Making important people visible
 

When i joined the forum a few weeks ago, i had no idea who was who. Which was pretty normal i guess. The post count and join date on profiles helped show who was experienced and more likely to have deeper knowledge, but it took me a while to figure out e.g. that qgil is a nokia employee and as such knew some things most didn't. Peter@maemomarketing was a bit easier to figure out though ;)
So the question is: is there no way to make important details about people visible? Like a note on the post count+thanked # line with the mention "nokia rep / employee". I think it will help sort out some threads where people say contradictory things, by showing who is more likely to be closer to the subject
I'm still for keeping 'normal' community members all in one basket. Yes, some contribute more than others, but let's not turn this into a competition

Re: Making important people visible
 

Interesting idea - i would assume it is up to those community members to do it, not fair on forcing a description on someone.
But being new'ish myself to here i like the idea of knowing who is a developer, who helps with the brainstorming etc... the maemo helpers thing is great for me :)

And i suppose i would just come under a general Nokia users group :)

I suppose you have summed it up slightly though - as the more you read here, the more you learn, and you end up knowing what you have just asked :)

Re: Making important people visible
 

Seeing the hostility towards Nokia which has emerged on several threads now, I don't think that that is a good idea - those people probably would drown in private messages on where the n900s are ...

Re: Making important people visible
 

I don't agree, I don't think that making those people more visible would have a great impact on their 'privacy' on this forum.

Besides, it is not only about Nokia employees, but also about moderators, admins, all the forum VIPs.

It's a good idea, I would vote for it. It makes life easier.

Re: Making important people visible
 

Meh, the "damn nokia for keeping me waiting"-ers can go hump a brick wall. In a few days the devices will start coming in and over-excited teenagers can finally use daddy's cash and get their toy.
Also, hate mail is pretty easy to identify and swiftly delete
Also, those nokia people that i know of are pretty easy to spot anyway (especially peter), so i don't think they're hiding very well. Newbs would probably find them harder (which is the point of this discussion), but don't forget the troll-vision annoying people have, allowing them to easily find targets
Of course, everything would be optional. I'd just like to see a spot (besides the signature) where people with some relevant quality can show it, and dev's can show what they made (a tag like "Dev/contributor of [insert app here")

Re: Making important people visible
 

We need a tag for Developers, UI/Graphics Artists, Promoters/Bloggers/Journalists, Camera Gurus, Nokia Representatives, and Maemo Experts (those that have been around x years with y amount of posts and z karma).

I'm totally for adding ID tags for certain users.

Re: Making important people visible
 

This keeps coming up over and over in thread after thread. I agree with the premise on the surface, but have to admit that the counterarguments were convincing. Bottom line, there's considerable resistance from many of the people who would be affected...

Re: Making important people visible
 

recent discussion of this took place here. Read GA's post #8 for an example of why Nokian's may not want the forehead tatoo "I'm from Nokia"

Re: Making important people visible
 

I don't see the need for that either (well, I don't see the need for web fora when you have mailing lists, either, so I am prejudiced).

I think people should be valued by what they say and do and not by some tags. Because what makes a Nokia employee so special here except that he might know some internals about - let's say - battery monitoring.

If he can say something and sees the request in a thread, he probably will say something. If not he won't. Would he himself behave differently when he has a "NOKIA" tag attached to him? I don't think so. So where's the use in that tag then?

EDIT: Reading the Topic's title - why does "works at Nokia" make someone important here on maemo.org? Wouldn't council members be more important? Or programmers? Or people who run the platform?

Re: Making important people visible
 

If someone asks if the N900 will get app X, or whether the Y advancement on Diablo will appear this century, us mortals can speculate. Nokia employees can inform. True, they're not all-knowing and sometimes aren't allowed to share, but at least it would give them some authority when saying "this will happen"

I never said nokia employees where the only rockstars we should idolize. I only talked about them because there's a more clearly drawn line. Council members are important too obviously, and other people i'm forgetting about (sorry, i'm just tired). I didn't want to include programmers because there's no clearly defined line for importance: if i make a hello world app, i could technically call myself a programmer too. They could have a 'developer of ...' tag, though
**********
It would seem those affected are not too eager to "admit" their status. Oh well. At least adding some tags for people who do want to use them might be useful. Or just a recommendation to put anything relevant in the signature (like "i have a n900, what i say is tested")

Re: Making important people visible
 

No. The default behaviour is "do not tell", because the knowledge they hold is of any potential value. But this is not the main issue. Some people in the community know more of the platform than the average Nokian.

A Nokian who spends his time designing user interfaces will not have any idea why feature X hasn't been implemented into application Y, and what the approximate timeline is to see it live. This is something this is extremely visible during meetings. When you talk to a Nokian, and ask for his opinion, he will most of the time back of nicely and be very considerate of his answer, exactly because he (or she) actually signed a contract.

Nobody should be "idolised". Be it Nokian or Community Council members. There is no point in respecting anyone because of their status. One earns respect, it doesn't come for free just by doing something which pays the bills. Look at the post count, this gives an indication. Look at the number of thanks they got, and look at the ratio (someone with 5000 posts and no thanks is probably someone who idly spends his time in off-topic, or never contributes anything helpful; he just has a lot of free time on his hands).

There's a reason people don't want to have something like that stickered on their faces: because a lot of stupid people annoy them for no good reason. The same questions come again and again, and the same stupid discussions are started again and again.

In other words, this has been discussed countless times (see paragraph above), and the discussion has never been any more productive than it was the first 10 times. However, if you have any new arguments to bring to the table, feel free to open a bug in bmo.

Re: Making important people visible
 

I don't understand why he cannot do so without having a "NOKIA" tag. He can still identify himself as someone working at Nokia.

Re: Making important people visible
 

How? That was pretty much the question. I assume no one wants to begin every post with "hi, i work for the company"

Re: Making important people visible
 

Okay, so it seems i found a problem discussed to death, and proposed a solution not really wanted by anyone. Sorry 'bout that. I only wish there was a way to find previously discussed subjects
Anyway, thank you for your time

Re: Making important people visible
 

There is, but it involves a little effort. For me I use Google. What ever topic I search, I add the word Maemo to it. Most things Maemo have been discussed here and Google crawls this site so relevant posts usually turn up on the first page of Google's search results.

As to ranking or categorizing of members I don't think that is necessary because of the thanks system.

Not because of the number of thanks posted but because every member has access to every other members thanks statistics with just 2 clicks from any post you read.

You can click on a members name and then choose to view their profile or view other posts made by them. Once you are at their profile page you can view what expertise they choose to mention in their "about me".

However, it has been my experience that some of the best information comes from members who say very little about them selves for what ever reason. That's why I use the 'Thanks" system.

In that same profile page you can choose to see all statistics and in addition to posts you can view the threads started by the member, posts where they received thanks, as well as posts where they have given thanks.

In my humble opinion, those last three items tell the most about a members intent, knowledge, and willingness to share accurate and timely information.

I suspect that with most members you will find that their first threads asked some pretty basic questions about the OS or the device. Maybe some of the same questions you had when you first started... For those members that contribute you will see the topics of their threads progress as they learn more until they too are posting threads that show how to do interesting and useful things. Others may propose equally useful ideas or invite us to think about things we may not have even imagined before.

Thanked posts will show you the quality of a members posts, and posts that they thanked will show what qualities they value in others. All this useful information is just two or three clicks away from any post you read on this forum. :)

Welcome aboard MrGrim, no one has ever had to apologize for asking questions or proposing solutions. Don't put too much into post count, familiarize yourself with the many resources available here, and most of all... have fun. :)

Re: Making important people visible
 

I've only really contributed 2 or 3 times :D

Re: Making important people visible
 

MrGrim, I think you are simply asking for better signatures from certain people.

All the forum posts get aun automatic tag made of number of posts, thanks received and the date of registration to the forum. It's not a perfect description but interesting enough.

Then there is the signature. I have a link to my maemo.org profile for those interested in knowing more. One useful line, not obstrusive for those knowing already or those that couldn't care less.

I had my Nokia role written explicitely in the signature and I got it stamped on my face a couple of times in a relatively short period of time. I removed it and I think it helps.

A good reason to tag yourself in your signature instead of having a system level tag is that you can optionally include your signature or not. For instance, I'm systematically avoiding to post my signature in Chess related threads becausle I love Chess but this has nothing to do with my role at Nokia.

So please, feel free bugging any users that you think could do better with their signatures. I actually bet some of them will feel honored by your interest (not me). :)

Re: Making important people visible
 

I was actually thinking about you when I wrote this bit... Some of your posts got me thinkin' thoughts I never thunk before.

Thanks...
I think :p

Hell, I would never have imagined some of the stuff you dream up. :eek:

Re: Making important people visible
 

it is the same story every time. one must always spend some time and see who is who.

a nokia worker can be an *******, community council member too, heck everyone can!

so yes, I am against that kind of classification, there is no real usage for that after one has been here long enough (and it can be confusing in the beginning too). I am terribly sorry but that is the way world (and vbulletins etc) spin around.

Re: Making important people visible
 

My first response to this suggestion was "Oh yes! What a good idea. It would be good to know that I am getting advice from Someone Reputable".

And that's when I saw the flaw. What makes someone a reputable source for information? Why would I assume that someone from the council or Nokia would give me a better answer than, say, someone who has been developing for the OS for some time or has specialist knowledge relevent to my question.

Take my Bible, for example (No, don't run off to the religious topics!). There are a few folk here who have exceptional knowledge of and experience with mobile Bible platforms. I'd hazzard a guess they have greated knowledge in that particular field than some person from Nokia, who might know the OS inside out but never thought about asking it to run Rapier or Olive tree.

In the end, I don't necessarily always want to engage with Nokia Experts - the community may have a better expert.

I also understand people's anxiety about wearing a 'Nokia' badge in an open forum where you might get duffed up by an angry Nokia customer over something not your fault. (One of the things I always do when ringing customer service is explain to the person on the other end that I am not angry at them personally!)

What would this achieve? I'm not sure it would achieve anything of major value.

Re: Making important people visible
 

Do we really need to tag Nokians (is it only me freaked out by this word a bit?) on this forum?
When talking about Important Persons in this context, I'm rather thinking about good old Moderators/Administrators of the forum. Not necessarily (but desirably) so knowledgeable, but simply having more power on this forum. We have seen some (serious) misbehavior recently, and I'm afraid we can expect more in the future. I think wee need this 'law enforcement group' to be visible and clearly identified.

Nothing to do with company you're working for :)

Re: Making important people visible
 

Honestly, if there's a lot of contradictory information swirling around a topic, and nobody is stepping in to make a clearly authoritative statement on the issue, it's probably because there is no clearly authoritative statement out there. Nokia employees often aren't allowed to say anything, and when it comes to speculation, even the most educated guessers amongst the "old timers" here are often more wrong than some new guy who joined last month.

You've found the two "authorised" Nokia employees who often tell us what Nokia can tell us on a topic. If you don't hear it from Peter or Quim, your guess is as good as mine as to the authenticity of the information.

I want to be in the 'abnormal' basket. All my important people are invisible... to others... ;) :D

Re: Making important people visible
 

Don't worry, you're pretty much invisible my dear Alan.

Re: Making important people visible
 

Easy workaround: Everybody add footers.
RESOLVED FIXED. ;-)

Re: Making important people visible
 

Heh, that made me giggle. Seems some people just can't leave their jobs ever. Thanks Andre

Re: Making important people visible
 

The Moderators already have a "Moderator" on the left hand side of their post count.

So this has been taken care of :)

Re: Making important people visible
 

Hmm, so I would say that it's either not visible enough or there are very few of them :) (maybe different color for a nick?)

Re: Making important people visible
 

The "moderator" tag is pretty non-descriptive, too. I'm supposedly a "moderator," but I only moderate one sub-forum, the Alternatives section. I have no moderator powers outside of that tiny realm. Not like Reggie or sjgadsby. They're pretty much omnipotent. They're the ones you want to be sacrificing chickens to.

Re: Making important people visible
 

Only chickens? Most boards sacrifice virgins to their admins/supermods. Is Maemo short of them?

Re: Making important people visible
 

@qole:
In some other forums the omni-potent ones are tagged 'Super moderator' and the rest just 'Moderator'.

Re: Making important people visible
 

I suspect my wife would frown upon the whole virgin thing.

Chicken is good though. I don't know about Reggie or lardman, but Tim and I both avoid red meat. And speaking for just myself, I prefer my chicken sacrifices to take the form of burritos, soft tacos, and cheesesteaks with onions and sauce.

Here too. The cape isn't provided though. I should have checked the fine print.

Re: Making important people visible
 

You could get your own cape, in Maemo colours.

Re: Making important people visible
 

I did consider making a cape for the summit, but in the end I settled for my oilskin drover. I get enough special attention from airport security with just the coat, really.

Re: Making important people visible
 

sjgadsby: It would be easier if you would just wear something under the coat when flying internationally.

Re: Making important people visible
 

I'll try that next time. It's just, you know, they have this long list--shoes, belts, and so on--of things that cause them trouble, and I just thought I'd try to be as accommodating as possible.

Re: Making important people visible
 

Am I completely out of line when I think it must be up to each and every user to decide how much information they make public about themselves? Those who wish to clarify their affiliation, past contributions to the community or whatever it may be are free to do so with signatures or profile information. That's really all that is needed in my mind. We can't make anyone provide personal information they do not want to provide

Having said that -- and I say this as a newbie .-- it really doesn't take long to identify "important" people -- those who are active on the forum that is. Ultimately it is of course also up to each individual to decide what is interesting and important, and who posts in line with that and seems trustworthy, but even generic labels such as Nokian, Developer or Community Veteran doesn't take that long to get in place.

Re: Making important people visible
 

I dunno. Eventually one does learn a bit the who is who in the forums, but when I was a newbie, I used to see the ratio between posts and thanked posts on the profiles (and also, if what is written makes sense).