Customers Voting on New Features

[Anthony.]

Can we have a voting system in place where the customers would vote on a wish list for future features in order of priority?

The developers would then approve the new requests and deliver them at a specified time or explain why it can't be implemented etc. :rolleyes:

[Collin S.]

Can we have a voting system in place where the customers would vote on a wish list for future features in order of priority?

The developers would then approve the new requests and deliver them at a specified time or explain why it can't be implemented etc. :rolleyes:

The feedback forum already serves much of this goal - the features that get requested the most are seen as the ones people want the most. :thumbsup:

[Anthony.]

The feedback forum already serves much of this goal - the features that get requested the most are seen as the ones people want the most. :thumbsup:

Understood but do we have a running list pinned anywhere ? :rolleyes:

[Collin S.]

Understood but do we have a running list pinned anywhere ? :rolleyes:

The running list is essentially the list of topics. Staff usually reply at some point to most of the feedback topics that are posted. :thumbsup:

[Anthony.]

The running list is essentially the list of topics. Staff usually reply at some point to most of the feedback topics that are posted. :thumbsup:

Understood but the customers are not really voting on this list now are they ? ... even though we pay all the bills and salaries :rolleyes::whistle:

[Collin S.]

Understood but the customers are not really voting on this list now are they ? ... even though we pay all the bills and salaries :rolleyes::whistle:

When you give a +Rep to the topic starter, or reply saying "me too" the staff reads this and understands that more people want it. We put alot more value in someone explaining why they need something then just a "yes" vote. You are more than welcome to start polls if you wish, but the majority of people prefer to start topics and discuss it. :thumbsup:

[Anthony.]

When you give a +Rep to the topic starter, or reply saying "me too" the staff reads this and understands that more people want it. We put alot more value in someone explaining why they need something then just a "yes" vote. You are more than welcome to start polls if you wish, but the majority of people prefer to start topics and discuss it. :thumbsup:

Understood but this running list would be prioritized by the customers.

Example ... IP.Classifieds was announced in January ... its still not out ?? ... why ?

Who is setting the priorities ? ... it doesn't seem to be the customers in my humble opinion.

The usefulness of the list would include rough dates on when to expect to roughly expect feature releases and modified by IPS if plans change.

This way we the customer can plan our work better.

[Enkidu]

Understood but this running list would be [u]prioritized by the customers[/u].

Example ... IP.Classifieds was announced in January ... its still not out ?? ... why ?

Who is setting the priorities ? ... it doesn't seem to be the customers in my humble opinion.

All ANY forum developer has to do is to deliver what customers want and this means to LISTEN to us.

Sure the developers can show us what they like and what can be done but they need to take our suggestions into account.

The developer that does this the best at a fair price WINS.

At this point, no question about it ... IPB is KING. :rolleyes:

:whistle:

[Anthony.]

:whistle:

It doesn't mean there is no room for improvement :whistle:

VB had the same problem ... they were asked for certain features that were implemented YEARS later.

Do you want IPB to do the same ?

[Enkidu]

It doesn't mean there is no room for improvement :whistle:

VB had the same problem ... they were asked for certain features that were implemented YEARS later.

Do you want IPB to do the same ?

understood but I'm just shocked that it took you less than 20 minutes to contradict yourself <_<

[Collin S.]

Understood but this running list would be [u]prioritized by the customers[/u].

Example ... IP.Classifieds was announced in January ... its still not out ?? ... why ?

Who is setting the priorities ? ... it doesn't seem to be the customers in my humble opinion.

The usefulness of the list would include rough dates on when to expect to roughly expect feature releases and modified by IPS if plans change.

This way we the customer can plan our work better.

IP. Classifieds is a 3rd party addon - not an IPS product. We have nothing to do with it.

[Anthony.]

IP. Classifieds is a 3rd party addon - not an IPS product. We have nothing to do with it.

oh :ph34r: LOL ... I still think a running feature list with priorities and expected dates is needed.

[Collin S.]

oh :ph34r: LOL ... I still think a running feature list with priorities and expected dates is needed.

Following the company blog is the best place to get updates on what is going on. :thumbsup:

[Anthony.]

Following the company blog is the best place to get updates on what is going on. :thumbsup:

Collin ... no voting system = no democracy ... I still love IPB though ... thanks :)

[Collin S.]

Collin ... no voting system = no democracy ... I still love IPB though ... thanks :)

You can have democracy without voting. We have hundreds of posts in the feedback and suggestions area. Allowing everyone to post and provide input is more democracy than just a vote. :thumbsup:

[Anthony.]

You can have democracy without voting. We have hundreds of posts in the feedback and suggestions area. Allowing everyone to post and provide input is more democracy than just a vote. :thumbsup:

Collin ... if that were true democratic countries would never count the votes. :)

[Stars25]

Collin ... if that were true democratic countries would never [u]count[/u] the votes. :)

I'm sorry, but are you really comparing a forum software company to a country? Come on, really...that's a little exaggeration in my opinion.

[Lindy]

Well, to be honest - it's not a democracy. :lol:

Seriously though - the reason we couldn't implement such a system is because not all "votes" would be counted. Surprisingly, the folks that use this forum are actually the minority of our userbase. The vast majority don't visit here and instead provide feedback via other mediums, such as tickets/e-mails. When implementing a feature or change, we have internal procedures in place to ensure that it will benefit the masses and that doesn't always coincide with the wants and needs of those who peruse the feedback forum, unfortunately.

We do get a lot of great feedback from this forum though and implement as much as we can - keep them coming! :)

[Anthony.]

I'm sorry, but are you really comparing a forum software company to a country? Come on, really...that's a little exaggeration in my opinion.

Is the customer King or not ? :D

[Anthony.]

Well, to be honest - it's not a democracy. :lol:

Seriously though - the reason we couldn't implement such a system is because not all "votes" would be counted. Surprisingly, the folks that use this forum are actually the minority of our userbase. The vast majority don't visit here and instead provide feedback via other mediums, such as tickets/e-mails. When implementing a feature or change, we have internal procedures in place to ensure that it will benefit the masses and that doesn't always coincide with the wants and needs of those who peruse the feedback forum, unfortunately.

We do get a lot of great feedback from this forum though and implement as much as we can - keep them coming! :)

Lindy I hear everything you are saying ... I think a voting system would increase participation in the proper direction ... I only say

this after seeing first hand how VB (Jelsoft days) implemented requested features YEARS after the fact ... I do appreciate your response and on a Sunday too !

You have a GREAT company btw and I'm a happy customer :D

[Wolfie]

The thing to keep in mind is that a voting system would be very hard to implement. As a customer, I've tried it myself. I asked fellow members to toss in feature suggestions and then after a pile of them, I created another topic with a poll to see which things people wanted the most. There were some options that stuck out, but in the long run, it's hard to include a fair sampling of requests and get a reliable vote.

If you let everyone vote for everything that they'd like, some people might vote for everything, which would defeat the purpose in itself. If you limit them to voting for only one item, then obviously they'd vote for the topic closest to anything they've suggested.

There are some features that get suggested and make it into the very next release and while it may be a very minor feature or adjustment to an existing feature, it's a nice surprise. Then there are others that unfortunately do take years to be put in, but IPS has to consider many things. Resources available for programming and design, the affect it will have on the resources that customers use (server speed, memory, storage, etc), how long it will take to actually implement and debug, checking for possible security issues, etc. That's just for creating one feature that takes more than just a couple of lines of code. Imagine the effort of hundreds (if not thousands) of features, not only the features that many consider to be standard now a days, but the extra features that people never thought of before or never need but it's there because others use it or features that help to make it more universally usable for people you never really thought about before. The way it's designed is to try to be as versatile as possible, so that there can be literally tens of thousands of variations of settings, designs and content, with all of those communities being popular in their own right.

So just saying, "I am customer, hear me roar" doesn't mean that things must change instantly for you. If one customer says that IPS has to keep things the way they are and another says that they need to change things, then which customer is right?

The best advice I can give is that if you have a suggestion, post it in the feedback forum and hope that others who see it will like your suggestion and give it endorsement and say that they also would like it included.

I made a suggestion to have a favorites/bookmarking feature for posts, so that members could tag a post as a favorite and then be able to look up and return to those favorites later. It's a feature that got a lot of positive feedback but so far hasn't been added. To me and others, yes, it sounds like it should be relatively easy to add. However in reality, it's a feature that would need to be discussed to decide how it should be implemented, how it should work, what control the admin should have over it, how to make it easier to integrate with the other apps and available for 3rd party apps, etc. It's not just as simple as typing up some code and poof, it's in. Also, despite how many people liked it, as was mentioned, there are others who give feedback outside of the forums and many of those may have similar requests that show more need than a single topic.

IPS has done its best to try to provide a stable product with many of the features that we want while trying to keep it both usable for businesses and attractive to hobbyists and casual people alike.

[bfarber]

Quite honestly, a poll with 100 votes doesn't necessarily mean the feature should (or should not) be added. I would recommend to simply focus on YOUR feedback - submit a topic detailing your ideas and suggestions and I promise you, someone here will read it. I almost certainly will as I read every single topic in the feedback forums here. Just because we don't reply doesn't mean we don't see it. I quite often add in little suggestions that I've picked up here and there that absolutely no one replied to or "repped", but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea. Similarly, there are suggestions that get a lot of support but aren't as simple as throwing some code into a new module to implement and thus take longer.

Polls aren't a fair indication of what is needed. Just post your ideas - we will evaluate them, I assure you. :)

[Lindy]

By the way, Anthony - thank you for your kind words. :)

[Jυra]

Voting makes the reasoning behind something count less.

[iozay]

There is a difference between what we want and what we require. :lol: