Wish list

The wish list is where you ask for something that does not exist yet: a feature, a tool, a change to how something works. An instructor marking forty submissions from a hub tool wants a button that exports the whole cohort's results as one file, because doing it one student at a time is the reason the assignment takes her a weekend. There is nothing broken to report and nobody can answer the question today — what she wants is for somebody to build it.

That is what separates a wish from everything else you can write on the hub. A wish is a request for work. It goes on a list, other members vote it up or down and comment on it, the people who own the list rank it against everything else on the list, and it ends up Accepted, Granted, Rejected or Withdrawn. It is slow on purpose: the voting is the point, because it is how a list's owners find out which of forty requests matter to more than one person.

The hub's main list is at /wishlist, usually linked from the support or help menu. Groups and resources can have lists of their own, shown on their Wishlist tab — so the export button above belongs on the tool's own list, where the tool's authors will see it, rather than on the hub-wide one.

Which one do I want?

If you want to	Use
Ask for a feature, tool, or change to be built	The wish list — this page
Report something broken, or ask the hub's staff for help	Support
Get one answer to a specific question, from anyone on the hub	Questions and answers
Discuss something open-ended, where several answers are defensible	Forum

The line that matters is between a wish and a ticket. If the software is doing something it should not, that is a fault and belongs in Support, where somebody is expected to answer. If the software is working as built and you want it built differently, that is a wish. Filing a fault here can leave it sitting for months waiting for votes; a list owner can move a wish onto a support ticket, but nobody will do it for you if you never say the thing is broken.

The list

The list page shows the wishes on one list, open ones first and the newest of those at the top, with an Add a Wish button at the top right. Each row gives the wish's title, its number, who proposed it and when, and how many comments it has, plus the like and dislike counts. On the right of the row you see the wish's state — Accepted, Granted, Rejected or Withdrawn — or nothing at all while it is still pending.

Above the table is a search box; type a few words and press Search to match wish titles and descriptions. Two menus sit beside it:

• Sort by — Date (newest first), Feedback (most liked first), or Submitter. Bonus appears when the hub awards points, and Ranking only for list owners.
• Filter by — All, Active, Accepted, Rejected, Granted, and, once you are logged in, Submitted by me. List owners also get Public and Private.

The sidebar carries a short description of the list, and on the main list a cloud of popular tags. Click a tag to narrow the list to wishes carrying it; click the small x on an applied tag to remove it again.

Posting a wish

Take the instructor's export button through. She opens the tool's page, selects its Wishlist tab, and presses Add a Wish at the top right. You have to be logged in; if you are not, the hub sends you to the login page and back again. The form asks for:

Field	Notes
Post anonymously	Check it and your name is replaced by "Anonymous" everywhere the wish appears.
Summary of your wish	Required. One sentence, up to 200 characters.
Explain in more detail	The body of the wish, in the editor.
Tag this wish	Tags connect your wish to hub-wide search and to other tagged content.
Assign a point reward	Only when the hub runs a points economy. The amount you offer is put on hold against your account until the wish is granted or rejected.

Press Save. Your wish goes onto the list as Pending, the list's owners are e-mailed, and you land on the wish's own page.

Hers reads "Export all students' results as one CSV" in Summary of your wish, with the detail explaining that she does this for forty students each term and how long it takes. That second part is what earns votes: a wish that says who wants it and how often is a wish other people recognise and vote up, and the vote is what moves it up the list.

A wish's page

Every wish has a permanent address of the form https://<your hub>/wishlist/general/1/wish/<number>, which you can share. The page shows who proposed it and when, the summary, the detailed description, and its tags.

Below the wish is the row of actions available to you:

• edit — change the wish. Available to you on your own wishes and to list owners.
• Report abuse — flag the wish for the hub's support staff. The wish is hidden behind a notice until they review it.
• Withdraw my wish — take back a wish you posted, while it is still open. You are asked to confirm; any points you put on hold come back.

List owners get more: Change status, Move (to another list, or to a support ticket), and Make it public / Make it private.

Voting and commenting

Anyone logged in can press the Like or Dislike button beside a wish, on the list or on the wish's own page. You get one vote per wish and you can change it later. You cannot vote on your own wish, and voting closes once a wish is granted, rejected or withdrawn; the buttons say so when you hover over them.

Comments run below the wish. Log in, write your comment in the box under Add a Comment, and press Post comment. The same form takes an Attach file and a File description; images are shown inline under the comment, other files as download links. Check Post comment anonymously to hide your name.

Each comment has a Reply link, which opens a smaller form under it — the conversation nests three levels deep — and a Report abuse link. Replies carry no attachment.

How the consensus is worked out

This section is about what the list's owners do, not what you do. Read it if you want to know why your wish is where it is in the list, or skip it — you cannot rank a wish unless you own the list or sit on its advisory committee.

The owners of a list — and, where the hub has enabled one, its advisory committee — rank each wish under My Opinion. There are two selections:

• Importance, from rubbish through not important, to consider, nice to have, a must, up to crucial.
• Effort, an estimate of how long it would take: few hours, one day, few days, one week, few weeks, several months, or don't know.

Press Save to record your ranking. The Consensus column averages everyone's answers, and the Community Vote column shows the likes and dislikes from everyone else. Those numbers combine into the wish's priority, weighted by how many of the eligible voters have actually voted, so a wish ranked by most of the owners counts for more than one ranked by a single person. Where the hub gives the advisory committee extra weight, their rankings count four times as much as an ordinary owner's.

The implementation plan

The plan is how an accepted wish turns into a commitment you can check on. Once a wish is accepted, its owners can write an Implementation Plan below the comments: who the wish is assigned to, when it is due, and a description of the work. Each save can be kept as a new revision, so the plan's history survives. The wish shows how long is left before the due date, and turns overdue once it passes.

Managing a list

If you own a list, the sidebar tells you so and links to List Settings. There you set the list's title and description, make it public or private, and choose who owns it: whole groups, named individuals, and — if the hub has enabled it — an advisory committee. Adding or removing an owner re-ranks every wish on the list, because the pool of eligible voters has changed.

Some settings are fixed. The main site-wide list and resource lists cannot be made private, and a list's built-in owner group cannot be removed.

Related

• Support — report a problem rather than ask for a feature.
• Questions and answers — ask the community.
• Forum — talk it over before you file it.
• Knowledge base — check whether it already exists.