Negative responses on suggestion threads

Status
Not open for further replies.
Chris D said:
We're not aiming to do everything that X forum package does.

I've been very vocal about my personal feelings about the XF featureset (even before I became staff) and that is the perceived gap between XF and "other" software has closed significantly. At this stage, I'm not even sure what gaps there are. There's plenty of people very vocal in telling us that XF is missing lots of stuff without ever really defining what that lots of stuff is; that's probably another thread in itself.

Obviously our current position is we're working on XF 2.0 and this aims to increase developer productivity. This should allow add-on developers to do more, more quickly, and likewise allow us to do more, more quickly.
Click to expand...
as someone who used all softwares with busy forums..XF is miles better than anything else
 
The Sandman said:
Theoretically, that's what the suggestion forum should be.
Click to expand...
In which case, yes, the ones that the wider community supports will end up in XF. If they don't, then the community hasn't shown enough support and therefore perhaps it's not functionality we should include in XF after all.
 
Mike Edge said:
It's not negativity, some of us just don't want to see the core get bloated like other solutions we moved away from. It's just like buying a car, you have basic and loaded.. xF core should remain the basic and the 1st party options like Resource Manager, Gallery are the loaded. I would love to see this developed 1st party as I can personally use it, but with that said, it should be a loaded option and not basic.

Current 3rd party ones are both too buggy or lack some required features still. So if your going to pay money for it, it should be bug free, not more bugs popping up with every bug fix patch, so that is why there needs to be a 1st party version, just not in the core itself.
Click to expand...
amazing post
 
Chris D said:
If they don't, then the community hasn't shown enough support and therefore perhaps it's not functionality we should include in XF after all.
Click to expand...
Or the suggestion was posted with a weird title or bad opening post, logically does not gain responses and is moved to closed suggestions and all subsequent similar suggestions are then deemed duplicates and closed. As such all interest in the feature stays under the radar. There are quite a few instances where this happens.
 
Alfa1 said:
logically does not gain responses and is moved to closed suggestions and all subsequent similar suggestions are then deemed duplicates and closed.
Click to expand...
That is incorrect.

If a thread is marked as "Lack of Interest", anyone is free to suggest it again, whereupon it will be treated as any other valid suggestion thread.
 
Chris D said:
In which case, yes, the ones that the wider community supports will end up in XF. If they don't, then the community hasn't shown enough support and therefore perhaps it's not functionality we should include in XF after all.
Click to expand...
Well, that belies the notion of a featureset roadmap anyway.

If upvoting is so important, I think there needs to be a better way for the Community to be actively involved in the suggestions forum. It's far to easy to overlook suggestions when they're made, even if it's something you might be interested in and especially if it's not currently on your radar. Once a suggestion thread falls below the first page of new thread results it's pretty much dead unless someone revives it. That doesn't happen often but when it does it often elicits a burst of Liking. To me, this says the interest might have been there if properly nurtured. Perhaps a running list of the Top 10 open suggestions (i.e. suggestions with the most Likes) in the sidebar or a sticky or something that's updated every time a suggestion is implemented or passed on. Or a 2 tier system where new suggestions need a certain number of Likes within a set time in order to go on to Tier 2? Something to generate and maintain attention on these suggestions....
 
I don't think there's much we can do to make people participate more in Suggestions. I have suggestions from before I was staff that still get likes today. I don't agree that the age of a suggestion matters. If it's good enough, it will be found and it will be upvoted.

Anyone interested in the popular suggestions can already see this:

https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-suggestions.18/?order=first_post_likes
 
If someone wants to see what the XF customers want, he just needs to sort the resources by number of downloads. This gives you a real indication what is wanted. Much more than the suggestions area.

If most suggestions stay uncommented by the XF developeres, no add-on developer will know if or when such a feature may be included into the core. So every developer will think twice about creating an add-on for it. Result: Many wanted feature do not even have an add-on.
 
Mike's guidelines from 2010 are certainly the best resource for those looking to post suggestions. It also appears that at the time, Mike agreed with me on at least one point. :D
Mike said:
When posting suggestions or commenting on suggestions others have posted, it's important to follow some guidelines to ensure that your thoughts are understood.

Replying to Suggestions

First and foremost, if you like the suggestion that a person has made, like the post. If you have further tweaks to the suggestion, please post them but still like the post.

Suggestions can be sorted by the number of likes the first message has received by using the "thread display options" tab at the bottom of thread list. The number of likes that the first message of a thread has received is "shown" on the thread list by hovering the replies/views cell.

Threads with a large number of likes will bubble up to the top and give us things to focus on. However, please keep in mind that a highly-liked suggestion is not guaranteed to be implemented. There may be technical reasons to not do it or it may not fit in with the goals for the product. We will give our thoughts on as many suggestions as possible.

Posting New Suggestions

The most important (and most challenging) thing to do when posting a new suggestion is search for an existing suggestion. Reducing duplicate suggestions helps us see the true interest in a particular suggestion. It's a lot harder to see how much interest there is in a particular feature if it's split across 10 threads instead or one focused one.

Finally, please keep to one suggestion per thread. This allows us to more accurately gauge the response. Massive rollup threads don't help us know the specific ideas that people are interested in.

Also, do check the closed suggestions forum to ensure your feature doesn't already exist. Chances are if you're coming to suggest it, it doesn't exist but you never know and maybe you'll find something you didn't know about. :)

Thanks for all of the suggestions that have been posted and the ones that will be posted. Your feedback is important to ensure that we're building software you want to use. (I apologize if that sounds cliché. :))
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Brogan said:
That is incorrect.

If a thread is marked as "Lack of Interest", anyone is free to suggest it again, whereupon it will be treated as any other valid suggestion thread.
Click to expand...
I stand corrected. But at the same time the main point I was making still stands:

Suggestions get closed because these are a duplicate of badly phrased suggestions which will never gain traction. For a suggestion thread to gain votes people first need to open the thread. If the title does not accurately reflect what the thread is about or if the opening post is confusing then the suggestion thread is doomed.

Any new suggestions will simply be closed or sometimes merged into the problematic thread. In either case its mostly a dead end.

IMHO XF could benefit from solving this issue.
 
Alfa1 said:
I stand corrected. But at the same time the main point I was making still stands:

Suggestions get closed because these are a duplicate of badly phrased suggestions which will never gain traction. For a suggestion thread to gain votes people first need to open the thread. If the title does not accurately reflect what the thread is about or if the opening post is confusing then the suggestion thread is doomed.

Any new suggestions will simply be closed or sometimes merged into the problematic thread. In either case its mostly a dead end.

IMHO XF could benefit from solving this issue.
Click to expand...
You seem to think there are actual cases of this. If you feel that way, let us know (report them). We are on your side. We don't want suggestions to get buried because they are badly worded and we're also intelligent enough to not close down a valid suggestion in favor of one that is poorly worded to the point that it becomes obscure. You have to consider as well, if the suggestion is so poorly worded and obscure, it would likely slip under the radar anyway when we are checking of duplicates. Also consider that we do often tweak the titles of suggestions if we feel they are poorly worded or do not reflect the correct nature of the suggestion.

The only solution to this is letting us know if you feel a suggestion is in danger of becoming lost in obscurity.
 
Chris D said:
submit a suggestion - expect constructive feedback and if you are responding to a suggestion be constructive and try not to get into the whole "bloat/not for core" discussion because we will comment on that if it is relevant.
Click to expand...
I think that's a perfect example point of this whole thread. It's obvious that many feel that too many posts on suggestion threads are un-constructive, but that the tone has been set that allows and even quasi promotes them because they are allowed to bubble and grow, only adding white noise and distraction to suggesstions. I used to watch the suggestions forum to get alerts for new threads and 'like' those that I felt were good, but now do not participate because of the negative and non-brainstorming tone it now has.
 
Constructive feedback is essential for suggestions. But what you're suggesting is that the feedback is becoming unsconstructive. It's that which we can deal with now we're aware that it is apparently a problem.
 
Chris D said:
Suggestions are resolved either by us implementing them, us marking them "Not Planned" (which we post our reasons why) or them expiring due to "Lack of Interest" (this generally doesn't warrant a reason as it's fairly obvious).
Click to expand...
For 'Lack of Interest', I don't generally find it obvious. For example, the most recent RM 'Lack Of Interest' ( https://xenforo.com/community/threads/add-bitcoin-as-a-payment-option.59989/ ) has 5 likes and recent discussion. But the RM Suggestion forum has 'active' suggestion threads with no likes and less recent discussion. With multiple suggestion threads throughout XF for additional payment gateways and payment methods, including (dare I say it :) a wallet system) then by a suggestion for bitcoin with 5 likes and recent discussion being marked as Lack of Interest, then they conveys to me that XF's roadmap is not for additional payment gateways and methods to be added/supported.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RDR
Chris D said:
There is no reluctance on our part to add core features. We take the view that all suggestions are valid until they are moved to resolved.
Click to expand...

I think nearly every possible suggestion has been made already ;)


Maybe it is just hard to "organize" all these many many suggestions properly and it needs a different "structure" ?
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/kam-please-revisit-the-past.48273/page-2#post-518442


Maybe something like "Bookmarks" or "Favourites" ? Or maybe the suggestions just need to be sorted into "Topic-related Categories".
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/organizational-needs-structure-bookmarking-collections.48370/


Maybe put "all existing suggestions" into the RM and sort them by "Topic-related Categories" and "Topic-related Prefix" ?
All Addons are already listed in the RM. Why not list the "sugestions" also in the RM in order to organize them better ?


This is just a Suggestion ;)


:cautious:
 
The Sandman said:
Well, that belies the notion of a featureset roadmap anyway.

If upvoting is so important, I think there needs to be a better way for the Community to be actively involved in the suggestions forum. It's far to easy to overlook suggestions when they're made, even if it's something you might be interested in and especially if it's not currently on your radar. Once a suggestion thread falls below the first page of new thread results it's pretty much dead unless someone revives it. That doesn't happen often but when it does it often elicits a burst of Liking. To me, this says the interest might have been there if properly nurtured. Perhaps a running list of the Top 10 open suggestions (i.e. suggestions with the most Likes) in the sidebar or a sticky or something that's updated every time a suggestion is implemented or passed on. Or a 2 tier system where new suggestions need a certain number of Likes within a set time in order to go on to Tier 2? Something to generate and maintain attention on these suggestions....
Click to expand...

Agree.

Suggestions are easily overlooked... it needs a different structure in order to organize and evaluate them better....
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-reviews.82410/


:cautious:
 
Mike Edge said:
It's known Kier is whacking away at 2.0
Click to expand...
He's beavering away, Mr. Edge, not whacking away :LOL:
Curse me and my dirty brains

Chris D said:
Conversely the entire reason that 2.0 was announced when it was (although we acknowledge it may have seemed a tad too soon)
Click to expand...
Well, things happen. Operations with XenForo are huge, I cannot even compare by community to what XenForo does... but we made the same mistake, on a smaller case. We "announced" something way too soon, users got excited, hyped, looked forward to it to the point of even stopping activity at certain instances. We ran into complications, multiple, during said announced plan becoming reality. Eventually, we provided (so late, that people started comparing that announced material to Half Life 3!) - and the users loved it, but due to the long wait and delay, there was a little "disappointment" - although less, it was present.

I do not blame the team at XenForo for announcing XenForo 2.0 when they announced. And what's done is done, even if the team acknowledge it may have been tad too soon, big deal. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." - and on that note, let people call me a fanboy, ****er or whatever they want to. I have believed, I do believe, and I will continue to believe in XenForo. If I've ever felt true love, it's for XenForo (ok... let my special someone not read this or else I'd be in some deep trouble... :p)

I started out with XenForo 5 years back, yes things in the community were much livelier back then, I mean what made XenForo Community special for me was the developer interaction. I even made a thread saying I love XenForo Community more than my own, and visited it more too, but things happen. It happened with me, as well. My community was left without my presence and communication, it still lacks it in a way but I do my best because I noticed users having that little more zeal, being that little more happier, and continuing what they do best with that little more of a smile on their faces when I am around and I talk to everyone and contribute in discussions. I guess, it's just the love they have for me and they see me or respect me as someone for having founded my community? I can never come to an answer, but in this case - my love for the XF Development team was what made this community even more special. I mean, it's still special, not saying its not, and I love the fact that even you interact a lot, and more often. But maybe the charm that we saw is what the old users miss. I remember Kier responding to a lot of suggestions, off-topic posts, etc. Once again, not saying the developers should concentrate more on community building but meh, some of the complains people have could be due to that.

Anyways, XenForo is a good product, and I could not have selected anything better. It's one of my proudest decisions, and now that my community isn't small and has grown into a mid-ranged forum with 1,000,000+ posts, I will repeat my statement as many times as needed, I don't think we'd have got to where we are if it weren't for XenForo. So keep it up, and there will always be negative comments, reviews or just in general some negativity out there as you cannot please everyone, but you got one really satisfied & more than happy XenForo customer here. Maybe I am a fanboy? - please pass on this sentiments of mine to Mike & Kier too :) I remember sending them a conversation with my thanks in the past, but I'm not the best with my words or expressing my emotions.

Brogan said:
It's done manually (by me).
Click to expand...
If it's done by you, it's not manual at all. What a bunch of lies.

XenForo has the most advanced mod installed, BroBot 9000. Freaking Jason Stathman was so impressed by BroBot 9000 that he copied you.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom