OK, beeing away for half a day and there is various new input on the list and forum. I try to summerize (without quoting :-/).

Here are my points (again) and comments.

I never suggested to close TMO. I never spoke about US or THEM. I value (some) discussions and information on the mailing list and in fact I value (some) information in TMO, too. I do see differences in the topics on TMO and on the mailing list. However as a developer I'm interested in the mailing list (which is mostly in the mailing list, but not always, for example there are certain threads in TMO that helped me getting Knips working (somehow) under N900!) but in the same time I'm of course also a user so I'm interested in talk topic, too (for example experiences with the recent OTA updates). It *may* be that the signal to noice ratio is different (difficult to decide because different technoligy used make it difficult to judge) but that is *not* a problem for me - if I have the right technology. I value the TMO community as much as the mailing list community (and I think this is a bad sentense because I do not feel like the mailing list community but just "community"). TMO aims at a different part of the community (possibly named interested followers, but in the end naming is not important) but they are also required to get the community and the whole maemo project grow.

For aim is to browse as much information as possibly as quickly as possible. It is not only the ocmmunity forum/list I'm interested in, it is also user forums. I want that information, too.

I do see fragmentation as a problem. I also do feel myself as a victim of it for a very long time. Problems started long ago at the time people discussed my softwar ewithout me knowing it. I would like to have a solution for this now for a very long time. So the initial intention to discuss the problems is OK.

It is correct that noone (now) wants to close maemo-developers or maemo-users. So perhaps it may look like this discussion is over-reacting and we could just keep everything as it is and everything will be fine. I don't think that this is true. This topic discusses with the community list as an example a topic that is fundamental to the comunity. So this is the point in time and space where we should find a solution for, else problems will not disapear but will increase over time.

Yes I do fear that closing the community list will possibly decrease the traffic in users and developers, too. It may be possible that sometime in the future we wil have the same discussion again about that mailing list, too. But that is not my point. I'm not discussing because of my fears but because of a fundamental problem that has the be solved.

My arguments against TMO are not because it is TMO or because it is in orange instead in black o rbecause it is a forum. My problem is the inherent functionalty and the way it works. This also includes even psychological effects (like the traffic and the speed of communication which I would compare to chatting and similar online technologies suggests that everything agreed within 24 hours is an consense. I thinks this is wrong and I think a slower communication channnel like a mailing list suits better because it betters work for a world wide community with different habbits and timezones). My fundamental argumnetations is that using TMO just takes too much time (and yes, I'm generalizing from closing community mailing list, as told the fundamental problem is a more general one, see above).

I have used TMO again and again, I have posted in it. I have tested it and I know about what I'm talking about. It is not about me ignoring TMO. It is about TMO not working for me.

To be more concrete: I'm working (more than) fulltime as a professional senior developer. I have a girlfriend living 120 Km away, and we only see on weekend. That leaves around 2 - 2 1/2 hours me possibly working on my open source projects which are currently very much centered around maemo.Reading my mails takes around 1/2 hours, so that leaves around 1 1/2 - 2 hours for developing. Funny enough that is about the timespan I have to invest to get any development done, since most of my tasks need that time for a reseearch, development, test, result cycle. Having less time does not mean I'm doing nothing but makes me much more unproductive because I have to jump back into above already started development cycle/iteration, reducing my effective productivity to about 1/2 hours or even less.

Experience also shows that I have to monitor TMO regulary (nearly every day) and that I need have to spend around 1 hour or even more to scan relevant information. Experience also shows that if I stop looking at TMO for 3-4 days, I'm lost. Beeing in holiday for 2 weeks, I need around 1-2 hours (AFAIK even less, speaking of >1000 mails) to get all my mails scanned.

Getting me to switch to TMO would mean: My developing productivity would drastically decrease. I would likely switch from a productive community member to an unproductive member. The alternative would be that I would loose contact to the rest of the community (a feel I already have). IT is possible that someday I just will disappear because of that.

Because of that I urgently request the council to recognize this problem as a problem and do something against it. For me synchronizing forum and mailing list seem a valid technical solution. I do however havn't seen the council in this thread react on this wish neither did they explain why it is not here nor why it should be possible. They just seem to ignore this solution and insist on either closing or not closing the list. This will IMHO not solve the problem!

I'm still very unhappy that council members words might suggest that they may have not problem with loosing certain parts of the community that (as far as they have participated in this thread) at least I see as productive and/or longstanding members. Now droping the request and just say "OK, we keep it as it" is is too late, since as told above this discussion is just a placeholder for a more general discussion about a very, very real problem. For me this is a sign of weakness, not enough activity and not listening enough to the community. Please recognize that we are talking about a real problem you have to solve anyway (with increasing traffic in TMO, too, fragmentation is a problem even there, too!).

I'm well aware that synchronizing TMO and the mailing list will increase the traffic. So what? This is is a separate problem that can be solved by different aproaches (like more lists for more concrete topics). There is increasing traffic anyway, so we have to solve this problem anyway. I do not fear this and I will take a look a technical soolutions to handle this (like learning a few more thunderbird keyboard shortcuts :-)).

I find the idea of a weekly report about hot topics a good idea and it will help me take a look a topics I have missed, but I thinks it is only a second level solution in that it helps to ease the symtoms but it will not cure the patient. Especially because some discussion is already over when it arrives :-/

I hope I also speak for all the people that were against closing the list and instead fill the urgent request to technical solution to get the community united in their communication channels again.