Hmmm... not explicitly they aren't. Yes, it is being used as one, but that's not a corporate directive... and we need to keep clear on that. Support here is voluntary.

To your other points though... again, I also wish there was more transparency, even if that was limited to the council in some aspects. I also wish there was more cooperation between Nokia and the community council, and I don't say that lightly.

There are legal issues involved that make things complicated and managers nervous and I'd like to avoid having the council sign NDAs. So beyond the larger issues and the ones that directly involve the community, I don't think its really workable with the current process.

Announcements should be reasonably straightforward to put together and should provide most of the information needed to keep things sane.

Since qgil's reading (and thanking ;-)) on this thread; can we get some kind of indication as to whether or not there'll be a single page that can be copied into a sticky here/reposted on the mass of Maemo blogs for PR1.1?

It should contain:

• High-level changes/purpose of release
• Whether there's a staged rollout; if so, how long will it take to show up in various regions?
• A link to nokia.com page about updating and http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

You shouldn't.

On or before Thursday, January 7, Microsoft had announced to the press the Windows updates that would be available on Tuesday, January 12. Adobe announced their January 12 updates on or before January 8.

Mature computer companies regularly announce minor updates, major updates, and new releases before they are available. Nokia should start emulating them.

To continue just a bit. As good as sticky topics can be, they're not good enough. The problem is that they are still inside the subforum areas and one should stop to skim sticky threads through before posting. I admit, i hardly ever do that, and i suspect that many others are like me in that way, unfortunately.

I try to avoid discussion about can Nokia made announcements beforehand or not (if not to everyone, then at least to mods). If Nokia could do it, it would be great and helpful, but all the needed (coming to this in a few secs) information could be collected by the Nokia maemo workers / mods asap after the upgrade has been officially published.

My reasoning is that if we want to lower the noise on the forums, we have to catch the people before they reach the forums. This means we have to a) offer as much info as we can in one place and b) direct them there with banners at the frontpage and other visible locations. The same goes with the possible problems; if we try to minimize the amount of ppl coming to the forum complaining about every problem, we should try to offer them an easy way to find out if the problem is already solved somehow.

Enter the picture attached number one. When a big fw is going on publish a big banner on the frontpage telling the user where to find relevant information. (I would put up a banner for the regular newcomers as well: 'new to maemo devices? start here' to be shown at all times as well. )

Enter the picture attached number two: the big event / fw upgrade page. Wiki is great and all, but i am afraid that the normal average joe won't have the patience to go through it. We need more visual presentation about the big picture: in one starting point one should get an easy instruction on how to upgrade. And if known, one should learn on the same place what the upgrade is all about and find out where they can find more information about this particular upgrade. And last and most importantly they should learn in this very same spot about the possible problems and how those can be overcome (the solution might even be a direct link to the discussion forum).

(this 'upgrade page' would need a simple admin tool to admins to be able to publish the info and to update it, but it shouldn't be too big / complicated task for the maemo.org web team to build if it would be considered useful)

I think the benefits would be two-folded: a) a lot less noise and frustration on the forum and b) new people being more happy and feeling more confident about the maemo as their concerns/uncertainty/problems might have been solved in a pretty easy way without them have to start asking around on the forum.

I think we often easily forget that it is also about the image. At least i feel that a specific simple good looking and helpful upgrade page has a lot more professional feeling than going through hundreds of forum posts. Little details are often very very important.

* * *

Btw I think that this need for a more visual presentation goes with the getting start part as well. Please note that I am not talking about overdoing it, it doesn't and it shouldn't look like this. It should be compact, but well structured with some visual hints.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...update-part-2/ + http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_5/PR1.1

I'll continue editing the wiki page. By now it's open so feel free improving it (without touching the changelog content itself, please)

Again: bravo. I was pleasantly surprised at the immediate and widespread "press".

Much, much better handling.

Thanks to all at Nokia!

(Now where's my update?)