I can understand not wanting to go through a thousand posts for each of those
I think many of us have noticed that some of the same requests keep coming up and for newer members especially, trying to research a request is a little overwhelming given what you said about the number of posts.
What do you think about keeping a master wish-list, probably as an announcement that would give everyone a common place to look? You might also make a mention on that list on roughly when the enhancement can be anticipated, where appropriate.
Compiling the list itself might be a little overwhelming, but once done, it would be pretty easy to add to. Perhaps Bugaware can give you a start on it.
That would be an excellent idea. A lot of requests are coming up over and over again which the team will know about and are probably working on, but some indication when the new features are due to roll-out would help us folks a lot.
I agree with you, RobK, that a date indication for new features would help us out, and yet I disagree.
A preliminary date indication sets up an expectation. If the feature makes it by then, that’s fine. However, if it doesn’t, the FA staff is sure to get some rather heated, indignant, angry postings from about half a dozen people here. That won’t get the feature out to us any faster, but it is discouraging to the FA staff and the rest of us here whose smiles start to wilt.
Maybe I’d exaggerate if I say it would poison our supporting atmosphere; however, the rose will begin to wilt.
I’m satisfied as long as I can feel that the FA staff is giving us its best effort. After that, I really don’t want to harbor any failed expectations. Let’s not burden ourselves with that date indication.
Notice that I didn’t mention “date” I just said “roughly when”. (and I knew RobK would pick up on that part! )
I used to work in software development for a company much like FA (not aviation, though), so I have been through the promises, expectations and frustrations. Its sometimes very difficult to pin down one enhancement project when it is dependent on six others.
What I would like to see is a list of planned enhancements in a one-stop place so everyone, new and old, can see what has already been proposed so that we can minimize confusion. Newer members could look on the list to see what is already in the works without having to read thousands of forum posts to find that their idea has already been suggested.
The list would hopefully contain very generic information on when it is planned, i.e. “next release”, “several months”, “sometime way in the future” or “can’t do it in our lifetime”. FA are a smart bunch, they wouldn’t want to pin down exact dates, but a general indication of priority would be nice.
Looking over the FlightAware BugAware, it seem slike some (not all) of the requested features are in there.
Please remember to have patience when requesting new or improved features. This is a great site as it is. The FlightAware staff is working hard to get new and improved features into it to make it even better.
