no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

If I want specific information about KDE or Android OS, where can I find the classified threads? I remember previously there are subforums such as KDE, Easy Debian, Android in this Alternatives forum. Now I can't find such subforum classification. Thanks.

Re: no further subforum classification in this forum
 

A merge of all these subforums was decided few months ago, as part of the reorganization of ITt to simplify and renovate its structure. No alternative had enough traffic of new threads that justified an own subforum and following the whole Alternatives forum is not that hard either.

You can always use the search box on the top left to search for "[Android]" and you will get the threads using that flag. Or you can simply search e.g. "Android" and you will get all the threads where the term is mentioned, sorted by most recent just as a subforum would do. You can also search by tags, although this depends on people having submitted appropriate tags in the relevant threads.

These searches get a static URL, so you can bookmark and use them at your own will.

Re: no further subforum classification in this forum
 

...and there we have it. The 73 odd posts mostly made by 5 individuals decided the course and structure of todays forum?

Perhaps, but not in the way you are implying.

I responded in that thread on just this subject. The architect of the "blueprint" I talked about was you and that "sense of ownership or community" would not be gained if we did not let the forums grow (or change) organically.

Your reply to me on 03-12-2009 I took as defensive and missing the point.

My point wasn't that changes needed to be made rather, before making changes, know where the hell you're going and steer organic movement in that direction.

However for me and perhaps others, our fate appeared sealed and that thread died (organically BTW :) ) less than a week later with Reggie's post...






Seemed like a done deal to me.

Now I know you are just another forum member and you wish to promote increased participation. I also know that a lot of us do as well. That's what any good forum is all about. However, it seems to me that if you want that participation to be productive and for the common good, at the very least members need to know which direction the barge they are toting is going.

Now that this forum is a component of maemo.org we all must look forward to a time when maemo.org as a whole is more useful to ALL its members.

As it was this forum could have been used to promote these changes in the other components, invite participation, and communicate the org's direction simply by adding to the existing sub-forums. Then perhaps once more members were aware and on-board, reducing and merging sub-forums and other forum changes would not be met with as much resistance.

I'm sorry for the off-topic post... but feel free to start a new thread. :)

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I think the merging of the forums is a good move. From my 8 years of experience running forums, the simpler the forum structure is what makes the forums better. The reason behind this is for members to not sort through 100 forum categories and sub-categories on where he/she should post. Memebrs would usually give up and start a thread on 'General' every time.

For those who are searching for information, they don;t usually go to the forum main page and check the forum categories. They go directly to the search form/page and find info from there.

For the merged forums, just some technical info, I prefixed all the thread titles with their forum categories for easy searching. Also, what's new on the forums (it has actually been there for quite some time) are tags. When used well, tags can actually replace sub-forums.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

No doubt... and a compact more readable forum is more manageable. I have no problem with how it is done. I will participate in any final format... until a better one becomes available.

My problem is with the now almost standard response that if we don't like what it has become, as members of maemo.org we were given the chance to participate and we didn't...
or the equally unnerving response, "feel free to propose changes yourself".

Many of us are here because we were not active members of the old maemo.org.

I don't know for sure but I suspect that this forum's growth comes from new owners of devices and not referrals from a component of maemo.org.

I appreciate Nokia's desire to change that by making maemo.org a one stop alternative to traditional customer support. However it is MHO based on their results in the past*, they may not have thought out all the probable outcomes.

*Late delivery of Developer Devices may have delayed some maemo.org members involvement in this forum for the first 6 months after the release of the n800 when it was most needed (and the forum possibly grew the quickest).

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Going back to the topic, the ramification of Alternatives was part of an organic growth... and so it was the reunification of those sub-forums under a same umbrella. Living bings get rid of plenty of stuff in order to grow.

Nobody could come up with a single alternative that would drive enough traffic to deserve an own subforum. There was a bit of discussion, a majority of opinions in favour of the merge and no showstoppers. After a while the change was made. This is how most decisions are made in online communities based on organic growth.

Again, Nokia has nothing to do with this as I'm doing this in my free time without being asked to do so. My (short) experience as Nokia employee is totally irrelevant in this task as I'm basically working in the same way I learned to work participating, moderating and administrating several communities, starting with BBS and Usenet newsgroups in 95.

Yes, you can always plan better and discuss more. One trade-off is that you might end up only discussing with no move forward until exhaustion. Another trade-off is that probably any change will have its discontents, specially in the short term.

Still, nobody has brought a convicing argument on why it is better to have all those sub-forums now. This might mean that the decision was actually not that bad.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

It becomes harder to find the posts related to a sub topic that used to exits.


I want to install KDE, I go to forum and search for KDE.

This is not useful at all.

I asked for KDE forum, was told no

The community then asked, and Reggie made it happen.

Its now gone, and those posts are scattered. If you come to this site and want to install KDE, you would be lost. Lots of old posts did not have tags in them.

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...light=poll+kde

I am not clear why posts counts to sub-forums are an indication of their usage. Hopefully they were reading them and found they did not need to post, as all the answers were there.

So many decisions being made and so many people not knowing whats going on.

It is apparent that even though we have a Maemo Community Council, most people are not any more informed about what is happening around here.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

A good solution for this is a sticky. Someone can create a KDE sticky for example, pointing to the best KDE threads within the Alternatives forum. It will be a great guide as well as a good way to put focus on the discussion.

FYI, here are all the original KDE threads merged inside Alternatives: http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...DE&titleonly=1

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

An even better one is to put documentation where documentation belongs, on the wiki. ;)

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Thats an awesome link, and I will hold onto that.

However, Reggie, say you came to ITT because you wanted to run KDE, or Android, or Palm, Mer, Debian

Then go to the search and type in KDE and search. Now compare that list to the one you gave me.

I am just saying, I don't see why this is better for users? I also do not understand why this is a problem, there would have been no added administration.

This only makes all those posts LESS useful, because users cannot find them when they need them. Searching is great, especially if its your forum and know what your doing, but if you don't know how, its not very useful at all.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Precisely today I have asked for volunteers willing to write a sticky topic for the Alternatives forum. qole has volunteered, mentioning also that a clarification needs to be done to differentiate alternative OSs from alternative desktop environments.

Maybe you could help him getting that sticky useful and in place?

About subforums, say that the top 50 most downloaded applications have probably way more users than those thinking of installing KDE in the tablets. Should we create 50 subforums, then?

More subforums are not the solution for more information. You say users come to ITt and then search. Well, odds are that they search first if they are not regular ITt users. Looking for how to install KDE in the Nokia Internet Tablets throws (to me now) this first result http://geekpenguin.blogspot.com/2007/09/kde-on-it.html

And also http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...et-tablets.ars

And more, even some ITt thrads, but the first ones listed are not those explaining me how to install KDE.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Remember when this community could give input and people (the community) would show support for something and we could get Reggie to listen.

It seems as though now, our "community" is run by the maemo marketing manager??

oh well, do what you want Quim, you will anyway

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

PB, I think Quim's proposition is perfectly reasonable.

I guess putting sticky threads up front in the Alternatives forum, with explicit titles like "All you need to know about KDE on the tablets", and links inside to pre-made searches like Reggie's and Google, would work just as well as having a bunch of subforums, especially as people may have posted relevant information elsewhere...

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

While someone comes with the right stickies for Alternatives, I have made sticky the main threads covering the main alternatives. Let us know if there are better candidates to become sticky.

It looks ugly, but hopefully this will be an incentive to fix it. At least is useful for newcomers.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

- Android
- Debian
- KDE
- Mer
- Palm OS
etc

It is indeed a bit more uncomfortable for these users. However, if we would put the same level of granularity to everything the forum would be unmaneagable (because Mapper, Tear, Canola, liqbase and long etc users could also deserve the same treatment, then).

But please, can you name the main use cases of, say, users of KD in the tablets? Try to enumerate them to see what had they to do before, and what will they do in the near future if we do our homework.[/QUOTE]

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Those links don't work for me?

The main use cases for KD? I assume KDE?

I think the main uses for KDE, easily allowing users to use a mouse, print, use a joystick, burn a DVD, have a zelda theme, in general have a linux experience.

Additionally comparing Debian, MER, KDE to an application is like apples and oranges. Itt's just not the same thing.

Can you please explain what you mean by this, I do not understand?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Based upon the above qoute, and others in this thread, can't the same logic be applied to OS2006? It's not really supported by Nokia any more is it? Do any tablets ship with it? Isn't it really an "alternative" OS at this point? Therefore, shouldn't i be moved into the alternative category? Along these lines shouldn't Maemo 1&2 in the Old, archived category be combined under something like "old OS's" as well. Obvoiusly, with appropriate stickies if anyone cares to do them.

If fremantle has its' own category (it's not a released usable OS yet), shouldn't Mer (being highly supported by Nokia) get the same treatment?

I hate to say it (I'm tired and crabby), but it seems we are discriminating against non-Nokia alternatives, despite this being a community owned site?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

What if, for the Alternatives forum, we apply a mod like ubuntuforums.org has. When posting a new topic, you can choose a prefix like (for ubuntu forums): [ubuntu], [xubuntu], [kubuntu], etc. or choose to have no prefix. I can see this working with the Alternatives forum. You could choose [KDE], [Android], [Mer], [Easy Debian], [chroot], etc. This would allow separation of topics, without having different subforums, which seems to be one of the main goals in this discussion. This has already been partially implemented when the forums were moved: the KDE topics, for example, were given the prefix [KDE]. However, a mod like this built into the board would make it easier for newcomers to follow the system.

Also: I agree with Lemmy. If we're going to have forums for Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, we should probably include a forum for Mer, as it exists in limbo between Maemo and not Maemo.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Quim, Those links don't work for me either.

I'm trying to figure out how to do a search on, say, "[KDE]" in the subject so I can link to those searches in my forum sticky. I can search for "KDE", but then it pulls in a few extra threads; I want the square brackets, but they break the search.

And once I get a working search, how do I reliably link to it?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Sorry, I didn't know that searches with IDs were so volatile. I have found how Reggie's black magic works:

.

Therefore:

• Android
• Debian
• KDE
• Mer
• Palm OS
• Ubuntu

In most cases these links are good to show basically the same the subforums showed.

Note that the Mer subforum was discussed, the main promoter of this project didn't think it was the right time yet and he agrees on the merge of Alternatives.

Sorry for the unclarity, by use cases I mean:

- KDE lover is interested to know whether Maemo or the tablets support it.
- Maemo user wants to know how to get KDE in his tablet.
- Tablet owner using KDE in his tablet wants to chat with similar users.
- etc.

Being my point that 1 good wiki page + 1 good sticky + Search box probably solves efficiently 90% of the cases. The remaining 9% can be probably made happy with 2 links to searches <KDE in title in the Alternatives forum> + <all posts in tmo tagged with KDE>.

Same for the rest of alternatives. I don't think any newcomer is actually happy about having to skim through a +100 posts thread. If the mistery is in the first post that gets updated... Well that's a wiki page that could be edited and expanded by others if placed in a real wiki.

> Additionally comparing Debian, MER, KDE to an application is like apples and oranges. Itt's just not the same thing.

I doubt they are different from a user+forum point of view. Some users are interested in KDE on the tablets and want to know and discuss about it. Some users are interested in Webkit browsers and want to know and discuss about it. Actually there is probably much more users and activity around Webkit browsers these days, yet we haven't heard anything from them thinking that either they have an own forum or there is no way to be here.

And by the way, have you tried searching 'KDE in Maemo' in Google? At least for me the first result is http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Maemo - it's a nice wiki page and probably most first time users start there before jumping here. Another hint for that sticky in Alternatives.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

The argumentation to consider OS2006 (an OS pre-installed in the 770) as an Alternative escapes to me, but if you want to propose this please start a new thread.

The idea of Old is to put there everything deprecated nobody cares about anymore. If you want to push merges and stickies there, go for it. I prefer to invest my time making the active forums a better place. For instance, OS2008 or Applications are very active forums still waiting for a useful and informative sticky.

Nobody questioned the usefulness of a Maemo 5 forum created already now to gather all the information and speculation around the Fremantle unstable releases. If you want to contest that go ahead with your proposal in a new thread.

The maintainers of Mer have expressed their will not to push for a Mer forum as for yet and they seem to be happy with the decisions done around the Alternative forum.

And I'm tired (but not crabby) of keeping posting the reasons why the decision was made and the solutions we could have for the users and developers around those alternatives if we weren't putting all this time discussing among ourselves (still no sticky in alternatives, still no wiki pages summarizing what 90% of alternative users are looking for).

I'm also tired of telling that I'm doing this as a community member in my free time. I'm the only one that happens to be a Nokia employee involved in this reorganization and the rest of the company is not even aware of these discussions. This is a community discussion and I'm part of it as community member. My contribution in this task is based in my experience as a user and administrator of web forums and communities alike, not in the fact that I work at Nokia.

Do you believe this or not? If not please let me know, it will make the discussion much easier.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

@qgil I firmly believe that you are here as a community member.

I am sure all the changes were discussed in the short thread here on the forums (and likely other places as well, which is part of the communication problem being discussed in other threads). I am sure there were very solid reasons for combining things as they are now.

I just keep seeing things like "amount of threads/traffic/etc". I look in the OS2006 group and see 1 sticky and 4 threads. I look at the KDE link and see 3 pages of threads? In my prevoius post, I was trying to point out that whatever the logic was, it is not apparent to a mere end-user.

As an end-user, it seems to me it would be easier to find information if it were its own group (at least for the more popular alternatives), as oppossed to stikies, wikis, and "blackmagic" searches. Although I'm only an end-user, Ihave a knack for finding issues that only a couple of people have had before, and typically doesn't make it to a sticy or wiki (not enough traffic ;) )

*I am not a mailing-list/irc/prorammer/web site designer/forum maintainer/etc guru. So I don't pretend to follow all the logic involved in some of these decisions. I am just voicing my un-educated opinion.

*to avoid any confusion or corrections: I consider an end-user in this case to be someone who wants to push their device by boldly going where others have gone before :) Just getting a little more out of their device by standing on the shoulders of others.

That being said, I will as requested, kindly devote no further time to the subject.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I really am working on the sticky; can you expand the wiki statement? Guide me a bit? What did I miss? (Alternative OSes, desktops, emulators)

Do you mean some kind of FAQ for popular projects in Alternatives?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

This is something weird. There were more than 4. The general menu say that there are "Threads: 158 | Posts: 1,111". Where can they be seen, I don't know. It's a bug.

But they seem to exist, see for instance http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=3776

Anyway, the fact is that there is the 770 and the OS pre-installed is the OS2006. This OS is not an alternative since it was developed by Nokia and you still need to go through EULA if you want to get it. You might consider that due to the lack of activity this is more of a candidate for the Old section. Your call. I'm personally fine having it there, just like the 770 forum, not very active either these days.


I claim end users go first to their preferred search engine and/or the search box in tmo. The web search engines prioritize the most popular pages and this is why it is important to have good wiki pages to point at as opposed to 14 page threads.

Let's try with the first use case penguinbait mentioned before: use the mouse.

Google: 1st result doesn't tell me how, nor the rest of the 1st page of results.

tmo: you don't think that in a KDE subforum a user would go scanning titles of threads one by one, don't you?

The best I could find with the advanced search is [KDE] Heres how to right click in KDE, but honestly from there I still can't see how a user would get anything clear.

Fail. I'm curious about your results trying out with the rest of main use cases mentioned.

And this is why you surely make a good use of search engines.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

You are the expert here. It would be great if each option would have at least one screenshot and one link to know more. Then if e.g. penguinbait wants to expand more on KDE he can just create the page and go in as much details as he wants.

Very good progress! Easy/Debian pages are also looking. Thank you for your work.

By the way, all this KDE stuff... isn't radically affected by the big change Qt has made in the Maemo context? When penguinbait started with the KDE hacks Qt was an alien for Maemo. Now apps like KOffice are available for Maemo with a hildonized UI and the Fremantle unstable releases are followed the same day by Qt bindings releases and even Forum Nokia produces a guide to develop Qt applications. Yes, I know Qt is not KDE but probably the average KDE lover interested in Maemo would like to know about all this, and currently there is no apparent link in the KDE info in tmo.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Any words on the original posts in the forum's, so I can update the tags, or do I have to use searches to recreate?

These links were not working? Is this just not available?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Yes I can search KDE in the title, I was just wondering if there was an actual list of what posts were in the original sub-forum.

If no thats OK, I am just wondering if that exists and can become available.

Sounds like no?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I collected a bunch of palm apps with different classifications some time back. I do not remember the name of the title post and search cannot get it. I got it back by searching my own postings. I prefer, if possible, to continue the subclassifications. I am the one who post it and having difficulty to locate it, less mention the visitors dont even know such thing exist.

bun

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Bun, I told reason why I think, I have asked, begged, pleaded, yelled, screamed, threw a hissy fit, had a melt down, crapped my pants, all to no avail. Itt's like talking to a wall without ears, on the plus side the wall has a loud speaker.. Oh and it repeats itself, in case you missed it the first time.

It was one of the reasons I am asking, if a hacker forum should be made?

I am looking for an easier way to support things, which is why the community asked for the sub-forum to begin with. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=14991 and it even got your support bun ;)

I will attempt to use the sticky's IMO this is not cool. There have been a lot of changes to the forum structure, and itt seems this is the only topic where people seem to be saying wait, really, can't we change this back.

Not change the entire structure of ITT back, but a few sub-forums under the Alternatives forum. Mostly smooth structure change, maybe we need to rethink this one TINY problem that could be easily fixed in my opinion.

lets make a poll ;)

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

If I use this, it will show me all the threads with KDE in the TITLE
http://talk.maemo.org/forums/search....de&titleonly=1

If I search for Koffice
I can find this post

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=11590
[KDE] Koffice ?? Its been a productive month :)

Notice the TITLE does not have KDE in it, but its marked as KDE, because it used to exist in the KDE subforum.

Can you give me a search that will give me all the posts that used to be in the KDE forum, not marked by [KDE]

If not, could someone like Reggie, send me a pm with a list of all the post ID's so I can go through them and update tags on all the old threads.

Honestly the ones with KDE in the title are easy to find, it's the ones with KDE in the title, I would also like to find.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

@PB: At first, I thought it is a joke about all these changes. Now I see a problem. Could somebody please help, the change is suppose to be for better?!

bun

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

Gotta side with these guys. I haven't used the alternative OSes, but, jeez, if I did, I'd want to see all the threads together for the specific OS I was interested in. I certainly wouldn't care if some sub-categories had only a few threads -- that's probably appropriate for what they are.

You know, Linnaeus's taxonomic classification system -- class, order, genus, species? Well, some genera have only a few species -- sometimes only a single species -- but they don't mush the genera together as a result!

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

There was some talks of gaps, by Texrat,


These "gaps" also cause gaps in the forums. No new hardware means no new development. When new hardware is released, I will build another full blown KDE version. Right now though, things are stable, and there is no need post because changes or new development is not really happening. Well at least not by me, a beta SDK doesn't really blow my whistle. I never use the SDK gui. So since I have no device to fire up, I am spending my time, helping out in the forums ;)

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

A large part of my last job involved designing hierarchal data structures for reporting Nokia's global delivery issues. My boss tried to take a "design by committee" approach to one such project and we got nowhere for months. Out of frustration, I finally "rebelled", spent a weekend designing it myself based on the inputs I'd been given and then offered it up for review. My boss was blown away. It wasn't the approach he wanted to use but he could not argue with the results. And everyone liked it.

Moral: designing a structure should definitely take everyone's concerns into account, but ONE person needs to do the actual organizational work, then ask for feedback.

In the case of this forum, I'm not convinced the "final" solution is the best one. It may be and I just need time to be convinced... or maybe a mockup should be done, discussed, and implemented when there's at least a reasonable consensus.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I bet most of us have searched for our own posts sometimes, even if they were in "non-merged" forums. My last time was... yesterday and it was somewhere in one of the dark theme threads, posted just few days ago.

You say that keeping the Palm OS subforum would have helped you finding the post. How that would have been different than clicking here and doing the very same scan?

Look, here is a proposal to move on: we let ourselves a bit of time. You document what really matters in wiki pages easy to find and you can see what is best for your specific alternative and its users. The situation is relatively static anyway in Alternatives (except Mer) while waiting for new devices to hack. When they come you will see what alternatives get a lot of traction and really require an own space.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I actually would like to be a little less static on my project, but I seem to be spending all my time documenting and doing janitorial work around here :) ;)

I would love to try to get a really nice, optimized non-hildon replacement desktop for the tablets, maybe a really minimal Gnome or more likely a dressed-up LXDE, running in an Ubuntu chroot. Just can't find the time however...

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

The difference is the posts that do NOT contain PALM in the title. Your search only shows the posts that have PALM in the title. There are other posts in the [PALM] category that are not coming up on the searches for PALM in the title, because the title does not contain PALM.

Seriously I keep saying this, am I confusing you? Do you understand what I am saying?

This is the problem in all the categories.

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

In other words, when people were writing titles for a thread in the PALM subforum, they didn't feel the need to put "PALM" in the title because it was in the PALM subforum, so that was already assumed. Now that there isn't a PALM subforum, this has become an unanticipated problem.

Maybe all the threads from the old PALM subforum should have been appended "PALM: " (e.g. in a searchable way) at the beginning of the post title? And the same with the other subforums. I believe Peguinbait has asked if the list of threads in the old subforums still exist somewhere. Maybe it is possible for someone to still append all the old threads?

Re: no further subforum classification in the Alternatives forum
 

I understand you every time you say it (and I count almost ten) ;) . But do you understand what I'm saying?

A - If bunanson would have used the search the result would have been the same for those threads without "Palm" in the subject. They hadn't "Palm" before and now the search engine can't find them because of the brackets. The rest of the content can be equally found or not-found by the search engine since it doesn't care about subforums. No difference.

B - If the Palm OS subforum would exist still today and bunanson would have got to scan it thread by thread, he would have seen exactly the same threads and in the same sort than this list. No difference.

If A and B show no actual difference with or without subforum, then we can conclude in an Aristotelian way that bunanson would have equally sweat to find that old post with or without subforum.

I think this is a solid argumentation, but I'm ready to see it beaten. :)