The feedback logs for suggestions, bugs, etc. are transparent and comprehensive, but it's difficult to see if a bug or suggestion that a user is about to make has already been reported, fixed, tested or released. - Some users report many items in a single post, making the open/closed field ineffective. - And the occasional, disappearing, one-time news narrative at a "new release logon-download" seems to be the only place that a fixed-bug description appears.
This may be a lot to ask, but why not put some kind of abbreviated issue management list somewhere in the feedback area? It would be a good way to manage expectations and would save both users and staff a lot of time currently wasted scouring the feedback area for information buried in the many and various tabbed items.
Closing the feedback loop is a good practice. Even closing an issue with an answer like "It's trivial. No. Get over it," is better than no answer at all.
In my mind, these are all very good remarks and ideas. But having said that, I know from experience that setting up a way to systematically categorise different issues is a big challenge, to say the least. This is further complicated by the fact that those issues are being reported by many individuals (that's us, players) with very different backgrounds. Also, I think we want to keep the threshold for reporting issues as low as possible, so any system we would want to implement at the reporting side would have to be fully self-explanatory.
Regarding the "occasional, disappearing, one-time news narrative at a new release […]" that you mention: these do not disappear completely, but it is indeed not easy to find them. All those news items on the logon screen also have a "Show in browser" link (or words to that effect), so they are "nodes" on the Foldit website. When you open https://fold.it/portal/ and search that page for "release" or "devprev", you will probably find at least the latest one(s). But I agree that having a separate list for them, like there is for Newsletters and for Office Hour transcripts, would be much more comvenient.
Having different experiences, I guess I disagree with HuubR. The suggestion is not to categorize issues. And issues don't care about users' backgrounds. The posted suggestion is a request to the Foldit staff for an abbreviated summary of an existing issue list as a way to practice a form of closed-loop feedback. The staff is already doing most of the work with initial responses to users in the feedback area. The only thing missing is closure.
The 12/14 feedback reply to Wiz kid, mentions the list: “…We are keeping a list of all the feedback that people are giving us…” An abbreviated centralized listing of brief, clinical bullets targeted to close user-instantiated loops would be helpful.
