This is idea has been discussed before and it's something we are thinking about. IdeaJam is highly configurable by the administrator and if we did add this idea to the product we would for certain make it configurable. Let's see what others have to say.

I believe it would be very good to have a comment on a demotion, and this would make it easier to remember commenting. It would be really bad, though, if it would be required to comment, to be able to demote an idea.

You could present the demoter a choice of demotion reasons like:
- other ideas should have a higher priority
- bad idea
- does not fit in product philosophy
- too complex
- unclear
- already available
- other (with a textbox for free comment)

This would help the author of the idea and it would make it easy enough for voters to get the reason behind their vote.

PS: the list of choices could be updated when this function is in place for a certain period, based on the responses of the "other" choice (or suggestions added to this list by others).

I would agree with Rob, a generic list to give the author and others why you don't like the idea.

@Bruce and @Rob - one thought that Matt and I had is that if you give a list to choose from it may take away from the real reason as to why somebody is demoting an idea. Thoughts?

@Bruce they could enter a comment if they really wanted to. The comment shows the person's name were this would just show a list with a count next to each when you hover over demote:

4 - Bad idea
5 - Already available
etc.

Now coming up with a basic usable list is going to be the fun part. In Rob's example the Other entry could be added to the next user's reason list.

I like the thought of the list. But if someone uses "Bad Idea" it would be nice to get a reason why they think it's a bad idea... Getting a "Bad Idea" without a comment isn't as valuable I don't think.

I remember going through this the last time. And I remember my response: no, no, no! The reason was that it would present a barrier to voting and thus cause less people to vote. However, that was back when I was thinking of this feature for this specific site, not for the product. For the product, I believe that this feature should be available, but as an option for the owner to turn on/off.

While it should be encouraged to comment on demotes, forcing it is bad. You will simply get junk comments and discourage people from voting. Both horrible for the system.

@5 @8 I thought of that too; when people do take the effort to go to the IdeaJam site, read an idea and enter their vote, they are motivated enough that we can ask from them to think a second or two about why they demote the idea. I do not believe that at this point they just want to select an option at random in orderto minimise their time spent.

@7 Maybe the "bad idea" should be replaced by a few more specific options. But the list must not be too long otherwise its meaning get lost. When options only differ slightly, people will easily choose the wrong one.

I prefer small pop-up with just comment field with "OK" and "No Thanks" button. One comment field will suffice the purpose. Those who wish to let author know it's fine else no thanks and done.

The beauty of IdeaJam lies in its (apparent) simplicity.

I don't see the need for things like this. If an idea author *really* needs to know why something was demoted, they already have options:

- In the idea submission text, encourage demoters to comment
- (This is the radical one) *communicate* with any demoters to find out their reason(s)

@10 I'm certainly not trying to be argumentative here, but I disagree. I actually prefer the simplicity of the site today because it does minimize my time spent. Even though I promoted this idea for the product, I agree with Kerr and Ben when it comes to this site. Though I love this site immensely and spent a great deal of time here when it was in beta, once it went "live" I had to shift my time back to my more immediate concerns. Therefore, I like to come in and do drive-by's on the ideas quickly promoting or demoting. If I have to spend time justifying my votes it will most assuredly cause me to visit less often or, worse, cause me to only promote those that I like and not vote on those I dislike thus causing skewed results and a worthless system. Keep in mind that the success of something like digg.com comes from the low barrier to entry.

@9 I like to think of discussions in the same light as face-to-face discussions. You can't have any more a 'junk' response from someone that simply says 'no' without any qualification. Next!

@All,

That's why we (the developers of IdeaJam) provide the level of customizations we do. Some people will want the features while others will not. Let's see what else people have to say.

@13 I see what you mean, but what about "no opinion"? This is what I use when I am in a hurry or just do not want to demote nor promote.

I believe that when you demote, the author would like to have some idea why you are demoting the idea. By the way, I think you should be able (not forced) to add the reason at a promotion too. On the ohter hand people that claim that simplicity of this forum is one of its strengths have a point.

So the best thing to do is to allow for custimization. An option (again with custimization) could be to add two buttons: "promote with comment" and "demote with comment". When you select with comment you have the choice between a short comment from a predefined list or a long comment with an edit field. Then the only thing to think about is, how to show other people's comments.

I understand the intent behind this idea but I don't think that forcing users to enter comments on demote will get the desired result (even if I wished like hell that people would give a reason sometimes! ;)

I get asked by process owners to add this kind of validation to our workflow apps all the time. And end users just end up entering rubbish data to get past it as quickly as possible. The app then comes back to me for another round of additional steps/validation to try and stop it. Ultimately all it serves to do is slow the user down (and complicate the application). Its all rather silly. Our process owners need to read Bens comment above -- Sums it up rather nicely.

Solution: force demoters to solve a puzzle or mathematical equation (erm google came up with it. respek!). That way you won't demote if you don't have the time or argument.

@14, A simple down vote is not junk. It doesn't give you any idea why I don't like the idea, but it tells you I don't. Sometimes the reason has already been expressed, so why should I have to write @9 AOL. This is equivalent to having a town hall meeting, where people get up and present an idea and ask for a show of hands, but if you want to vote nay, you have to stand up and say why.

The barrier to entry is significant here. For some people it takes considerable effort to organize a coherent argument as to why they thing an idea is bad. That's over and above the time it will take them to actually write it down. All you will do is encourage people to write true junk comments. Do you really want to sift through pages of comments that simple say "Demote", "Crap", "@2 AOL" or worse "qwerqwerqwer"? How do you combat that? Force a minimum char count for comments? Delete those comments and votes?

@Bruce. I think one of the things that IdeaJam has got right is making the core product simple. The right way to do things. You have to be careful that adding too many sub-optional ways of doing things could hurt your image. "We had IdeaJam at my old company it was a a complete pain in the arse." Actually it was the way it was configured, but Joe User doesn't know that or care. We in the Notes world should recognize that problem. I know that you have previously refused to implement a feature for a major potential client because you didn't believe the model was right. Your model is right. Don't mess with it. It's a core strength of IdeaJam. It's why people will continue to buy it.

@18, LOL, exactly!!

@19 - here there are 3 thing to do, promote, demote, or ignore it. I think @3 idea of a simple list would be fast, easy and provide some info that would be helpful to all.

It doesn't complicate any thing as the hoover would show a list to select from, so it could be done in one click.

Just a thought on the assumption of "people would just be encouraged to write junk comments". I actually disagree with this simply on the basis of the quality of general feedback from the Lotus community. There's a certain consciensciousness (spelling?) I get from this community which is similar to broad open-source communities which gives me the confidence to suggest the idea in the first place actually. Respekt!

Not to take too much of a sidetrack - but I think the same rationale applies for items that are put in "Rejected" status - a dropdown list of reasons for the rejection would at least tell the requestor (and others that check) why it was rejected.