Via proposals on Brainstorm usually. People vote there on ideas for changes, which may or may not get picked up.

Noise in the forum itself usually doesn't get very far unless someone in the community picks up on an idea and runs with it themselves.

I may be wrong here, but for a proposed change to the whole structure of the site, or a new part of the site, it would need to go through Nokia/Reggie/The Community Council.

Any votes for the new interface?

Haha, no - absolutely no interest it seems.

This is a very good idea, but I doubt that it will get implemented.

At *.meego.com maybe...

I proposed this idea @ Proposed Talk forum improvements for 2010 brainstorm. It is solution #18

Please vote it up. Making some buzz might grab some attention.

When I look at stackoverflow.com I see a website filled to the roof with almost nothing but tags. Really. Tags. What have they done for me lately? Maybe the odd chuckle at a small bit of creative sarcasm every other week or so, but otherwise, nothing. That's right. Nothing. : )

Seriously, why would I want to learn how to drive yet another needlessly complex amalgamation of reddit, digg, yahoo answers, eharmony, and slashdot all rolled in to one very unattractive interface. (That last bit about attractiveness is perhaps a small bit subjective)

Karma, badges, points - Meh. Who cares. It's not a popularity contest, it's real life.

I like talk.maemo.org just the way it is. I don't like the whole brown thing, but the site is easy to navigate, fairly logical, with tons of useful information.

You feel the Stack Overflow interface makes communication easier? That is about as subjective as me calling their site ugly : ) I disagree good sir. It is cold and clinical. It assigns more importance to page views and ranking than it does to actual content. It assumes a "Question" and "Answer" format rather than a "Community" discussion arena. I prefer the latter.

Anyway, that ends my small soapbox rant for today.

The killer feature of this interface is that you do not need to digg through 2000+ posts in a thread to find the useful ones, because they are right there at the top of the first page. Most voted answers or marked as answers by OT are displayed first.


People answering questions care. And it's the popularity contest for them.

I don't think the StackOverflow interface works for a forum. But for a Q&A area it would work. The point of a forum is a linear conversation organized by time. StackOverflow and its cousins usually are for Q&A.

Plus you don't quote a reply and make it stick to the end of that 2000th message in SO. Conversations are more organized. Replies get their own replying space. Ranting feature is so useful to reach the most useful information.

ask.maemo.org could be a great domain to start an interface.