idea: suggestion box

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 09:56:32AM -0600, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> Greetings. 
> 
> I was thinking it might be a nice idea to have Fedora Engineering
> Services create for us a "Fedora Suggestion Box". 
> 
> This would be a way for people to anonymously submit suggestions or
> ideas to Fedora for consideration. It could either be a web based
> form/app (which would have the advantage of letting us use captchas or
> the like and also let us explain what sort of suggestions we want, one
> suggestion per submit, etc), or a email address (which would get a lot
> more spam, but be easier for folks), or I suppose both. 
> 
> We then have a group of folks look through the submissions and: 
> 
> - Drop obvious spam
> - Drop obvious things Fedora will never do (ship non free software,
>   mp3, legal changes, etc).
> - Drop things that don't have an actual suggestion in them.  
> - Send the rest to a list for interested parties in fedora (Board,
>   FESCo, SIGs, etc) to look at and consider. 
> 
> There would be no promise that a suggestion would be acted on or looked
> at, but I think we might end up getting some ideas here that would
> would not otherwise get (due to people not knowing where to suggest, or
> being afraid they will look foolish, or thinking that their views in
> other venues have been ignored). 
> 
> Of course we could also get a lot of things we can't act on or use. 
> 
> What do people think of this idea? 

Kevin, although it's not directly related, I had a different idea that
would use a Web-based submission system, feeding a queue, require
moderation for that queue, and then processing in some way.  I'm
betting that general capability would be useful in a number of ways
beyond the Suggestion Box, since its common to both your idea and
mine.  Mine's not fully baked yet and I need to work out a few more
details before it's worth proposing in full.  But if my idea was
worthwhile too, then developing the common piece becomes even more
valuable and a Suggestion Box has less cost overall.


-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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