I have removed the possibility to create new topics in #brainstorm, and also the automatic bump of topics in this category. This is another small step in the focus toward #drafts and #features.
With the autobumping stopped, Bitwish will move at the pace of its users alone. If people want to discuss certain features, great. If you prefer to vote silently or not at all, good as well. 
Yesterday @nowiamone published 5 Reasons why i would love to switch to Bitwig 5, but CAN’T - YouTube. As far as I’m aware and if memory serves me well, it is the first video featuring Bitwish. 
Continuing with the refocus of Bitwish on #features only, I have remived the possibility to create new topics under #music and I have closed all the old topics. Music made with Bitwig remains open with a timer to close it automatically if three months pass withoit new posts. I have also removed the upvoting feature there, now it’s a plain discussion topic.
I’m keeping an eye on the number of registered users. 931 right now. I’m thinking of a small celebration when we reach 1000. Any ideas? What is your preferred cocktail?
I have split this topic between 2023 and before, and I have pinned the 2023 topic (this one) globally. Just to increase the awareness among users about what is and what is not going on here.
I also have closed Bitwish Google Search report. Usimg thid topic will be just fine.
Google Search report for June. People are searching for “Bitwish”, which is flattering. MIDI comping and themes/skins are the two features visitors are searching for.
Video support is the 7th feature request that receives 100 votes or more. Right now MIDI capture tops the list with 223 votes, followed at quite a distance by MIDI comping.
For the first time, we have been able to resolve a feature request thanks to an answer from the Bitwig team:
This was the fifth most voted feature request, with 108 votes.
I have deleted the Bitwig YouTube channel feed and all the automatic posts it has created. If someone is interested in these videos, they are probably subscribed to that channel already.
The next step will be to close and probably delete (or archive and hide) the Bitwig Video Guide - Bitwish. This is another Bitwish area that didn’t work out as expected and it is not core for a community wishlist. I will do this in a few weeks unless someone stops me.
The wishlist is now featured as the default main page for anonymous contributors. Logged in users still see the Latest topics page by default. Although this makes the most voted feature requests even more prominent, the hypothesis is that this may increase the awareness of the dozens of features just below.
Right now we have 957 users. Let’s see if the new homepage has any impact on the pace of new registrations. A for votes, this is how the top looks like now:
This feature is possible thanks to a very elegant community plugin:
The three most visited feature requests in July were MIDI Capture, Theme Support, and… Support MIDI SysEx at the device / track level (!)
It was time to upgrade Discourse, and I did today. We went from 3.1.0.beta3 to 3.2.0.beta1. I don’t think this affects any of the Bitwish features but just in case you are interested, this is what’s new:
Bitwish has more than a thousand users now! 
This milestone deserves a celebratory message.
Since the beginning, a third of the people creating an account on Bitwish hasn’t voted for any feature request. Did you know that everyone gets 10 votes to vote on their favorite requests?
Also, have you checked the community wishlist lately? It contains 154 requests, and only 6 of them have more than 100 votes.
If you have questions or comments, please share them here.
Time Stretching in the Sampler has reached 100 votes! Currently it is the 7th most voted request. See the full wishlist on Features.
This week (Nov 6) was Bitwish’ second aniversary.
Anniversaries are mostly arbitrary dates, also good excuses to think and reflect a bit.
For all these reasons, I’m renewing domain, server and commitment to maintain Bitwish one year more, and then we’ll review the situation again. Given that we have 153 feature requests from which 50 have 2 votes or less, I think it is safe to let new proposals turns into Features automatically without the Drafts stage. The worst that can happen is that a bogus feature request gets a couple of votes before it is detected or reported as flawed, duplicated, already implemented, etc. Even if the forum is mostly quiet, many of these details are being detected by readers.
I will keep a moderator eye and I will keep intervening whenever something or someone is off, but I won’t in the way anymore for people posting their drafts.
I have cleaned Drafts, moving requests to Features or Archive depending on whether they were using the template or not + comments from others.
Maybe we keep the Drafts category and the 30 days margin for now?
Theme / Skin support is now the 6th most voted request, a couple of votes above Video support.
