This Steinberg forum only grants us four votes. This means we have to undo votes in order to vote for new features or requests. This results in a very dispersed results.
Problem
I’m sure we see new requests and features we want to vote on but we’ve run out of votes. Sometimes we decide, “Never mind, I won’t go through the trouble of removing an old vote”
This results in important requests/features being ignored
Solution
If we collectively decided to vote on singular issues, one at a time, we may be able to get more of Steinberg’s attention. Once an issue is addressed, we can then move our votes over to a new set of issues.
We need to strongly consider voting on issues that others deem important in order to gain some momentum OR at least test to see if Steinberg is paying attention.
We should consider ranking issues/features
I will undo my previous votes on features that are likely less important. I am willing to vote for any issue that is deemed very important by others. Let’s use this thread to post links to posts that address different topics and maybe need more momentum.
A thread, be it a feature-request or a bug report, could easily be noted by the number of “hearts” it gets, the number of comments, and views, its activity in general. So I’m not sure whether we need to worry for the limited number of votes given. I think that this number is limited so that exactly as you pointed out, to set users to keep their votes for what they find out to be if highest importance. But, if for example, 1500 users with no votes left, comment or “like” a feature-request, I somehow think that it will be noticed
Oh, I’m not sure either.
What I’m sure is that if I ever wanted to check threads as an analyst to get the vibe, I would most probably sort threads by tags (feature-requests and issues), views, comments, likes and votes (obviously) and check them out.
While I don’t actually know, I’ve always assumed that because of the limitation the Vote counts aren’t used for any actual decision making since they are basically indicative of nothing.
They seem more like placebos for folks who have an overwhelming need to express their support of something. If I were king of the forum I’d have folks posting feature-requests put a Poll in their initial post - since folks can vote in as many polls as they like.
I’m baffled by the limitation and find it hard to imagine any situation when a limited voting scheme like this would be useful.
The voting system asks users to select which feature requests are the most important to them.
If everybody can vote up any request we would probably see dozends of FRs being voted highly but Steinberg can only work on a few of them each given version cycle. I don’t see it being much different from what we have now.
I think the current system would work better if Steinberg actually integrated the top voted feature requests within a reasonably short time frame. That would free up one or two of your votes that you could place on the next good FR. Alternative to integration they could also state which FRs cannot be integrated (sorry, feature xy does not fit our plans) and thus freeing up votes.
I assume such an action would be conceived more negatively than what we currently have, though.
I wasn’t clear enough in my original post. I don’t assume Steinberg will automatically develop/design what users request. My post is only in regards to their user research. For example, do they primarily read posts with high vote counts? Do they mostly consider topics with high vote counts?
In the Studio One forums, users can vote and sometimes a Studio One representative will acknowledge the topic without revealing their plans. In other words, they don’t say if it something is in development or not but they will acknowledge that they’ve read it.
Our voting process in this community has been much less clear than it is over with Studio One.
I agree that limited votes is fine within the scenario you describe. I also think Steinberg should acknowledge that they’ve read highly rated requests, which is how the Studio One forums handle it.
As another person suggests, limiting voting would be useful with a limited timeframe.
Putting that aside, I’m trying to be positive and not assume the voting is a placebo. It feels that way though. It’s completely in effective. I’ve used voting systems in software forums for both Studio One and a video game company, Amplitude Studios. Their processes are so much more transparent. Over here… it’s rather mysterious.
Well, it’s normal. I mention elsewhere a video game company called Amplitude Studios that does having a voting system regarding new features. It’s a daring and interesting approach and seems to have worked for them.
I think the reason Steinberg doesn’t do this is because if they agree to develop a feature, another company could see this and then develop that feature faster. This would make the usurper company more competitive against Steinberg.
