denominator wrote:The issue isn't community response, it is generally technical. If the community response is positive to an idea, but in beta it becomes technically unfeasible, then bigWham is stuck with a situation of the community at large wanting a feature that is not possible with the current website setup. Which, we all know, leads to major negative community feedback when it is not implemented, or major negative community feedback when bigWham implements a feature that causes a significant change to the current system.
I understand the argument, and you haven't responded to my counter-point: when something is not possible with the current system, sometimes the correct answer is to
change the current system to make it feasible. Yes, those large-scale coding changes are hard to swallow -- but part of the reason bigWham rarely swallows them is because he has no idea ahead of time whether the community will like the changes. He's trying to fly solo and predict what will work for the site. But he is not omniscient, and there's not much of a good reason for ignoring community feedback.
Sure, it's possible that something will be discussed in Beta that doesn't end up happening, and that causes huge community upset. But if that is the case, bigWham should very much be asking himself why he's causing that upset and not implementing this feature. If there really is major negative community feedback, what are the chances that whatever he is working on instead is more important to the community?
Further, there is a business privacy issue in allowing everyone to view the beta site. You don't expect Ford to allow Chevrolet to view their research and development, and while CC doesn't have competition akin to Chevy/Ford, you don't publicize the new features you are developing.
This is undermined by the fact that any CC member is invited to join the Beta team. Really wouldn't be hard for a competitor to infiltrate the team.