After waiting for the coast to clear with behind-the-scenes upgrades, we’re happy to release these new features, and improvements:

Mark suggestions as “Done”!

Instead of relying on a suggestion board’s administrators to close a suggestion that has already been implemented, anybody can mark a suggestion as Done. You’ll notice that the “Done?” button is located on each suggestion’s page. When a person marks a suggestion as Done, a label that says, “1 person says it’s been done,” will be placed on the suggestion. After a number of people have marked the suggestion as “Done”, the Vote button will be replaced with the word “Done”.

Remove your suggestion

Truth is, we all make mistakes. Sometimes you’ll discover that the suggestion you just posted was already submitted, or that it’s suddenly been made irrelevant. Spelling mistakes, ugly formatting — we all deserve a do-over. As long as nobody else has voted for your suggestion, you can go to My History in your Profile and click [Remove] next to the suggestion you would like to delete.

By the way… if, like, one other person votes for your suggestion, and you still want it removed, just contact us.

Real names display for alternative logins

For those of you that login using your Windows Live ID, Yahoo! ID, AOL/AIM screen name, or OpenID, you’ll now be seen on FeVote by your real name! That is, if you set your real name in your Profile. Previously, those that used one of the alternative login methods (aside from AOL/AIM/OpenID) were known as yahoo-########### or liveid-###########, and frankly, it’s not flattering to be credited for suggestions and comments by some randomly-assigned username. Feel free to be identified by what you like to be called. The same goes for people belonging to sites that log you into FeVote automagically. (Yo sites, here’s how to do it.)

Even faster suggestion board creation

This is minor, but we should let you know about it anyway. After you submit the [super easy] form to create a new suggestion board, you’ll be taken straight to the new suggestion board to drop in the first suggestion.

On Monday, September 10, at around 7PM UTC, FeVote is going to be down for scheduled (but rare) ‘under the hood’ maintenance.  The downtime should be between 4 to 8 hours.

On a rather good note, you can expect a barrage of new features after Monday! It’ll totally make up for the downtime.

On a serious note, let us know before-hand if the timing of this will seriously impact your plans for your suggestion board(s).

Groups that want privacy will love this. Owners, employees, and 3rd party representatives now have an option to keep their suggestion board hidden from public view on FeVote.

For those interested, just mark “Hide this suggestion board” on the New Suggestion Board page.

This “stealth” option doesn’t password-protect your suggestion board, and it doesn’t necessarily prevent Google from indexing your suggestion board. Instead, it prevents your suggestion board from being linked to on the FeVote homepage. It will also hide your suggestion board from those using the suggestion board search.

If you use the Hide option, just remember to bookmark your suggestion board, and to only give out the link to those that you want to post suggestions.

If you’re a current suggestion board administrator, and you’d like this option, contact us. Also note that in the future, we plan to have a Hide option in the Admin tab.

We don’t plan on this option being hugely in demand, but it’s been requested by a few different groups that are preparing to launch new products within a small group of testers.

Update: After some feedback, we decided it’s best to include new suggestion boards in the suggestion board search, immediately after they’re created.