Jira setup for open development and community contribution

[Bjorn Meldal]

We are currently working on a game that has an engaged community, including testers who report issues with our game.

At the moment we are using an open Trello board that community members can populate with issues that they have with the game. 

I would like to move to a Jira Cloud solution, but I am unsure how it will work with that kind of open contribution. I know its possible to set up your project, so outside people without any Jira account can access it, and look at the issues, but I am unsure of how it is handled if we want some community members to be able to write and edit their own jiras.

- Is it possible to make accounts that can do that?

- Does an admin have to make them, or is it possible for people to create their own account?

- Does every account count towards the ones you have to pay for?

- Are there any good addons that can help in reaching the gold i would like to reach

- is anonymous voting possible, or do people need an account

[Jack Brickey]

I’m wondering if Jira Service Desk would not be a better option as it allows customers to create issues via email and portal. If your requirement is to have everyone use the application directly, however, then they will require paid licenses.

[Bjorn Meldal]

We already have other channels for people to talk about those issues, so I am not sure if it makes that part better. I am mostly interested in having them create issues and us being able to have them be part of our development boards and such. I am not sure, but wouldn't that also be quite a bit more expensive in work and money, since I then also need to maintain a service desk?

[Jack Brickey]

If you don't need to individualize your community users you could opt to create a single user in your current Jira instance and setup an email channel for "all" of the community to use, e.g. community.input@urcompany.com. In this way anyone in the community can simply email in their input but they will have no visibility into the issues. If you do want them individualized and you want to use Jira they need to be paid users just like your developers. You can then place them into a specific group and restrict permissions.

[Bjorn Meldal]

Thanks for the suggestion, I think that would work, since you can just strip that user of all rights except making issues. Then for the regulars, they could have their own accounts.