One significant part of Mozilla Labs will be the Ideas Area where we will encourages contribution of great ideas from the community. Currently, there is a moderately active newsgroup (mozilla.wishlist) where ideas are flowing. For Labs, I was thinking of something a bit more structured. But how much structure?

Two aspects that I would like feedback on:

1) How to track and categorize the ideas?

A forum/newsgroup or linear list structure is hard to navigate, so I was thinking of creating browseable categories. Under each category would appear Idea items and discussion around each of those. Should the categories map identically to what’s currently on Add-ons (See “All Categories”) with a few more. Should we use tags instead so that items can appear in multiple categories?

2) How to have the best/most popular ideas rise to the top?

I know Mozilla is known for having a collaborative process that surfaces the best ideas. How does this work? Give me your thoughts. Shall we use voting? 1-10 rating for ideas? Use a process like digg/bury from digg.com? Give each community member 1000 points and have them allocate their points across their favorite ideas? Simply track the level of discussion and activity around a topic area? Other?