microPledge : wish projects

To avoid unpleasantness, it is better if the ‘Project details’ are made as detailed and unambiguous as possible. But doing this well takes a lot of time and knowledge. It would be nice to have another project kind, “Wishes”, that can be more vague, and so easier to make, that may later lead to better defined Projects.

A Wish project would differ from other projects in that it could never be started. It also would never have a developer, pledge target, or completion date. People would pledge to it, but as a completely non binding expression of interest. Developers could then create a better defined project that they believe satisfy the wish, and then add a link from the wishes project to their project. Anyone pledged to the wish project would receive an email, and if they find the new project satisfactory, they can pledge to it.

This would make it easier for people to create projects that a developer would be interested in. If enough people express interest in a wish, then a developer could take the time to figure out what work they think would needed be and write up a well defined proposal as a project.

This would be useful even for projects that I may develop myself. If a user of my program asks for a feature, say a port to a specific machine, I don’t want to say that I’m not going to do it because I don’t believe it would be of interest to enough people. Instead I can create a microPledge project to find out just how many people are interested. But creating a proper project (or sometimes even just being sure that the project is possible at all) could take days of research, which I’m not going to do if I don’t believe anyone is interested. So it would be nice to be able to create a Wish project, allowing people to express non binding interest, to see if it’s worth the trouble to create a real project.

Multiple developers could compete for the same Wish, each creating their own proposed project to satisfy the Wish, all of which are listed on the Wish project page. This would work better if flexible multiple pledges project were completed, and vice versa.

It could also be possible for a developer to create one project that they think satisfies multiple wishes.

(I will pledge to this project if the flexible multiple pledges project is completed.)