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.