User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

Everyday I'm seeing people say "this forum is not user-friendly", "this site is only for developers", and all kind of similar things. This post is addressed to them, but, of course, anyone can give their opinion.

Most of the time I use my tablets as a simple user, but well, I've become a developer through the years, though when I bought my 770 I couldn't write a single line of code. And after almost four years, I consider myself an advanced user.
Therefore, I may not be seeing what the real problem with this site is and many users seem to talk.

So I'd like to know what I, as developer and advanced user, should do to make this site more user-friendly.
What are these problems of user-friendliness that some people are talking about?
Should we developers go somewhere else and leave here only users?


PS: I'm talking about technology issues, not personal issues between members (there are problems between users everywhere, in real world even there are wars).

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

I haven't been around here all that much, so my opinion doesn't make a difference, but in the short time I have been here, what I have noticed is that some people mistake not being interested as not being user-friendly. I mean, if there is some idea that gets too little support or something like that, it is not automatically non-user-friendly situation. Sure, there could be also less friendly behaviour too, but my take on things so far is that people expect help/support way too automatically and when help is not immediate then they perceive the forum as not user-friendly

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

It seems its always been a mix which is good. But new users are often confused about devices and os versions and what they can and cannot install. What is safe to use and what is hacked up.

Some of these things could be addressed directly, but perhaps a tutorial of what to expect and how to use maemo.org What new user should know, how to register accounts, how to get karma from thanks. Lots of intricacies that perhaps are not clearly outlined.

To me some kind of mechanism to only view "end user" threads, and some way in my profile to then be able to enable viewing advanced user thread could be useful. Some kind of WARNING could be shown saying that the instructions following some of these threads could cause you to lose data or could damage the device? Not sure if its possible or even a good idea, but it may be worth considering.

Now that our beloved device is a phone, you don't want half the end user base coming here and messing up their device and have to reflash and lose data, this will not be a good.

Or perhaps a NEW user interface with a tutorial and some reading and learning before getting a full interface?

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

Glad to see this thread. Most new users are used to sharing or promoting ideas within the forums, but this site uses the Brainstorm section for this. This is fine, but it isn't evident when you get here that that is the way it is done.

Also, when you go to the Brainstorm section, its not organized or easy to navigate. Nothing is categorized, and some of the jargon used is foreign to non coders. Then you realize that even though you registered for the forums, you aren't given access to the Brainstorm section. I first thought it meant it was only for registered developers, but you have to register again just to participate or post a Brainstorm.

Also, I know you didn't want to focus on personal attitudes, but there needs to be better moderation and a code of conduct. There needs to be someone willing to help give advice on the resources of the site. Developers develop and users want insight and new features, and these two don't always have the same agenda or speak the same jargon. There needs to be a developer advocate and a user advocate.

This site is huge, and all of the resources aren't easy to access by default. No design can fix that. We need ambassadors to welcome and indoctrinate new users.

An identifier should sit on user profiles as to who is a Maemo or tech blogger, user, developer, Nokia employee, OS/UI/UX designer for Maemo/Nokia, etc. because some position themselves as experts, but that isn't always evident or true, and you can't tell how accurate advice is.

Just a few things I noticed.

(I'm here all day. Feel free to talk via PM if you want more input.)

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

Interesting. These fora used to tag each user with Junior Member, Member, Senior Member based on post count, but that was deliberately abandoned as part of our preparations for the flood of new users. We decided we didn't want new users to feel intimidated in discussions because other participants had fancy labels.

There was some discussion of moving in the direction you propose, but in the end we decided against it. That's not to say the idea isn't worth revisiting, of course.

The Nokia employees who participate here do so voluntarily and mostly on their own time. They participate on an equal footing, as community members, and like it that way. They're not interested in being corporate PR drones only reciting the official company line and legal disclaimers at all times. They've warned that were they tagged with "Nokia employee", they'd have to stop participating.

That's obviously counter to what we, as a community, want.

Beyond that, it's difficult to pin down most community members with a one or two word title.

• We've lots of cool, small apps turned out by otherwise not-developers who pulled together some Python to make that one tool they wanted.
• We've also lots of repackaging and quick ports of existing Linux applications. Are those who bring such items "Developers"?
• The genius behind, say, a mapping application might be tagged "Developer" but be less knowledgeable than "lowly" "Users" in a discussion on, say, installing an RTCOMM update.
• We've several members who are adamant that they're not developers or programmers, but they've turned out some of the coolest hacks on Maemo.
• We also have some "Users" with extensive platform knowledge who can, and regularly do, answer questions that would stump many "Developers".
• And so on.

You've mentioned that there's a working system in the Symbian forums along the lines of what you propose for here. Would you please explain in greater detail how it works?

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

As a new user who does not know Linux, I do not find the fora (I do know Latin) unfriendly, just intimidating.

One suggestion would be to pull the Newbie forum up from the basement and put them at or near the top of the home page.

Also make it a policy not to criticize (or get snarky about) questions asked there that have already been answered before. As one who tries to research answers myself, it is sometimes hard to determine which posts are applicable to your question because many answers assume knowledge that you may not have from the particular version of software or hardware that existed on the date of the answer to what the heck is a sudo.

Still, I find this an incredibly useful site for learning.

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

Hi, I was one those actually pushing the Newbie forum in the archive. The reasoning was that such Newbie forum seemed helpful for newbies at a first sight but actually risked becoming the ghetto for newbies and a (kind of) justification to be less friendly with them in the rest of Talk.

The will back then was to be friendly with everybody anywhere. I agree we should remind this to ourselves more often. If you think you have seen personal attacks these days you should have come earlier this year ;) but this is of course no justification.

Talk is probably getting in similar circumstances as any territory receiving a flow of immigration in a reduced period of time. I believe things will settle in the following months, with most discussions speaking about concrete things in your hands, as opposed to (still) a big % of speculation.

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

I don't even think it is unfriendliness(sp?) even if it might read like that. It is just a completely different way of communicating and doing things, not only between geeks and non-geeks, but also with consumers and people coming from open source community backgrounds.

I for example get tired pretty fast, when I see people who are itching somewhere just talk about how bad the itch is and don't try to do anything about that, like asking people how one can build or help build a stick so you can reach the itching part of your body.

The "consumers" (and that is not meant as an insult) on the other hand don't know where the wood is stored, who is capable of carving and who has the knife so the carver can do his work on the wood. Or that there even is wood and a carver and someone having a knife.

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

@range

There is also someone in between, the person like myself who knows exactly where the wood is and has a good idea of what needs to be done, but also knows the phone numbers of the master-woodsmiths, of whom to ask for explicit instructions in order to get my carve on.


(I had a hard time with the wood analogy, in case you didn't notice ;))


|||EDIT
That was weak, after re-reading, so i will beef it up with two previous posts I have made in regards to this subject.

I, btw, started the TMO is a friendly place movement ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayOnThaBeat (Post 322003) I don't write code. I have trouble troubleshooting, because I find it a little too difficult to figure out exactly what went wrong when something goes wrong. I consider myself to be an enthusiastic end-user. I enjoy this community because I can try things, and when they don't work as expected, there are members who are willing to spend a little bit of their time to help me sort it out. In return, I try to field some of the easy stuff when I see a question that I either know the answer to, or have a good idea about. Sometimes I even get something cool working and write a rediculously long post about exactly how I did it. I'll be the first to admit that on occasion, I am known to snap at someone and/or talk sh*t, but that's just a personality thing that I (suppose ;)) I need to work on. Anyway, my point is that I came here with a general "common sense" knowledge of what was to be expected. This may not be the place for "extreme noobs," but is definitely the perfect place for anyone who a) knows how to work google b) is willing to do a little bit of searching. and c) is curious as to just what you can get these tablets to do. I'm glad to be a part of it all. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayOnThaBeat (Post 334025) @chris I must just be a very easy person to get along with. This forum / community was very welcoming to me, and has managed to help me with all of my problems. I have a hard time believing that your users urged you to start a forum in response to how unfriendly / unhelpful this one was. I think the regulars around here are great. In fact, there's only a very small handful of members that, when asked, I would say are jerks. Also, mind you, I know far less about mobile devices than you do, of that I am sure. I had never even heard of Maemo or Symbian or internet tablets before my laptop's mobo fried and I had to find a temporary replacement. I just don't get the negative generalizations made about this community (most, it seems, from contributors to other tech sites)... I'm too lazy for links right now, but yourself and ricky cadden to name two off the top of my head. (Not trying to start any sh*t, but it happened). I'm just an end-user. But, I feel like I'm part of this community, and I try to help people with problems whenever I can (until I find a job anyway). So, by calling the community unhelpful or unfriendly, you are calling me unhelpful and unfriendly. And that hurts.

Re: User-friendliness of talk.maemo.org
 

Yeah. So you are like me. I'm no developer, I spend most of my "free" time on a different open source project. Which means I know that I have to ask if I can not solve it myself. But which also means, that I might know better where to ask than the "consumer" does, because I am used to the infrastructure. And BTW: I hate web fora, but this has so much more traffic than the maemo mailing lists ...

Oh, so did I :)