Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

And then.. the question of whether Brainstorm is specific to only Maemo-running hardware... only the N900.. or to Maemo in general.. or just to Maemo5 on the N900 only, etc.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

It's brainstorm.maemo.org and should refer to anything related to Maemo. Then you know that the Maemo Devices team focuses on Maemo 5 and beyond. But there are plenty of ideas applicable to the last, past and future releases and devices that can be accomplished by other parties.

If calling it 'an official' feedback channel helps, then let's call it that way.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Thanks Quim. I used the word "official" but perhaps another term may work better. The thing is though that people want to know upfront they're not wasting their time with this channel or that channel and instead are on the best possible path (within a given context) to be heard and understood.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

I would kind of expect Brainstorm, as a place of great ideas and solutions, to also be a good source for karma... right ?

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Quim: It isn't brainstorm.maemo.org (although it should be). It is the oh-so-memorable maemo.org/community/brainstorm.

attila77: That's a really good point. Is that a bug or a brainstorm idea?

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

The bug is that there is not Brainstorm section in b.m.o to file requests :) As for karma, wth, let's brainstorm the brainstorm karma.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

brainstorm.maemo.org was agreed some time ago, just not implemented...

The most important thing we need to discuss and agree upon is what is the scope of Brainstorm vs bugs.maemo.org enhancement requests.

Andre Klapper (maemo.org bugmaster) says:

I find this too narrowed in the concept and complicated in the practice since meny users don't necessarily will see clearly when there is something for Brainstorm or Bugzilla.

Moving proposals from a tool to another is a pain, so we better make very clear the scope in each one.

For me Bugzilla should be used only for bugs, keeping the "enhancement" type only for those little things that turn out to be "not a bug but a feature" and ave a clear implementation if the developers agree on going for them. All the rest should go to the more generic and user friendly Brainstorm.

Here you have two positions clearly different. Please help moving the debate further to conclusions. In case of draw Andre wins (seriously).

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

No opinions in this opinionated community? Should we create an entry in the Brainstorm to vote this?

At least please help telling why your silence: would you be ok with both approaches? Do you disagree with both? Couldn't care less? Other?

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Honestly, I'm simply torn between the two.

I know that I like having bugs and enhancements in one place together and I think it helps developers figure out their priorities.

Then there's the fact that Bugzilla is less user-friendly for new users than a custom brainstorming solution.

I guess if I had to make a choice, I'd go the Bugzilla route personally.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

The question is not between Bugzilla or Brainstorm since we agred on the coexistance of both.

The question is where to set the border between both. Please clarify your opinion on this.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Yes, I know. That's what I'm torn on, the border between the two and where enhancement requests would work best.

While I personally like using Bugzilla for feature requests, I think it would just be better for end users if we just had one place alone for feature requests and brainstorming.
In my time of teaching new testers how to use Bugzilla at work, I've seen that they are clearly VERY intimidated by Bugzilla at first glance. I feel that it keeps end users from wanting to try to push their requests because it seems so complex to them.

Brainstorm would work best when thinking of the entire community, especially all the new users we'll soon have. It's very simple and easy to use without having a ton of dropdown boxes all over the place.

(As an aside, I think brainstorm should have more visibility to users on the Maemo site. It's somewhat buried right now to the point that a lot of people don't know it exists.)

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Again, this will never be absolutely black and white because it can never be black and white. So we decide how much "noise" is allowed in the signal cloud and then develop a process for managing it.

I daresay that if we developed a robust, clearly-defined process followed by corresponding site design, that easily 85% of submissions would hit the right target first. So the question is, HOW do we handle it?

I still think the path for which to be used can be highly contextual. A given participant's need, background, encounters, etc will largely determine whether they believe they are submitting an enhancement or bug, and I'll bet your typical developer leans toward bug and typical end user leans toward enhancement... at least that's been my experience in device testing. I believe Brainstorm should be the default destination though.

What would really be nice is a wizard for lesser experienced participants, one that asks a handful of questions and guides them toward the better venue based on filtering. No need to slap me, Quim, I realize that's unlikely... just brainstorming. ;)

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Let me insist that the discussion is not about the best place to report bugs, or about what constitutes the difference between a bug or an enhancement for a user. Bugzilla is for bugs, no question about this. And we need to make clear to everybody what is a bug.

The question is: *in your opinion* which kind of enhancements should be in the Brainstorm and which kind of enhancements (if any) should go to Bugzilla.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Not only does Brainstorm need more visibility, but it really, absolutely, positively MUST appear to be maintained and moderated. It must be clear that people are paying attention to it, and that decisions are being made about ideas posted to the brainstorm.

If the brainstorm appears to be languishing or if ideas are not being "dealt with" in a timely way, then people will stop using it, and they'll go back to hammering the square peg of enhancement requests into the round hole of Bugzilla.

It is of utmost importance that Brainstorm is treated as an equal to Bugzilla.

If this is done, and the Brainstorm garden is kept "weeded", then it should be the choice for anything that isn't a bug.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

There have been brainstorm ideas awaiting a fate for a few months now. As a moderator, I am guilty of neglect I guess. Perhaps we need some automated reminders that go out to the mods to deal with ideas awaiting in the idea sandbox?

Since you asked... IMO Bugzilla enhancement requests should be for things that make current functionality better. And, Brainstorm should be for new ideas.

IMO, It will be difficult to enforce any distinction between the two, and moderators will have to steer the ideas appropriately.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

If the enhancement is small in scale and relatively clear-cut, then it belongs in Bugzilla. If it's larger in scale or would require an involved architectural discussion, then it goes to Brainstorm.

Of course, guessing the complexity of a particular enhancement isn't always easy to do when filing (to the uninitiated, the /opt issue seems like a fairly simple one), but as a general guideline I think it should be effective.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

+1

This would be very helpful.

Tim

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Good idea! Please add it to http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...ng_brainstorm/ :)

And everybody: please rate other ideas for watching Brainstorm listed there.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Ok, so let's agree that the Brainstorm is now ON. Until now it was in test (and actually is still in test quality since there are many bugs, but we can move forward by moving forward).

I just resolved a proposal: PIM support and found a bug by doing this.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

By the way, this Brainstorm is remarkably slow. Do you also feel this? Much slower than any other maemo.org service.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

I don't know... I can't tell if it's any slower than using Planet or writing blog posts on m.o.

Tim

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

I feel like I'm speaking Martian lately.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

IMO all enhancement requests should only go to Brainstorm. This will increase the likely hood that what is reported in Bugzilla can be acted upon efficiently by the resources available.

As zerojay has pointed out, new users can be intimidated by Bugzilla, and as qgil pointed out Brainstorm is more user friendly.

If this is the case, bug vs. enhancement request descriptor errors will more likely be made by new users in Brainstorm.
It also appears that it easier for general membership to comment in Brainstorm and this may provide more friendly guidance and training to new users to help reduce future errors.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Still not a decision and still Andre thinks that Bugzilla is the right default place for "specific" enhancement requests & gathering votes.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...926#post335926

Do as you wish but please decide something.

If we can point Maemo product managers to only one place instead of 2, great. But whatever the community prefers.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

After using Brainstorm myself...

Brainstorm does seem to lend itself more to having a broad general desire and hashing out the best way of making that desire happen whereas an enhancement request sort of denotes that the user knows precisely what needs to be done and how. It feels much more targetted, whereas Brainstorm feels like "let's ask the collective what is the best way to go about this goal".

In this sense, I feel both have a place. Perhaps once a consensus is formed in Brainstorm, an enhancement bug should be filed pointing to the Brainstorming session.

Just an idea.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Ok, let me rationalize this a bit more.

If someone files a bug that happen to be changes as enhancement but the maintainers or the bugsquad, is so clear cut that a developer alone can consider it without involving product manager or change in the development plans, if it doesn't require votes or much discussion and perhaps even a patch can be attached... then there is no question that bugzilla is the place.

If someone has a proposal that he can't fix himself with a patch, or can't even describe accurate solutions, would need further discussion, perhaps votes and support, and anyway Nokia developers wold need to accommodate plans and discuss with product managers... then this is clearly something for the Brainstorm.

In practice I think it's easy to detect what proposals go where.

And in practice we could

- document this
- resolve new proposals landing in bugzilla as Invalid pointing to Brainstorm
- do the same for current enhancement requests that fall in the second category and are not in the plans currently
- keep in bugzilla the take-or-leave specific enhancement requests plus those that can be resolved soon based on current plans

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

One idea might be to allow people to post "issues" to Bugzilla whether they are bugs or enhancements. Then, if an easy fix or patch isn't available at the time of posting, link the bug report to Brainstorm, where people can hash out ideas and Solutions. Then, when a certain Soultion has garnered enough support, it can be copy/pasted to the original bug report, with a link back to the popular solution.

Tim

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

qgil's last post sounds good to me, except for:
In my experience with other projects (e.g. MythTV) people don't like their bugs marked as invalid - it gives off a rather 'rude' feeling. (Note that this is probably largely just a problem with the terminology used in Bugzilla). Instead, if someone could actually turn the bug report into a brainstorm idea for the user, rather than make the user do it themselves, that might be better.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Sounds like something the community council should weigh in on. *hint, hint*

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Would DUPLICATE with the URL field pointing to the brainstorm page be a better resolution? We could create a dummy bug to dup all brainstormed enhancements.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

You can resolve DUPLICATE when there is a Brainstorm proposal open, and only in that case. Besides, Bugzilla ask you for a bug number to resolve that way, so you would neet to hack bugzilla. Not nice.

But I agree with the "rudeness" of the INVALID resolution and I have spent a couple of lines of explanation in the few occasions that I have resolved a Brainstorm case that way.

I wouldn't mind a BRAINSTORM resolution.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

While the idea is nice in theory, in practice it has its problems.

Bugs are bugs, and the ones that must be addressed by the Maemo team can be cloned to our internal bugzilla, where they can be handled just like the rest of bugs detected in our internal testing.

But bug reports containing actual features can't follow the same ath because they will be quickly resolved as INVALID in the internal bugzilla, no matter how rude that is and most probably before catching the attention of anybody involved in roadmapping and planning of new features.

Besides, while most bugs in the pre-installed software must be fixed by the Maemo team or surrounding, the implementation of new features can be done many times by others as well.

It's actually a quite different game.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

In my time of working with Bugzilla and working with training newbies to use it, you quickly see a pattern.

Newbie files bug, programmer closes as invalid, newbie has his feelings hurt.

This *only* happens the very first time though. Once his/her's cherry's been popped so to speak, they stop taking it so personally. The problem is just that the person is new to the bug reporting workflow.

INVALID is fine as it is. Just make sure people understand not to get too emo over it.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

I like the idea of the BRAINSTORM resolution with a link to the brainstorm idea.

The final solution may be attached to bugzilla for completeness once the brainstorm idea has been discussed/voted/finalized in Brainstorm.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Yeah, that's why I suggested using a dummy bug to collect the duplications. It would also provide an easy way to quickly find all enhancements moved to brainstorm.

That sounds even better if it's not too much work to implement.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

If Maemo is using a somewhat recent version of Bugzilla (v3.0.0 or better), adding a resolution is a piece of cake.

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

A BRAINSTORM resolution (with a URL somewhere, maybe in the comments) sounds great to me, if that can be achieved (I don't really know Bugzilla).

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Question: What do we do with a Brainstorm idea/solution when it's been fulfilled?

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

They are moved to Implemented Ideas
http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...eas/fremantle/

Re: Contribute your Maemo ideas via Brainstorm
 

Who do we push to make that happen? I don't see anything that allows me, the creator of a brainstorm idea/solution, to put it into Implemented Ideas.