Polls for future development suggestions?

[GuruMeditation]

Does anyone else consider polls to be a good idea for future PW development suggestions?

My idea would be for a moderator to open a topic for a month or so, allowing all forum members to make suggestions regarding which features they'd like to see in PW. All suggestions would then be added to a poll, allowing the votes to begin. Then the data from the votes could be passed on to Ryan to give him an idea of what people need, or want on a majority-vote basis.

I know it's down to Ryan at the end of the day, but surely if there was a majority vote from the users of PW and this forum, it would be logical to take the votes and figures into consideration?

Just a thought.

[pwired]

Does anyone else consider polls to be a good idea for future PW development suggestions?

Nope

It will only lead to Processwire getting stuffed with user level wanted features abc, ..., xyz, instead of system level features.

The high level of Processwire wouldn't be what it is today. Besides, there is already a wish list channel in the forum.

[teppo]

In my opinion this is a good idea, though it should be made clear that feature x getting a lot of votes doesn't mean it will be implemented – just that it's what most users voted on. If product development was all about "ask the crowd what they want and do it", products like ProcessWire – ones that dare to approach things from a different point of view – wouldn't exist. We'd just have a ton of WordPress clones.

I'm not sure where I've heard it from and if it's even really true, but they claim that Nokia once asked their users what were the main griefs they had with their phones. The one they heard most was that the battery was drained too fast. For a long time their phones had terrific batteries, but in all other aspects they were way behind companies like Apple who literally decided not to listen to their customers.

Sorry for going slightly off-topic, but my point here is that while it's good to ask what your users think, it doesn't mean that you should always do as they tell you. It can, nevertheless, provide you with new ideas and feedback regarding the direction you're going with your product.

The idea is good, but needs to be put into right context