I work for a software company doing software implementation, and I have some experience with writing design proposals. Reading through some of the feature requests, I can see that they are not always clear or (I imagine) useful from a development standpoint. Where I work, we are required to include software requirements with all of our proposals. The following definition is from the wiki we use:
"Software requirements are the outcome of analyzing an idea for an enhancement from the users' perspectives. Software requirements specify what the software has to do in order for the users to accomplish their objectives. Software requirements identify what, not how."
We also have a proposal template that we require staff to copy into their own proposals to ensure that the proposal is adequately documented. I would suggest that it might be helpful to both the dev team and people submitting feature requests if a sticky post was created on the feature requests board entitled something helpful like **READ ME FIRST ON PAIN OF DEATH** with an explanation of what the dev team wants and needs out of a good feature request. You might even come up with your own template that can be copied, with the stated injunction that feature requests that don't follow the template won't be considered.
This is just a suggestion, but I think it would be helpful to everyone involved. As it is, it seems that some people skip the discussion board and present their half-formed ideas directly in feature requests. I have a feeling this was not the intent of having a separate child board specifically for feature requests.
