Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Hi,

I'd like to thank everyone who attended the Public Maemo Community Council Meeting this morning on freenode.net/maemo-meeting. You can read the meeting archive for a line-by-line output of the proceedings.

Unfortunately, while we had a number of people in attendance, there were only a couple who were vocal. Likewise, a few of those who really wanted this meeting to occur were not present.

Below are the conclusions to the agenda items posted here. While the meeting ended with these conclusions, they are still up for debate. As we are an open source community, so should be the methodology that we use within our community infrastructure. More commentary to come below.

1. One place for all communication.

• We have decided that, for the time being, the Maemo Community Council will continue to utilize the Council Blog for all Council- and Community-related announcements. If you haven't subscribed to the Planet RSS feed, please do so now.
• Any other community-related discussion will occur here in the newly renamed Community subforum.
• The Council wiki will be an information-only location.
• If the maemo-community mailing list becomes integrated with the Talk forums, it will coincide with the Community subforum.

2. Representing the Maemo Community (maemo.org).

• The Maemo Community Council will do it's best to track community-related ideas and issues and support those which have a majority of community-support. If you feel like you need an idea or issue addressed, please do so in the Community subforum.
• A Council-generated summary of community-related action items will be published at the end of each month on the Council blog.

3. Representing Nokia Maemo SW (now Maemo Devices).

• As stated above, the Maemo Community Council will continue to present and push community-related ideas and issues to Maemo Devices and the maemo.org staff. But, the Council will no longer attempt to announce any information brought to the Council unless it is community-related. It has been decided that only Nokia should announce Nokia- and Maemo-related information.

4. Redefinition of Community Council.

• The Council wiki page will be altered so that it reflects an edited variation of Quim Gil's recommendation here. COMPLETED.

5. Regular Maemo Community town hall meetings.

• One idea was to have twice-monthly "open office" hours where two Council members and three community members must be present for the meeting to commence.
• This idea was also met with a little argument, so it needs to be further discussed.
• Please provide feedback and additional ideas

Again, these topics are still up for debate, so let us know how you would like us to proceed.

Thank you,
Tim

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

I had another idea about #2 on the way to work...

It seems to me that another very concrete way that Nokia would use the Council to represent the community would be as a ready-made group of community reps for official Maemo events. So if Nokia wants to tout the community around the Maemo platform, they don't have to ask Quim (or someone else) to find people from the Community, they can choose from the members of the Council. I really think that the community chose the Council to be community representatives most of all.

A corollary of this should be that there is always at least one Council member at all Maemo events. We have a broad enough range of Council members, from hard-core developers to engaged users, that there should be at least one Council member who can attend...

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

I know it's only Monday, but I'm going to make this sticky, because I'm surprised that more people haven't commented. (Proof that none of this matters to anyone?)

Tim

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Tim, I read through the meeting. There was a lot of information there to digest. Although there is a lot I would like to comment on, I would like to take the time to read it again. It was very informative and enlightening.

However, I found it very disappointing/unprofessional/unbecoming to.see multiple jabs made towards "vocal" members of the forum community for not caring enough to show up. Perhaps they had other "real life" obligations (work, family, etc). Those types of comments only serve to foster the "us" and "them" feelings that are one of the current problems in our community.

Perhaps those types of comments even persuaded other less vocal members that their opinions are not taken seriously and not worth the time to make, hence the lack of comments here.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

lemmyslender, I see your point, but the fact of the matter is that the meeting was organized based on the comments by some of those people. And, clearly, most of them have time to comment here, so... I was hoping to see them there.

I don't think anyone was expressing anything other than frustration based on the Council attempting to be open and not seeing those who were requesting the openness.

Sorry if anyone is offended. AFAIK, the comments were fairly minimal considering the scope of the meeting.

Tim

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Very interesting, thanks!

Actually the Council blog has a feed in its own: http://maemo.org/community/council/atom.xml

Isn't this what is already happening? Please clarify so we can do better our part of the job.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Thanks! I was looking for it, but couldn't find it. (Asked X-Fade on IRC too, but he wasn't around.) ;)

I think so. Although, I think there was a bit of confusion (among community- and Council-members alike), so I felt it was good to discuss and state plainly. In any case, let's try to accomplish this from here on out.

Tim

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

You can simply go to the page and look at the feeds your browser is detecting... :)

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Because, of course, we don't have "real life" obligations? If someone was eager to turn up, but couldn't, there have been numerous places for them to either say that directly, or post their thoughts ahead of time on Tim's agenda.

You're "lucky" in that you're seeing a raw meeting log - in addition to Tim's minutes above. Any normal meeting in the real world would probably also feature comments which could be construed as jibes towards people who'd requested the meeting but then not turned up; or sent an apology ahead of time. These don't get minuted directly, but the comments are still made.

It's a vicious circle, then. "We" attempted to break it by reviewing our performance to date and inviting anyone to come along and influence our direction.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

As you're new to the community, you've missed out on a lot of history behind those comments.

It's consistently been shown that anything that elicits a large and vehement response initially will inevitably receive very little useful input once the *****'n'moan phase has been passed and the constructive improvement phase has been reached.

People never provide input when input is requested, and then complain once a discussion is had and consensus is reached, but never bother to provide useful input once the issue is reopened. It wears thin very shortly.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Hmm, I read, but there isn't much to comment on, except a 'Thanks'. You're doing a great job at making the infrastructure more scalable and useful.

I don't like IRC for serious discussion because with multiple persons it gets chaotic (there is no sub-threading or quoting) while you cannot use the normal gestures like in real life conversation either. Because its real-time there is also problem with different timezones, and I like how you're trying to solve that.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

certainly whining and moaning are easier/take less time than reading serious documents and reacting appropriately. That also means feedback delay is increased : not everyone lives on the same schedule and commitment level as the council members. I for one have had simply no time for tmo matters in the past few weeks (typing this on an E71 in the airport :-)

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Never? One of the lessons in this transcription was put in the end 'stop speaking in absolutes'.

To give you an example where community input worked: after the first election when it was pointed out the voting method was not ideal much feedback and discussion arose, alternatives were provided, including one with available code. Maybe there was too much discussion, but otherwise this was solved very well by the Council and the Community.

When you require useful input you can simply ask the person that by quoting them (or PMing them). Which you've been doing. If you keep that friendly then good job. Perhaps PM those people you've been missing now, or accept that they will read it later, or do not care (anymore). But have some patience, and then conclude.

In this discussion on IRC there was a lot of organisation/infrastructure discussion, and not everyone is good at such. There is also this saying 'no news is good news' which means that after you haven't received feedback (but did receive views and thanks) apparently people agree with you.

I believe also your task as Council is to keep into account the feedback you received which was valuable (no matter if you agreed on it) and keep that in mind during an IRC discussion like this. If you couldn't remember it, it was most likely not important enough.

Sometimes, even when you don't reach a goal you would wanted to reach you still did a fantastic job, even when someone else is #1 or you do not get that pet on your back.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

That may actually be an example of that to which GeneralAntilles was referring. In August 2008, Dave Neary sought to launch a discussion of the proper voting method for the first Community Council election.

Though there was very little discussion at that time, once the election was underway, a number of people came forward with complaints. That led to the fruitful discussion you remember. The process was then repeated, though to a much lesser degree, with the second election.

The community appears to have settled into an improvement process that approximates:

1. ask for input
2. receive very little
3. take action based upon the input received
4. receive a significantly greater volume of input
5. act to refine that built in 3 based upon 4
6. goto 1

Having recognized this, the Council is leading an effort to improve step 1 as much as possible. However, the gains made thus far, while significant, have been insufficient to reduce 4 to acceptable levels. It will likely never be eliminated completely, if for no other reason than the continuous addition of new members to the community, but the improvement process is critical.

Unfortunately, Council members often take a beating during 4 from those who--just as unfortunately--feel beaten by 3. Hopefully, as the community--not just the Council--works on improving communication and planning processes, we'll see a stronger, happier community with fewer people feeling attacked and defensive.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Well, duh! :D

-T.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Of course, this is what we all (people involved) thought about the maemo.org redesign and integrating itT into maemo.org/Talk. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be the case. But, I appreciate your input. It is helpful.

Tim

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Tim - Thank you for taking the time to post a link to the meeting archive and posting the meeting minutes. As I said, it was very enlightening.

There are several things I could say, but won't. It is quite clear that any constructive criticism is seen as *****ing and moaning, and as such has no value.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Constructive criticism never will [be seen like that]. Whining & moaning is saying "you did X craply, do it better". Constructive criticism is saying "Thanks for doing X, however I think it could have been done better if Y & Z were done. What do you think?"

There's lots of evidence of the former, and it drowns out the very small percentage of the latter.

sjgadsby's hit the nail on the head in terms of our community's workflow.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

Oh, please. :rolleyes: This claim is demonstrably false, and if you can't tell the difference between the two, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

The great Gadsby strikes again. You always have such a great way with words. My favorite is step 4; a "significantly greater volume of input" indeed!

But when you lay it out on the table like that, it looks a lot like the workflow I see in a lot of places. Step 4 is usually a bit calmer, with less bulging neck veins and bared teeth, and more, how did Jaffa put it, "Thanks for doing X, however I think it could have been done better if Y & Z were done. What do you think?"

Re: Public Maemo Community Council Meeting notes...
 

So, we're about a week short of a month of this post being available for people to comment on. And, still very few comments -- especially lacking from those people who prompted us to take part in an exercise like this in the first place. Honestly, I really wish there was more response.

But, I am now going to remove the post from being "sticky." It will still be available, of course, so maybe some of you will still take the time to find it and comment.

Thanks,
Tim