[pointing at three of you] You, you and you! Step forward! You three are a disgrace to salt water! Ten days half rations.

During the recent heavy weather, I've had the opportunity to watch all of you at work on deck and aloft. You don't know wood from canvas! And it seems you don't want to learn! Well, I'll have to give you a lesson.

To 'back up' some of my baseless, pointless bashing:

a) A periodical (monthly?) announcement/post of what issues are on the table at this time - AND what progress has been done on issues that were on the table from the last post,

b) A periodical (every six months?) bottom-up issue vote on what the Council should address,

c) Dates and people's names assigned to the issues. No more of the 'Will work on'-status updates,

d) A more active Council blog where it is actually mentioned HOW work is being carried out,

e) The Council to work to get Nokia representatives active on the forum. Maybe not as active as many members here but maybe arrange some "Ask Nokia" forum threads where questions can be asked and they answer them,

f) A static list showing ALL issues/tasks that are currently being worked on, that has been closed out and that are in the pipeline.
All these tasks should have a start-date, resolution date and owner associated with them,

g) Council members to be 'champions' of a set of tasks/issues and go out into the community and show what tasks they own (link it back to the big task list) - and where appropriate ASK community members for help/input, etc to get tasks resolved and/or suggestions for how to escalate it to the ears of Nokia. No one expects 5 people to know how to do everything. Ask.

h) Show failures. If you are not getting to Nokia and getting their attention to look at issue/task 14,17 and 19 say so in the community and table it on the big issue/task list with "Unresolved due to Nokia inactivity" with a date on when communication was last attempted.

i) When you have the "Ask Nokia"-days as mentioned in "e" these tasks should be the first ones to go to them.

j) Set goals/reasons for existence for the Council and if you continue to fail to reach them you need to re-assess how the Council is structured/staffed.

I know some of the above is already attempted but the communication surrounding the attempts have been horrendous and if there is one thing that needs to improve it's that.

I should also have added that "MAKE THINGS EASY TO READ AND FIND". There are so many little lists spread across the site, poorly updated and if they are it's some uber technical phrase that 4% of the community would understand.
In addition to writing "The jimmimagicky is now backended into the fimmickydicky and we are able to issue buggadodoogy" - ALSO write in one column "We're now able to bring up a GUI".


My $0.02

Also, the fact that so far the majority of people (granted, hardly a statistical population at this point) either didn't know that there was a Council or feel that they could do without it should also say something.

Thanks for your question. There are certainly pros and cons to what you propose. I can't help but be keenly aware of the cons, though.

Plenty of fighting/complaining/venting occurs here, publicly, already. Council members even participate. Hell, me, too much.

At some point we need to decide what battles make sense in broad daylight, and which ones to fight in the dark sewers. Public noise is good for initial attention-getting-- but often the solutions must be found in quieter zones. Too much harsh light of scrutiny, and your combatant might well retreat. We have to stay cognizant of that. Nokia sure is.

That said, my personal preference is do do everything out in the open. I have just found that sometimes process breaks down when all of it is public. So we have a council channel where we will discuss issues, inform each other, try to come to consensus. We could not accomplish that in every case in completely public channels. Noise interferes.

Now, these are just my thoughts. I am hoping the rest of the council will chime in. I am also interested in your rebuttals.

Thanks again for focusing the dialog.

EDIT:

I want to add something in general.

This is the most council entreaty I've seen in some time. I can say with personal disappointment that there are numerous, numerous council-related posts, tweets and emails that have been met with little or no response from the community. Ironic, given this thread.

So tonight's engagement, while largely contentious, has also been good if I'm going to be strictly objective.

Thank you to all participants. I mean that.

I have to say that I generally find silvermountain's suggestions top notch. I don't want to imply that i think the council has failed in any of this because I just haven't paid attention or know much about anything pertaining to the council. Then again, that in itself might say something.

I say we mutiny and take the ship! Nokia needs a new captain!

Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935.

There can't be a more appropriate movie for the whole Nokia corporate attitudes toward employees, community and customers.

Bligh: But you're taking my ship. My ship.
Christian: Your ship? The King's ship, you mean. And you're not fit to command it. Into the boat!
Bligh: Casting me adrift thirty five hundred miles from a port of call. You're sending me to my doom, eh? Well, you're wrong, Christian! I'll take this boat, as she floats, to England if I must. I'll live to see you - all of ya - hanging from the highest yard arm in the British fleet!

Just substitute ship with code, King's with community's and England with USA and finally British for Finnish.

Ok...I am apologizing to textrat for my previous rant in this thread.

I was caught in a moment and didn't think things through, you are actually a nice person, and I've read some of your blogs regarding issues with the community and nokia.

However what are the names of other 4 community council members? I ask because it's good to have an idea of who they are..... provided that they are registered in this forum.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Council

I'll genuinely give you the effort Texrat I've seen you put in here and at Meego forums. I also can see the Python support thing that the Council brought up recently as a good thing.

But I always have wanted to see visible posts by the council bringing up other issues, didn't matter if Nokia screwed us or played ignorant as usual. Put it up on the forums as it is, for I want to know where to place my anger(I'm kidding I know its Nokia ). Doing anything behind closed doors is kinda pointless when the Council is supposedly so for the people.

The MyNokia debacle, the Council's stand and Nokia's handling of the whole issue however makes me realize one thing.

At the end of the day, the Council is for the most part not capable of delivering the mission statement it has on the wiki page.

Because, Nokia does not use the Council as a conduit for passing relevant information and they seemingly ignore for the most part whatever the Council (claims) to inform them of.

To me, a simple end user. You are 5 respected people(once in a while to the point of looking like Nokia fanboys or apologists ) who genuinely have a passion for the platform and the better interests of the general community in mind.

But, the Council.. I really honestly don't care about, though simply because I haven't seen "Nokia" care for it or its opinions & you all would still be doing the same thing as 5 individuals and getting similar results.. a few good things in between the whole horse crap that Nokia's commitment to either the Maemo 5 or the N900 or its current users is.