Given the above, I’d like to suggest a way that we (eM/C general users & paid clients) can express explicit, trackable, measurable support for feature and enhancement requests within this forum framework. It is not intended to address bugs and break/fix issues.
I think Discourse allows for “categories” (e.g. “Mail”, “Feature Request”, etc. items in that dropdown box up there on the right when you create a new thread) that only approved users (in this case I have the forum moderator group in mind) can actually create threads or post. It also allows for polls, although that ability does not appear enabled yet on eM/C forums. (see meta[dot]discourse[dot]org/t/how-to-create-polls/77548)
So…we already have the “Feature Request” category, but as anyone registered on this site can post in them, those threads can take a bit of a random walk, as well as extend over long periods of time. So I am proposing a new category in which only moderators/curators (of requests) can create threads or post in. The spirit of the category would be along the line of "requests for features/enhancements made and discussed in the ‘Features Request’ category that eM/C developers and/or product managers accept as reasonable and feasible"
A request that is not feasible might be something like: “I am tired of keyboarding and mousing around in eM/C…please provide a telepathic interface!” It may spawn interesting discussion, but not worth adding to the curated category since it is not really doable (at least with current technology).
A request that is not reasonable might be something like: “I like being able to have formatting in my messages, but I don’t like composing/editing in wonky HTML editors…please provide a choice to use RTF.” The eM/C team might respond with “while we get that not everyone like HTML for editing, we have made a specific design/implementation choice to go with HTML and proving a second or third approach would require re-working/re-design of some fundamental aspects of eM/C. We choose not to direct our limited resources in that direction”.
Requests that are then deemed both feasible and reasonable can have a thread opened in the new curated category by a product manager or moderator. This post should have a clear description of the feature/enhancement request, I assume gleaned from the original post and following discussion in the “Feature Request” category, plus a standard poll with however many choices are settled on by eM/C product managers/request curators…something like" 1) Would be very useful to me; 2) Would be somewhat useful to me; 3) would not be that useful to me. But, crucially, the request+poll post would not be open for general discussion, just voting, and closed after a reasonable amount of time (or does it need to be…not sure?).
At whatever point a certain user interest/support threshold was met inside of whatever time constraint may apply, the request would then be officially added to an internal eM/C queue where it would be fully assessed for final priority (Low | Medium | High) and Level-of-Effort (programming resources) required, and then submitted to the developer team, and then etc.
What do you think?
