[Pandas-dev] Getting more community feedback into the GH issue tracker

[yoval p.]

tl;dr version: how about adding a pd.report_issue()/pd.feedback() function?

*steps on soapbox*

9 times out of 10, GH issues are what brings about code changes
in pandas, whether it's bugfixes or features. I'm very proud to
be a commiter on an OSS that has a proven track record of being
extremely responsive to users in support and in feature enhancements.
I think that's what makes pandas such a great OSS project just as
much as technical excellence, versatility and plain ol' just feeling
good in your hand (behave).

How can get we get feedback from more users of pandas, specifically
those without a GH account and turn it into GH issues? Experience
shows it's surprisingly often that the issue/features suggested by users
are fairly simple to implement, if only we hear about it.
Those kinds of changes immediately translate into making our users more
productive. Which is a large part of what fosters such a fanatical
community, which we do love so.

Not everyone has a GH account and while SO is great (+ @hayd, @jreback
et al migrate things over as needed) that also covers only a certain
kind of pandas user. Is it enough? are we missing out on our silent users?

I suspect some (many?) pandas users hit a snag or have an idea for a
feature and we never hear of it, to our dismay. We're certainly not
anxious about having lots of open issues, so why not? Would integrating
some feedback mechanism directly into the library help fix this? It
could be a dialog or a web page, launchable directly from the console
that either redirects users directly to the "new issue" page, but could
also let them just send in some structured text that we can send somewhere
and review.

Bad idea? Good idea? is SO all we need? do you have a better idea?
So many things in pandas are oneliners. why isn't feedback one as well?

yoval