There's more than a little confusion about this, reflecting maemo.org's makeup, I guess.

1) Maybe planet used to mean "the whole thing" and aggregator "something that brings different things or people together, into a total, mass, or whole" [pace encarta].

The maemo.org aggregation page, however, states that "maemo.org is for developers and power users" so "[w]riters specializing on end user topics are only accepted exceptionally."

2) I started a blog as a place to make material I'm creating for a printed book available online, without charge. The book is a guide to the N900.

Since I didn't want to presume upon my past association with Reggie, when he told me about starting the Maemo Talk blog I figured whatever I blog about Maemo or Nokia should be posted to my own blog (separate from the print-book content).

Since the blog went live last night, the first and only item there says no more than This is a new site, so there's no content here; visit maemo.nokia.com for information. Immediately four "thumbs down" votes were cast at planet.maemo in disapproval of this item.

It's hard to imagine a more innocuous blog post, so I take these votes to be ire at the aggregator including a site not aimed at developers and power users.

3) In another thread here, a blogger noted that he had reservations about the N900 (the topic of the thread) and had already posted them. He didn't repeat himself; he supplied a link to what was already online. For this, eleven (!) members of the maemo community excoriated him, calling him a spammer.

Aren't we being a little touchy when blogs on another site are condemned so readily? Since when has a non-commercial link to pre-existing content deserved this treatment?

To my eye, the karma tools — never especially pure — less and less useful as they are increasingly misused to mean "I agree with your opinion!" instead of "Hey, everybody! Take note: this is good stuff!" We debase ourselves, not just the forums of maemo.org, when opinions rule, not openness and information.