Hello Julian,

Thanks for the suggestion. Perhaps, you can write it in our Voices page here: http://www.stackideas.com/voices/easysocial so that it easy for us to keep track on this.

Hi Nik,

Thanks for the suggestion. Perhaps, you can write it in our Voices page here: http://www.stackideas.com/voices/easysocial so that it easy for us to keep track on this.

Not really:
In the moment you have only ONE accepted suggestion there, and EIGHT completed suggestions.
Some of the top-voices are older then a year, and leading the list.
It doesn´t look like anybody is interested in working on them, even if they are easy tasks with lots of voices. So why should I post anything there?

All the best, Julian!

Hello Julian,

Those lists is for us to keep track all the feature request time to time. And before we start development of any major release for any of our component, we will go through that list to see which is suitable for us to include in our component.

We can't simply add feature based on customers' request as this can lead to feature-chaos in our component. This is what happen to one of our components: Easydiscuss. Currently, we are revamping ED and we can see there are too much of settings everywhere.

Hi Nick,

it seems to me like there are not many people posting ideas there.
The reason is easy to understand: There is only a minor part of the Ideas accepted and completed. But some of the Ideas are open since two years, leading with votes, but completely ignored.

I agree that a votes-system would be a good thing.
But where is the sense of a votes-system, if the company ignores the votes?

don´t tell me that you only where able to complete eight (!) ideas in the last two yeras. That´s simply not realistic!

All the best, Julian!

Hi Julian,

We apologize if you feel that we are ignoring and/or simply not doing enough with the Voices section. I will answer your concerns to the best of my ability:

I agree that a votes-system would be a good thing.
But where is the sense of a votes-system, if the company ignores the votes?

The vote system is actually a measure to prioritize which feature to be assessed for implementation first. It doesn't mean that those with low votes are ignored. They are just assessed later after the top features are done.

don´t tell me that you only where able to complete eight (!) ideas in the last two yeras. That´s simply not realistic!

Stack Ideas has 4 products and unfortunately, unlike other software companies, we are unable to provide dedicated development effort to each of them independently. What this means is that our products has a development turn. Added to the fact that our developers has to provide support as well, this slows down the development of our products considerably

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience caused by the Voices section. It is not perfect, but the Voices section is our best way (so far) for us to keep track of feature requests. Stack Ideas itself is not perfect, but we are doing the best of our capability to bring the best experience to our customers.

I hope this answers your questions

Stack Ideas has 4 products and unfortunately, unlike other software companies, we are unable to provide dedicated development effort to each of them independently.

I don´t expect you to do magic.
What I am talking about is not "the last four weeks". What I am talking about is the last two years.

Take one simple Idea which is leading the Ideas-Section:
The EasySocial-Logo should not override the individual logo on every update.
This vote is leading the ideas in the moment and it was submitted in October 2015, 5 Months ago.
Your last ES-Update was from January 2016.

It´s not that you didn´t integrate this Idea, which should be a really easy task.
You ignored this Idea in your last update and you didn´t even accept it, decline it or anything.

However, in the idea itself four users are talking about resolving this issue with a simple template-override and also link up to the documentation of Stackideas where it is explained.

From this point of view, this Idea could be marked as "completed", because it is already possible. Or as "declined". Or you could "accept" it and create an easier way to integrate the logo in the backend.

But ... you did NOTHING. In a timeframe of FIVE MONTHS

Don´t you understand that users feel ignored in such cases?

Writing here in the Forum brings up answers. Posting somethingin the votes-section ... has no effect.
If you start to really comment in the votes, to give us feedback, to accept some ideas, to mark "in work" to the ideas that are in work, this would change. But in the moment, the ideas-section seems nearly dead to me.

All the best, Julian!

Hi Julian,

Thanks for the feedback. We have already lock your request into our development issue tracker. The good news is that once we are done with EasyDiscuss 4, we will be developing EasySocial 2.0 next and we will assess all the feature requests submitted

Thank you for your patience with us.

Hi Syazwan,

it´s not about speed. It´s about giving informations and listening to the votes.
In the moment the whole voices-section seems to me like a grave.

It would be nice if this would change.
But for changing that, you would have to moderate and work on the ideas.

And this is NOT about if you are on EasySocial, EasyBlog or Komento right now.
Even if you completely pause the developing of EasySocial during an EasyBlog-Period ... you still could give informations, accept/decline Ideas and so on.

All the best, Julian!

Hey Julian,

Thanks for your input on this and we appreciate your feedback! This is something that is always on my mind but due to the lack of resources, we are unable to constantly moderate it. Let me be brutal honest here about our current workflow:

1. We will first decide which product to work on (Major releases not minor ones)
2. Based on what we decide to work on, the team will then proceed to the voices page and pick the most wanted features that has been submitted by users.
3. These features will then be pushed to our issue tracker as we pick them up.
4. After finalizing them, we'll then host another meeting to discuss the details of each of these "tasks".

This is why we prefer that you submit your ideas into our voices area. It may seem unmoderated, but we do monitor it as soon as we start working on it.

That being said, your constructive argument is absolutely correct and we should try to get more resources to monitor the voices page

Hi Mark,

I LOVE it if somebody is brutal honest!
This way I can give clear feedback without expecting something impossible.

Here are some suggestions how you can improve the communication with your customers and maintain your worklfow:

Communicate your Developement-Cycles!
It´s not about dates.
It´s about:
Our next major release: EasyBlog 5.x
2nd in row: EasySocial 2.x
3rd in row: Komento 3.x

This way, we know what you are on and we have a rough orientation about what we can expect when.
It helps a lot, if I know that EasySocial is just not developed right now, but will get in your complete focus after the nest EasyBlog-Release. It´s just a communication!

Get a little (!) more Informations into your Voices-Section!

The most important point is: Accept Ideas as soon as you know that you will do them in the next release!
Same with ideas, that you definitely will decline.
This is important, because if you don´t, your users might discuss for months on a topic without any sense. This is not much work: You ONLY have to decline/accelt a few dozend Ideas every week.

Promise to accept at least 50% of the Top-Ideas on every developement-cycle.

This way, we know that you mean it serious.

(you should keep the "accepted/declined-rates" in mind all time. Maybe you cound automatically publish them. This would us all give a feeling for how active the ideas-section is.)

With this done, it is totally okay if every software has it´s own developement-cycle and there is not much happening in between.

All the best, Julian!

Hey Julian,

I absolutely agree with your first point where we inform about the development cycles. However, I disagree with the 2nd and 3rd idea.

The most important point is: Accept Ideas as soon as you know that you will do them in the next release!
Same with ideas, that you definitely will decline.
This is important, because if you don´t, your users might discuss for months on a topic without any sense. This is not much work: You ONLY have to decline/accelt a few dozend Ideas every week.

This is where over promising comes in and we never want to be that person / company that over-promise and under deliver. If you look at our workflow, we never simply just pick a feature and do as what the customer says. We have to discuss with the team as to what part of the features and how it should work.

If we spend all our time and efforts discussing all items that are being submitted to the voices, I doubt anything would be done and I don't think it would help with our support as well

Promise to accept at least 50% of the Top-Ideas on every developement-cycle.

This way, we know that you mean it serious.

(you should keep the "accepted/declined-rates" in mind all time. Maybe you cound automatically publish them. This would us all give a feeling for how active the ideas-section is.)

With this done, it is totally okay if every software has it´s own developement-cycle and there is not much happening in between.

I honestly think this is not acceptable. This is the only reason why we have too many settings in the extensions. I believe with our extensive years of experience, we should decide what is best for our customers and their users. While I agree that not everything we do can ensure everyone is happy but majority of them would be happy

Hi Mark,

about the 2nd point:

This is where over promising comes in and we never want to be that person / company that over-promise and under deliver.

I agree.
But ... not promising aynthing will not solve that issue, it just transforms it into another problem.

Maybe you could add different tags. So Ideas can be marked as "Accepted for the next major release" or they can be marked as "Accepted for a future version".

I honestly think this is not acceptable. This is the only reason why we have too many settings in the extensions. I believe with our extensive years of experience, we should decide what is best for our customers and their users. While I agree that not everything we do can ensure everyone is happy but majority of them would be happy

And I guess this point would be the most valuable point for discussions!
I know what you mean, and I still don´t agree fully. Reason is, that everybody is always limited by his own thought-limits. If you start really listening to your customers, you will be able to achieve goals that you never had in mind before.

EVERY customer has a reason for asking for a special feature.
So features, that are leading the Ideas-Ranking, have a high value for your users.
So in the situation, when YOU THINK it is not valuable, this is the absolutely best chance for you to understand something that you haven´t seen yet.

I will give you an example: The custom-fields in the user-profiles.
For me (and some other users) the way, custom-fields are done per profile-type are totally unhandy. The result is: I don´t use any profile-types. It simply makes no sense for me.

I understand you have a different thought about that. And I would be very, very, very interested in a statistic about how many of your users need the profile-types/custom-fields the way you designed it. Please get me right: You did a great job and your way of solving custom-fields is very complex and has much power. But my feeling is: You haven´t really understood my problem. My problem is simple: Your custom-fields are way to complex to be usable for me. The result is simple: I don´t use it. And I am sure, this is not the goal you had in mind.

If you would understand my needs, this would open a whole new possibility for you: Working out a way that serves bouth sides. This would lead into a product that is driven from bouth: The vision of the creators and the needs from the users.

However, this topic is not about the custom-fields and it´s not about my personal needs. It´s about your customers needs. In the Ideas-Section you can see one thing for sure: EVERY Idea, leading the ranking, is important for your users. Everytime, you decline an Idea, this also communicates "We are not going to fullfill your needs". This is okay and neccecary sometimes. But you could get much more benefit out of that if you would do two things:

1. Do your best in accepting as many Ideas as possible!
2. On EVERY declined Idea invite all users into a discussion BEFORE you decline it. Don´t decide ... let the users decide.

Please keep in mind, your users are alwasy the best consultants you can imagine:
They bought the product and they have a high interest in a great developement. And the "wisdom of the masses" is a powerfull foundation.

All the best, J ulian!

Thanks for your input on this

You´re welcome.
We have the same goal: Constantly improving your products.

We will do what is right and necessary to ensure that our products fits at least 90% of what our customers want