Why end voting when feature requests are archived?

[hesspe]

@communitymanagers Here's something I don't understand about the voting system:  Why cut off voting when an idea is archived?

Nowadays when I want to put in a feature request, I first do a search, and I find, almost invariably, that my request has already been made -- and, almost invariably, it has already been archived.  I feel foolish putting in a new request when there's one already there; and, it seems like a waste of my time to reword  request that someone else has already  carefully crafted.  What I want to do is vote, and perhaps add a comment. 

I can see the value of maintaining an archive so that reading the community is more manageable, but no benefit to cutting off the ability to second a request, and lots of reasons why people might have missed it in the first go round.  An additional innovation would have an archived request that reaches a certain threshold of votes, or a series of increasingly large thresholds (say 100, 150, 200...), get popped back out of the archive to be reconsidered by community chieftans (who will then probably put it right back in the archive).

A related question:  is there a way to subscribe to be notified of requests at the moment they become "Open for voting"?  I see an RSS feed when I'm on <https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/feature-ideas/content?filterID=contentstatus[publish...>, but I don't know if that would get me what I'm looking for, and, anyway, I'd rather get an email alert or have it included in the Canvas Community Updates I regularly get from Jive.

[jenn_stevens]

I agree,  @hesspe ! I have found myself confused about this as well. I'd like to vote for the original request rather than making a new one and being told that my new request is too similar to the original one I can't vote for!

On the other hand, I do remember that when requests were open indefinitely in the old community it did sometimes cause problems: a slow growing request could turn into a virtual mob with pitchforks as people became indignant that "we've been asking for this since xxxx!"

Maybe there is a middle ground? The opportunity to resubmit an archived request for another round of voting??

[hesspe]

The opportunity to resubmit an archived request for another round of voting...

That would certainly work, and might be easier to implement (I would think so).

[Renee_Carney]

You can already resubmit a previously submitted idea for another round of voting, however it must start from scratch like the rest of the cohort.  How does the voting process work for feature ideas?​

[richard-jerz]

I agree with Peter on this one.  If someone made a feature request four years ago and it hasn't been implemented yet, I don't see any problem with "we've been asking for this since xxxx."  This would actually be good to know, especially for the Canvas organization.  What bothers me even more is that if someone does repost a request (which is referencing the original), the old votes are discarded, meaning that voting starts all over again.  Now we really do have a problem when someone sees the reopened request and says "I voted for that xx years ago.  How many times do I need to keep voting on this item?"

Here is what I would prefer.  Voting on archived requests should always remain open. When someone votes on an archived request it should immediately reopen.  Using this method, someone can then more accurately state "this was asked for xx years ago and it has never received any more interest (votes)."

I really don't see any advantage to archiving posts.  Are we out of disk space? The only time that I can see archiving a feature request is when it is either successfully implemented, or when the Canvas version that the request was for is no longer supported.

[Stef_retired]

jennifer_stevens​ and  @hesspe ​, since your questions and comments are about how the Community feature idea process is structured, rather than pertaining to the Canvas LMS specifically, I'm going to move the conversation to the Meta Community Group​, which is where we discuss all-things-Community, including the Feature Ideas process. If you're not yet a member of that group, please take a moment to join and help us make the Community a better place.

[Renee_Carney]

 @hesspe ​

There is an existing idea that is open for vote and conversation.  I am going to direct you to " modifiedtitle="true" title="Leave voting open for Un-implemented Canvas Ideas.

I do want to point out a valuable comment from Scott Dennis, in a linked discussion, https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4533#comment-50017.​  There were many reasons that open voting in Community 1.0 did not work, some of which Jennifer Stevens touched on as well.

[hesspe]

Clearly both Community Managers and Community members have put a lot of thought into this feature requests thing.   There is much to admire around the existing process, but there is also evident discontent. 

I've yet to be persuaded that leaving archived requests open for voting is not a good idea, and more supportive for community members than expecting us to re-create an archived feature request (Sisyphus-like) that is perfectly fine as it stands.

"...as time went on and Canvas changed, sometimes what the person who submitted the idea in the first place became irrelevant because people could accomplish the same aim via a different method, or people's overall priorities would change."

That could be true, but my experience is that far more often, people's needs and priorities  (singular) -- and peoples' priorities (plural), are remarkably consistent.  I don't see the "same aim, different methods" situation happening much.  Perhaps an example would clarify.

I also don't quite get the rationale for leaving comments and likes open, but closing voting.  A comment is often sort of a vote.

Another advantage (seriously) of keeping archived requests alive is that Community Managers would not have to explain repeatedly why the same request was archived.  Some of the staff comments when requests are archived are much more frank than I would expect to come from a corporation, and I find it thrilling to read them for that reason alone, but I believe I've noticed that the more times a feature request has to be put away, the more terse and dismissive-sounding the staff comments become.

[scottdennis]

Hello Peter, Et All,

If you are interested in this topic, please see the blog post that Renee Carney posted yesterday in the Feature Ideas space: New Ideation Stage: Product Radar