I have recently joined this list and I am posting today in order to nominate myself for election to the Maemo Community Council.

I am not an active Maemo or MeeGo developer. The N900 is the first Nokia "phone" I have ever owned.

I have however, used an N800, N810, or an N900 as my mobile Internet connection in and outside work and home every day for over 3 years now. Prior to that my need for internet access via cell phone connection had me using whatever hardware was available. At that time it was an iPAQ 4200 series running Windows Mobile 2003. This solution left a lot to be desired.

With the release of the NIT's I felt that Nokia accurately realized the concept I was working with. I have been a power user ever since and believe I will continue to be one as this concept continues to evolve with MeeGo.

I do have a blog that I have maintained since 2005. I do not advertise this on the forums because the purpose of this blog is to support my posts in various mobile forums and not the other way around. I only mention it here for those who do not know me and would like some sort of reference from which to evaluate my sincerity

My first NIT blog post was in March of 2007
>> http://my.opera.com/yodude/blog/2007...the-nokia-n800

I believe that the Community Council we elect should have some representation from the average customer/user base. I also believe that the forums are, and will continue to be the communication means of choice for many engaged users. I also believe that some of the future leaders of our community will come from within the ranks of these engaged users.

Recently a current member of the Maemo Community Council posted that it was his desire during his term:
"...to make the "engaged users" segment of this community a more important part of the community's "core". It always frustrated me that the decision makers often chose to marginalize the forum users because they were too many, too unruly, too... unmanageable. By doing the important business on the mailing lists and IRC instead of the forums, it kept the noise down, but at the expense of losing a huge pool of resources."

I wholeheartedly agree with his statement and as a prospective Maemo Community Council candidate I will stand as a rep for "engaged users" and promise to pick up the torch that this Maemo Community Council member lit to keep the forums under the gaze of the decision makers in this community as well as the community that is forming over at meego.com.

>> http://talk.maemo.orgn/showpost.php?...6&postcount=38

Future MeeGo devices will rest on a community platform supported by three legs. The legs represent the software developers, the hardware manufacturers, and the eventual customer/users of those devices. Although the three legged stool analogy may be a bit tired, in this case it may be accurate none the less. If one of those legs is either longer or shorter than the other two or worse, each leg is of a different length, the platform is unstable and the devices resting on it will not be presented at their level best.

Thank you for your considerations and for the time taken while reading this rather long first post.

With best regards,

Steven Paolini Yeager
maemo.org member: YoDude