Keywords: Poll, Vote, Feature, Request, Priority

Apologies in advance for always making long posts. I prefer giving a detailed description up front rather than just reacting to questions.

TL;DR Spoiler box for those who can't read wall of text:

BACKGROUND
Currently, there is no quick way to summarise how well a request is regarded by the community other than looking at the Stars.

The Stars alone, however, is not a good indication of whether an idea is viewed as good or bad, since each user can vote multiple times as long as they have Stars left. On the other hand, the lack of Star stock also means that an user is unable to give support to an idea other than shouting "Support!" in the replies.


PROPOSAL
Include a standard Poll with each and every Feature Request. The options of the Poll are as follows:

-SUPPORT! This Request will make [osu/forum/community] immediately [better/more efficient]!
-This Request is a nice to have, but I can live without it.
-I don't care whether this Request gets implemented or not.
-OBJECTION! This Request will hurt [osu/forum/community] if it gets implemented.

The rest of the Feature Request is unchanged, ie the Stars system will coexist with the new Poll.


PREDICTED EFFECT
Having a Poll will better represent the two vital aspects of a Request: the community's Opinion towards the Request, and the Urgency towards the Request. The development team will be able to get a quick summary by reading the Poll result together with the Star votes.

For user who has exhausted their Star stock, the Poll would encourage them to express their Opinion towards a Request quickly without having to reply. This will also better capture the true opinion of the community.

The Stars are now freed up to express the Urgency of a Request, ie how much a user wants a Request to be implemented. Think of a 7 year old in a candy store being asked, "which candy will you pick if you can pick any 3 in this room?"

The usual discussions/debates can still be carried out by replying to the thread.


How much effort will it take to get this working? This needs to be applied to every Requests in this forum. Feature Request forum currently doesn't allow Polls at all. Do you guys think it'll be useful?

if i'm correct, this won't happen because of the star system. theowest all ready tried adding polls to previous threads and got told off ._.

Eh? Didn't see that. Do you have the link?

I don't know how else to emphasise the advantage for separating the opinion and urgency though...

It's like asking "who doesn't understand the question" in a classroom. It there are 50 student, you'll rarely get 1-2 raise their hand when asked that. But if the question was "who understand what I just said" you'll also get less than 10. Having a Poll button can potentially encourage those missing 38 to express their thoughts on topic since minimal effort is required and they don't have to identify themselves.

Given the number of Introverts in this community I don't see how this is going to hurt osu in general?

i'm not sure where the links are. i'll have a look soon. but i also think i was talking to derekku about something like this(god i wish i /savelog'd it).
oh yeah. i was asking about having a yes/no system, but he rejected ;w;
i'll see if i can find some of those threads with polls now for you well i had no luck. i'll ask theo when i next see him. but i'm pretty sure this is invalid sadly

K thanks, please don't stress over it if you can't find it.

Just to add to the OP, this Request is asking for the same polls to be shown in all future Feature Request. So the 4 options will become a standard questionnaire in all requests threads.

Star system is retarded. There are tons of threads with lots of stars that don't really make sense or are just old/nobody cares that much about them. Yet they have a lot of stars because:

1- The thread got posted just right after (or a little before) the new system was implemented. Ergo everyone had stars so they just starred them.

2- Someone with 9999999 stars just bumped a thread to the top so actually it isn't that people actually like/want that but just that someone bumped it cause lots of stars.

I don't really ever use the star priority thing, always looking at newest threads since all the top starred threads are either pointless, have been pretty much denied or are not important.

I don't get why we should insist on the star system. Polls are way better, also because can you see people voting against certain requests.

Polls would be a better indication on whether the community wants a feature or not. The problem with star rating is that it only shows support, it does not show people who don't want it implemented. It's entirely one-sided. Polls are a more balanced way of showing community opinion.

support. the star system isn't helpful.

Yes the current Star system alone only shows one sided opinion, that's why I think a Poll will better serve that purpose.

The Star system is not without its merit though, it's a good way for sorting out priorities. My idea is to have them work side-by-side: Polls reveal whether the community wants an idea, Stars indicate which idea the community wants first. So the devs can review say the top 10 Star rated request per month and then judge its usefulness by looking at the Poll result. I think this will be better help to the dev team than current Star system alone.

This'd be a great idea, polls will display a much more accurate view from the community on whether a request is actually worth implementing or not. The current star system is definitely unhelpful. Not only does it render a below-average view on potentially good / better requests which could be neglected due to their low star count, but when I payed for my support, it was through a gift on my little brothers account, as I gave him support too and my computer died at the time - no stars for me << this sux ;~;

My view on it anyway. (I don't know a thing about anything)

The star system was implemented to avoid the use of posting support/polls. The system may not be perfect, and enough stars haven't been given out for people to use, but it will not be removed.

ummm... why are we trying to avoid the use of polls...?

Derekku wrote:

The star system was implemented to avoid the use of posting support/polls. The system may not be perfect, and enough stars haven't been given out for people to use, but it will not be removed.

My intention in the OP, stated more than a few times, is to have the Poll working together with Star system, not to replace it.

IMO Poll gives better indication of the community's support for an idea, while the Star ranks the priority of which idea the community wants implemented first. PLEASE...I'm sick and tired of explaining the same thing over and over again.

Besides, you acknowledged that current star system isn't perfect. Which part of the proposed Poll is THAT useless to complement Star system, to the point you have to invalidate the Request?

JeMhUnTeR wrote:

ummm... why are we trying to avoid the use of polls...?

For example, they don't have limits: If someone wants to support every single feature request in the forum, then they can go through every thread and vote in each poll. This is useless data, and "votes" need to be limited (see info below).

Oinari-sama wrote:

IMO Poll gives better indication of the community's support for an idea, while the Star ranks the priority of which idea the community wants implemented first.

True, but the point of the star system is to show both support and priority.

Oinari-sama wrote:

Besides, you acknowledged that current star system isn't perfect.

Because stars aren't being given out on a usual basis. This is because there is such a huge backlog of requests that the devs want to fulfill some before giving out more stars.

Oinari-sama wrote:

Which part of the proposed Poll is THAT useless to complement Star system, to the point you have to invalidate the Request?

Because "support" isn't the criteria for getting a feature request implemented; feasibility and utility (usefulness) are. You have to remember that osu! is a free game, and devs volunteer their time to improve the gaming experience. If a request is going to take hours/days to implement and will only affect/benefit an extremely small portion of players, then it's not worth it. Having dozens of people supporting the request won't change the fact that it's a bad request. This can happen with stars too, but at least then we can see that people used their limited quantity of stars for the request and that it might be worth implementing.

Derekku wrote:

Oinari-sama wrote:

IMO Poll gives better indication of the community's support for an idea, while the Star ranks the priority of which idea the community wants implemented first.

True, but the point of the star system is to show both support and priority.

Derekku wrote:

Oinari-sama wrote:

Which part of the proposed Poll is THAT useless to complement Star system, to the point you have to invalidate the Request?

Because "support" isn't the criteria for getting a feature request implemented; feasibility and utility (usefulness) are.

Those two statements conflict with each other.

I fully appreciate the fact that osu is free and the devs are striving to make the game better. For that exact reason I proposed the system detailed in the OP with the aim to give the developer a better view of the community's opinions on whether a Request is useful or not. I believe the devs started the Feature Request system because you wanted to hear our opinions for each request, otherwise an email feedback system would've sufficed.

Current Star system alone is a poor indication for both support and priority. I won't go through the details again (they were discussed throughout this thread), but in a nut shell the Star system does not reveal opinions that are against a request. This is where the Poll will come in handy, which is a clear indication if a Request has an overwhelming support or a 50-50 split (or most people don't care etc). I do not see any harm in implementing a system that gives better indication of community opinion while saving time for the developers.

Furthermore, with current Star system, someone who stockpiled a large sum of votes can overwhelm voting of a single request and give false impression that an idea is supported by the majority of the community. On the other hand, a user cannot support an idea even if it's good if he has depleted all votes. This is the main reason why I think the Star system alone is a good indication of priority, but it cannot serve as a good indication for both support and priority.

Well I don't know how I can explain this in a better way, I have provided my input on this issue. If the dev team still decide to reject an idea that can help them achieve what they wanted to do then I'll respect your choice. Like you said, osu is a free game and therefore I have no obligations to care about its future, but it's a shame to throw away something that may help you achieve better result.

^well said oinari sama.

Also, non-supporters don't get stars. (in fact I've had only one star since I joined osu!, and lately I wasted it on a request that got denied) This would mean that you won't see the entire community's opinion on a request. And yeah, polls provide a more specific response to a request.

So... Having both features available, polls will show the community's support on a request, while stars will show how much people prioritize a request.

I thought I already removed poll support from this forum o_O.

"but in a nut shell the Star system does not reveal opinions that are against a request"

This is intentional; negative votes are not required.

peppy wrote:

I thought I already removed poll support from this forum o_O.

There were polls as recently as December, but they seem to be gone now. I guess nobody actually noticed the poll option vanished recently?

peppy wrote:

I thought I already removed poll support from this forum o_O.

"but in a nut shell the Star system does not reveal opinions that are against a request"

This is intentional; negative votes are not required.

Ah ok it's another story if that's the case, I'll respect your choice. Thanks peppy for the clarification though!