I agree. We should be VERY tolerant of differing levels of English proficiency. There is no Academy Francais for English. If it looks like English, and you can understand what's being said, it's English!

Let's have some clarification; moderation isn't equal to running whole of maemo.org... The donations are not only for TMO but for the whole of maemo services including repos, docs etc hosted by Nokia that they want to transfer to the NFP before they shut it down...

It would be unfair to base your donation on moderation per se... Discussions about moderation can be carried out and we can ask for improvements...

Regarding ads IMO the current experience is what makes the Community unique; going down the xda-route would actually spoil the experience...


As a Community we also have to ask ourselves; do we want to commercialize our shared knowledge? When I joined a year ago I knew nothing about maemo or its deratives or about this Community but joined and learned while making mistakes till date; for commercialization to take place would mean this becomes a paid-for Community not an open free-for-all Community... Would people like me then join? Maybe not as it may seem from the outside like a walled garden which is what I've learned to be against the very ethos this Community has always stood for.

[edit] I'd like to put a note here people like me are non-developers so we bring little knowledge to things so a paid-for Community would make us feel out of place actually; the greatest thing I've learned here is anyone is free to voice their opinion without being put down for not being as knowledgable. For example, I can constructively argue with a developer safe in the knowledge that he won't reply saying you don't know even 10% of what I do so shut up but he would stay on-topic and have a healthy discussion instead![/edit]


Yes there are people who come here thinking this is a free Nokia after-sales service but due to these few people should we change the ethos of what maemo.org stands for? Eventually these very people who behave such way would leave faster than average, wouldn't they due to the nature of the devices?


That's why I was thinking of anonymous donors; maemo.org should be run as is with some improvements which we can now better implement once the NFP is in-charge of things but the welcoming nature of this Community shouldn't be abandoned in the name of survival.


The questions I raised in the first post actually pertain to the issues raised; why I seek disclosure on the offer made by Nokia is because as we all know servers are depreciable assets but a signed agreement for reimbursement of rentals for X years secures the services we require.

Also the question of how does the figure of 1000 has been bandied around is so because as we all know there are a number of qualified people in this Community who might be able to make savings on that.

anthonie, you mentioned about wanting to know where your money would be going to hence I asked that a full disclosure of where the money would be going to as it would then make it seem its not only for TMO as you may be assuming...

I think this number was published as an estimate. Probably we just don't know yet, which server can be replaced and so on. I'm not sure if it is as said, but I haven't seen any documents explaining which service runs on which server.

Exactly this is planned and my task as treasurer. We want to be completely transparent so you know which amount is going to be spent on which stuff.
If there is something nice to have but not necessary, the community will be involved in the decision-making process. But I don't think everyone wants to vote on every simple expense.

I don't think we're going to publish the donators names, but this decision has to be made, yet.

I think that we should create a budget for supporting the most important projects, as there is a number of Fremantle software undertakings decreasing. That way we can ask the devs to do something more and give them more motivation

I would like to echo thedead's and even Dave999's (I'd thank him if he hadn't thanked himself so many times ) posts.

I'd rather have more freedom of expression than necessary in a forum than less. Censoring is a slippery slope. Too strict rules just drives away people eventually.

Internet as a whole is just like the world we inhabit. You see all kinds of people, the academics, the working man, the drunks even the drug addicts... high class, low class, foreigners, commies, and honest to god capitalists. You pass them every day. It doesn't mean you have to stop and start a conversation with people you find repulsive for whatever reason. The same applies to this place. Ignoring people, topics, posts, is even easier here than avoiding rambling drunk in the street or some nut-case telling about the end of the world.

In the end it comes down to the question, does this place have useful information and does it serve a purpose? And I must stress I don't mean whether the ratio of uninteresting posts is larger than the useful stuff. The material that is not interesting is very easy to skip.

I think it is unrealistic to keep some quality standards in internet, which is a mirror of the world we live in. The larger the amount of people, the more varied will the material be. And the larger the population, the more towards average it will become. It's not a bad thing, it's just what it is.

1000$£€ is that per year or month? There are webhosts for pretty much nothing with pretty much unlimited traffic. Organising seems to mainly take alot of time of the persons doing the work. Cant imagne what else all costs are.

+1
Not to mention that it does not work. It is far too easy to create a new account.

I have seen this (the star) in other forums and it seems to work quite well.

Well, no need to get nervous, obviously, as you are more than capable of getting your point across. What I am talking about are threads with titles like: "Is try N900 dead", "use button no, help please" and the like. We've all seen the threads where anyone kind enough to respond needs to ask questions only to get clarity on what the opening poster actually wants. That is a waste of energy.

In short: I am not advocating some kind of ballotage commission that screens postings before they come online, but I do advocate a more active approach from moderators to keep content to the point. The same goes for the people who refuse to do some research on their own.

I only started this thread to express a concern and annoyance I have, but there is much more to discuss, I believe.

For me, anonymous donators would be fine.

I have seen a couple of posts mentioning freedom of speech. I think this is total nonsense. The topic here is NOT freedom of speech or anything even remotely related to that. The rule to NOT discuss politics on the board here, ensures discussions will be ontopic, that is, on tech-things. There are plenty of boards out there where you can discuss politics. TMO stands for tech-discussions. To drag this whole discussion towards the field of "freedom of speech" is in no way productive or helping.

I have no need for another place where people can ramble about their own private Utopia. Discussions on politics tend to divide the masses and often don't do very much to improve a pleasant atmosphere. I believe this was the main reason why politics are banned. And with good reason. Next thing you know you'll find discussions on the board between christians and muslims about the amount of pins one could fit on a cushion. No thanks, not for me.

In short: This place here is not equivalant to the real world out there. I come here with a very well targeted intention: To read up on tech, to help out on tech or to get helped on tech-matters.

Well, this is no linux forum, where you often find all kind of barriers to 'educate' those users. It was a Internet Tablet Talk.

If you are not patient enough to handle the non-tech users, that barely write some kind of English, just ignore the threads.
If the manners or language used does not appeal to you feel free to put users on your ignore list. This works wonders!

My personal opinion is that, since maemo council will soon directly control the forum moderation, it will be easier for concerned members to tweak the forum moderation through communications with the council members. The Hildon Foundation Board has intentionally left council in charge of moderation and day-to-day supervision and admin, and council is directly responsible to forum users through semi-annual elections.

It should be noted that Hildon Foundation has a mission statement to develop and promote the use of maemo inspired and derived software, and the forum may (or may not - it's up to the council) adjust the moderation or rules to become more purpose driven to achieve this mission. It has, though, been decided that this forum will not be turned back into the old internet Tablet Talk or a forum about internet tablets, and will not be a general tech or a linux forum.