How about breaking down the numbers of people posting about Diablo and comparing it to the numbers of people posting about Mer and doing a comparative benefit analysis?

Then compare the rate of increasing Mer posts to the number of Diablo posts, which is undoubtedly decreasing, percentagewise.

And can you summarize the statistical analysis Reggie did before establishing InternetTabletTalk?

What do I mean? (a) anyone can assign meaningless homework (even me), and what assurance do I have that doing my statistical analysis will be anything but a waste of time after someone says, "I'm still not convinced."

And, (b) if you want me to do statistical analysis, will you summarize the statistical analysis you have done before actions such as establishing an "Alternatives" section?

I know that GA referred to "consensus". Why do you want me to do hard statistical analysis wheen "consensus" was good enough for the previous action?

My opinion is that you accept "consensus" when what you want to do is done, and painstaking analysis is necessary to justify what I think should be done.

I think that it's just a power thing on your part. Many people want a separate section, and the reason you don't is partly because you don't want to encourage the rest of us -- we might think that we have some power.

I think that someone out there should at least pretend to be responsive to sensible suggestions.

But if you want to prove that setting up a Mer suggestion is something that only a bomb-thrower would suggest and is totally unreasonable, the floor is yours. I think it is a reasonable idea.

My pocket lint!!

We're going to annex Cuba to fix that.

I am amazed by all the responses you got. Two core Mer devs, including Stskeeps himself (the main Mer dev), plus a t.m.o. super-moderator and two council members.

Your suggestion was treated very seriously.

Please accept "Not right now" as an answer.

Seems like a big driver for the separate section is emotional and symbolic. There are lots of people who want Mer to succeed & a separate section gives it a profile that seems to be consistent with its importance to many. So I sympathize with those arguments, although at this point I trust that there is enough commitment to Mer that I'm not going to get hot & bothered about it.

The other issue is practical -- wading through lots of irrelevant threads. As sjgadsby pointed out, a separate section would not solve that problem if people used other sections like Applications to talk about Mer. To some extent, that is a structural issue with this forum that will get worse the more versions & variants of Maemo we have. But maybe tagging is the way to go.

And I don't vote for a separate Mer forum. When I install Mer, it will be dual boot, and I expect to be dual-booting for some time. That means I'm going to have a foot in this community for some time. So will many Mer users, I expect.

Yes you are right I have never contributed a line of code, I wish it were otherwise but regrettably I do not have the capability.

I am on record on this forum, however, as having bought a SmartQ 7 expressly for the purpose of assisting Mer testing and feedback . Indeed were it not for my interest in Mer I would not have bought the device.
As for foolish, my experience of the Sharp Zaurus was exceptional and my expectation that this would be repeated with the N800 was indeed foolish. As to whether this same expectation of Mer was also foolish, only time will tell.

As for troll, well, I would agree that it is time to curb my enthusiastic optimism replace it with a more tempered detached realism. I do feel that it would probably be best for me to simply stay away from projects such as this until such time as they mature into something worthwhile.

All the more so when they form part of an environment which has no appeal or interest for me.