Following the creation of this page, the Web Team created two other pages where discussion has moved:
Idea Percolator Implementation Options
Please post additional comments and discussion there.
During 2011 planning efforts, the EG Web Team identified the need for a "feature percolator" – an online collaborative space where Evergreen community members can brainstorm new features, discuss how and why those features should be implemented, indicate their support (with time, money, or interest) for the new feature, and eventually move the feature into Launchpad or a similar development management tool.
One popular open source community idea software is called IdeaTorrent. SITKA provides a collaborative implementation of IdeaTorrent so that their members can contribute, clarify, and prioritize ideas for new features to be developed for Evergreen software. Take a look at the FAQ for their users to understand how they successfully use IdeaTorrent in the SITKA community: https://ideas.sitka.bclibraries.ca/node/1
The administrators at SITKA were kind enough to provide a demonstration implementation of IdeaTorrent on a virtual server for review by the Evergreen Web Team and any other community members interested in checking it out: https://eg-ideas.sitka.bclibraries.ca/
Because of some limitations of flexibility and support for IdeaTorrent, the Website Team is also investigating other solutions such as a custom app on RSCEL or using Launchpad's Blueprints feature.
- Users can suggest new features
- Users/admins can search for duplicate feature suggestions
- Features can be flagged/tagged as "in development" or "feature implemented"
- Features can be categorized/tagged as users see fit
Launchpad offers a feature called Blueprints which allows collaborative specification of new features. You can learn more about Launchpad Blueprints here: https://launchpad.net/+tour/feature-tracking . In addition, it appears that a few EG community members have experimented with this feature on the EG Launchpad: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/evergreen
During the last meeting of the Web Team, we also discussed using the existing Launchpad Bugs feature as a wishlist/feature request mechanism. This would need to be done with respect to developer wishes.
The Koha community uses features of their community Bugzilla implementation to track new and in-process features: http://koha-community.org/about/enhancing-koha/
Any work the EG community does in terms of feature percolators should be done in conjunction with the EG Developers Roadmap