Using Ubuntu Brainstorm to manage feature requests/suggestions

The forums are a great place to allow the users to let the devs know what's on their minds, as well as the devs giving the users a piece of mind. A forum might not really be the best place to house ideas which require time to implement or don't require users to add to them. In both of those cases some of those ideas might get lost because some might not bump the thread to the front page thus bringing it back in the light. Having a system that allows users to vote and offer suggestions/solutions to feature requests and such might offer the devs a little guidance on where XBMC should go. I'm not a dev so i'm not sure what happens on the other side of the SVN, it might be completely useless to them.

Have the devs considered using Ubuntu's brainstorm to manage feature requests/suggestions?

It would probably require more overhead than this forum though, but the pros might out weigh the cons.

Here is what ubuntu's brainstorm looks like:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brainstorm/Installation

why? what would it possible add to the equation other than placebo +1 buttons for end users.

spiff Wrote:+1 buttons for end users.

I was thinking exactly that, actually.

well, i can't speak for all devs, but i know for me personally that would have absolutely no influence on what i choose to work on. i work on what i find interesting / i want myself.

spiff Wrote:well, i can't speak for all devs, but i know for me personally that would have absolutely no influence on what i choose to work on. i work on what i find interesting / i want myself.

I understand. If that is the case for more devs, then a site like that might imply to the users that their desire to have a feature (a feature that is reasonable) would influence the devs decision to implement it. It might lead false hope, and other such things.

We don't need the voting aspect, but we could do with something that helps summarizes a feature, and specify the details.

Unfortunately I suspect that we simply won't have folk willing to contribute to such specifications. Many times I've asked for someone to sit down and spec up a feature in detail, but noone has yet taken me up on that, at least on the features that I'd be likely to implement. Having a fully thought through specification of a feature makes it much more likely that I'll consider spending my time on it, rather than putting it off for a later day that may never come.

We'd need someone to take charge of the situation really, organise the features/brainstorming and handle the writeup. Not sure what the brainstorm thing offers over and above forum + wiki.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Cool. Thanks for the feedback. I understand where you're coming from.

The thing with the feature forum I like is that it's for discussions about new features, it's not some stupid list were anyone can add features and vote.


With discussions we can evolve the "idea" even further and developers can post there comments and inputs.

I think what we do miss, however, is a summary of those features. Often things get left in the forum not completely resolved, so there is no firm specification of the feature.

It would be fantastic to have some individuals volunteering to sum up a feature, write up a quick, short specification (it doesn't have to cover everything!) and adding a ticket to trac.

Cheers,
Jonathan

jmarshall Wrote:I think what we do miss, however, is a summary of those features. Often things get left in the forum not completely resolved, so there is no firm specification of the feature.

I think it would be nice if posts could be tagged "resolved" similiar to what I have seen on some other forums, ie., ubuntuforums.org

Between the wiki, the forum and trac I think that the tools are there, but sometimes they are not utilised to their full potential.