tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:/discussions/questions/737-listing-tickets-in-order-of-watcher-numbersLighthouse: Discussion 2011-04-07T05:38:39Ztag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-11-30T23:27:06Z2010-11-30T23:27:06ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Hi</p>
<p>I am looking for a solution that will allow us to easily
evaluate how important/severe each of our software bugs is by using
the number of people interested in them as the primary measure.</p>
<p>Would you tell me whether this is possible with Lighthouse? Your
search syntax help page seems to state that it is not. I find this
difficult to believe, considering work prioritisation is one of the
main difficulties with running a software business.</p>
<p>Would someone please clarify this for me?</p>
<p>Thank you<br></p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-01T00:47:51Z2010-12-01T00:47:51ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>That's not possible. Lighthouse was technically designed to be a
workflow without priorities. You can enable a priority feature, a
1, 2, 3 type dropdown, but that only applies to bronze or higher
plans. Weighting by people watching a ticket isn't possible though
as it's designed to be a development environment.</p>
<p>We use the number of people watching a discussion as weight in
<a href="http://tenderapp.com">http://tenderapp.com</a> and then
elevate development issues to Lighthouse tickets.</p></div>Will Duncantag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-01T01:48:08Z2010-12-01T01:50:06ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Thanks for responding, Will</p>
<p>Our situation is that we would have 500-1000 tickets open at one
time, and our customers naturally attach differing levels of
importance to each of these issues. Hence, priorities are inherent
in the workflow process, so I don't really understand the "workflow
without priorities" philosophy. Would you explain it, please?</p>
<p>Considering the long-term investment in choosing a system like
yours (ie the labour involved in entering and managing the tickets,
and the fact that it's not easy to migrate away once committed), I
am finding it difficult to envisage it's usefulness without
powerful reporting tools.</p>
<p>I hope you can clarify this, because the main strengths of your
system are not clear from your website.</p>
<p>By the way, we are prepared to subscribe to any plan that would
give us this feature, or an alternative that provides a solution to
our problem.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-01T18:13:07Z2010-12-01T18:13:08ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Will</p>
<p>Is there anything more to add on this subject, or should I
consider it closed?</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-01T18:19:41Z2010-12-01T18:19:41ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>By the way, in response to your statement, "We use the number of
people watching a discussion as weight in <a href=
"http://tenderapp.com">http://tenderapp.com</a> and then elevate
development issues to Lighthouse tickets", I can see how that
facility in useful to an extent, but people can dip in and out of
discussions. Conversely, with bugs, particularly those that are
hampering a projects' development, there is much greater motivation
for users to receive updates about them than a discussion. Thus, it
follows that ticket watches are a much more accurate gauge of the
severity of an issue.</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-03T00:39:54Z2010-12-03T00:39:54ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>When we created Lighthouse, the core idea was to create a ticket
tracker that focused more on work vs filing tickets. Most other
ticket trackers you spent more time editing a ticket with the 18
fields they have than actually focusing on what the ticket is
about.</p>
<p><a href=
"http://www.43folders.com/2009/04/28/priorities">http://www.43folders.com/2009/04/28/priorities</a>
is a great blog post about how we feel about priorities. The idea
is that a ticket is either important or it isn't. Levels of
priorities are fairly irrelevant. You either do it now, or you do
it later.</p>
<p>What you're asking for is more of a ranking system than a
priority system, basing tickets on their popularity. We don't have
a feature like that in Lighthouse, but it's also not designed to be
a public workflow. There are open projects, mostly open source
communities using Lighthouse, and they have to be highly
curated.</p>
<p>I disagree about Tender. You can simply watch an issue in
Tender, also you can attach multiple Tender discussions to one
Lighthouse ticket, which allows you to respond to duplicate
requests easily as it's all tracked in the development ticket.</p>
<p>We used to use Lighthouse for public support / development.
Having thousands of tickets and traffic going on within your
workflow doesn't particularly work very well. Over time
organization falls apart. You see duplicates, inconsistencies in
organization, and topics within a ticket shift dramatically,
altering what the original purpose was. A ticket tracker is a poor
replacement for widespread support and high volumes of data that
often overlap each other. If you have a very awesome userbase that
you could trust as curators of a project it would work fine, but
that's rarely the case.</p></div>Will Duncantag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-04T22:05:49Z2010-12-04T22:26:18ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Hello, Will. Thank you for your response.</p>
<p>To me, Merlin Mann's article is a very long-winded justification
of a single, simple complaint about the improper use of language.
To reiterate the same idea, as he has done, using numerous
different analogies does not make the point of view any more
convincing.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree, to a point, that when people usually speak of "the
priority" or "the highest priority", it is a little nonsensical.
However, these are simply figures of speech. Natural language is
littered with similar examples. Consequently, the article has left
me with the impression that Mann is one of those people who is very
difficult to have a discussion with, because when they run out of
rational, relevant points, they inevitably look for ways to
undermine the argument by taking exception to the semantics of what
the other person has said. In a court of law, this may be
reasonable and necessary; in any other conversation, it is
tiring.</p>
<p>Let me provide my own analogies; a person starting up a new
company approaches their bank in the hope of obtaining the required
capital. They are asked by their manager how they will make the
business a success. Obviously, and in line with Mann's view, a
reply such as, "The priority is to make a profit", will not be
effective. However, the very least the manager will expect is a
plan of action or, as it's more commonly known, "a Business Plan".
Without this, the proposal will fail.</p>
<p>Similarly, in housing development, a builder must schedule for
the foundations and walls to be constructed before the roofers are
employed. Guessing the plan of action, or using a random approach
to choosing the next task, will also lead to failure.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I am always suspicious of bloggers who do not
provide the opportunity for their audience to respond. I feel the
article would be even less convincing if there were some
contrasting opinions on the page.</p>
<p>In response to your statement, "There are open projects, mostly
open source communities using Lighthouse, and they have to be
highly curated.". Yes, I do indeed understand that tickets must be
managed and that this can be time-consuming for project managers.
However, this issue is trivial, when you take into account (and
appreciate) the rest of the benefits gained from a community's
contribution.</p>
<p>So, let me correct myself; rather than "priority", I should have
said, "informed plan of action". In preference to putting a finger
in the air (excuse the figure of speech!), or guessing, or using
some listless approach to selecting which tickets to resolve, we'd
like to see which issues are most important to our users, and act
accordingly.</p>
<p>From what you have said, your company made a conscious decision
to keep Lighthouse simple, and this is indeed one of the reasons
for my interest in it. However, in order for it to be effective, we
need the suitable tools in place.</p>
<p>To summarise, I am certainly not suggesting that you abandon the
KISS ethos on which you have founded your system. My request is for
a small feature enhancement of the already-existing "watched" query
parameter that, if marketed properly, could actually provide an
additional selling point for the product. If you are uncomfortable
with the possibility of the feature being misused, then I would
understand if it was restricted to project administrators. Lastly,
for those of your users that don't see the benefit of the
functionality, obviously, they need not even use it.</p>
<p>Thank you for considering this, and for the discussion.<br>
Hal</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-05T00:40:45Z2010-12-05T00:40:45ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Will</p>
<p>I have just realised I need to make a slight correction to the
above post. To implement the proposed feature it would require an
extra sort column, rather than a change to the "watched" search
parameter. Again, I would imagine that this would only need to be
added to the project managers' interface, and not the interface
used by the public..</p>
<p>Thanks<br>
Hal</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-11T14:43:08Z2010-12-11T14:43:08ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>Will, I am hoping for a response to this.<br>
Thanks<br>
Hal</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-19T23:03:23Z2010-12-19T23:03:23ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>It seems to me that you have disregarded this suggestion
out-of-hand, even though it does not conflict with the aims of your
product and despite the fact that it brings a really useful
benefit.</p>
<p>I can only conclude that, in your minds, lighthouseapp is
complete; it is the perfect system and thus there's no need for any
changes or improvements in the future.</p>
<p>That may be fine for now, but it won't be long before it seems
staid, and you will no doubt be scrambling to maintain your
position in a competitive market.</p></div>lighthouseapp_com (at netaxiom)tag:help.lighthouseapp.com,2008-09-20:Comment/40509012010-12-20T14:18:48Z2010-12-20T14:18:48ZListing tickets in order of watcher numbers<div><p>We are currently making updates and changes to Lighthouse, but
expanding on the watcher functionality in the way you've suggested
is not something we're likely to pursue at this time.</p>
<p>We do appreciate customer suggestions, as well as your
thoroughness in explaining how this feature is important to
you.</p>
<p>Thanks,<br>
Nicole</p></div>Nicole