Quick question - though I suppose it might become something for the council to discuss among themselves.

Yesterday morning, Nokia rolled out the preliminary update. I don't know the exact time, but it was about 7am GMT the first thread started.

In the hours that followed, threads proliferated asking the same questions, people having the same problems etc.

Some 18 hours later, Flandry posted this sticky thread, which was absolutely brilliant. It calmed things down, gave people with problems somewhere to go; people could be directed there from threads, twitter - wherever they were asking their questions.

Now, please don't take this as a complaint, but I found myself wondering whether things could have been slicker. And whether the mods (especially in the n900 and fremantle forums) had had an warning that their forums were about to go nuts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting for one moment that Nokia should tell the entire world the e.t.a. of anything it plans doing. But they're supposed to have a close, trusting relationship with the council. And the council could have tipped the poor mods the wink about their forums, and maybe prepared a basic sticky thread (the memory issue and how to use the NSU could be anticipated) for adding in questions which were frequently asked.

Did the council get warning? Did the mods? If not should they have? Could they have?

Those were my questions: how to make the support element here run more smoothly through an event like yesterday now that we have a lot of us non-linuxes on board.

I received no information in advance. I do not know if Reggie, Tim, or Simon were given any warning, but I do suspect Quim knew.

Would it have helped you if you had known things were going to go nuts? (well, more nuts than usual)

No, the council generally doesn't get forewarned about releases (especially releases as small as this one).

I sure didn't hear anything other than what was publicly released (and echoed in my blog) for testing... but like most, I wish there were more details released before or at the time of release...

I accept it was a 'small' release - I think what made it big was it being the first for maemo 5, so the first for that whole audience of new, non-linuxy people we have around now. Like me.

I just wondered whether it would have made things easier. And if so, whether that's something the council could take up with Nokia.

The change was small in some ways, big in others...

Ok

Well, I've thrown the question out there. And I know it's been seen by members of the Council. They can do with it whatever they want. Whether they choose to follow it up with their Nokia contacts is down to them now, and really not any of my busness. So I'll shut up.

I see Quim reading the thread, and out of participants thus far his word has the most bearing.

I wrote yesterday night a few lines, eg a bit similar piece, thou from a bit different angle. I believe that using the maemo.org more effectively during the big events would be so good in so many levels.