Forums = not an effective feature suggestion tool

Opera post:

I like the Wish-List sub-forums. They look useful, but they don't seem very effective. I'm new to Opera (last week, baby!), so maybe I can provide some outside insight.

Possible issues:

1) You don't know which ideas are most-requested: 60 replies could mean 59 "+1" posts or 59 people who hate this idea. Trying to count the "votes" on each side looks difficult. Sure, you can implement a poll, but not everyone does and poll answers aren't standardized.

2) There isn't a way to organize ideas: usability, aesthetics, random-annoying-thing, etc.

3) Not a clear way to demarcate that you "want" something. I realize "+1" is the normal fashion, but people "new" to the web don't know that.

4) Little organization for reporting: it's just a single text-box and there are no stickies on how to write an effective feature suggestion. Some people just complain about a feature with no replacement ideas (gotta be aggravating for developers), some "wish-list features" have already been implemented and people just don't realize it yet the thread is still there (hurts searching ease-of-use), and sometimes there are possible band-aids (like an extension), but you have to search the entire thread. It should all be easily demarcated: issue, possible solution, current work-arounds, and status from Opera developers.

5) How do we know if something is being looked into? Do I have to manually search the thread for an [Opera] post, some of which are pages and pages long?

Possible solution:

Check out this great alternative, Windows 7 Taskforce. It's like Digg or Reddit.

• You submit a problem and people "promote" or "demote" it, adding or subtracting a vote, respectively.
• You have a limited number of "promotes," so you can't promote everything. If you don't think an issue is a problem, you can simply "demote" it.
• Issues can be organized by # of votes and type of issue.
• Clear demarcations for the problem, the solution, and the status (along with severity and impact; unsure if useful). It's missing a section for possible work-arounds, though.

Is this feasible? I hope so, because it sounds EPICALLY AWESOME. Thoughts? Vote in the poll!

Thanks in advance,

~Ibrahim~

It has been discussed before, several times.

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=984222

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=297260

Thank you for linking those threads, Pesala; I didn't even think about searching for this (it sounded so novel, lol!). Apologies for the forum clutter.

Nice post on the Votebox thread, by the way.

So. A quick "mission statement" question: what is the purpose of the wish-list forums? Maybe I made the wrong assumption in that they are meant to be an effective, well-managed, community-driven feature suggestion tool. Do the developers actually want just some random, out-of-the-blue, quickie mixing pot for ideas? Or do they want meaningful and direct user input? I realize Opera is closed-source, so it all rests in the hands of the Opera developers.

Being closed-source and up to the developers (with little or no user input in decisions) is totally OK; no judging here. I mean, I'm typing this on a Windows computer, lol. I just want to get the "environment" straight because, if it's not open to user input, well, I have more important things to worry about in life.

Everything is open to user input in one way or another, except in a monopoly situation (where there are no alternatives available) if a developer of a product doesn't listen to their users in short order they may not have a product to develop.

The lack of feedback can make things difficult at times, but they do listen.

Thank you, sgunhouse. I've PM'd everyone in those threads pesala linked; hopefully we can actually move on this issue sooner rather than later.

Some other types of better organized wish-lists: ubuntu brainstorm or Dropbox Votebox.

And, this would be HUGE for Opera. No other browser, AFAIK, has anything like this.

I'd personally like to see something "ubuntu brainstorm"-esque

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Thank you, sgunhouse. I've PM'd everyone in those threads pesala linked

If you send more than a certain number in a short period your account may be banned as a spammer. I suspect that its about 10 PMs with 24 hours. Steve can probably tell us.

Originally posted by Pesala:

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Thank you, sgunhouse. I've PM'd everyone in those threads pesala linked

If you send more than a certain number in a short period your account may be banned as a spammer. I suspect that its about 10 PMs with 24 hours. Steve can probably tell us.

Well, I imagine there is some sort of appeal process, particularly if I'm sending completely innocuous messages....thank you for the heads up, though. I think it's only been 8 messages in the last 24 hours....I think...haha.

~Ibrahim~

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Thank you, sgunhouse. I've PM'd everyone in those threads pesala linked

Spam? Bad idea.

Haha okay... You don't need to PM the people joining the topics, they'll get notified of new responses.

This is an interesting topic, the ideas here are very good (except from having a limited number of "promotes" ) and I like one idea posted in one of the linked topics: "Most Helpful reply". The post chosen would appear highlighted / at the top (I'd like to add the detail that it should also appear in its original place for preserving readability). I was thinking about a "Like" function these days and now I could see it isn't completely pointless. So, to base on these ideas for thinking on how it'd be implemented is cool (the best way to implement..., some ideas wouldn't be possible due to technical reasons, etc).

No one would vote for everything, the most wanted ideas would prevail.

I seem to setting off some alarm bells here with the PMs. First, thank you for the words of caution: I think I am done sending "mass" PMs. However, I merely had sent a private message to the individuals who expressed interest in this idea previously (from the positive replies to the two threads pesala linked) that, if they are still interested, we are making another push for this. Evidently, these past threads had no effect and maybe if we all came together in a single topic, we might actually be able to change something. It isn't spam: spam is sent indiscriminately; this was specifically sent to individuals who earlier expressed interest and are probably still interested in making this change. And, they won't get notified of this thread, though, rafaelluik. Unless My Opera somehow has a system where you are automatically alerted to all new threads in a sub-forum? Those other two threads are completely dead.

I'm simply trying to converge all of these responses (from this thread and others) behind this movement into a unified push for change so we can actually do something. Finally, I do not mean to be rash here, but I think these comments about my posting behavior would better be discussed/resolved in private messages instead of derailing the topic of this thread. So, I will be happy to continue this conversation with any individual or moderator on that front, but....might we be able to keep this topic on track?

/off-topic-discussion

That's true; the "most helpful reply" is kind of synonymous with possible workaround; I like it. However, there could be multiple people with multiple good workarounds, so maybe we can actually "promote" replies within a feature suggestion (kind of how the comment systems at Lifehacker, Gizmodo, and other Gawker Media blogs work).

I definitely like the idea of bringing them to the top. However, on some forums where this happens, it's hard to distinguish between where are the "top answers" and when the chronological answers start. If we could separate those clearly, that would be handy.

That's true...maybe unlimited promotes is actually fine. I think those caps on other websites is to keep the voting manageable, but I don't think that will be an issue here.

You bring up a fantastic point, though, about feasibility. I know little about forum software and back-end, but I do not think it is easy to convert a sub-forum into another type of site (a highly detailed feature suggestion web page). It probably will require a good amount of investment from Opera on either contracting this out or some in-house development...what impetus can we provide to help make that change sooner rather than later? First, I think Opera getting this type of feature suggestion list would be an enormous feature over any of the other top browsers. It also reaffirms that sense of community that Opera creates (because it's awesome or we're a cult...both are fine, haha) if the users have a meaningful way to send feedback to developers.

Oops, sorry, I misunderstood... I thought you PMed the people already in this thread.

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Evidently, these past threads had no effect and maybe if we all came together in a single topic, we might actually be able to change something.

Am I the only one thinking of xkcd 927?
Nah, seriously, something has to be done to clean up the DWL and make it more manageable.

Originally posted by serious:

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Evidently, these past threads had no effect and maybe if we all came together in a single topic, we might actually be able to change something.

Am I the only one thinking of xkcd 927?
Nah, seriously, something has to be done to clean up the DWL and make it more manageable.

Haha, I remember seeing that one. Still! At least I attempted to congeal our interests together, lol.

Absolutely with you...but, it's a catch-22 situation. We want a better way to alert developers to features we want. But how do we alert them that we want to be able to alert them better?!

More apt suggestions from two threads Pesala linked:

• A great idea someone had from the other thread is to re-purpose the Opera bug wizard for feature suggestions.
• Someone in the other thread mentioned that not tallying up vote for a feature suggestion was good because someone's greatest wish could be another user's doom. Or I want this feature a little bit (though I am fine without it), but implementing it will ruin John's Opera experience. I think that problem is fixed as it always has been: developer discretion. If adding something will hurt some Opera users more than leaving it as it is, then leave it.
• There really are problems with DWL: duplicate threads, threads with multiple wishes, threads that actually are about bugs, and the other reasons mentioned in the 1st post.
• We don't have to have a new-site; moderators or Opera staff can create a forum post with a poll on the dozen or so feature suggestions THEY would like to implement and everyone can easily vote on it from there.
• Someone in the other thread mentioned that discussion would slow down when it's just a numbers game. Ostensibly, that's true, but I think it all depends on the implementation. It should be made crystal clear at the outset that features with the most votes are not necessarily going to implemented. Thus, then motivating the developers with good 'ole logic is required to actually move feature requests forward.

Someone reassured me earlier that developers have to listen to their users....but I feel like as if I'm talking to myself here...catch-22.....

~Ibrahim~

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

Someone reassured me earlier that developers have to listen to their users

It's not that Opera developers don't listen. This year they implemented a lot of feature requests-

1. Better Speed Dial - Opera 11.10
2. On-demand plug-ins option in Site Preferences - Opera 11.50
3. window.onerror / script.onerror support - Opera 11.60
4. ECMAScript 5.1 support - Opera 11.60
5. Support for cleaning Flash "cookies" or Local Storage Objects - Opera 11.60
6. Support for Unicode 6.0.0 fonts - Opera 11.60

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

A great idea someone had from the other thread is to re-purpose the Opera bug wizard for feature suggestions.

No. The bug wizard is only for reporting bugs. Feature requests must NOT be made there.

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

There really are problems with DWL: duplicate threads, threads with multiple wishes, threads that actually are about bugs, and the other reasons mentioned in the 1st post.

Let' see one by one.

1. Issue - You don't know which ideas are most-requested: 60 replies could mean 59 "+1" posts or 59 people who hate this idea.
Idea (as proposed by you) - You submit a problem and people "promote" or "demote" it, adding or subtracting a vote, respectively.

My reply: I disagree with this one. Sometimes people post a -1 with a really valid and important reason. This could heavily reduce the voice of people voting -1 i.e. who disagree with the idea.

2. No issue this time.
Idea (as proposed by you) - You have a limited number of "promotes," so you can't promote everything. If you don't think an issue is a problem, you can simply "demote" it.

My reply - Strict disagreement with this one. You might be a new Opera user, though My Opera has some very long time Opera users. There can be many many wishes that we would like in Opera. Even if we get 100 promotes, they are quite less to spend if we are a long time Opera user.
OK, we could get 1 of our promotes back whenever a wish is implemented - but still that isn't enough. Your solution of "demoting" a thread might be actually a forced demote by some users to get some promote points.

3. Issue - There isn't a way to organize ideas: usability, aesthetics, random-annoying-thing, etc.

My reply: No issue with this one. It's fine.

4. Issue - Some people just complain about a feature with no replacement ideas, some "wish-list features" have already been implemented and people just don't realize it, and sometimes there are possible band-aids (like an extension).

Your Idea - Clear demarcations for the problem, the solution, and the status (along with severity and impact; unsure if useful). It's missing a section for possible work-arounds, though.

My reply - No need for so much, in my opinion only the possible work-arounds section should be enough. If people vote +1 to an already implemented feature, then you could report it to moderators and they will close the thread saying 'Feature already implemented. No needless bumping required'.
Plus, Opera developers rarely tell whether a feature will be implemented, so most threads would be having the 'Status from Opera developers' section blank.

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

How do we know if something is being looked into? Do I have to manually search the thread for an [Opera] post, some of which are pages and pages long?

Nothing wrong with that. I find it fine.

1. Developer input: I'm just surprised this issue doesn't have more support. I'm was taken aback how unkempt the feature suggestion sub-forum was when I first saw it. Opera developers obviously are implementing feature requests, but maybe we can increase the efficiency of getting feature requests users really want.

2. Using the bug wizard: Miscommunication somewhere; no one wants to use the existing bug wizard to make feature requests: the idea is to create another wizard, specifically for feature requests...the ideas are then posted on a page similar to Votebox or brainstorm (linked earlier).

3. "Sometimes people post a -1 with a really valid and important reason. This could heavily reduce the voice of people voting -1 i.e. who disagree with the idea." = please see my post on 12/17 (second bullet): developer discretion.

4. "There can be many many wishes that we would like in Opera." = please see my post on 12/15. Unlimited promotes are fine.

5. "If people vote +1 to an already implemented feature, then you could report it to moderators and they will close the thread saying 'Feature already implemented. No needless bumping required'." = great idea.

In fact, let's make this all simpler:

Feature requests (FR) are made to the DWL sub-forum.
A. All FR posts must contain an accurate description of the problem and a feasible solution.
B. All FR posts must contain a poll with standardized answers (e.g. "Yes, this should be implemented; No, this should not be implemented")
C. All FR threads should allow replies to be "promoted/demoted". Like a "most helpful answer".

No need for a "new website" or anything. The only real "change" would be C, allowing replies to be promoted/demoted (which is hugely important), I think.