***--->Zenno Staff Please Read<---*** - Roadmap Request

[Kepperbes]

Have you guys ever considering using a Roadmap like other successful developers (maybe i'll PM DarkDiver directly about this)? There is a very large disconnect between provider (you guys), and customers (us) in the regard of what updates are actually being worked on, and what updates arent being worked on. There are several Russian programs that are out right now that are in just as competitive fields, if not more competitive, than Zennoposter, and they have absolutely no problem what so ever of posting a Roadmap so that they're customers know exactly where things stands with specific updates, and future plans (also not to mention the fact that they update more frequently). I know that you've mentioned before that you guys dont reveal the contents of future updates ahead of time, but I think at this point it could hurt no more than where things currently are. We have a program which is pretty much unusable because of the anonymity bug, and there is not a roadmap that lets us know where things are in regards to fixing this problem.

Its been a while since we've seen an update, and im certain that i'm not speaking for myself when I say that ZP has come a long way since the release of MP, but it still has a LOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before it can be considered a thorough product. Most of the problem with Zennoposter as time has proven stems from the staffs unwillingness to cooperate with its customers in regards to making things better. Now this isnt the entire staff, DarkDiver has been very cooperative with us in trying to improve Zennoposter, but in order to see a serious change its going to take more than DarkDiver, and I think a great place to start for that will be a Roadmap. The Roadmap will provide a way for customers to know how far along things are with specific feature requests, it'll give us a changelog, and it'll just be a great form of communication that some of the internets best developers are already using. Im talking about developer teams all the way down to popular programs that only have a single person doing the developing.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Drew]

I would also like to know the reasoning behind this, almost every piece of software I own has some sort of loosely detailed roadmap from the developers.
Even ZP's main competition asks it's user's for input on wanted features and will give out estimates on development.

 

[nuaru]

There are several Russian programs that are out right now that are in just as competitive fields, if not more competitive, than Zennoposter, and they have absolutely no problem what so ever of posting a Roadmap so that they're customers know exactly where things stands with specific updates, and future plans (also not to mention the fact that they update more frequently).

Which programs exactly? Provide several examples.

I know that you've mentioned before that you guys dont reveal the contents of future updates ahead of time, but I think at this point it could hurt no more than where things currently are.

1) We use agile development and there are no any long roadmaps with these methods.
2) Roadmap = additional work. Who's gonna do it? The one who's working on bug#3 or the other who's working on CodeCreator? This will have negative effect on development process anyway.

We have a program which is pretty much unusable because of the anonymity bug,

This bug has workaround. So, the word "unusable" doesn't suit here. Yes, right now it will require more RAM and processor's resources. Comparable with competitive programs. But it's not a big deal. We'll fix it. Darkdiver will post about this bug later.

and there is not a roadmap that lets us know where things are in regards to fixing this problem.

If you wanna know about this exact bug, Darkdiver works on it. Can't say how much time it will take. He will post more info soon.

Now this isnt the entire staff, DarkDiver has been very cooperative with us in trying to improve Zennoposter, but in order to see a serious change its going to
take more than DarkDiver, and I think a great place to start for that will be a Roadmap.

Darkdiver is in charge of Zennoposter development, is it not enough for you? Do you wanna everyday reports from all our developers and programmers: what was done today and what's gonna be tomorrow? It's not gonna happen. But I wanna look at roadmaps of the programs that you referred to.

The Roadmap will provide a way for customers to know how far along things are with specific feature requests, it'll give us a changelog, and it'll just be a great form of communication that some of the internets best developers are already using.

You can ask our support guys when there will be feature that you're interested in. If there are any est. dates known, they will tell you.


If you think of roadmap as a list of features/bugs with dates when they will be developed/fixed, it's just impossible. We perform a lot of research work which doesn't have any estimate deadlines. We often change priorities for tasks and something that we worked on today can be delayed for month or so before we'll continue to work on it. It's totally normal. What will be when user see that feature that he asked for and waited for right now delayed for several months? Panic, a lot of posts on forum, and yes, we will need to explain why, argue (users are different) and spend a lot of time which we could spend on development. Also we have secret features that we're working on, which we cannot reveal.


We outperform all our competitors. They are far behind us. All that they plan to develop our clients (you) can use now in Zennoposter MP and could use in Zennoposter 3.

 

[Kepperbes]

This bug has workaround. So, the word "unusable" doesn't suit here. Yes, right now it will require more RAM and processor's resources. Comparable with competitive programs. But it's not a big deal. We'll fix it. Darkdiver will post about this bug later.

What workaround is there to the anonymity bug? No matter what kind of proxy you're using unless your behind a bulletproof IP address then the IP address that you are using is being recorded every time you post somewhere, and 99% of the time if your posting to some sort of established website (I.E Pinterest) then your going to get banned. The same thing also applies to ReCaptcha because every time your filling out ReCaptcha (especially when they're failed), your IP address is being recorded then as well. This is a huge deal, and its been discussed in the chat that people have stopped using Zennoposter because of this anonymity bug. If there is a work around I certainly havent seen it, but then again if the workaround means that you're going to have to use MORE RAM and processing resources when Zennoposter is already RAM and processing intensive, then people are going to need a super computer in order to be able to use it.

Darkdiver is in charge of Zennoposter development, is it not enough for you? Do you wanna everyday reports from all our developers and programmers: what was done today and what's gonna be tomorrow? It's not gonna happen. But I wanna look at roadmaps of the programs that you referred to.

As I said before, DarkDiver has been really good at communicating with us, and that was never my complaint, however, I was simply suggesting that a Roadmap would be helpful in regards to supporting customers. As it stands right now nobody has any idea of when the next build will be coming, and whether or not the anonymity bug if fixed, or worked on, and this is what having a Roadmap will solve, and will cut down on all of the posts people make pertaining to anonymity related problems.

You can ask our support guys when there will be feature that you're interested in. If there are any est. dates known, they will tell you.

The only thing support ever tells us when asked about features:

"It is on the todo list"
"We will see"
"Will be in the next build" (but we rarely ever know when to expect the next build)

The problem is however as customers we dont know how big (or small) the todo list actually is, when the next build will be released, and where on the todo list specific features are placed in order. A good example of this was the Wordai feature that was added. Nobody asked for that feature in the forum, but it was added. Most of the users that I know all use The best spinner, so having something for that would've been better than Wordaii because thats where the majority is.

If you think of roadmap as a list of features/bugs with dates when they will be developed/fixed, it's just impossible. We perform a lot of research work which doesn't have any estimate deadlines. We often change priorities for tasks and something that we worked on today can be delayed for month or so before we'll continue to work on it. It's totally normal. What will be when user see that feature that he asked for and waited for right now delayed for several months? Panic, a lot of posts on forum, and yes, we will need to explain why, argue (users are different) and spend a lot of time which we could spend on development. Also we have secret features that we're working on, which we cannot reveal.

Thats awesome you guys are working on secret features, but there are a few features that I think as an actual ZP user that I think are more important, like being able to edit your template while in Debug mode. I'll take being able to do that instead of that Wordaii feature any day of the week.

We outperform all our competitors. They are far behind us. All that they plan to develop our clients (you) can use now in Zennoposter MP and could use in Zennoposter 3.

I would agree that Zennoposter outperforms SOME (not all) of your competitors in certain areas. Most of the updates that we've been receiving as of late are all C# related, which means that in order to be able to do something like downloading all emails that match a specific regex, you'll need to learn C#. Wanna do some error logging in your templates? Gonna have to learn C#. Im hoping that ZP doesnt drift away from simplicity and require all of us to learn how to code in C#.

I havent created this thread as a way to argue or debate the staff, I am simply pointing out something as a user of Zennoposter, what I think could make it better in comparison to other software programs. I have not insulted the staff, and I have not insulted the software in any way, I merely suggested some things that I think will only IMPROVE Zennoposter. Customers are the best way to help improve your product, take Amazon.com for example, one of the #1 retailers online, they survey their customers all the time on ways that they can improve and make their service better. Why? Because it means more $$$, more happy customers, and new business.

 

[Kepperbes]

I would also like to know the reasoning behind this, almost every piece of software I own has some sort of loosely detailed roadmap from the developers.
Even ZP's main competition asks it's user's for input on wanted features and will give out estimates on development.

You make a very good point. I dont know why this is so difficult for the Zennolab team. I love using Zennoposter, but sometimes I just wish things were a bit better. Alot of the time I dont even bother saying anything anymore because were always told how ZP is so much better than everything else, and how WE are wrong, it gets to the point where I feel like whats the point in making enhancement threads when stuff we asked for almost a year ago we still dont get, and have no idea when we'll get it, or if we'll ever get it.

 

[decibelgr]

I have to agree with Kepperbes in many fields!

 

[Boxcutter]

I agree. Maintaining a simple roadmap/goalmap/shit we working on map is not a big task at all.

Step 1 - Compile all the major feature requests and bugs to be fixed
Step 2 - Add a percentage complete beside each
Step 3 - Goal date to release each feature and fix each bug. Does that mean it MUST be released or fixed on that date? No. It does however mean you have clear targets you are working towards and there is some transparency so we the users who actually need these developments see how things are going.

The alternative to this is the current setup where everything is promised and added to a ever growing task list and no one but the staff have any idea when these will manifest into reality. Some helpful new features do come out of course but you can't blame users getting pissed off when they request features, get told that yes it's coming soon etc etc and then download release after release after release each time finding nothing they were told was coming soon was actually added.

Step 4 - Update the roadmap once a week so users know how much progress is being made.

Why the above cannot be done at the moment?

Ans:

We often change priorities for tasks and something that we worked on today can be delayed for month or so before we'll continue to work on it. It's totally normal.

Personally I think that is completely backwards. If something is a high priority today it should remain a high priority until it is fixed/solved/whatever, otherwise it's not a high priority. Changing priorities around is like this:

"God I must get this strange looking mark on my genitals looked at today..."
1 day later: "Actually I'm going to leave it, I'm sure it will disappear soon"
5 weeks later: "Oh shit why didn't I get this checked, it's huge!" - Runs to the doctor...
Docter: "You should have come in sooner. We have done a series of checks and I'm afraid it's bad news...we are going to have to lance it ALL off."

"Nooooooooooo"

 

[darkdiver]

Hi Everybody!
Some good news we will do the limited road map as the experiment. Thanks to HB, he agreed to support it.
It will be an experiment If you or we will not like it, we will close it.
In our work it is really hard to make prognoses about time. So the road map will only contain ready features or bugfixes. May be some features which are ready to finish.
The road map will not contain the exact dates of the releases, even me or nuaru do know the exact release date.
It will have just time stamps like this "next release", "hotfix", "release after next release"
That is all. We don't want to be the slaves of the road map.

About distressful WordAI
Time to create features is very different. Some features, such as editing project during debug requires a couple of months of work by a member of the team.
But for WorldAi I integrated for half a day. Its creator came to us with a request to add its service, and he gave all the codes for integration. We needed some spintax service and now it is added.
If you don't use it that did not mean what no body use it, at least 10 customers use it. Also a month I wrote a sample for lokiys as far as remember for SpinnerChief and some months ago I help drvosjeca to add best spinner support to the project. May be I am wrong about nicks and time, but it definitely was and not required a lot of time. If you still need this write a request to the C# snippet or a request feature I will share these projects.
So do not compare features, most of them are very different on the resources required to create.

About anonymity problem I am working on it last two weeks. Found some problems I will write a in the problem topic separate post.

About TODO
Everything in it what you asked for, with the exception of what was immediately denied.
Priorities depend on you, from your activity in the topic for this feature.
Bugs have a higher priority than the features and we are trying to solve them ASAP.

 

[Kepperbes]

Hi Everybody!
Some good news we will do the limited road map as the experiment. Thanks to HB, he agreed to support it.
It will be an experiment If you or we will not like it, we will close it.
In our work it is really hard to make prognoses about time. So the road map will only contain ready features or bugfixes. May be some features which are ready to finish.
The road map will not contain the exact dates of the releases, even me or nuaru do know the exact release date.
It will have just time stamps like this "next release", "hotfix", "release after next release"
That is all. We don't want to be the slaves of the road map.

About distressful WordAI
Time to create features is very different. Some features, such as editing project during debug requires a couple of months of work by a member of the team.
But for WorldAi I integrated for half a day. Its creator came to us with a request to add its service, and he gave all the codes for integration. We needed some spintax service and now it is added.
If you don't use it that did not mean what no body use it, at least 10 customers use it. Also a month I wrote a sample for lokiys as far as remember for SpinnerChief and some months ago I help drvosjeca to add best spinner support to the project. May be I am wrong about nicks and time, but it definitely was and not required a lot of time. If you still need this write a request to the C# snippet or a request feature I will share these projects.
So do not compare features, most of them are very different on the resources required to create.

About anonymity problem I am working on it last two weeks. Found some problems I will write a in the problem topic separate post.

About TODO
Everything in it what you asked for, with the exception of what was immediately denied.
Priorities depend on you, from your activity in the topic for this feature.
Bugs have a higher priority than the features and we are trying to solve them ASAP.

As usual, DarkDiver thank you for coming in and keeping us posted on the progress! Also, I'd like to personally thank you for taking heed to this request for the roadmap, it means alot to me that Zennoposter gets frequent updates, and to know that the staff is making an effort to provide the users with the features that we request. I know that you didn't have to come to this thread and reply, so again, I'd like to repeat that your doing a wonderful job, and I'm happy to see that your making the effort to clean things up (for example the anonymity bug).