I've been struggling with how I needed to approach this, and "need" is the operative word. I realize I'm just a peon in a sea of peons but I believe the observations I'm about to share are important for the future of this community (although not necessarily for the software platform or devices).

As many recall I got a little stressed after Nokia eliminated my position. I was looking to redefine my role here and stumbled when faced with some surprising opposition to a project.

I only mention that because the episode made me realize I needed to focus on more important matters and so ITT faded into the back of my brain although I certainly missed the daily exchanges with you guys.

But this isn't about me.

Rather, it's about something I find disturbing now that I've returned. A polarization in this community, following a similar polarization in the council. And not for the good, either. And it's growing. Like a cancer.

Now, that sort of thing happens. That's why we have (grumble) democrats and republicans here in the US. And anyone watching the current partisan sniping in my homeland knows how ugly that can get.

Sadly, I'm seeing that same sort of ugliness in this virtual microsociety. A large part of it is due to drastic changes and growth pains. Hard to avoid the consequences of such. But from what I see the biggest driving factor is ego.

I want to mention names but I'm going to refrain. Anyone can follow discussions, note the pattern of Thanks, and see for themselves who and what I'm talking about. And I see one individual "thanking both sides of the fence" so I see him as an erstwhile peacemaker and not a cause of any ugliness.

I'm being intentionally obtuse because I want to elevate the discussion far above the muck in which it has heretofore wallowed. I want the petty sniping to stop, the sarcasm to stop, the one-upmanship to stop. I want us all to take deep breaths and remember we are mature adults. And that goes double for anyone who is purporting to represent this community. When you're in a position of leadership people naturally expect more from you. If you have discomfort with that, then I respectfully suggest that representation is not for you... much like it apparently is not for many of the representatives in US government.

Now, I'm not here to preach and then retreat into abject hypocrisy. I intend to walk the walk. But I think it's high time every single one of us examine our motives and ask some hard questions of ourselves. What are we hoping to accomplish here? What good is all the chest bumping? Do we want a cohesive community or a splintered one?

We're developing the latter. Either we stop it now or it becomes a deadly cancer.

In the States we do have the ability to impeach ... I'm sure all the council members have something to contribute; I'd like to think that's how they got there. BUT - having been in the software bus a while I can say that some of the most brilliant coders and engineers I knew should never - ever! be put in a public facing position.

And it's not really because of what they would say or whether they were right or wrong ( usually right ) but HOW they would say it. I guess all the smarts took up all the room for tact and diplomacy.

I have to say, as someone who has been using my tablet daily for over a year and visits the forums daily (yet often refrains from posting due to laziness but also the petty crap mentioned), we should all remember that we're trying to enjoy and improve our little community (maemo) wich is in itself a very small fraction of a pretty small community in itself (linux).

Sometimes it's funny to read all of the drama, but mostly I'll stick to enjoying the great apps that dedicated community members have given us (canola, console-tools, liqbase, easy-debian, and mer, to name a few)

I am not an adult.


Personally, by here I assume talk.maemo.org, I am just trying to squeeze the most out of my tablet, have some fun, and help and learn from the great community. I agree with nemo, while some people like to be drama queens, the community as a whole is still great!

You conduct yourself here like an adult, which is the point.

And yes the community as a whole is great. But even small schisms need to be addressed BEFORE they become canyons.

I want nothing more than to help make this a better community. I feel however lately there has been a lot of issues, which is why I started becoming more vocal. I just wanted to point out there is some confusion in some processes. There could be some better lines of communication. Changes that affect the entire community should be raised to higher visibility and attempts should be made to get more people involved.

To me these were all good things, that the community council should support and try to address. Some integration of the mailing list/forum and the SSO will address some of these issues. But was I told hey here is what we think we can do to solve these PROBLEMS? I was told there was no problem, I was crazy, and I was the only one that was confused.

I do not know what your issue with council is, but I think council needs to represent the ENTIRE community and ALWAYS do its best to get/keep everyone involved.

I guess thats just the rebel in me!

You know that whenever penguinbait and I are thanking each other's posts that either the world is ending or there's something profound going on.

YMMV.

Nice post, well stated.

I think we could all use a new device and new OS release, or perhaps some cold beer (sorry if this offends any warm beer people) and karaoke!

Cheers!

As a consumer, I found this place by mere accident; and by far, it's proven itself to be the leader - so much so that Maemo absorbed it.

I've learned the in and outs of my 770 and my N810, while waiting patiently for Android or Mer to be easily installed (FIASCO image perhaps) on the 770, and reading about the upcoming N900; I've started to spend less and less time here simply due to a perceived shift in focus from community first to ego first.

And sadly, I like this community. A lot. Enough to have issues with parts of it being extremely negative; meanwhile I still moderate/add to a community of some 600k users at Flashkit.com since I'm a Flex/Flash dev - and my needs for the tablets are rather esoteric compared to most people here.

However, the community, I think will "sort" itself out. In my 9 years as a super moderator at FK, I've seen trends and egos come and go.

Just wished that things were not as separated as I perceive now though. But that's my 2 cents... which given the current inflation and deficit is worth only .037 cents by the time you've finished reading this.

Best of luck to talk.maemo, nee ITT.

what? there are problems? You mean some of my thanks were unearned?