Speaking of new features.... I'm a bit torn by this one, and here's why.
On the one hand, I want you to know that we're listening so I'm tempted to tell you that we're working on this one, and that one, and this other one, and that we're going to give you exactly what you asked for. In fact, that is essentially true. There have been a ton of great ideas on this thread and from other member submissions, and I'm totally psyched to be getting that kind of feedback.
On the other hand, I have two concerns about telling you point-blank that we will implement a particular feature. This first is that I will not ever commit, unless I *know* that it can and will be done. In some instances, you've given us some fantastic ideas that are clearly *worth* doing, but we haven't had the chance to scope them out yet to know whether or not they're *actually* doable and/or in what timeframe. It would really upset me if someone had a great idea, and I said, "Yeah, that's awesome, let's do it!", only to find out later that we couldn't for some unknown (to me) technical reason. In my opinion, the prospect of "broken promise" is worse than having to suffer claims that "we don't listen or care".
My second concern is actually a competitive one. We know that our competitor lurk around these boards - looking for good ideas (we do have the smartest members, after all <g>). So, to some extent, I don't want to tip our hand. In fact, when I see a really killer idea - I'm half-tempted to delete the post. <vbg>
So, in part, I'm just trying to give you some of my perspective here, but I know that some of your are saying, "Yeah, Bryan, that's great, but what about the new features?" :)
How about this for compromise? Let me mention a few key items that have been discussed here recently (so you know we've been listening) and give you a few hints/insights where I can. (In no particular order, by the way, just as I think of them.)
1. Advanced Search. This has clearly been a big issue. We hear you loud and clear. We will respond. You will be pleased. That's all I can say at this point.
2. Multiple Subject Marks. This is a very good idea. We should be able to do something here.
3. People Marks - Ability to do Previous/Next for a particular person's posts. Also a very good idea. Not a trivial task, however. We'll consider it strongly.
4. Putting a "Quote Stamp" on messages - Got it. It's on the To Do list.
5. Ability to view a new or edited personal Profile before "publishing" for public consumption. Good idea. Not trivial. No promises on this one.
6. Ability to post a message to a thread without having it be a response to someone else's post. Excellent little idea. We ought to be able to figure this one out.
7. Ability to save chart default format. Yes.
8. Ability to add comments to subjectmarks and peoplemarks. Good idea. Not sure exactly how we'd implement this one, but it's on the list. We'll figure something out.
9. Further enhancements to the Message Center to make it more "e-mail" like. You betcha.
10. Ability for users to "tag" messages in certain ways, such as "off-topic" and then add a filter mechanism that would filter for those tags. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Worth further consideration.
11. Create other interesting ways to indicate the popularity of a thread, a message or a member. Lots of different ideas here, and we're working on them.
12. Ability to file any post. Believe it or not, this one was already on the list.
13. An improved spell-checker. It's on the list, but not a terribly high-priority item.
14. Last, but certainly not least, the ignore feature. I've read all of the pros and cons on this item, and at first the cons almost had me convinced, which is why this item was tabled for the beta version. However, now that we've upgraded our charts, advanced search and ignore are the two most requested features. Ignore is the easier of the two to develop, so it will happen first, but we're going to try to implement it in some way that is better (less prone to abuse) than on other sites that have ignore. Personally, I think that SI members are smart enough to use it wisely. (And, I'm not just saying that to kiss up.)
A couple of closing comments on this post.
A. This is probably the only time that you'll catch me talking about future features - because of the concerns that I expressed above. So, if you suggest something in the future, and I don't respond - remember why. It's not because we're not listening.
B. I know that I didn't hit everything. I tried to cover some of the "most requested/discussed" items, but just so you know, we have a punch list that is at least 10 pages long (about 30 items per page). We're going to be busy.
Thanks,
Bryan
[edit - Grubb - <g>] |
