Limits on Feature Requests in Jive?

[canvas_admin]

If my count is correct, there are currently 349 feature request ideas up for voting currently.  At the same time, new ideas are constantly being suggested on a daily basis. The overall idea count is around 650 right now.   I'm afraid that there are going to be important or even good ideas that I, and others, miss due to the sheer volume.   Is there any way to put a cap on either 1) the number of ideas that can be voted upon in a given round and/or 2) the number of new ideas that can be suggested for the next voting queue?  

I know this is the first go around in the new community so there is going to be some growing pains and trial-and-error. I simply think the number of ideas for voting and the total number of ideas suggested in such a short lifetime of the new community is already approaching overwhelming and I wonder if slowing it down somehow would allow for better discussion and votes on suggested ideas.  I mean, how many of us have gone through all 18 pages of ideas open for voting, besides  @kona ​?

[kona]

I have to admit it's a little overwhelming, but my thought is that this big rush is to be expected since (1) there were a LOT of feature ideas in the old community, (2) it's a new community and all ideas have to get added - whether they are new or from the old community, and (3) the new community seems to be attracting new people (previous and new Canvas users) with new feature ideas. My guess is that the number of new feature ideas will settle down after after the first few voting periods. Yet, if this isn't the case, then you are absolutely correct that it is very time consuming to go through the ideas and find the ones you might be interested in voting on. I think this is where being in groups and advocating for your idea(s) definitely comes into play. I know the Canvas Admins​ group has a discussion going on about Voting for Admin Feature Requests (Ideas) that has a list of all the feature requests that Canvas admins might be interested in.

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi  @canvas_admin ​ and  @kona ​,

Yes, this is obviously something we are very interested it.  Agreed that:

1. There were a lot of existing ideas coming over initially from the old community.  In the first few days we saw 50 per day added, then 30, then 25, then 20.  By my count there were seven over the weekend.  That is out of of several thousand in the old platform.
2. There is definitely new blood.  All the numbers tell us we are getting an order of magnitude more participants and more participation per person than we did previously.
3. We will continue to monitor and may still adjust the thresholds for what gets addressed and what doesn't.  We'll see as things continue to level out.
   
   

Thanks to those of you who are making this work - impossible if you didn't jump in and make things happen.

[Chris_Hofer]

I agree there are a lot of feature ideas out there right now, but I'm not sure I totally agree with putting a limit on how many can be submitted.  What if I have a great idea, but I'm prevented from submitting it?  Am I going to remember to submit it next month (or whenever I'm able)?  Maybe (?).  I might remember, but will all others?  My thought is that at least the idea is "out there" (captured) for discussion.  If it gets voted on is another story.

[canvas_admin]

 @Chris_Hofer ​, fair enough.   Perhaps requests could be queued up and so many released for every voting cycle?  That way you could still submit the idea, but there wouldn't necessarily be an overwhelming blast of ideas up for voting each cycle.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hmmm...not sure.  How would the Instructure team decide what gets pushed to the next stage and what doesn't?  If I submit an idea but it doesn't get pushed through for voting right away, does that mean my idea was too silly or far-fetched?  I'd want to know the reasoning for not having my idea pushed through for the up-coming voting period.  Could create some hurt feelings in the Community?  I don't know...just kind of brainstorming.

[canvas_admin]

I was simply thinking a First In-First Out (FIFO) queue.   The first 75-100 feature requests input before a cycle gets released when the voting cycle opens up.  The next 75-100 feature requests made (simply by date/timestamp.    The only moderation would be on the number released, not on the content of the idea itself.  At least, that's my thinking.  

[Beth_Young]

I can see the value of a FIFO queue, since I find the torrent of new ideas to be pretty overwhelming and I don't even have to read them all.   But wouldn't that mean it could be months before an idea even comes up for a vote? I would be pretty frustrated by that, especially for ideas that are very high priority to me.

I guess I'm pinning my hopes on the notion that the new ideas will slow down once everyone has resubmitted their faves from the old community.

[scottdennis]

I am leaning towards rules and processes that make the most of crowd sourcing powers.  Anything we can do to not stifle what community participates can contribute enmass vs having to wait on someone from Instructure to go in and manually do things is more attractive to me.

[snugent]

I agree with Chris. I don't think we want to limit the requests. I believe they will become much less over time especially after a couple of voting cycles.  Yes there are a bunch of feature ideas out there but there are some pretty good filtering options when you view all ideas. I use these a lot! (1) The first one allows you to filter by new ideas, ideas people have voted for or ones that will be voted on soon. (2) The next filter option allows you to filter by which feature ideas has the highest score or most activity, votes or comments. (3) The third one is the most useful to me at least. I make sure my ideas have several tags attached. You can search by your tags or popular tags in the community. I've used this several times to find out if somebody else has already posted something I want to post or comment on.