How can we vote for features?

Question

Your Trello board is great, is there a way we are supposed to suggest new ideas, and how can we vote for existing ones, to help you prioritize?

Comments

Maybe tag this with appropriate tags such as 'improvements', and 'proposals'.  Then the relevant people (someone from the team) may look at it and respond.

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Just a note, I am removing the proposals tag. Proposals are for WikiTree policies, improvements is for Tech Features that doesn't require approval (see Jamie's note below).

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Thank you Steve, makes sense.

Answer 1

There isn't currently a way to vote on the Trello cards, but if we ever upgrade to Trello premium that's one of the "power-up" options. If you see an idea in G2G that you like, you can always leave a comment of support or give it an upvote.

The easiest way to suggest a new idea is to post in G2G in the WikiTree Tech section with the tag "improvements". I check the WikiTree Tech section, improvements tag, and bugs tag a few times a week, and most of that gets entered into Trello.

How something gets prioritized depends on a bunch of things. The number of people that want it is a factor, but it's not the most important thing.

Comments

Thanks for your answer. Maybe you shed a bit of light, without writing a book, on what the bunch of things is for you? That will hopefully give more information about all the considerations involved.

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Jamie, Thank you for sharing, what I consider, very important information. 

What is the best way to let the community know, since a number of WikiTreer's have sworn off of the G2G for one reason or another? (just stating the facts, not being negative) 

Thank you again for the information.

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Thanks Jamie, really appreciate all of the team's hard work, just wondered how or if we can improve visibility to what users would like to see, and the feedback loop related to "can't do that/won't do that because <reasons>/we would like to do that someday/working on it now"

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Thanks Jonathan, I like your idea about the Feedback Loop. It makes perfect sense.

Answer 2

Jonathan, you can propose anything new by posting it here and adding the same tags you used on this question.  It will get responses from members, as well as be drawn to attention of management.  I don't believe that we have any input to the priority determination, for existing items on the to-do list, however.  That is something determined by management, which I expect is based on a combination of manperson- power, urgency of need, and time required to implement.

Answer 3

Gaile,
I appreciate your thoughtful answer.

IMHO, it would not make any difference if there were a concrete way to vote for new and/or better features.

We have all seen numerous good ideas for improvements, even when these ideas are supported by many positive feedback messages. Nothing gets done.

 A better question might be, "What is required to have a new feature considered for implementation?"

Should we have a list of required statements that must be met before a new feature can be put forth to the community for discussion? Yes, we have instructions on how to propose a new feature but like many instructions on this site, it is left up to one's own interpretation.

We all appreciate the work Aleš is doing! He has given us some great tools to work with. He is by far a WikiTree Super Star!

We have some awesome members who have built very useful apps, making some tasks a breeze to work through.

We also have some of the best mentors who spend countless hours explaining and teaching one how to do things properly on this site.

Do you feel like most suggestions for improvements fall on deaf ears? Have you suggested an idea for improvement only to have it shut down without a solid explanation why it will not work? Do you feel like you have to jump through hoops to get anything done? Examples: Post a message, send an email, wait 7 seven days, or propose a merge, wait 30 days, request trust list, wait, do this and do that and wait then do one more thing and wait. We are all adults, we can all read instructions, why must we jump through all these hoops to get something done?

What can we do as a community to make our WikiTree Life a better experience? What can we do as a community to simplify some of the daily tasks we do?

This is not meant to be negative, only trying to shed some light on some possible pitfalls we should look at and improve. Back to the original question, How Do We Vote for Features, (Without getting shut down, flagged or sent to mediation)?

Comments

Thank you, Loretta.  My reaction to your answer is that you're preaching to the choir - I couldn't agree more.  Despite your emphasizing (what seems obvious to me in what you wrote) that your intent is to constructively catalyze improvement, I fervently hope that you do not get your hand slapped for not being sufficiently positive.

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Thank you Gaile. I try to stay positive :) but you are correct!

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The proposal process isn't for new features -- it's for changes to policy.

Anyone can post an idea for a new feature (just mark it with the "improvements" tag). It doesn't need discussion by the community, although it is sometimes helpful to see how many people would find it useful.

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This is venting. If you've been given an explanation for why something isn't possible or practical, please don't continue to request the same thing or complain about it.

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While I agree with Chris' assessment, and I do hear Loretta's conversation about wanting to stimulate conversation, perhaps formalizing how the community can give their feedback (i.e. add something to Help pages that spells out how to add suggestions to G2G with Improvements tag, whether there should be answers with options for vote up, whether voting down should be allowed, timeframes you want tied to it, etc.) would help?

Then even though it's not the only consideration (and understandably) it would help those not in the programming discussions see that they've done their part to help prioritize and feel that their input is heard?