Silk Road forums
Support => Customer support => Topic started by: Burning Babylon on September 22, 2013, 02:45 am
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With the News of Atlantis shutting down soon ( http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=213396 ) I thought this would be a good time to create this thread as there's not much time to spare with regards for the history of Atlantis in roughly a week or so. Now before I get to my main point about Silk Road itself it's noteworthy Atlantis had a Dedicated Forum Section for Feature Requests ( http://atlmlxbk2mbupwgr.onion/index.php?board=3.0 ) which worked roughly like this:
Users submitted their Feature requests to the forums with a Title and a Poll where other Users could Vote if it was a good Suggestion or not. If a thread got enough Attention either by Views, caught the interest of a Moderator or by Votes a Moderator/Administrator would step in and officially declare their Intent by Adding a Status to the thread title itself with ( usually ) a corresponding post. Some examples on Confirmed Title Statuses: [PLANNED], [COMPLETED], [REJECTED, [ACCEPTED], [POSTPONED], [APPROVED]. This is the System Atlantis decided to use and when disappear later that will be their Legacy on that Aspect of their Operation. Now, unto Silk Road...
Me along with numerous others have attempted to Suggest various Improvements and one thing that has struck me is not a single Moderator or Administrator has to my knowledge answered to a single Suggestion on Standalone Issues. However whenever there's an Announcement for something to be Modified like for example in the thread buyer ratings: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=211392 Suggestions for anything related seem to be at least considered. My intent with this thread is I want Full Clarification on the stance of Silk Road in regards to what the Policy is for Improvements and Suggestions currently. I've compiled some plausible pre-made answers until there's a real Official one:
* Moderators are instructed to stay out of anything regarding how Silk Road itself Operates - Administrator(s) only Focus on whatever Projects they're currently working on.
* There's too many Suggestions and it's hard to know which ones are of any use and which ones are not.
* The Code Base of Silk Road is very Limited and there's no possibility of Adding any Complex new Functions regardless of how good they might be.
* Silk Road doesn't have enough funds to improve the site beyond a few Key Aspects which are regularly Announced Periodically.
As a finishing note I've had a planned Project of going through the entire Forum Section "Feature requests" ( http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?board=9.0 ) along with a few Suggestion threads from the Vendor Roundtable where my goal would be to compiling data on every Suggestion ever made and try to compile all that data into one thread detailing what people are requesting the most. However if Silk Road won't listen to Suggestions beyond their Active Projects there would not be much point of doing this as it would be a huge waste of time from my perspective.
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Suggestion noted. Thanks.
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Just kidding- I think there are some good things to pull out all this and will pass it along to the administration to see if any aspect could be implemented here. I think the staff takes the time to try and answer all questions and help push good ideas up the chain. Thanks for your input.
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Our official policy is for members to post their suggestions in the 'Feature requests' forum. If they garner enough interest or seem like a useful addition (without compromising security or weakening site defenses in any way) they will be considered for implementation.
Atlantis may have had some interesting ideas, but personally speaking I think the reason we're standing strong and they have crumbled is because we consider security to be a higher priority than adding new features just for the sake of it.
Libertas
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Up until recently any changes to the site happened without any prior notification to the forum moderators, there was many a time I logged in myself and had to play catch up fast on what was going on. The reason for this I surmised was that DPR and the admins who run this site have their own ideas and plans around its development and some of the upgrades have been on a wish list for quite some time.
I think what we are seeing more recently is a much more collaborative approach to changes with DPR seeking community feedback before and during upgrades. I am also aware that DPR will be coming to the community again in the near future to gauge community feeling on a number of issues.
I am pleased to see the recent changes happening in a more collaborative way, I'll start sticking my nose into feature requests a bit more frequently from now on and talk to DPR about how he would like the trending requests summarized.
Thanks for raising this Burning Babylon, your posts are always very well considered, if I could +1 you I would.