A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

I hadn't heard of maemo until the weekend. So I'm a total n00b here, and frankly have no right to suggest anything. But... I suspect I'm representative of a whole pile of people who're going to fetch up here in the next few months.

While maemo was limited to the internet tablets the number of people here was relatively small, and mostly very dedicated and knowledgeable about it. But with the advent of n900, marketing and adverts are going to bring in a whole pile of people with little or no knowledge beyond "it's an operating system - you'll need to learn it" which is what someone said to me today.

And frankly, I don't blame those of you who've been working with this for a year or more, writing apps for it, coding it, living, eating and sleeping it feeling a tad .... irritated when someone like me shows up with a bunch of questions you've heard before.

So what I wondered was whether we could have a single pinned thread titled something like "New User or enquirer start here" where we could ask our stupid questions without feeling too stupid, and we could search for all the terribly simple questions that the rest of you answered ages ago. And you could feel that you'd answered once and for all and if we're stupid enough to start other threads, you can shout at us!

Because believe me, if this thing is as good as you and nokia say, you're going to be dealing with a LOT of ignorant n00bs like me

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

You're not ignorant at all. You're just new to all this... and that's okay. When you're thinking about making a $600 purchase, no question is stupid. I think a lot of us can understand that feeling. We were all new here once too.

Don't let the minority doing the yelling bother you too much. The longer you're around, the more you'll learn... and hey, maybe you'll learn about Linux some... and some of the other underlying technologies as well. And then you'll move on to answering these kinds of threads yourself at some point. ;)

You may also want to check out the #maemo IRC chatroom on irc.freenode.com.

Ask away. Really, it's okay.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Oh I intend to, believe me!

The problem is where? Which is why I'm asking for a nice, tidy single thread in which I and those like me can ask our very basic questions without fear, and without flooding your lovely forums with our ignorance. I just have a suspicion you won't like what happens if this thing goes as big as nokia hopes... imagine 20-30 new bears per day all asking the same basic questions!

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

We used to have a Newbie section here... and I think it might be time to bring it back so that you "new bears" have a place to go. Paging Reggie... paging Reggie...

In the meantime... please, make yourself at home.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

RevdKathy

As someone who has decided to get interested in Maemo and N900 you clearly are NOT of very little brain. I also think that by asking questions no matter how simple they are you are getting involved, and that matters more than ability.

So some questions.
1. have you looked at the Internet tablet 101?
2. Have you looked at the wiki?

Good places to start to feed what will I'm sure become an addiction.
apologies if you already have seen these.

Mike C

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

I haven't found the 101 - where's that? I did look at the wiki, but it didn't seem to have the answers I was looking for.

I am extremely close to placing a pre-order for an n900 after having been quite, quite convinced that what I wanted was a symbian satio. Some small part of me wants to do the conservative thing and buy a phone that I already know how to use and what it will do. I'm not above hunting around, or asking silly questions (I have a positive flair for the latter!) but don't like to be a nuisance. I just don't want to splash out all that dosh and then find an n900 won't do half of what I thought it would.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

For now, please just make your best guess at the appropriate forum and post away. Worst case, you pick wrong, and a moderator spends a few moments moving the thread and leaves a temporary pointer to help you find your thread in its new home.

As others have mentioned, we used direct newbies to, well, the Newbie forum, but a lot of the best discussion on the site wound up happening there. So, as an example, when some great application discussion takes place in Applications, and other just as great application discussion happens in Newbie, it's hard to find what you need.

Still, you make a great point. Some new Maemo users are going to be hesitant to jump into discussion. We need to consider:

• the resurrection of the Newbie forum
• the creation of short, locked sticky threads in each forum explaining that newbies are welcome everywhere and inviting them to jump in
• another, better alternative someone else will suggest

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

You are not the first one asking for something lik this so why not trying out.

Proposal: a new thread in General with the topic suggested above, a link to http://wiki.maemo.org/Frequently_asked_questions and 2 simple rules:

1. People who ask must ask one question at a time in a single sentence, à la Twitter.

2. People who answer must answer with a link where the answer is explained.

No big newbie posts mixing all kinds of stuff. No elaborated answers that will be forgotten in few days. No discussion in that specific thread.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

"Another" alternative would be a clickable tab near top of page titled "Newbie Help". This would take the newbie to a "Welcome Newbie" page that explains how a post about N900 should be started in the N900 catagory. Also explain when you would post in "Off Topic" or "General".

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

great idea. one more thing: how to make it easy to find when entering maemo.org or talk.maemo.org? some kind of eye-catching "if you're new here, click me"-thing might be useful.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

qgil - As a n00b (albeit an N810 n00b because I lack the cash for the N900) I think that's a great idea.

zerojay and sjgadsb - I have also suggested resurrecting/highlighting the Newbie forum in another thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32110). To me, the fact that there are now 12 pages of posts on that thread indicates one of the problems that we n00bs face - too much information. Searching for an answer is often difficult and being rebuked because we missed the answer which is somewhere within some thread in some forum is discouraging.

mikec - Internet Tablet 101 was very useful to me, being an N810 user, but an N900 user coming across it would see something that, based on the title and the two year old date, doesn't appear relevant. The Wiki can be very useful if you find it. I would suggest it be highlighted in the top navigation bar or as a link on the right navigation column or as a drop down under FAQ on the right (i.e. FAQ opens up a drop down menu with "Talk FAQ" and "Maemo Wiki").

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

It would also be helpful to have a decent Google-based search for the forum, like the one I have as a Newbie link in my sig, in the place currently occupied by a terrible Search engine in the top right of the page.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

We've been through this before, and I was told it was debated and decided against, but it hits me as crazy not to have the User Wiki as a main link at the same top level as Intro Downloads Community Development News Talk.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

So while I was compiling my huge list of Very Basic Questions I suddenly remembered a little app I used to have on my treo in the way-back-when and I though "I wonder if anyone has thought of doing that in maemo?" But I can't find where to make the suggestion. In Apps? In 'fremantle'? In 'n900'? It's not a widget (I don't think) so not there...

And I still think a simple thread for "Will it do X? and if so how?" for n00bs is the easiest way to go.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

i find combining the "search" and "search this thread" usually is an effective way to find answers here. it did however take some time before i found the "search this thread" option, and i suspect many newcomers might not realise this way of finding answers.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Compare it to the Google search (the Newbie link) in my signature. Even with the combination you've pointed out (which, I agree, is sometimes useful), or with Maemo.org's own "Advanced Search," I'm still far more successful with the Google search.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Actually, the most useful search is to click on the Search drop down menu on the right and select Advanced Search. But, again, my problem tends to be figuring out which results are relevant.

For example, a basic n00b question - how should I shut my Nxxx down? There are literally hundreds of posts on multiple threads which address this. Unfortunately, they don't agree and the many of the threads seem to have degenerated into religious wars. What I have never seen is someone with a knowledge of Maemo/Linux and any of the Nxxx device internals post test results showing how rapidly the battery drains under various conditions versus how much it drains shutting down and powering up. It's probably there somewhere but after an hour of looking I couldn't find it.

Another problem for n00bs is what is still applicable? This is going to get worse with the N900. If I see a problem and solution/workaround, does that apply to my device? Was it fixed in Diablo? in Fremantle? It's even worse with apps whose thread spans many years and many versions.

Search can only go so far. The Wiki helps when it provides a single canonical answer. But we also need a n00b/dummies/poohbear forum where responders practice tolerance even when two threads in a row ask the same dumb question.

Need for better overview in Intro of what's here, and how to use it
 

I'm in much of the same n00b situation as the OP, having just in the last few weeks become aware of maemo and N900. While drooling over the prospects of buying a N900, I have bought an N810. I'm wondering about it all; how to use the devices, what goodies are on offer and how do I go about creating my wanted widgets and applications that I could possibly try to develop myself.

Using a lot of time, roaming around on the site and the many discussions, I'm gradually finding anwers. However, it would have helped me a lot, if there initially were some information available showing/explaining the overall structure of the maemo.org site.

I first looked under the top leftmost tab "Intro" which first met my eye - to no avail.

The "Intro" tab should (also) say something about the main components of the maemo.org site, and how they can and is supposed to be used:

E.g. There is actually a Wiki - and what's in it. Theres is also Brainstorm - how is it used, what's the functon, what should be put there - and what should one rather use Talk for. How does talk, brainstorm, bugzilla, garage and the new maemo.gitorious.org play together - and where are we expected to channel our questions, suggestions (and dear I also say complaints?) ?

There is Downloads, repositories, Garage, Gitorious and Nokia sites. Where should we search for interesting stuff - what status does it have, what to expect? (Take into account that there is quite likely that maemo could be new users first encounter with communities and open source development.)
Oh, yes, definitely. In addition to the transitory phase due to new device and version in the pipeline, it also seems that maemo.org itself is in transition, not only due to advent of ver 5 and N900, but also to ongoing(?) project of restructuring the site.

I believe that now to focus efforts towards enabling new users to better serve themself from all the good stuff that actually is already available at the site, will save efforts for those in the know, and reduce much frustration for those in the need - and the sooner we n00bs will (be able to) come here not to just to get, but also to contribute.

There are some good meta information around, but it should be gathered, expanded and served smack in the eye of new users. Those who are not new, will normally know their way around - it is new users who foremost need the help they can get from an inviting and informative site structure.

PS. To illustrate - although it perhaps says the most about myself - but it took me quite some time to find Brainstorm, which I saw many references to in discussions on Talk and which I performed a search for. Also a couple of weeks got by - too many interesting discussions in Talk to review first - before I got to the Wiki and the many helpful pointers it does provide to information I needed.

Re: Need for better overview in Intro of what's here, and how to use it
 

The intro is historical from when maemo.org was a different place. Hopefully somebody will get around to re-writing it soon (could be you!).

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Nobody else is shocked that bears are typing now?



I second GeraldKo, the maemo.org google search is where it's at, mainly cuz you get the results in "google-form", which allow you to see a sample of the text where the search phrase was found.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

It's hellishly difficult with the furry paws, too!

First off, a huge thanks to everyone who's taken this seriously. I know I'm just slow off the mark with this and eventually if I choose an n900 will get up to speed. I think part of the problem lies with the complex way the OS community works.

Take symbian:
1) I read the manual and that will take me through all the basic functions
2) If I want something beyond, I hit google and find the relevent software paid or free, and install it.

Before deciding whether what I want is a symbian phone I can do a straightforward search on whether or not there are apps to do what I want, and if the answer's 'no' I look for something else. For example, the other possible choice for me is a satio (symbian). So I've already found someone assuring me that e-reader s60v3 runs on s60v5, and the guys at Olive Tree have the software for s60v5 currently in final beta testing.

When I try to do that for maemo, I find myself surrounded by people talking language I don't understand, and often arguing with each other (I loved the description of 'religious wars'). For example, I want to run office software: I've seen stuff that says doc-to-go runs - with, or without a claim that's it's view only. I've seen suggestions for something called KOffice. And I've even seen people who claim to be running OpenOffice. Which has left me utterly bewildered, and uncertain.

(I'm not asking you to answer that in this thread - just using it as an illustration... I have a bunch of questions like that.)

What us poor Bears of Little Brain needs is somewhere we can ask stuff like that and get nice easy answers in short words so:

Yes, you can d/l doc-to-go and run it from here but as yet that's only a viewer. (You can pay for the upgrade to full function)
Yes, you can d/l KOffice from here and the website for its creator is here, which will explain its finctions more fully
Yes you can run Open Office but to do that, you need to do this and this first: walk through here...

I'm only guessing at those answers, BTW!!!!

Your wiki is lovely and helpful but it still doesn't have answers to many of my questions. I feel like I need a tame 'expert' willing to sit down with me for half an hour and address my issues so i can make an informed choice.

I really, really don't want to fall back to the 'default position' of buying what I know (not least because of SE's sadim touch last year - that's Midas backwards). I want to make the n900 meet enough of my needs to be worth buying. Cos the whole idea is a heck of a lot more exciting to us bears. We like Open, Co-operative, etc!

PS I don't mind chaperoning other bears if I can find answers!

Re: Need for better overview in Intro of what's here, and how to use it
 

what does it take to get editing permissions for those pages?

i totally agree that the intro could be more noob-friendly, not full of complex schematics concerning software development.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Let's try: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...908#post340908

The intro could be also a wiki page, but let's not diverge in this thread.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Great idea. Would it be asking too much if posts quoting a question (to give an answer) were referenced in the post they are quoting (containing the question)?

That way you would see directly in a post which posts later on quotes it, so you see which questions are answered and where the answers are (Q&A threads might get big over time, lots to sift through for an answer..). Might actually be useful in ordinary threads as well..

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

I've not seen that in any forum that I've used, but that does sound like a useful feature. In the meantime, I guess the only way to deal with this would be for someone to manually go through the thread and weed things out, or edit a first post, or a wiki page or similar.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Good idea... Do you think many users will do this though?

The posts need to be edited by the posters themselves.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Given that the type of user asking the questions is a new user, no, I can't imagine most of them bothering to go back to edit their post once their question is answered.

To edit other people's posts would need a forum moderator, or a volunteer who could edit one particular post that they created (e.g. your post at the top of the thread could contain the questions and answered copied and pasted in - not that I expect you will have time for this!) or a similar wiki page that could be edited by anyone with the questions and answers. The problem after a while is that the lists of Q&As will get longer and longer, and will need to be categorised (hardware, OS, multimedia etc.) to be easy to navigate.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Well there should be forum software to take care of this (c.f. threaded view), since there is a natural link between the quoting post and the quoted post. When poster quotes a post, add link to new post's number (the # in the top right corner of each post) to the old post.

Each post could contain this:
Quoting posts:
#4
#75
#82
(formatted in a nice way, there should be space for this)

So what I mean is to implement the feature in the forum, not require each poster or a moderator to do it manually.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Let me pose something for the Board to consider.

Maemo.org is, to quote the introduction: "The Home of the Maemo Community . . . an open source community developing software around the Maemo platform."

The n00bs we are talking about are, on the whole, never going to develop software. We are users of Maemo and Maemo.org developed applications.

Perhaps we need a better way to divide up the developer community and the user community so that the former can help the latter in their forums but the latter doesn't clog up the former's forums with simple questions. This may be a matter of reorganizing and reordering the forums in Talk. Perhaps what I assume was the old segmentation of maemo.org and internettablettalk.com forums could be revisited (perhaps with the user forums in internettablettalk mirrored in maemo.org but with the developer forums only in maemo.org). Maybe (if the board software permits it) you can read all the forums but you can only post in the Newbie forum until you have X number of posts.

I don't know the answer. I also don't know the history which led to the decisions that have been made. But if you want to advance the cause of Maemo and the N900, it would be good to reduce the frustration level of new users.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Splitting up developer / user is a fine idea, and there is already garage.maemo.org and the developer mailing list so I think that split has / could easily be achieved. Perhaps the split is user vs. power user?

Also, I agree that the search is really terrible, even with advanced search.

For questions like "which software does X" or "how do I ..." , I suggest a "yahoo answers" or "stack overflow" format instead of a message board. Many threads tend to veer way off course which seems to be why we get 500 post threads, and good luck trying to enforce otherwise.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Personally, I think maemo.org and especially talk.maemo.org is as much for end-users as it is for developers, so that intro probably needs to be updated. I don't have any ideas about how the forums should be organised, though.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Now that's customer service.

For all the n0n-n00bs (the 0lds?) out there, please help us. When I posted there were already about 20 questions in the first eight hours.

Thanks.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Sorry! That'd be me. I took the chance to post all my questions. And I have answers or at least partial answers to some of them now. I think there may also have been other lurking n00bs looking for a place to ask the basics.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

On a related note, what about putting Community before General? Makes sense to this rodent of small but overactive brain...

typing in jfk airport on n810... 1 hour to AMS flight!

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Hi RevdKathy,

I wonder if you're not Kathy Sierra - that is a very Kathyish thing to ask (and that is a compliment). Back in 2006 she wrote about JavaRanch and how they encouraged new users to answer questions: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating..._build_a_.html

Normally, this forum or the "General" forum are the best places to ask questions for newcomers - and all answers are welcome.

Cheers,
Dave.

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

Hi Dave

No, I am RevdKathy, and have been RevdKathy for a very long time. I was RevdKathy (mod) on mytreo.net if anyone remembers me from there, I am RevdKathy on various sci-fi places (I'm a geekess, so sue me), and RevdKathy in google will show my hyperactivity!

Thank you for the compliment, though. Kathy Sierra sounds like someone I'd like to know! In fact, I'd venture to say that I filled the gap she highlights on mtdn - being a quick learner and natural 'people person' I was the one always happy to answer the less techy questions I understood, and point people in the right direction for the hard questions. Mind, I got into mtdn when it was first open.

She's right - user communities need people to feel welcome at all levels!

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

How about a sub-section called "New to Maemo" just to contain the influx of new users yet unfamiliar with Maemo and figure out how to best address their needs? It'll be a sub forum that's more 'service oriented' and anyone should feel 'safe' to post in while the proper stickies and orientation pages are made..

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

i started a wiki article bit similar

http://wiki.maemo.org/New_users

if you like it, contribute

if this is f** stupid, delete it. but i strongly think that something like that is needed. If there is similar info somewhere (in one place written in non-geek), I haven't found it... so chances are that n00bs havent either...

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

NOTE: The Wiki was moved to: http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Basics

Even if you think it is f-ing stupid, please don't delete it. It's great for f-ing stupid n00bs like me. :p

I've added a bit and will try to help build it out.

Note that I've started a thread specific to the Wiki:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...817#post341817

Re: A small suggestion from a bear of very little brain
 

In the last week I have lost count of how many people I have asked for advice who've responded "You mean Nemo, like the fish?" - even techies (like the guy from IT support and the chap in PC world ... no scrap that, he showed me his iphone)

"NO, Maemo... I think it's pronounced My Mo - it's a version of linux."
I think the wiki is a great place to start!