Saying yes to ideas and requests is fun, but isn't always strategic.

Cassidoo's resource offers insights, tutorials, and resources for software developers and technology enthusiasts. Readers can learn about coding best practices, career advice, and personal development. With articles, interviews, and community engagement, Cassidoo provides  guidance and inspiration for navigating the tech industry and advancing in your career.

Cassidy's blog

Managing feature requests for open source projects requires strategic thinking rather than accepting everything. While saying yes to all requests might seem helpful, it leads to losing control over project direction and time management. The key is being selective about which features to implement, balancing community needs with personal capacity and project vision. Not every good idea needs to be implemented immediately, and maintainers should prioritize based on their own strategic goals rather than letting external requests dictate their roadmap.

I (don't?) want to say yes to everything

So true! Feature suggestions aren’t usually bad ideas but a lot of times there’s a mismatch in priorities / expectations between the user and the maintainer. Someone is drawn to your project because they want to do <code>x</code> but the maintainer built it to solve <code>y</code> and it partially does <code>x</code> as a coincidence. Maybe it can handle both use cases well but in other cases a fork is best.
In my public repos I tend to include this paragraph encouraging forks:
<blockquote>
Bug reports, feature requests and PRs are welcome, however I may not merge all PRs into this repo. If you want your PR merged into the repo it’s probably best to report an issue first for tracking and to nail down the requirements. Of course, being open source, you can always fork or spin the project off into your own new project too!
</blockquote>