Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

To RL: here's some observations 1 month later:

On a typical day 3000-5000 users browse the forum. Say 500-1000 users log onto the forum.
Yet the most frequent (90%?) vote count is 0, closely followed by 1 !!!   
A mere 1% of "outlier" suggestions get 20+ votes !!!

No need to be a statistical genius to see the need to re-evaluate?

My suggestion: allow UNLIMITED votes.

1. No need to curb enthusiasm. Suggestion/issue view counts = super low.
Enthusiasm is evidently in coma - or...deep depression from slow updates.
Enthusiasm is probably also paralyzed by cynicism due to chronic LACK OF FEEDBACK.
No feedback begets even lower feedback.
Unless that's an intended effect...
Time to IMPROVE VIEW COUNTS or FT area visitation rate?
Time to energize tourism flow with extra vote vouchers?

2. No need to teach "votes are expensive currency"
10 votes against 300 (soon 673) issues - most of which are TECH/ USAGE issue
Seriously?
How many issues/bug per typical version upgrade again?
How many votes before issue is deemed "popular" or "weighty"?
No distinction between YES TO IMPROVEMENT vote, and ISSUE CONFIRMED vote?
Even if RL insists on mixing up all users feedback and create future noise-sorting issues for poor devs
At least
Get baseline SCIENTIFIC SAMPLING RATE with a little vote currency quantitative easing?

3. No need to foster a climate of retentive withholding and anti-progress bigotry.
Evidently, myopic negative lobbying or wish-trashing is already an epidemic among 'under-skilled' iClone users.
vote limiting also make typical crybabies feel even poorer
vote limiting actually boosts pettiness and 'beggar thy fellas' attitude...
which has spread from RL forums to Feedback Tracker area!
Is this an intended effect?
Is this climate good for iClone profit bottomline?
or self-defeating?

And who would blame the most positive and farsighted users for stinging votes?
Barely 10% of the Most Requested Items on Wish List forum have made it to the FT!
Is it any surprise FT area voting has come to a near stand still?

Time to encourage iClone users to feel a little more generous?

Thanks for considering and listening.


  >>> Indie Generalist modeler-rigger-animator <<< Hardware: AlienWare i7-HK 32G GTX1080 2T-SSDs BenqSW320 Wacom-Intuous 3Dconnexion ||| Software: IC6 Pipeline - CTA3 Pipeline - ATK2 - Indigo ||| Zbrush4R8. Blender 2.79. DazStudio 4.9. Carrara. Poser. Octane.

My vote goes to Bellatrix for President.



Homebuilt computer - Windoze 10, INTEL i9 9900 k @ 5.1 GHz, EVGA RTX 2080 TI XC ULTRA, 16GB 3100 MHz RAM, Asus  Maximus Hero XI motherboard, Sound blaster Z series. iClone6 & 7 Pipeline, Crazytalk 8, Crazytalk Animator 2, Facefilter, Pop video 3, Hitfilm 4Pro, Cubase 8.5 Pro,

FT statistics (iClone Suggestions):

Assigned: 4 suggestions (covering one feature - Animation). Assigned apparently means "under discussion". No guarantees or promises but better than nothing.
Hold: 0 
Active: 56 suggestions 
Age (Oldest Suggestion): 1.25 months

My observations / conclusions:
1. It's only been a month (though I agree the waiting feels like years if you have a request in FT!). Lets give them more time  :-D
2. RL has, within a short period, already picked up the most important, longest pending requests (animation improvements) 
3. RL needs to manage expectations by defining "turnaround standards" (e.g. "new feedback will be evaluated within x days, detailed investigation within x weeks, and a decision / prioritization within x weeks") This way, users know not to check daily for progress. Automatic escalation would be needed to ensure the process works.
4. I think votes currency is a good thing and 10 votes (one per item) is generous enough to keep things democratic without overwhelming dev with important - but non-urgent requests. It makes me think hard about priority when voting.
5. FT user interface is wanting, needs more status / tracking indicators... buts its beta and less than 2 months old so hopefully there are plenty of usability enhancements on the way.

Cheers!

I support "limited" votes... otherwise it would be too easy for everyone would vote for everything and the votes would lose their meaning.  This way we have to think about what's most important to us.  I wouldn't mind an increase to 20, or 25 max, but I think having a limit is a good thing.

It has been suggest that for BUGS, we have a separate "Me Too" vote to indicate you have also encountered it (or that it's important), and perhaps those should be unlimited.  That sounds excellent, because if it's a bug, we shouldn't need to vote on them.  In the real world we all know that some bugs have more impact than others, so having a "bug vote" still isn't bad, but it sure would be nice to not have it take away from a "new feature" vote.  (Increasing the amount of votes would also help.)

It has also been suggested that you could separate out "enhancements to existing functionality" from "new functionality" (such as "Improve Indigo plug-in" vs. "Add Iray renderer plug-in").  There's a logic to that, but maybe it's splitting hairs.

Remember we can ADD COMMENTS.  It's not as obvious as a vote, but we can certainly weigh in with comments.  They do read them!!!  I have added two comments for issues marked "Not Reproducible."  My fear was once they couldn't reproduce it, they would ignore that topic.  However, in both cases (one was mine, one was Mark's entry) they read my follow-up comments that provided addition details, were able to reproduce the issue, and changed the status accordingly.

Lastly:
a) We should have a "Feedback Tracker" category in Feedback Tracker.
b) In the end, our votes are only "one input" going into Reallusion's decision what to do, and when to do it.

So far, I'm fairly pleased.  Now we need to sit back and see when the fixes and enhancements to appear on our desktops. 

Very Lastly:
I would like a more detailed description of some of the Statuses...  "Hold" and especially "Active" vs. "Assigned."  I wonder if they mean the same thing to Reallusion as they do to me.

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Yep I suggested those indeed:

----cut-and-paste from recent post----

In my other Jira tester lives I'm used to 3 typical categories of "feedback reports"
1. Potential Bug/ Confirmed Issue
2. IMPROVEMENT Suggestions (minor/ subcategory to existing main features)
3. NEW FEATURE Suggestions (major/ fundamental/ add-ons/ plugins)

Confirming bugs/issues should have a different kind of vote...
"ME TOO!" vote? 
'Me Too' button auto-generated when everything else EXCEPT when Suggestion tag is ticked
This class of votes should not be capped to 10 for obvious reasons!

---end copy----
         
Even as I proposed unlimited votes I'm not attached to either or unlimited vs 10/30/50 votes
so long vote currency printing is balanced against total suggestions
in a food voucher food hall situation
having $10 per pax chasing 300+++ food stalls
and small lunch crowd traffic of 114...
hm sustainable?

inviting UNLIMITED feedback and suggestion
but permit LIMITED currency
huh?

Some thing has to give!

Case in point...
There are so far THREE 3D particle related requests
With a few overlapping wanted functions
There are some valid requests on the CC and 3DX sides
I want to vote them all
But...I ran out of cash!

One month later, the small pool of lunch crowd spent all their cash
some spend precious $1 on quality gourmet products
some throw precious $1 on crap fast food
more food vendors flood the food hall
soon we'll have 350 vendors!
yet...
good or bad food no matter
no-one seems to be spending!

surprise surprise!?


  >>> Indie Generalist modeler-rigger-animator <<< Hardware: AlienWare i7-HK 32G GTX1080 2T-SSDs BenqSW320 Wacom-Intuous 3Dconnexion ||| Software: IC6 Pipeline - CTA3 Pipeline - ATK2 - Indigo ||| Zbrush4R8. Blender 2.79. DazStudio 4.9. Carrara. Poser. Octane.