Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

To me, the basic problem is that, thru an election that I think was basically illegitimate, a group acquired a huge influence over what happens here. They don't deserve the influence, and this creates a "love it or leave it" situation.

My impression is that a lot of people are choosing to leave it. Most of the heroes, such as Texrat and Penguinbait, are still here, but as their influence wanes, this becomes a less and less comfortable place to frequent.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

And the question in, and/or point of, the post is totally ignored by said council member.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

Good points YoDude.

The other big help in my growth recently was working in a global customer-support capacity for Nokia the last year or so I was there. I had never been in such a capacity before and had a LOT to learn.

Problem was, I started off supporting 400 or so people all across the planet, indirectly managing about 50. I had never directed more than 12 at a time, and those were in person.

Right off the bat I screwed up and got on the bad side of many claims handlers. I had a bad habit of quoting policy when any issue arose, and that didn't earn me any friends.

I had to learn the hard way after a performance review to completely change my approach. I realized these people just wanted to do their jobs, too, and didn't have any more time than I did to fight the system. So I changed the first line of my emails from a robotic:

to an empathetic:

The difference was night and day. Even my boss noticed. I went from him doubting I could get the cooperation I needed (no one had before) to gaining the trust of almost every single user. They started sending me gifts (through him at times) and greeting me enthusastically the rare times I got to meet any of them. Made my work sooo much easier and more rewarding.

All they wanted was someone to listen without judgment.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

I say we bring this to the maemo community supreme court. If we don't have one of those yet, I nominate myself for one of the Justice positions! ;)

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

Mullf thanks for pointing that out. I did it when the site first switched themes, I was using minimal and didn't notice. Boy am I embarassed. At least the link was right. All corrected.

*And this is just an example of the helpfulness that kept me here once I found the forum.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

Bump...

It's been a few hours since the last post, but I think this thread deserves more attention (and time in the "Active Topics" bar). A huge thanks to Texrat for starting the ball rolling. Sorry if the following rambles a bit, but so it goes...

I personally LOVE the idea of this thread. I've been following the NITs since the 770 - got one of the first developer devices, and have had a love/hate relationship ever since. For the past four years I've been waiting patiently to create a port of Audacity (audio editor) for the NIT, which is still not possible due to a combination of hardware/software issues. Hopefully the new hardware/software will solve this, but I'll believe it when I see it (in my hands).

Some members have been great in discussing things with me, while others... well, I don't have a computer science degree, and this is sometimes a problem. You see, I'm "a newbie" (I HATE that term) when it comes to programming, but not when it comes to music/audio. And because I don't tend to think like a programmer (whatever that means), many of my ideas get dismissed out of hand. Yet, after a dozen years of university, numerous degrees, and well over 100 audio recording projects, I'm quite confident in my understanding of the material. I may not know/care about programming, but I _get_ what the users need.

So here's the problem: I want to contribute to the community, but I'm not convinced the community wants me. Instead of watching things become more open, allowing me to actually get on with my ideas, I've seen a wide range of tools emerge for the programmers and not much come for the other users. And when I've raised this point in the past, I have always been summarily dismissed. Sadly, these harsh words have almost always come from one "leader" or another.

At this point, I'm keeping myself busy with the occasional bug report, and I'd love to contribute some system sounds to the NIT. But the environment here is so hostile at times that I default back to more gentle options (like installing a bathroom fan while sitting in the attic, in fibreglass, for 5 hours).

My question, I suppose, is this: is Maemo becoming a more programmer-specific project? If this is the case, I'll cut my losses and move on. If there is a plan to engage and embrace new users of all stripes, I'll continue to purchase &/or suggest NITs for my family, friends, students, etc. I appreciate a community approach as much as anyone, but can someone please tell me where the h#%* we're going?

And Texrat, PM me if you want to discuss ways to tweak your bluegrass vocals. I've got the tools...

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

So, I haven't posted on here in a while. The only reason I came back to this board was to sell my N800. It was basically lying untouched as I refused to come back to this board for this exact reason, and as the device is such a DIY piece of kit I had ultimately alienated myself from the only source of new information / updates (outside the download link on maemo.org) for the machine.

I am a computer guy. I do sysadmin work. I am fine with a bit of computer work to get things working, but the feeling I got from here was that if I was not planning on getting more than waist deep in Maemo I should not open my mouth. So, I stopped.

I sold my N800 to a friend who asked if there were any resources to figure out how to use it better. They are not computer people. I told them to ask me if they had any problems. There was no way I was sending them to this board / place to ask questions.

Being one of the more computer literate friends in my groups I often get asked for gadget recommendations. I have, a handful of times, not recommended an NIT because the end user would have to come here for support, and that was simply not going to work in a real world environment.

I have been on boards before and done the back and forth with power groups and the "in" crowd, etc. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that this group and this board IS the customer service point (software wise) for a real product. The people and views here (to the layman) ARE the word from Nokia on how to use the NIT. We can argue why (technically) this SHOULDN'T be perceived this way till we are all blue in the (digital) face, but for the bulk of those buying a product if you constantly point them to a place, then the people running it MUST be the people in charge.

I am a fan of open source, and for the most part I have had a pleasant experience with other projects, but my time on this board was enough to not only stop using my product but to also suggest others find alternatives. I just feel that the worst move Nokia made was letting this board suffice for customer service. It's fine as a technical sounding board (and I think a TON of good work has come from those participating here) but utterly horrible as a landing spot for the average end user.

*edit: cleaned up quote used.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

Wow. Pretty hard there. I have to say that I think the forums are generally useful. I don't get involved with the BS, but I understand here this person is coming from since i've seen really rude behavior directed at people asking basic questions. It particularly disturbs me when people are directed to threads with 50+ pages to find a single post. I have to agree though that if I gave one of these tablets to a total noob I would be very concerned with them coming here.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

No.

• Each Maemo device has been targeted at a more "mainstream" audience than the one that preceded it.* The Maemo 5 devices should, if anything, be a greater step toward that goal than any before. Whether they're the fabled "Step 5" or not isn't clear, and also isn't important.
• During a recession that has led to cutbacks in other areas, Nokia has increased hiring for Maemo in preparation for the platform taking on far greater importance within the company's product line up.
• Last year's Maemo Summit was mostly aimed at programmers. Maemo Summit 2009 will feature a track for "engaged users".
• Nokia has increased financial support for maemo.org. They've paid for a Debmaster and begun supporting Talk.
• A certain "engaged user" of distinction, who also happens to have insider knowledge of Maemo's future, did his best--based upon experience in building online communities--to restructure Talk to better serve the anticipated influx of new Maemo users.
• Nokia will be opening a new web site for casual users of Maemo devices. This site is expected to be a considerable improvement over Tableteer and the OS2008 User Site.

And the list goes on.

So, the balance of the maemo.org community will continue to shift from developers to engaged users, with a growing number of casual users, on the Maemo users' site, also benefiting from Extras, syndicated Downloads data, etc. Meanwhile, I hope you, and everyone else on this site, continue to feel welcome. Indeed, I hope we're able to become more welcoming.


* The N810 WiMAX Edition was, as its name implies, a variant of the N810, not a real step forward toward mainstream.

Re: Open letter to the Maemo community
 

This is an innate problem with small communities that have elected bodies.

I used to serve on the committee of a local pressure/support group (nothing to do with technology BTW) and the elections were basically just the same dozen people voting for each other. The total group membership was maybe 200 but only a tiny proportion bothered to vote.