Thread

I think we should vote on that.

Jira.

That’s my one word answer.  :D

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/latest/voterswatchers.html

OK - but seriously - there’s a reason they installed a voting feature. I’ve used it internally. It’s good. Very valuable, in my opinion. A quick google around the net turns up other cases of customers voting on features/bug fixes with Jira.

I believe we’re going to see more and better tools continue to be developed in this area - ‘customer intelligence’ - and we’ll see more companies open up their feedback loop to more-organized input.

There are lots of popular trends moving in this direction right now. The ‘Crowdsourcing’ / ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ meme is powerful, it seems. Digg and its myriad copycats and spinoffs are having a cultural effect. etc.

Kluster is interesting:

http://kluster.com/

UserVoice seems to be doing cool things, too - I probably watched a bit of this clip a couple of months ago:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/20/uservoice-offers-a-better-way-to-take-customer-suggestions/

So, the complexity and nuance involved in guiding a business - especially with respect to product decisions - can be overwhelming, and at the end of the day, a bunch of people sit in a room and say, “OK - let’s do x, y, and z” - based on a whole lot of not-particulary well-defined or organized information.

It’s completely conceivable to me that many organizations - in particular, large organizations - routinely make ill-informed product decisions. And then the world ends up with Windows Vista.  ;D

Disaster.

Other benefits could be important, too. Imagine not having to read the same feature request 100 times? Or hear it 100 times? Or see multiple versions of it asked in multiple places? Imagine not having to close threads because the kiddies on the forums got out of hand with the name-calling, all started over a simple feature request? How much time/effort/heartache is involved in those efforts?

Would something like UserVoice have potential downsides? Sure - it would help create accountability on both sides - vendor and customer. Lots of folks would see that as a negative. I’m sure there are plenty of other potential ill effects.

My personal interests in this concept are:
a) I want better products and smarter, more-responsive (software) vendors - so my life will be easier, and
b) I like the idea of infecting corporations (totalitarian institutions by definition/nature) with a little democracy.

That said, I never actually meant to suggest that EE should look at using something like UserVoice - I just like the idea, in general.

...edited to turn the links into links.

It’s completely conceivable to me that many organizations - in particular, large organizations - routinely make ill-informed product decisions. And then the world ends up with Windows Vista.

Preventing bloat and feature creep is exactly one of the reasons why EllisLab’s current policy has informed executives making these decisions, and does not let customers vote. Feedback is very welcome, and studied closely, but if something is not feasible, or just not a good fit for the software in its current state, or only would appeal to a minority, etc. it does not get implemented, regardless of the “votes” it gets.

To be fair, EE’s open and extensible architecture allows you to easily customize almost any behavior of EE in an upward-compatible way, or add any functionality you need—try that with, say, Windows (on a system level).

Imagine not having to close threads because the kiddies on the forums got out of hand with the name-calling, all started over a simple feature request?

Never seen that happen. This is one of the most civilized and professional forums you will likely encounter on the net.

So, in closing: I think Derek’s reply was rather definite. You’re entitled to your opinion, obviously, but we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree on that issue.

Lets have a voting plugin…lol

...informed executives making these decisions

And that’s what keeps EE on top.

Personally, I think everyone working at EE does it exactly right!
And everyone is entitled to my opinion

I feel like a previous poster - “that’s not the point”.

Ingmar, do you even read what people write? Did you read what I wrote? I mean, like, actually read it? Think about it for a milisecond before you started to hack out your response?

Preventing bloat and feature creep is exactly one of the reasons why EllisLab’s current policy has informed executives making these decisions, and does not let customers vote.

If there exists any evidence whatsoever that ‘bloat and feature creep’ are exacerbated (or lessened) by voting, then I’d love to see it. Whether at EE or elsewhere, I would really love to see it.

And just because EE’s execs are ‘informed’ doesn’t mean that they are informed as well as they could be, of course.

but if something is not feasible, or just not a good fit for the software in its current state, or only would appeal to a minority, etc. it does not get implemented, regardless of the “votes” it gets.

And we can talk about how Texas summers are hot, Wimbledon is generally played on grass, and Italy just got smacked in the Euros—but would we be doing anything but stating the obvious?

Leslie mentioned in another post that i was ‘reading too much into’ posts in another topic - one of which was yours. And that may be true. I don’t know if it’s the way you write, or what, but it strikes me as some combination of rude, arrogant, dismissive, and superior. I noticed the 10,000 posts comment that someone mentioned. It doesn’t surprise me. Efficiency can matter in support, but at what cost? Does that mean you can’t even afford a few seconds to read a message? I love being challenged on my thinking - it’s one of the best ways to learn - but we both have to be talking about the same thing.

To be fair, EE’s open and extensible architecture allows you to easily customize almost any behavior of EE in an upward-compatible way, or add any functionality you need—try that with, say, Windows (on a system level).

That’s great. As another poster said, if I want Drupal, I’ll go download it.

What you’re really saying here, it seems to me, is:

What you think is not important. Really. Believe me. We actually don’t care what you think - we’re going to do what we want, no matter what. OK? Good. Now that you understand that, you can also understand that all hope is not lost. Please get to work on building an extension/plugin/module to do what you think EE should do. Yes, I know you want to pay for software that actually works ‘out of the box’—that’s why you don’t want to use Drupal, of course, but you’re too stupid to suggest a product feature to us, much less actually attempt to influence our decision-making by clearly expressing your support for particular features, along with other customers. You see, the Feature Request forums—they’re good show—but we don’t actually pay attention to anything written in there. You’re so gullible!

The Feature Request forums are inherently voting mechanisms. Every time you suggest something, or bash something, you’re voting. What is the point of stating the obvious over and over again like a broken record?

EE doesn’t vote. We don’t vote. We won’t vote. We’ll never vote. Voting is bad. Drugs are bad. Don’t vote. It can’t help. No vote.

This was fairly obvious even before I hypothesized about a voting mechanism in the first place, wasn’t it? I mean, if a voting mechanism already existed, then I don’t think I would have suggested that voting mechanism could/should exist, right?

Never seen that happen.

I just came from another topic that Leslie closed after it got out of hand. The discussion was about feature requests, and development paths, and whatnot.

One of the many benefits of a voting mechanism is that it provides visibility and insight for lots of different stakeholders. Whether EE’s ‘informed execs’ are interested or not is up to them, but the “drugs are bad, m’kay” refrain is tired.

So Ingmar, if you were not an EE employee, I would just disregard your rudeness, but as a potential customer, I’ll actually have to put up with your rude responses. That’s not something I look forward to, quite honestly.

I think Derek’s reply was rather definite.

Yes - I agree. If someone’s mind is made up, you should not try to change it. That’s the way everyone should live their lives - submissively, and being told how to think and what to do. Brilliant.

Really, I could care less if EE does voting or not. Really - I have more important things to deal with. What bothers me is the dismissiveness - the arrogance - of the responses, or I should say, yours in particular, Ingmar.

What am I missing?

We listen.  Do you want proof that we listen to feature requests? Go read the feature request forum, then read the Change Log in our documentation.  There are hundreds of features currently in ExpressionEngine that come directly from feature requests. 

The staff follows the feature request forum very closely, and the proof of that is in our very code-base, right now.

In any case, this thread has really gone as far as it needs to and I am going to close it now. Thank you to everyone for your valuable feedback.

Hi Shmooth,

While I appreciate your feedback and welcome you to the EE community you have less than 20 posts and joined a few months ago. Yet you are being rather harsh on the long time members and the staff here.

I suggest you take the time to settle in and get to know people you are being rather argumentative with. You’ve had the VP, the CTO, a Tech Support, and the Community Director respond to you directly and give you feedback. That’s how close we listen, even to people with only 11 posts.

As Lisa said we do listen closely and have a Change Log to prove it. As to Ingmar, we love him. He’s a top contributor to this community which is why we hired him. If you plan on sticking around you’re going to have to learn to get along with him. He’s actually quite helpful and has treated you with professional respect.

If you have issues regarding any of our staff you can always .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) directly.