Negative responses on suggestion threads

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RDR said:
Doesn't speak to anything being discussed in this thread really, does it? Your quote of Brogan also doesn't add anything.
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You asked this:

RDR said:
Can you point me to where this is explained?

Because I have always been under the impression that if we want something that someone suggests, we are to like the first post. Nothing more, nothing less.

@3rd AnGle summed up my feelings here perfectly.
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RDR said:
Can you point me to where this is stated by the company that it makes a difference with the discussion below a first post suggestion?
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My response answers your questions.
 
OK, here's the what that thread you linked to says:

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.
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It is speaking to the suggesting person. ZERO is said in there about others opinions.
 
TwistedMerlin said:
Actually, that's exactly what it is, given that the devs implement a lot of suggestions based on how much/if any, support the suggestion his.
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Actually, that's not exactly what it is. It's been made clear by the company that the number of "likes" don't translate to "done". Hence, in the later part of that same statement, i said the methodology may seem like it. or the below statement if i am wrong. Right now, i don't see XF seeking downvote, or dislikes or -1s. If that was a part of the methodology i would completely agree with you.
3rd AnGle said:
Perhaps, the company should make it very clear of their methodology
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Here's how i understand the suggestion methodology works:

  1. Paying customers suggests a feature (communicating directly to the company, not seeking public support.)
    • Company reviews the suggestion and decides whether to implement or not (through addons or as a part of core)'
    • Company, for their convenience, may consider "likes" as metric to determine the priorities or perhaps the importance level too.
    • Company also want others to suggest if they want tweaks to the suggested features. (that's positive)

If you were the CEO of a big company, what would you do to nurture the positive spirit of the community your business revolves around? This is a company/business forum, i come here to interact with the company or other addon developers to enhance my community. And i will take whatever my developers think is the best as far as the product code is concerned because i know they know better than me in that regard.

BUT, i get turned off when fellow members jumped in to say "my opinion is that your opinion is not good for US, it should be 1st-3rd party addon coz it's for you or the minority". I mean how do you even come to the conclusion that
  1. It will bloat the product
  2. There are better things the developers should spend their time on
  3. People don't want to pay for the addon, they want to have it free
Even if the above statements are true, it is only the company's business to decide, for they know what's best for their product. Letting other customers speak the above to me (other customers) discourages me to take part in this forum. I am sure there are many who feels the way i do.
 
RDR said:
It is speaking to the suggesting person. ZERO is said in there about others opinions.
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No it's not, it's speaking to those who read a suggestion and have further tweaks to suggest. That's clear by the fact it says:

If you have further tweaks to the suggestion, please post them but still like the post.
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You can't of course like your own post.

The quote from Brogan also makes it clear that all replies, both for and against, are valid. As he is a XenForo representative we can take this as being correct.
 
I am against your interpretation.

If you have further tweaks to the suggestion, please post them but still like the post.
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Martok said:
You can't of course like your own post.
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This implies then that to post a tweak, it should be positive by nature because you can't like a suggestion if you are against it.

I win.

:)
 
Saying something shouldn't be in the core has been going on for ages, literally even before XF 1.0 was released to the public. If the XF team didn't want any comments other than positive feedback or tweaks to the original suggestion then I'd assume they would have updated the rules by now to be very specific. Just my take on it :D

Someone should make a suggestion for XF to change the rules / enforce the loosely worded thread from 5 years ago. Of course, I'd reply saying I wouldn't want it in the core, oh crap wrong thread haha :D (jk)
 
RDR said:
I am against your interpretation.





This implies then that to post a tweak, it should be positive by nature because you can't like a suggestion if you are against it.

I win.

:)
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Let's keep this mature, shall we? :)

Your interpretation is incorrect as you have forgotten about Brogan's post:

Brogan said:
I was explaining why all responses on a thread are valid.

That has been the same since day 1.
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All responses meaning both those for and against a suggestion (or positive and negative as he refers to them in his post before that).
 
Wanting a one way street isn't very fair. Other customers have a right to voice their views in a civil matter against things they want to see added to the product just as much as a customer who wants to see an idea added. "Bloating the core" isn't just a lame excuse as several are trying to imply. Reality is the more functions you add, the more bloat your going to build. As far as bloat, I like the direction Flarum is going with it via extensions, even extra features like example likes, social media logins, bbcodes etc are all extensions and you can disable any extension you don't want used.
 
Saying something shouldn't be in core because you consider it bloat seems perfectly fine criticism to me.

As soon as suggestions are labelled stupid, or that no one wants it, sarcasm, passive aggressive comments or goes outside the realm of respectful discussion then it should be so hard to imagine that this does stop people from posting.
 
Martok said:
The quote from Brogan also makes it clear that all replies, both for and against, are valid. As he is a XenForo representative we can take this as being correct.
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I disagree, I have seen negative posts against a suggestion (one of mine) which are not valid because those posts misconstrued or missed the point of the suggestion.

Kind of makes me think "why bother?"
 
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Mr Lucky said:
I disagree, I have seen negative posts against a suggestion which are not valid because those posts misconstrued or missed the point of the suggestion.
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That's fair enough, those aren't valid. However most replies against a suggestion aren't these and so they are valid.

I don't see a problem with people voicing opposition to a suggestion as long as they are civil in their response and say why. Saying something is better as an add-on or is niche isn't a criticism of the suggestion itself, it's that person's belief that the suggestion would only benefit a small number of customers, just as the person suggesting believes it would be beneficial to a majority of customers. :)
 
SneakyDave said:
It's not passing judgement, it's members providing opinions. Everybody is a customer here, whether they make a suggestion or not. If somebody wants to make a suggestion that I don't personally care for, shouldn't I or other members be able to voice their opinion about it? Or are people so sensitive that they think a dissenting opinion will hurt their chances of getting the suggestion implemented?

I may not want the devs wasting their time on something that can better be used on the existing code base, or cause more bugs to be introduced.
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Sir, as an example, saying
  • don't waste time on this, better things to do
  • more bugs to be introduced
with regards to someone else's suggestion on a company forum is not an opinion. It is a judgement, unsolicited one at that, that destroys the positive spirit of Xenforo as a brand. Let's not forget this is a business/tech product forum and the developers know best whether something will bloat, introduce bugs, waste their time or not.

The first line of communication is between the company (also addon devs) and the customer. Other customers, if they have any constructive values to add by all means do it but if the come between me and the company to say "your input is not worth it" it kills the spirit.

Let the company decide whether it is worth or not, that's all i am saying. I hope @Kier @Ashley @Mike @Chris D come out and show their business acumen. There is evidence that people are not encouraged to take part in product ideation.
 
Martok said:
Saying something is better as an add-on or is niche isn't a criticism of the suggestion itself, it's that person's belief that the suggestion would only benefit a small number of customers
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You have no clue of knowing that a suggestion is of little use to anyone. No clue at all. If over a dozen users vote for the suggestion within hours, then clearly such statement is invalid and only serves to dissuade.

The voting system is there to measure demand. Unless you think you are are clairvoyant, you cannot know if there is demand or not.
 
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I feel unless supportive, any "not on board" feedback should always be contrsuctive as to why. Any thing else is just pointless.
 
Alfa1 said:
It is in no way constructive when suggestions are labelled unwanted or niche, need to be defended, become a Yes/No argument, attract passive aggressive comments, sarcasm to the point of being trolled and needing to give up. It's quite ridiculous when you need to ask for the feature request to be deleted because it gets too much.

AFAIK this is the feature request section of an official company website, to collect useful ideas for improvement of a great platform. But its often responded to as if its another discussion forum to vent frustrations or to diss others.

People should not be afraid to post suggestions or addons on xenforo.com but it has already come to that point. There are plenty of people who stopped posting suggestions or anything at all here. Where developers move on, do not even dare to start on XF or make their addons privately released only. Its regrettable that the XF platform needs to suffer from this.
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This. +1
 
I think the issue is that yes, niche type items may be popular amongst a small niche - and one supports the idea by LIKING the first post, and you may quickly see 15 likes - but there is no mechanism for those other 200-500 that are not of the niche to disagree - that's where an upvote/downvote system would be nice. As was stated earlier, a LOT of these could be resolved by XF2 using a modular aspect with a known API interface. Those modules could be sold as 1st party (or 3rd party) for those niche's that need them and for those that don't, the additional code needed would not become part of the core and allow an admin to streamline their site performance based upon the modules they needed.
 
No one should ever feel deterred from posting suggestions here. Suggestions are extremely important, but also the discussion that surrounds them can be just as important too.

I can understand why a person may take it personally to have their ideas analyzed, and countered, but the discussion surrounding a suggestion doesn't actually make your suggestion any less valid. While the thread is un-prefixed in the Suggestions forum, the suggestion is perfectly valid. We do genuinely read all suggestions and until we close that suggestion it's still up for consideration.

That said, I think people who reply to suggestions should be mindful of their tone and respect that although your board may not use something, it doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't be implemented, and ultimately only XenForo as a company can decide whether something should be core, or something should be considered as an official add-on.

Ultimately we just need to try and ensure discussion surrounding a suggestion remains constructive. This doesn't meant that you should expect your suggestion to only receive positive replies, but it should mean that any replies should work towards progressing the idea, be that pointing out things that could be improved, or clarifying the suggestion, or suggesting an alternative approach to how it could be implemented. This sort of constructive discussion stemming from a suggestion thread can be just as important.

Aside from constructive feedback, as ever we would urge you to report any posts which you find offensive or inappropriate so they can be dealt with in accordance with the XenForo.com Rules.
 
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