which should be reevaluated

 

[DRE]

we have an internal list of ideas--some our own, some based on customer feedback--that's a mile long and it gets additions all the time. We use customer feedback to help gauge priority. Just because something isn't implemented right now or hasn't been announced doesn't mean it's not coming, but every person's biggest priority is different.

This explains alot. When I think of this on a deeper level, I realize how many forum admins (customers) are not always in sync with their forum users, due to our own ideas of how a forum should be run. What becomes high priority to admins is sometimes low priorities to forum users and the high priorities of a forum user gets overlooked entirely. When they finally do get what they've been begging for it's usually years later, which kind of explains why it takes awhile for some things to catch on in major forum softwares. Thankfully Xenforo is still a small company so the time it takes to innovate or play catch up is very short compared to bigger companies.

 

[Adam Howard]

You appear to be talking across purposes here. You're talking about suggestions, but the prefix examples you gave all relate to bugs. There are fairly few bugs that get tagged as design issue that come up in anything but edge cases. If it weren't an edge case, it would at least end up in future fix.

I think part of my point is that if you keep getting X issue reported, repeatedly, perhaps you should reevaluate X issue and apply it.

• Won't fix
• Can't fix
• As design
• Design issue

 

[Luxus]

I think part of my point is that if you keep getting X issue reported, repeatedly

I think this is a common issue with forums in general.

 

[Shelley]

I think part of my point is that if you keep getting X issue reported, repeatedly, perhaps you should reevaluate X issue and apply it.

• Won't fix
• Can't fix
• As design
• Design issue

Most of that would be eliminated, no all if users used the search but with a recent discussion (in another thread) that has been shown not to happen and luxus said it best (below).

I think this is a common issue with forums in general.

 

[Adam Howard]

I think this is a common issue with forums in general.

Most of that would be eliminated, no all if users used the search but with a recent discussion (in another thread) that has been shown not to happen and luxus said it best (below).

I'd like to see XenForo better than most forum software. Nothing wrong with that

 

[Shelley]

I'd like to see XenForo better than most forum software. Nothing wrong with that

I never said there was ever anything wrong with it. I wasn't really disputing anything you said either, just stating that most people don't use the search so duplicates are posted as bugs, and agreed with luxus that it's generally a common issue with all forums, sites and people tbh.

Join the club, or rather I'll join yours everyone wants to see the software getting better, evolving into a better more mature fully fledged and feature rich (without bloat) product. I agree, there isn't anything wrong with it, and I never said once that there was. More waiting is required I could throw a hundred things that I feel needs attention but know there's only a certain amount of hours in a day.


Again, wasn't really disagreeing with anything you said.

One thing I learned and it was good to read that a "No thanks" doesn't necessarily mean that a feature will never be implemented (if i read mike correctly) not sure that just applies to bug reports but if not then that is a good sign.

 

[Luxus]

I'd like to see XenForo better than most forum software. Nothing wrong with that

You misunderstood. This has nothing to do with the software per se, but with the nature of forums in general.

 

[Morgain]

It would clearly help if duplicates could be merged.
It should be possible to have a link to report a duplicate - maybe just on the first post.
Then moderators like Brogan can whizz search, merge it.
The software could even add a +1 or Like to the OP of the main thread so the amount of interest flags up accurately.

 

[Paul B]

I periodically go through the suggestions and merge duplicates whenever I find them.
There are thousands of threads though so it's a huge task.

Click Report for any threads you think can be merged or archived.

Duplicate suggestions have always been a big problem and still are - in the first few days of the RM being made available there were multiple duplicates, simply because people don't take the time to check or search.