Is progress being made?
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vikingo1337 wrote:
It seems to me there's no easy way to tell whether a suggestion in the forum has been implemented or not. Or whether it is even being considered or has been cancelled altogether. Unless you're an admin of course.

So in the interest of user feedback and transparency, why not equip every suggestion with a sticker that lets everyone on the site know what a specific suggestion's current status is, and if progress is being made?

We would need a handful of different stickers for every possible scenario. For instance:
'Waiting for feedback', 'In progress', 'Implemented', 'Cancelled'.

Or something to that effect.
"The brave man well shall fight and win, though dull his blade may be."
~Fafnismal 28
Cireon wrote:
I can see where you're coming from, and I think it's a good idea too. (You probably feel it coming) But...

  • We already have a separate system keeping track of all our work. It contains priorities and some other metadata that makes it useful for us. Sadly we can't make this public without also making the code public. Having to keep both the forums and this system in sync would add extra overhead to all the work programmers do.
  • Dominating 12 doesn't really have programmers hired. I don't get paid for my work, and neither does Matty. That means that the truth is that Matty and I tend to pick up tasks that we want to work on. We keep in mind the suggestions of the community when prioritising and choosing, but in the end, it's still a volunteer job. That is why I personally am uncomfortable with having stickers, because it sets an expectation that we get around to it. Lately I've already seen a lot of push on some forum threads along the lines of "why is this not being worked on!?". Even your subtitle for this thread "Is progress being made?" is a bit accusatory. I don't want to amplify that problem by pretending we'll get around to everything eventually.
  • Either myself or Matty will probably mention in the forum thread if we add something in our tracking system, so nothing is preventing a forum moderator to implement a rudimentary sticker system by editing the thread titles, adding the prefixes you suggest.

I hope I don't come off as crushing your dreams, but I feel it's important to provide some transparency here. This site is volunteer-run. We have a full-time job and real-life commitments we need to spend time on. Progress towards forum suggestions will happen when it happens, and because we don't get paid, we tend to choose the work that we will personally get the most satisfaction out of.

I don't mean to shut down the influx of suggestions, as we do take them seriously, but it should always be with the understanding that our backlog is massive, and that we most likely will only ever get around to doing a small portion of them. I could say on each thread "good idea, but we don't have time for it", but I feel that's unfair, and nobody can say whether next month, another programmer joins the team who does find it important and picks it up. I understand it's frustrating that all suggestions live in this constant state of uncertainty, but I believe trying to pretend it's anything else would be dishonest, and only lead to more frustration in the long term.
“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
- Speaker for the Dead, O.S. Card