Feature requests?

[balding_ape]

This seems like a silly question, I'm sure, but where can we offer feedback as to features that should be included in the next version? The link in the 2.2 Development FAQ thread leads to a sourceforge page which requires some kind of permissions I don't have. Could anyone point me towards a resource that explains this?

(Incidentally, does it seem strange to anyone else that the ACP's Restore Backups list of backups is not in proper date order, sorted by year, then month, then day, then time, but is rather sorted by day first?)

[Techie-Micheal]

For feature requests, http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=b ... tid=975058 is the place to go. You'll need a sourceforge.net account, which can be found at the top as "Create account" and they'll guide you through the process.

[balding_ape]

Thank you Techie-Micheal. Submitted feature request!

[code reader]

For feature requests, http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=b ... tid=975058 is the place to go. You'll need a sourceforge.net account, which can be found at the top as "Create account" and they'll guide you through the process.

in principle this makes sense, but in practice it doesn't.
the list in sourceforge does not contain any feedback from the dev team, no way for someone to know if their request was accepted, rejected or even considered, no place for advocacy, so the team has no way of knowing if this is a single user's itch or is it something that many would find useful, there is no feedback (although a feedback mechanism does exist, it doesn't look like it's being used).
in short, the sourceforge feature request list looks dead. one gets the sense that it would be just as effective to write the request on a piece of paper, put it in a bottle and toss it in the ocean.
the header at the top of the list reads:

Thanks for all your submissions. The list of features for phpBB 3.0.x is now being frozen.
Please note we do not take a look at this tracker very often - so please bear with us if your entry goes uncommented. Once we have the time we will go through the list.
At this stage it is recommended to only post if you were redirected to this tracker by a phpbb.com team member.

the message itself is not dated, so for all we know it was written 3 years ago and no team member have visited since.
iow: since this is the only (known) place to put a feature request, i think it's fair to say that there is no feature request option for phpbb at this time.

btw: the oldest request on sourceforge's phpbb-feature-request list, from 2007-08-02 has the following comment:

You were not directed to this tracker by one of our team members, right? At
the moment, please read the description. This is for tracking "verified"
requests only. We will open up "open" requests at a later stage.

there is an active and live "mod request" forum on phpbb.com, but some things only make sense if they are included in the core product, and do not make sense as mods, so in a sense it's a pity that no feature request/discussion/advocacy exists.
oh well...

[Acyd Burn]

We do not comment on feature requests by default - there is no means of "discussion". But you are correct - at the moment we do not consider feature requests at all - we rather pick them out of the forums, team member ideas, community ideas, the bug tracker, the sf feature request tracker and own ideas. There is no list and we recommend users not post feature requests (because we are not able to consider them any more)

[code reader]

Thanks.
This is the situation as I understood it. Thank you for stating it clearly.

While we are at it:
I know that this issue was discussed in the past, but I never saw any response or resolution, so please allow me use this opportunity to raise it again:
Some languages are gender sensitive, in the sense that one might want to change some of the strings based on the user's gender.
This could have been done relatively easily, because the language files are read after the user profile, (so as to support multilingual forums).
if the $user object had a gender field, translator could have included strings in the form:

Code: Select all

'IDENTIFIER'  => $user['female'] ? 'FEMALE FORM OF STRING' : 'MALE FORM OF STRING';
// or:
'IDENTIFIER' => ($user['gender'] == 'female') ? 'FEMALE FORM OF STRING' : 'MALE FORM OF STRING';
// or having a 
$is_female = $user['gender'] === 'female';
// at the top of the language file, and then
'IDENTIFIER' => $is_female ? 'FEMALE FORM OF STRING' : 'MALE FORM OF STRING'; 

this functionality can not be achieved by using a MOD, because this would require all the boards using this translation to install the mod, which would break the separation Code/Language/Style.
It can't even be achieved by adding a custom profile field, for the same reason.
So, today all translations to gender-sensitive languages use either the male form or (maybe, I'm not sure) some form of neuter.

Please consider, in the interest of users of those languages, adding "User Gender" to core product.

Thanks.