Originally Posted by geneven

It seems to me that given GA's great summary of the purpose of belonging to the council, there isn't one.

People like Texrat, for example, have always provided facilitation and leadership, and I assume that RevdKathy will continue providing the leadership she always has -- for free! The same goes for others, so I don't see the purpose for this.

But don't mind me, I just won't vote, now that this has been clarified.

Originally Posted by Texrat

I appreciate the compliment and can understand your sentiments geneven.

But let me take my council hat off for a second to answer.

The value, to me as a member, is in formalizing the process and narrowing the focus where needed. This huge community has way more than 5 natural leaders, and in fact I'm a piker compared to many. For governance and vision, a community needs a fairly small representative body to avoid the "too many chiefs" conundrum. We've seen that on many tasks here, where either too many stepped up or too few-- and often the latter is the result of misguided diplomacy. For true progress on any issue, we need a finely-focused body to get it "just right".

Let me give you a close-to-home example.

In my last role with Nokia, I was responsible for 400 or so claims handlers around the world having the means to get their jobs done. Trying to virtually and indirectly manage that many people could have been a nightmare. So I cultivated a key user network to act as my proxies with this community. Any region typically had 2 key users. That was a good number for me: one main, one backup. And it worked.

Think of the council as the "key users" between Nokia and the community. A buffer. A conveyance. A means of sharpening any message, either way, so as to mitigate chaos.

My current manager likes to talk of "managing chaos". That's impossible. Instead you look at chaos as an opportunity to find ways of achieving order... and letting order crowd out chaos. That's what the council tries to do. If too many chiefs were involved, we'd have unmanageable chaos.

In any society, hierarchies want to form naturally. So you're correct: leaders would emerge to fill any vacuum. But I think formalizing the process gives the community the power to select the voice for them... and the other volunteer leaders would be then tapped by the council to do what they do best.

I'll grant this is not working as it should IMO. For a council to be truly relevant, we need more candidates and voters. Some of us are trying to up those numbers. The one thing that would help there is less cynicism and a little more support.

(sorry for rambling... allergies have me unfocused)

Originally Posted by YoDude

I appreciate your taking the time to comment on your last role with Nokia, your current manager, and your leadership philosophy however, my question was about specific, past community council activities. .

Originally Posted by Texrat

I was responding specifically to geneven.

Seperately, I thanked GeneralAntilles because he answered your question the way I would.

Originally Posted by YoDude

Um.. Ok then I guess I should thank geneven for his response to GeneralAntilles?

Originally Posted by lcuk

any new council must spend some time trying to get more momentum for opening the current closed portions of the os, otherwise we end up with a digital black box and all the hard work the teams have put in making fremantle will be for nothing.

we know harmattan is coming, we know meego is coming, but there are now thousands of people today with diablo and fremantle apps and devices which need care and attention.

its all good having the new initiatives and preparing the ground for the new systems which will obviously be important but if we forget our roots and just abandon the current system, the community will grow impatient.

to go forward, the council will have to nurture the current.

Originally Posted by YoDude

I also asked about the role this forum has in the election process and from the response I gather, next to none. Apparently nominations, and announcements are made from within the mailing list.

How many active members does that mailing list have vs active forum members?

Could the lack of response be related to that?

After 3+ years as a member of this community I just today joined the community mailing list. Is this unusual, or are there many more members like myself?

It has been said before that perhaps the community mailing list is the best kept secret of the community. If there are more active members on the forum then maybe we should be looking at being less mailing list dependent and more forum oriented.

We are only three days away from the close of nominations. I am not an active Maemo or MeeGo developer. The N900 is the first Nokia "phone" I have ever owned.

I have however, used either an N800, N810, or an N900 as my mobile Internet connection in and outside work and home every day for over 3 years now. I believe that whatever Community Council we elect should have some representation from the average customer/user base.

If no one else steps up, I will in order to help provide that representation.