I've been a SuperMod or Moderator @ Howard Forums for over 5 years now... (Hello to everyone from over there. ) I have been a member here for about 2 and 1/2 years.

To answer your question sachin007 you may want to search some of my posts regarding changes that were made around here. I also posted extensively about problems I had with the old maemo.org and how it was a PITA just to report a bug back then... (walks off ranting with arms flailing in the air...)

***
(...walks back somewhat calmer but still can be heard at times muttering under his breath.)
Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up... Howard Forums (HoFo) has been around for quite a few years and to many members it was/is there first exposure to net forums so there is that comfort level for them. HoFo came on the scene about the same time as many purchased their first cell phone so there is a connection or commonality there. Whatever the attraction, HoFo retains members because of the enthusiasm it promotes for what ever phone or device it provides forums for.

If a member gets a new device, retains a new carrier, buys from a different manufacturer, HoFo has a forum for him/her. The N900 will be no different.

There is no reason why both can't coexist, in fact I expect to see many more HoFo members on board over here now that the N900 "phone" has been announced. When some of it's capabilities are discovered they will take those nuggets of information back to HoFo and they will spread across the forums like how a crystal forms when it is seeded.

This way the Nokia N900 would be exposed to more fan boys of other manufacturers devices than if those same fan boys stumbled upon this forum serendipitously.

EDIT: Sorry if this answer is somewhat late sach... for some reason I just saw this thread and when I started my reply I didn't realize that the topic had changed somewhat.

...Rolling,
wait for it please...
quiet on the set,
ACTION!

Hello again. Well, it seems that the community web page could be changed to include recent posts from the Community mailing list rather than users mailing list.

In any event, there it is. If it was not a decision made before, then it is an easy enough decision now whether to send an email to the webmaster asking him or her to make the change (or however it should be addressed).

It appears as though now would be a great time for me to chime in on this thread.

First, let's clear some things up right at the get-go:

GeneralAntilles - as I understand it, maemo should be used when referring to the operating system itself, whereas Maemo should be used when referring to the marketing/brand being used in connection with the Nokia device product line, is that correct?

I got a Nokia N800 (still have it, and use it, periodically, with camo faceplate) from Nokia's Blogger Relations program, and previously received a sizable discount from Nokia/maemo (right?) on the N810 (I've since sold that one). I tinker with maemo from time to time, but yes, I completely walked away from the maemo scene roughly a year ago, because frankly, it sucked, from a consumer standpoint.

I intend to cover things from a slightly-educated consumer level. That's where Symbian-Guru.com is written from, and that's where Maemo-Guru.com will be written from. There's no question that Nokia is working on bringing maemo, previously a geek-toy OS, to consumers, with the N810 it started, and now with the N900 it's in full-force. As it has been explained to me, Maemo.Nokia.com is the consumer-facing destination for Maemo information for consumers, whereas maemo.org is roughly equivalent to Forum Nokia, aimed squarely at developers. If this is inaccurate, please do correct me.

To be completely honest, I'm not a big fan of the Maemo community of developers, and that's not something I've hidden in the past. With several notable exceptions, while this is an incredibly talented group of programmers/developers, there is little to no regard for the consumer experience whatsoever, including functionality, user experience, and user interface. A quick perusal of the current maemo repositories confirms that this is true today.

I do not, in any way, mean to say that this community isn't miles ahead of the other mobile operating systems in terms of the talent within - rather the opposite. I'm only pointing out that, in the past (and current present), there's little regard for making things look nice, or perform functions that consumers would desire (again, with notable exceptions).

However, I do believe that maemo has significant advantages that could potentially enable it to overtake other mobile platforms, including Symbian. With the N900 (and obviously, future devices), consumers are no doubt going to be picking these maemo-powered devices up, and they're going to be looking for news, reviews, and walkthroughs of this alien system. That's where I intend for Maemo-Guru.com to come in.

I most certainly welcome any and all maemo community members to chime in on Maemo-Guru.com, and have fixed the contact form to make that easier. I will most certainly correct anything that needs correction, and hope that Texrat will be able to assist me in being more accurate on non-consumer-oriented details and facts. Neither of us are above admitting when we're wrong, and fixing it.

As Reggie and others have pointed out - consumer-oriented blogs about Maemo will help the platform, because we help consumers feel more comfortable with the platform. As consumers feel more comfortable with the platform, they become more comfortable purchasing maemo-powered devices, and recommending them to others. As there are more purchases, there will be more sales, which means more revenue for Nokia's maemo division, which means more resources will be allocated to the project, which helps it grow. That's where, imo, consumer-facing blogs about maemo (and any other platform, for that matter) come in, looking at the grand scheme of things.

Again, as I've been told, Maemo.Nokia.com is for consumers, whereas maemo.org is for developers. Hence, since I'm far from a developer, I don't promise to be an extremely active member here. Again, if that's inaccurate, please do let me know. Actually, to that point, if this site is specifically aimed towards developers, would it be better to direct consumers to join the conversation elsewhere (HowardForums, perhaps?)? Is it appropriate for consumers to join in here, even if they haven't the smallest desire/ability to develop for the platform?

Not remotely.

Maemo is Maemo is Maemo is Maemo. As a single word it's always capitalized and refers to the platform (OS and SDK). maemo.org is never capitalized and never appears without the .org. It is the meeting place of the Maemo Community and the brand that represents said community.

We also have Maemo Devices, which is the division in Nokia that works on Maemo and the hardware that runs it, and maemo.nokia.com, which is the recently launched user-oriented marketing site for Maemo.

Nope, we have three websites:

• maemo.org - The meeting place of the Maemo Community. It is a site for engaged users, hobby developers and anybody interested in doing a little more with Maemo than might be immediately available or apparent out-of-the-box. This is where the interesting stuff happens.
• maemo.nokia.com - The marketing site for normal users who are only interested in using Maemo and not much more. Clean, accessible, friendly.
• Maemo @ Forum Nokia - The site for developers (primarily commercial developers), where the API and SDK documentation will eventually be moved and the support structures for Nokia's commercial development partners will exist.

********. It confirms that people do not have unlimited free time and do not have the resources at hand that large commercial companies do, and it confirms that sweeping dismissals like the one you've just made hold about as much water as a rusty bucket.

If you're interested in the consumer experience, rather than dismissing the whole community out-of-hand, why don't you step up and help out? You don't have to write code to help make software better for everybody.

Excellent! Then here's my second one for you, that dig against MicroB is uninformed and inaccurate. MicroB is about as close to full Mozilla as you can get without shipping straight Firefox (which is undesirable no a resource-constrained mobile platform more a large variety of reasons).

I'd ask that you refrain from final, damning judgement of it until you have an opportunity to use the real thing.

Yes, this is a good idea. The community list is definitely a productive and interesting list to follow and makes much more sense on the community page.

The decision wasn't a planned or deliberate one, it just sort of ended up that way. I'm planning to have a final content review during September in a week-long cleanup Sprint so we can get things together before the N900 launches.

Wow, how did I know that if Ricky dropped in and tried to understand things better, he'd be met with abject vitriole...

maemO.Org







.

"there is little to no regard for the consumer experience whatsoever, including functionality, user experience, and user interface. A quick perusal of the current maemo repositories confirms that this is true today."

If Ricky wants to come here to "understand things better", there are better ways to do it.

And there are better ways to correct someone, Jay.

Which teaching method actually succeeds: demonstrating to someone what and where they need to learn, or beating them up for being wrong or ignorant?

I just really have to wonder what the goal is here. Educate or insult?

... and CUT!

Scenes like the one we just witnessed may also have something to do with it.