On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 06:55:13PM +0100, Calum Benson wrote: > > On 14 Jun 2006, at 18:23, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > > > we also tend to do a crappy job of dealing with the input when we > > get it. > > well, some of us anyways. we're painting with broad brush strokes > > here that > > don't cover everyone equally =) > > Indeed... I've often thought that larger OSS projects might benefit > from a "feedback squad" in much the same way that they have bug > squads... a team of people whose job is to patrol mailing lists, web > forums, IRC and bug reports, and collate user feedback into a single > place (possibly the bug database, possibly not) in a format that the > project's usability team could best make use of.
The approach we've taken is to encourage users with ideas, to make sure they're recorded in the RFE tracker (i.e., look for a similar idea already filed, and add to that, or create a new ticket if its a new idea.) This gets the feedback collected, but more importantly it keeps the mailing lists clear of threads constantly re-proposing the same ideas. ;-) We also try to get the users involved in collecting and managing all these ideas. For example, look for similar ideas and collect them together, or spot ideas that can already be done in different ways, or things that are out of scope for Inkscape. This is a good task for users because it's fairly non-technical, and just requires good knowledge of the program, which many users have. It sounds like tedious work, but it's not hard to find users who appreciate the chance to contribute, or who just like organizing things. Of course, you can't really call this person a user -- they've started down the path to being a developer. Saves a lot of work for the core developers too - by the time they see stuff, it's been filtered/concentrated/reviewed, so all they have to do is wish they had more time! Btw, this same style can be used to help in maintaining bug trackers. In the run-up to a release, we generally recruit a few active folks from the users list to come help do triage on the bug tracker. It takes little technical skill to notice that the bug lacks a backtrace, or to try recreating it on their own system, and to be polite in contacting the reporter for more info. (Politeness is important because someone who reports one bug and has a good experience, is more likely to continue contributing in the future.) Anyway, it has worked quite well for us - Inkscape has been one of the five most active projects on SourceForge for a while now, largely due to tracker activity... Bryce _______________________________________________ Desktop_architects mailing list Desktop_architects@lists.osdl.org https://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop_architects
