That's a great idea Jeff. We are currently working out the feature list for the next version and I have a feeling this will feature quite high up the list.

Matt

I too like this idea. Thanks for posting it Jeff.

This idea makes me think of Bruce's blog post here
{ Link }

I love statistics and I like this idea except the part where it says "the system suggests some ideas that I might be inclined to vote on, based on [snip] what has been promoted/demoted by other users who have voted similarly to me.

I don't think the last statement should be included in the suggestion process otherwise, the same people will vote the same way on the same things which COULD sway the results into pockets of groups.

The idea space should be flatter and broader with ideas and comments on ideas overlapping to provide an alternative view to problem solving.

What I mean by this is that if all the "cool admins" vote a certain way and they all vote on a particular topic, good ideas or good comments from someone who is not part of the "cool admins" click might not get a suggestion to view the idea. This might have two results. One could be that less alternate views on a suggestion to solve a problem. The second could be a second round of the stagnation phenomenon that Bruce mentions in his blog post.

I would agree to it if it were changed to "the system suggests some ideas that I might be inclined to vote on, based on what has been voted on by other users who have voted similarly to me.....but maybe that's what Jeff meant in the first place.

I do not want the "system" to think for me.

What I do want is:

- a "better" way to walk through the ideas, but I really do not have any practical suggestion for this
- feedback by IBM on the ideas; I suppose IBM reads the ideas, but what will be done with them?

I am not sure if IdeaJam can fulfill its promise. There are so many ideas entered, that it looks not very practical to handle them at all. On the other hand, we do not want to be limited to enter a new idea. I hope that IBM uses this forum to get some feedback on their products and learn what is hot for their users.

@4 - We are working on these items...

"- a "better" way to walk through the ideas, but I really do not have any practical suggestion for this"

In the upcoming XPages version of IdeaJam you will be able to read the full idea details from the views, thus not needing to open the idea itself as often, this should allow you to get through ideas a lot quicker

"- feedback by IBM on the ideas; I suppose IBM reads the ideas, but what will be done with them?"

We do know that lots of influential IBM-ers read IdeaJam on a daily basis and there are several ideas which have been submitted that are being addressed in the upcoming 8.5 release. We are continuing to try and get more official involvement on the site, but any help from you guys is appreciated, especially at Lotusphere in a couple of weeks ;-)

"I am not sure if IdeaJam can fulfill its promise. There are so many ideas entered, that it looks not very practical to handle them at all. On the other hand, we do not want to be limited to enter a new idea. I hope that IBM uses this forum to get some feedback on their products and learn what is hot for their users."

As I said, we know IBM-ers do read the site daily. We are also adding new features in the upcoming release to rationalize the number of ideas in the system using our new Archiving Rules feature. Ideas that have been inactive for a long time will get moved out of the live area, hopefully bringing those ideas that are getting interest from people to become more visible.

Also, we really like Jeff's idea, and are working out ways that it can be implemented at the moment.

Thanks for all the continuing interest, we definitely are seeing results.

Matt

@5 - when becomes an idea inactive? When there are no comments added? Or when no votes are added?

But what with ideas that were entered a long time ago? Do new users bother to vote on them?

When I started reading IdeaJam (Nov 2008) I entered an idea about remembering the position of some popup-screens in the Notes6/7 designer. I got 38 votes; the last by June 9, 2008. There were 25 promotions and no demotions. But there must be more than 38 developers reading this forum. So my idea is that the timeframe where an idea is hot or being read is very limited.

@6 - For our archiving, we allow the administrator to choose the timeframe that inactive ideas can remain visible in the system. In conjunction with Jeff's idea, I think we can get towards something that will work for very large, long term IdeaJam sites like this one.

I should probably also say that a lot of our customers actually run their IdeaJams as short term idea gathering exercises so in those cases a lot of these problems won't arise.

Matt

I would be happy with a view that works like Recent Comments that shows the recently voted ideas with the most recent idea voted for on top, etc.