What is the success rate for "Brainstorms"

[craftyguy]

I'm very new to maemo.org and the whole 'brainstorm' process here. After spending the last few weeks seeing features I would like up for consideration in the brainstorm section (and proposing new solutions/voting), and the lack of progress towards implementing any of the solutions, it leads me to wonder how many of the brainstorms out there actually get implemented, and what the average amount of time from brainstorm conception to feature implementation is?

It seems like an absolutely great idea, but I'm not convinced that it actually accomplishes anything? I definitely hope that it does!

[slender]

I'm very new to maemo.org and the whole 'brainstorm' process here. After spending the last few weeks seeing features I would like up for consideration in the brainstorm section (and proposing new solutions/voting), and the lack of progress towards implementing any of the solutions, it leads me to wonder how many of the brainstorms out there actually get implemented, and what the average amount of time from brainstorm conception to feature implementation is?

It seems like an absolutely great idea, but I'm not convinced that it actually accomplishes anything? I definitely hope that it does!
This was first thing that I also thought when I looked brainstorms. First you get exited but then you start thinking that is this again some let's sign kumbaya and hold hands and enjoy each others company.

You can search brainstorm by their status from brainstorm pages. Look on right side of page.

Some of my posts concerning this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=489618&postcount=96
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=469228#post469228

[jaem]

I can't speak to the actual theoretical usefulness of maemo.org's Brainstorm implementation, but there are a few things I can say.
1) Coding is a heck of a lot more work than most people would think
2) If you aren't a developer, you won't think about various constraints
3) Unfortunately, people are sometimes stupid, and the people who are usually shout louder than everyone else.

What I mean by all of this is that many things suggested with good intent by non-developers either aren't practical, aren't good design, technically speaking, or just involve factors that most people aren't aware of. This leads to frustration because people sometimes quite literally can't understand why their ideas are being rejected. This isn't any fault of their own - it's just the nature of most technical fields: it seems easy because someone else has done the hard work for you.
In addition, there is, of course, the common noob. For whatever reason, some people are just socially inept on the Internet, and they tend to gravitate towards support forums and suggestion boxes and swamp them with inanity and rudeness. This isn't a huge issue in the maemo.org community, thankfully, but it does happen. This behaviour alone can quite easily reduce the usefulness of something like Brainstorm just by drowning out the useful things.
So, once you weed out all the things that can't be done, and the things that shouldn't have been posted in the first place, you get to the actual practical, concrete, useful ideas, which can be a surprisingly small fraction in some cases. Then you have to find people who can and will do the work to make them a reality. If you suggestion relates to a Nokia-written component, then it might be something they have to do, which means it has to fit their budget, priorities, etc. If it's something others can do, then it's a matter of matching someone with the time and inclination to do so with the task. The advantage of a system such as this is that there is a single place to take in and coordinate feature requests, as opposed to filing things in the bugtracker. Doing the latter usually results in less features AND bugs getting dealt with.
This is all speaking in generalities, but the point I'm trying to make is that the system works in concept, and both Nokia and the community seem (IMO) to be making a good effort to make it work, but it is a *suggestion* box at the end of the day; a *brainstorm*, in which many of the ideas may be discarded, and the good ones may get used.
If you're looking for actual figures, then the admins might be able to help you (if they aren't listed, which I would suspect they are). But just try to keep this in mind when you use it yourself, and encourage others to do so as well. </essay>