Well, I'm sorry for reading this. I will discuss with you apart since it's not related with this thread.

No matter what happened to your wallpapers, if someone is using a copyrighted image without permission then that is a blocker.

Leaving apart the wallpapers themselves (whether they infringe copyright or they are under fair use), it's the community and not Nokia alone who looks after the blockers, including the one about legal issues.

Maybe the community thinks that using for instance a Google logo in a free app is not that bad, but this thought doesn't change the fact that there is a copyright infringement. Personally I don't think that this will bring down Google's business but also personally I think it's the interest of the community to stay away from potential trouble with lawyers. This is why community projects like Debian are very very careful with these topics, even if many times it looks like it's not worth the hassle.

About Load Applet, I love the app and is one of the first ones I install. However, nobody can deny that it's causing confusion to maemo.org users:

Bug 5780 - Screencast video is shown as completely black when played back
Filed on 2009-10-25. Two duplicated bugs filed as well.

Two Talk threads:

[Load Applet]: Remove from Extras

Working video/audio screencasting in load-applet

A fork only showing the status area icon was created by another developer: http://maemo.org/downloads/product/M...cpumem-applet/

Certainly not the end of the world, but it wouldn't be either the end of the world if the app was pulled back to extras-testing if the blocker is found and the developer can't provide a quick fix.

Simple way to raise awareness of what the thumbs up should signify would be to, like the bugtracker, include the checklist pasted by default in the comment form and also maybe clearly couple the comment box with the thumbing.

This won't do anything to the lack of people testing or improve the process but might alleviate the popularity contest issue.

IMHO the extras-testing warning should read differently than beware, here be dragons.

Mayb something like

I made some improvements on the wiki page, but I would have some major suggestion which I didn't want to impose by overwriting the wiki page: If there is a checklist - use it!

First on the page there should be a listing showing the overall checklist status for a package. Below is a mockup:
(-2/5 shows how many tester are needed "smiling" for that task to be finished. In this case I assumed that smiley is +1 and unhappy is -3.)

Tasks Done [4/8]
...
3. [1/1 ] Announced features available.
4. [-2/5 ] Working provided features.
* FAIL: When exporting file the program crashes (see bug: http://url/456)
5. [1/1 ] No performance problems.
...

Tester would have a list of tasks which are not finished with voting interface. By pressing a [+] on top of the list all tasks would be shown so tester is able to give additional confirming or denying vote. The tester would see her previous vote and should be able to change it. Additionally the tester should be able to write a comment for each testing task - this would be required for unhappy face. Additionally a tester should be able to give general comment.

...
Testing
[+] show all tasks
4. [tested ok |v] Working provided features.
[Concentrated on importing functionality ]
7. [not tested |v] No known security risks.
...

When all tasks would be done the application would go automatically to extras if guarantee time would be over and there wouldn't be any unhappy faces. If there would be unhappy face, some über-tester should decide if the issue is a blocker or not.

If a package which was accepted before would be sent to the testing queue for bugfix/update release, it would have all tasks as done expect for the features and some randomly selected task. If application description would be the same as before, announced features task would be done. This way the testing would concentrate on functionality, and acceptance on other areas would be still checked from time to time.

I would remove the word karma from the testing - people have karma due to their activities, applications have acceptance testing tasks. Like in this case, all tasks should be finished, not that there is 10 smileys for "no performance problems" and it's all ok.

Testing should have it's own forum on this site where developers can make a topic about their app, and we can leave quick feeback etc there. Also, developers could ask people on the forum to test certain things etc. Keeping direct conact between devs and testers!

There is no way you can trust community to deal with the legal issues. Legal issues require someone who has received actual legal training and is acquainted with the particular legal issues.

I've read most of this thread, and I'm still confused as to how ever vote or demote an app that is currently in Extras?
Using your example of Load-applet. That should definitly not be in extras cause it doesn't have the functionality it should.
Another one that I have found is MasterGear which is in Extras-testing. Now for me and loads of others this emu doesn't ever open any ROMs. In my eyes that is failed testing, and should be moved back.

However it's not clear on how or what we as community members need to do for this to happen.

Thanks

There should be some sort of easy UI where every app in testing and devel are listed, then you should be able to give feedback (in form of comments or forum-like posts), and vote/demote and file bugs.

I agree 100%

If an app goes up it must be possible to come down