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
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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")