Best practices of keeping track of feature requests

Community Building

AI-generated summary

In a discussion on best practices for tracking feature requests in Discourse, stanigator shares a structured workflow recommended by ChatGPT, including using post templates to standardize submissions, enabling tags like under-consideration or released, and leveraging the Discourse Voting Plugin to let the community prioritize requests. A weekly 15–30 minute review by a team member is suggested to tag, merge, and respond to top requests. High-priority items can then be mirrored into internal tools like Jira or Notion, while keeping Discourse as the “external idea garden.” A pinned guide explaining the process helps set user expectations. NateDhaliwal agrees the voting plugin is valuable for gauging support, though notes users may prefer liking posts over voting—possibly due to vote limits. stanigator considers watching tutorial videos to implement the plugin. NateDhaliwal provides links to the plugin’s topic and installation guide, noting it’s available on Discourse’s Business plan and up for hosted instances. The workflow balances community input with low-overhead moderation, avoiding complex integrations while maintaining clear communication and prioritization.

1

I’m including the response from my questions to ChatGPT. Basically, I’m trying to do a better job on tracking the feature requests while they are still fresh and not volumous. I already have some of the tags. Do moderators vote on the tags or are they voted on by the community? Are only high-priority requests mirrored onto internal tools (like Jira, Linear, Notion, or even Google Sheets)? I would love to hear ideas on seamlessly keeping track of the requests. I would implement a template shortly.

:white_check_mark: Recommended Setup: Lightweight, Scalable Feature Request Workflow in Discourse

1. Create a Template for Feature Request Posts
Use Discourse’s Post Templates for the Feature Requests category. Prompt users to give structured feedback.

Example Template:

**Summary:**  
[Short one-liner summary]

**Problem / Use Case:**  
[What problem are you solving? Who is this for? Why is this important?]

**Proposed Solution:**  
[If you have an idea for how this could work, describe it.]

**Priority / Impact:**  
[Low / Medium / High — optional but helps triage]

This keeps things clean from the beginning, avoids vague requests, and makes it easier to scan later.

2. Use Tags + Topic Voting Plugin

  • Enable tags like under-consideration, in-progress, released, duplicate, rejected, etc.
  • Use the Discourse Voting Plugin — it’s purpose-built for this kind of use case.

Users can upvote the most important features without needing third-party tools. You can then sort topics by vote count to get a clear, auto-prioritized backlog.

3. Weekly or Bi-Weekly Review Process
You don’t have to monitor this daily — just establish a cadence. For example:

  • Every Friday: One PM or engineer spends 15–30 minutes:
    • Tagging top requests
    • Updating statuses
    • Merging duplicates
    • Writing quick replies like “Under review – thank you!” or “Merged with XYZ topic”

That’s all you need to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio and keep things organized.

4. Mirror High-Priority Requests to Internal Tool
Whenever a request becomes a “real feature,” copy it into your internal tracking system (JIRA, Linear, Notion, etc.) — don’t try to integrate everything. Just link back to the Discourse thread so engineers/designers can read the original discussion.

This makes the Feature Request channel your external idea garden, while your internal system remains clean and focused only on validated features.

5. Pin a “Feature Request Process” Post
Have a pinned topic explaining:

  • What kind of requests you’re looking for
  • How votes are used
  • How often the team reviews requests
  • What the tags mean
  • What happens after something gets tagged “Under Consideration”

This sets expectations and keeps user engagement high.

:white_check_mark: Summary of the Stack

Layer Tool Purpose
Input Discourse w/ Template + Tags Structured community feedback
Prioritization Discourse Voting Plugin Crowd-based priority
Review Weekly 15–30 min pass Low-overhead triage
Execution Internal tool (JIRA/Linear/etc.) For actual development
Sync Manual linkbacks No need for deep integrations
2

The topic voting plugin I feel is very relevant - it gives a good gauge on how many people support the idea. I do see sometimes see that more people tend to like the topic requesting the feature than clicking ‘Vote’, though [1], so you may also want to check the topic post’s likes.

  1. perhaps out of the lack of votes left? ↩︎

3

I probably should watch the relevant Youtube videos on how to use or implement this.

4

Plugin topic:

Here’s how to install the plugin:

If you’re hosted with Discourse, the plugin is available on the Business plan and up.

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