Community Tracker

I spent a lot of time in the last couple of months working on a new project I like to call community tracker. When running projects you need some way of tracking defects and feature requests. If you do not have a way of doing so you drown pretty fast. There are probably thousands of bug trackers out there, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are free and some are hellishly expensive. Nonetheless, every developer needs a bug tracker.

When I started Media Browser I used google’s free bug tracker on google code. It functioned alright but was not that enjoyable to use.

Meanwhile, in another universe, I spent a fair bit of time on stackoverflow. Too much time if you ask me.

So, I thought to myself, why not kill to birds using a single stone. Make it fun to track defects and migrate my addiction to a new site.

Can tracking product defects be fun?

There is something “fun” about stackoverflow. You do stuff on the site, if your behavior is popular you are given “reputation”, positive reinforcement makes this addictive really fast.

I decided to take a classic bug tracker design, mix in a bit of stackoverflow and “uservoice”:http://uservoice.com/ and see what pops out at the other end.

Why bother?

Does your bug tracking system come with flare?

• When I fix a bug on community tracker I get the “Bug Slayer” badge and a 15 point bonus.
• When I complete a feature request I get the “Dream Maker” badge and a 15 point bonus.
• If someone figures out how to reproduce a bug they get the “Detective” badge and 15 point bonus.
• If someone submits a bug that gets fixed they get the “Reporter” badge and a 15 point bonus.
• And so on …

Through tagging, achievements, reputation and a healthy community, tracking bugs and features has become fun.

The results are very promising, in the last couple of months we had

• 42 fixed defects
• 8 feature requests completed
• 24 questions resolved

Its early days for my community tracker project. Nonetheless, I believe it is taking Media Browser to a much more mature level. We are communicating better with our users.

I hope some day soon to have more projects using the community tracker engine.

Do you find the Media Browser community tracker enjoyable?