Evaluating User Stories -- A Practical Approach

The user stories came up again on the call today, and I thought it was
worth expanding on some of the thoughts with more time for input.

I think most would agree that the user stories are a pretty good cross
section of functionality, however, they are perhaps not being utilized as
well as they could be.  This was put well by sandro's comment:

"We should avoid being legalistic about it. Anyone designing an api should
have in mind the things that everyone seems to want it to do.  Not an
agreement that we will only consider things that will only meet all of
these criteria, and have some kind of formal thing"

In general there are various concerns around perhaps being too black and
white in evaluation, that implementors are trying to hit a moving target,
that there could be more implementations, that the voting is can
systematically have a high impact on the inputs etc.

I propose a practical approach to evaluating user stories loosely based on:

- Voting
- Implementations
- Standards and Interop

First it's worth bearing in mind that opinions on the social web are likely
to be highly subjective, as it is something we use all the time.  I'd
encourage members of the WG to be open minded and listen to the views of
others, even if we dont hold the same position.

Here is an example of how user stories could be evaluated:

Implementations (0-4)
=================

Aaron put together a scale for implementing.  While not perfect, imho, it
could be a good practical guide

https://github.com/w3c-social/social-ucr

4. Live Interop
3. Live one site
2. In development
1. Brainstorming

See the above link for definitions


Voting (0-4)
=========

We could propose the following guide

4- All +1s
3. No negative votes
2. 80% +1s
1. 50% +1s


Standards and Interop
=================

+1 Uses existing W3C standards, or standards proposed in this WG
+1 Interop is possible with at least 2 "platforms" in WG (eg IWC, SoLiD, AP)

Total
====

Giving a total guide of

Implementations 0-4
Voting 0-4
Interop and Standards 0-2

Total: 0-10


Example
=======

User posts a note:

Voting 4 pts
Implementations 2pts
Interop 1 pt (possibly 2 after testing)

Total : 7-8 pts


Perhaps the %'s could be tweaked slightly, but I think people using the
user stories should take this more holistic and practical approach to them,
in order for them to achieve their true value to the group as a guide
incentivizing work to proceed towards the deliverables.