Well said.

One of the best introductions to open source development for me was "Working on open source" from a decade ago http://ometer.com/hacking.html

It has lots of wisdom on requesting features, lurking, respect, etc.

In addition, I find it surprising that some kind of "Code of Conduct" was not presented on the header of Maemo Talk, but only a FAQ without proper information for newcomers (like me). I try to keep in mind something like Ubuntu's:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct

There may be a lot of enthusiastic newcomers, and life will find its way.