The Forum’s voting system is functionally useless because each person only has a few votes to dole out. Then either you don’t vote for anything or you need to reuse a prior vote.
How about we start clicking on the initial post’s Like Button to indicate support instead.
I’m in.
You know, you could also insert a Poll:
That may provide a bit more function and form, and is highly customizable as well.
I’ve come to view the vote limitation as a feature, not a bug for a key reason:
I can change my votes.
It effectively makes my votes an ever changing top 5 list of the highest priorities for me.
Voted items come off my list when they get implemented or if I consider a new request more important.
In my view, there is considerable added value for the whole ecosystem when every voter has to prioritize their own sentiments, rather than dishing out 1000 votes, which devalues each of those votes.
Wouldn’t this make it hard for the devs to decide what to implement? What is top priority this week may be bottom next week?
I’d argue the opposite:
Users pre-sorting their own priorities would be more stable over time - especially once the sample size becomes sufficiently large.
In addition, it would be trivial to take snapshots of the top 40 over longer periods of time to notice that “request X has been in the top 10 for 5 years, so maybe we should really do it”.
While everyone can do this, I suspect most folks are more lazy like me and will simply do nothing rather than waste time hunting around for something to un-vote for.
That works except it requires the OP to actually create the poll which may or may not happen. The like button on the other hand is always there, built-in and available to use from the get-go.
haha 
- true enough
But I also consider it a feature, not a bug, when the less lazy get more rewards.
I would say post a +1 or +1000 maybe instead of hitting the like button. This way the thread gets bumped up.
I would very much prefer to have more votes than 6, there are just too many good suggestions out there 
Using likes is fine, I do that too for FR that I cannot vote on anymore, but of course I “like” other posts, too, maybe because they are “tips-and-tricks”, or good bug reports. And I don’t know whether SB gives a sh** about them
But to be honest, we don’t know how the votes here are exactly evaluated, either. It is of course clear that SB cannot just implement all FRs with a high vote count, there might be other deciding factors, but it sure would be nice if they were a bit more transparent about it, In some threads there actually have been post from SB employees that explain why e.g. it isn’t so easy to implement as people think or what the obstacles are. If they did that for more of the especially long-standing FRs with high vote count, I think it would be welcome by the community and ensure that the voting here isn’t just for show.
Fair enough, but as others have said, the ubiquitousness of a “like,” along with its “affirmation-only +1” nature doesn’t necessarily “solve” for the goal.
This is all predicated on the presumption that SB staff will go looking for forum-based feature request input in the first place, and if that’s the case, I think the poll feature would be a far better option as all results are in a single post, as opposed to “likes” which may be spread throughout the thread as the idea is expanded upon.
In my example I included an explicit “No, I actively do not want this feature” to illustrate how there’s almost aways more to the feature request than a “like.” The equivalent of a “thumbs down” is probably important for feature requests.
If we use this Nuendo thread as an example, it’s actually a somewhat hijacked thread that turned into a few different potential feature requests. A poll would allow granular, detailed feedback to be captured.
I mean, this very thread is a good example in itself - just talking about how to capture feature requests is, in a way, turning into a feature request discussion 
My gut feeling is that since SB already creates surveys for feature requests and general user feedback, they may consider unofficial, user-driven polls (however they are managed) as too much work and would most likely just ask to direct feedback to those surveys. But who knows?
First, I did not know that there was a limit to the amount of “Likes” one could spread around. That needs to change. We should have as many as are necessary but only 1 per post.
Second, once a thread that is clearly marked as a “Feature Request” and gets a certain amount of “Likes” it is made a “Sticky” for a limited amount of time. That time would be determined by how many “Likes” it receives. This would help bring more focus to issues that the greater community sees as valid and important.
There isn’t. The limit is on the total number of Topic Votes each of us has available to use. Look at the very top of a Thread to see its Vote count.
However true that is, the current Vote mechanism doesn’t accommodate that need either.
I think they do because not only do they have a feature request Tag, they also Mark FR Topics as “Achieved” (I think that’s the term) when they implement them. So they are paying attention to them.
Well I was only suggesting to use the Like on the initial post where the request is presented, not the entire thread. Kind of like an analog to the Vote button if it were functional.
I agree using Polls better addresses the actual need. That approach has been suggested several times since the forum migrated, including by myself. Yet even now hardly anybody does that ever. It appears creating a poll is just a bit too much effort to become a reality. So what’s as easy to use as the Vote button without it’s limitations?
Thing is, these don’t really exist. The total pool of available votes is too small to support high counts. There’s Threads with tons of Posts, lots of engagement but only a few Votes. Also older Threads (back when we tossed around Votes like sailors on shore leave) tend to over accumulate (aka hoard) Votes.
I’m a team player, so if you guys ask for “likes to support feature requests,” then I’m in. If you want to @me and ask for me to think about it, get input, and then do the Poll, I’m down for that too. I’ve committed to the product-line, so I’m in for the long-haul. I’ll help Build a Better 'Base in whatever way works, to the extent that my opinion helps