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#101
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
If I may be so bold as to pose a question to the candidates:

I think we would all agree that at least the next 2 councils (12 months) will be dealing with significant changes as MeeGo begins to take shape and our community here begins to merge with the MeeGo community (however that may occur). This will cause changes in our community that the council will have to deal with (from significant to insignificant). In my opinion, it would be best to have stability on the council during this time period, I would hope that 3-5 members would get re-elected for the 2nd term (or possibly their 3rd straight term).

I think we can also all agree that there will be a vocal minority that are upset with those changes (no matter what they are). I would hate to see any newly elected coucil member decide not to run for an additional term because they are upset by a vocal minority of the community. So based on that:

How will you (personally) as a council member, deal with the likely complaints (and perhaps even personal attacks) from within the community? How will these complaints affect your commitment to being on the council?

I apologize if this offends anyone, but I think a stable *visible* driving force (the council) will be a key to the longevity (and birth or rebirth) of both communities.
Very good questions lemmyslender, You posted as I was composing my last message. I will think on this a bit and post a reply later in this thread if you don't mind.
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#102
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
If I may be so bold as to pose a question to the candidates:
You might also be interested in EIPI's interview/debate thread. Questions here to all the candidates might get lost.

I think we would all agree that at least the next 2 councils (12 months) will be dealing with significant changes as MeeGo begins to take shape and our community here begins to merge with the MeeGo community (however that may occur). This will cause changes in our community that the council will have to deal with (from significant to insignificant). In my opinion, it would be best to have stability on the council during this time period, I would hope that 3-5 members would get re-elected for the 2nd term (or possibly their 3rd straight term).
Indeed. Before the MeeGo announcement I discussed with the current and ex-councils whether a 12-month term would, now, be sensible (if there was a mechanism to stand-down). This would deal with council members who didn't have the time they wished to devote available, and provide a consistent set of milestones for each council: Nokia World, summit, paid contributor reviews, hopefully a device launch, etc.

Of course, the MeeGo announcement, and what happens to the Maemo community, change a lot of the rationale there.

How will you (personally) as a council member, deal with the likely complaints (and perhaps even personal attacks) from within the community? How will these complaints affect your commitment to being on the council?
Personally, the attacks were one of the reasons I didn't run for a third term. However, the single biggest antidote to attacks on tmo (and they are *always* on tmo) is the Thanks! button. A simple act by members whose opinions you respect really does counteract the incessant sniping.

Of course, the tiny vocal minority who were upset by the forum rebrand decided that it was individuals on the council who were to blame. I can only hope I've tried to learn not to feed the trolls, and extract the useful lessons about increasing and more effective communication.

However, many people will choose (either actively or passively) to not be involved in this election. And then moan about the candidates' actions. C'est la vie, but why I think trying to drive a large turnout and being as explicit as possible about our positions (or at least our thought processes) is important.

I apologize if this offends anyone, but I think a stable *visible* driving force (the council) will be a key to the longevity (and birth or rebirth) of both communities.
Agreed entirely. You should've run ;-)
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#103
This is the most political I've ever seen a maemo.org election get.

We're all grown up now. For better or worse.
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#104
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
How will you (personally) as a council member, deal with the likely complaints (and perhaps even personal attacks) from within the community? How will these complaints affect your commitment to being on the council?
I think, that the maemo community will not change THAT much when merging with the (small) moblin community.
The future community will build itself around the new meego devices. We will not only have one device from one manufacturer, like in the past.
We will even have more manufacturers using meego than it was/is the case with symbian.
But that is the long-term-sight..
In short terms I think there would be a lot of confusion, IF Nokia doesn't clear everything up. But that won't be the case.
But assuming that there will be complaints and maybe even anger against the council.
Communication IS THE KEY.
How to "silent" complaints? Take a look at the Open Pandora case.
The Pandora was delayed over a year. I was thinking about getting a Pandora before I even had the N810, that was early 2008!
Why there are no real complaints? There are some, but not really bad ones.
Because the guys from Open Pandora let everyone know what they're doing at the moment! Everyone knows, that they are now testing this, then they have to do that and so on.
Anger comes only if someone feels mistreated or excluded from something important.
My way would be to show as much presence as possible, and let the community know as much as possible, too. Let them take part in decision-taking! May I citate lcuk? "WE are maemo!"
The council exists only to focus the wishes of the community, not to reign over it or something like that. We don't lead, we cooperate.
Now the case, if someone would insult me.
In fact that was the case in the past at least two times here in the maemo community. I've no problem with that. I communicated, that we can speak like grown people (which we are in fact) and talk about the problem. Often it was just a misunderstanding.

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#105
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
If I may be so bold as to pose a question to the candidates:

I think we would all agree that at least the next 2 councils (12 months) will be dealing with significant changes as MeeGo begins to take shape and our community here begins to merge with the MeeGo community (however that may occur). This will cause changes in our community that the council will have to deal with (from significant to insignificant). In my opinion, it would be best to have stability on the council during this time period, I would hope that 3-5 members would get re-elected for the 2nd term (or possibly their 3rd straight term).

I think we can also all agree that there will be a vocal minority that are upset with those changes (no matter what they are). I would hate to see any newly elected coucil member decide not to run for an additional term because they are upset by a vocal minority of the community. So based on that:

How will you (personally) as a council member, deal with the likely complaints (and perhaps even personal attacks) from within the community? How will these complaints affect your commitment to being on the council?

I apologize if this offends anyone, but I think a stable *visible* driving force (the council) will be a key to the longevity (and birth or rebirth) of both communities.
Great question, and no offense whatsoever.

I'll preface by saying I am by nature a debator. It's a reflex that has come out at the worst possible times, I'll admit.

I have done some reflecting on that and realize that this reflex isn't so useful for a facilitator. Granted, as a council representative I cannot possibly please everyone (nor do I want to be the sort of person who sells his soul to try) but I do need to "eat my own dog food" more often and listen without prejudice. That's key to assuaging an anxious electorate. I think we've all experienced situations where our opinion on any subject is one of many, and ultimately another's opinion prevails-- but we're not quite so upset because we know our thoughts were given respectful consideration.

I believe it's also important to do more in the area of forming and leading teams within the community. We as the third council were late in doing this and not as effective as we could have been. However, efforts like VDVsx' with app testing are a good example of what a council should facilitate. One of my goals is to bring the Maemo Greeters concept into MeeGo, and bring it up a notch. A huge complaint here has been over finding information, and they were a good start at filling gaps.

The council as a whole certainly needs to be more visible and I will continue driving that whether I'm a direct part of it or not. Transparent governance is very important to me as an individual.
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#106
Shortly replying to @lemmyslender's question, as I would in large part repeat what @zehjotkah and @Texrat have written.

First of all, I do not expect this to be enormous issue. Guass distribution will find its way into community structure.
The problem I can see here is council's ability to distinguish between trolls and angry-in-principle from users that have reasonable complains. This is always a challenge, but as the times will get more crazy, it will get more difficult. Understanding that if someone doesn't agree with me all the time doesn't necessary mean that he/she is a troll, but may just represent different (possibly reasonable views).
That is also where I would see myself, trying to find dialogue with various groups.

At personal note, I'm a student (and have been for several years now): if bad opinions were to upset me, I would get crazy by now (and I'm not, my mother had me tested). If there's a job to do, it should be done
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#107
Originally Posted by lemmyslender View Post
If I may be so bold as to pose a question to the candidates:

I think we would all agree that at least the next 2 councils (12 months) will be dealing with significant changes as MeeGo begins to take shape and our community here begins to merge with the MeeGo community (however that may occur). This will cause changes in our community that the council will have to deal with (from significant to insignificant). In my opinion, it would be best to have stability on the council during this time period, I would hope that 3-5 members would get re-elected for the 2nd term (or possibly their 3rd straight term).

I think we can also all agree that there will be a vocal minority that are upset with those changes (no matter what they are). I would hate to see any newly elected coucil member decide not to run for an additional term because they are upset by a vocal minority of the community. So based on that:

How will you (personally) as a council member, deal with the likely complaints (and perhaps even personal attacks) from within the community? How will these complaints affect your commitment to being on the council?

I apologize if this offends anyone, but I think a stable *visible* driving force (the council) will be a key to the longevity (and birth or rebirth) of both communities.
(A continuation from my original reply, thanks for waiting a bit.}

HowardForums.com has about 800,000 members and features more than 10 million posts. An average of 6,000 active users can be found online at nearly all times of the day. I have been a member and one of only 42 moderators and administrators who manage that traffic for over 7 years now.

Some may know this and some may not. It is not something I actively promote because HowardForums is a commercial site and maemo.org is not. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm "old school" like that. However, if you look closely at the N900 screen in my forum avatar you can see that I pay tribute to both HowardForums and Internet Tablet Talk, the two forums that I have felt the strongest sense of community from.

This concern is also a reason why I have not chosen to run for council in the past as some may have construed it as means of drawing traffic either here or there. Now after 3 years of publicly viewable posts on both sites, one can review my record to see if my aim is true.

I make mention of it here lemmyslender because I believe that actions equal character. I feel the best way I can answer your questions regarding motivation, intention, and longevity is by offering these actions to you as an example. Having potentially 6,000 sets of eye balls viewing your response and them then having the ability to immediately critique it, concentrates the mind wonderfully.
It doesn't thicken the skin so much, because if that was the case after 7 years I would be a dang armadillo and not very effective

What it does do however, is teach you to look for the real issues and address the ones that you can have an impact upon.
I am now going to expand on this example a bit in my next post if you don't mind, in order to reply to my esteemed fellow candidate, Jaffa who also posted in this thread while I was composing my last post.
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#108
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
I can honestly say I had not decided to run when framing those questions. Indeed, the purpose of the questions for me was to work out whether the body of candidates would represent my views (y'know, the point of a representative democracy).

I've never suggested that answering them is a prerequisite for accepting a nomination; that was your own misreading of a friendly comment between myself and javispedro (ask him if he felt answering them was in someway necessary to stand). However, I did (and do) feel that if a community member wants to survey the candidates they should be entitled to answers; and that it is beholden on the candidates to make their positions as clear as possible by providing as much collateral as possible.
(Working back wards because of flow as a continuation of my last post.)

As far as collateral:

My involvement in HowardForums began in the Nextel Forum and while it is true that the numbers of eyeballs on HoFo are spread out over many carrier or manufacturer forums, for the longest time the Nextel forum and its sub-fora had slightly more posts, threads, and active users than all the other carrier forums combined. In other words, the majority of those eyeballs.

What attracted them to this Nextel forum I believe was the efforts of a few active members. (not at all unlike some of the members of maemo.org) By reverse engineering the phones boot-loader provided by Motorola they (we) found that correctly formatted midi ringtones and later wallpapers could be loaded to the phone when patches were applied to Motorola's Java application loader. A crude GUI was designed and this small program was offered to all as ICJal.

"IC" referred to a term coined by a member of the forums as the "Inner Circle", or those responsible for this work. This is also not unlike maemo.org. Jal of course referred to Motorola's Java Application Loader. The difference between there, then and here, now was; all this work, subsequent FAQ's, and support were conducted in plain view and managed by the forum itself.

A Software sub-forum was created and tightly moderated for development and support. An addition Ringtone sub-forum was also created and not so tightly moderated. At the time, users didn't have the ability to load their own music onto their phones and this was unheard of for cell phones in the USA. The carriers saw this as a revenue stream and tightly controlled it.

Then BAM, Motorola released the i95. It was the first mainstream, cell phone with a color screen made available by a carrier in the US. The IC and HoFo Nextel forums were ready with wallpapers and you guessed it, a wallpaper sub-forum.

Nextel's carrier subscriber base grew from 8 million to over 14 million in a single year. User control over the phones started a frenzy. There was an influx of new members to the forums and soon users were modifying the codeplugs at the hex level in order to theme their phones to their liking. These were not scholars, software engineers, or propeller heads. These new members were every bit as main stream as Nextel's customer base of Plumbers, Firemen, Contractors, gang bangers, as well as a few hot soccer moms for good measure.
.
Others were finding code sequences, tapping power off the boards, and managing additional LED's as ring notifications. This spawned a mini-industry and Sports, Music, and Film celebrities had to have a blinged out "Nextel Yo". Many became HoFo members and frequented the Hardware modding sub-forum.

There was no blueprint or plan. Posts were corralled and sub-forums created when required. In the case of ringtones and wall papers, sub-forums were later consolidated for better management.

It was this "organic' dynamics that I was referring to when I responded in a thread qgil started over a year ago titled
Forum reorg pointing to talk.maemo.org
>> HERE << The "blueprint" I mentioned then was referring to server space and bandwidth as the phenomenal growth and related traffic in HoFo's case caused more than a few problems. I'm sorry I didn't clear that up, but it would have required that I make this post then as "collateral" to support my opinion. I hope you can respect my decision to leave my involvement with another forum out of any discussions for that time being.

As for democracy well you got me there. Except this is not exactly a democracy is it? It is a meritocracy first. You need karma to run for council. You also need karma to vote in a council election.

I am not trying to debate that point because I actually find nothing wrong with it. Members like yourself have certainly earned my respect, admiration, and thanks for having done all the past heavy lifting. Because of your internal motivation, you probably still will, regardless of an elections outcome.

Which now brings me to our posts preceding this one. (See how I'm moving back wards here? )

One thing that was handled poorly was the explanation to forum members when itT was acquired by maemo.org. You see, we were all semi-happy clams living in an autocracy with Reggie as our benevolent dictator. The problems began when that changed. The problem compounded when it was explained that we now had a vote in a more "democratic" process. Those new to maemo.org found that they had earned no karma while some heavy lifters, that forum members may have never seen before had gobs of karma. The problem manifested itself when the forum theme changed. A simple "what happened thread" turned into a place for forum members who felt alienated and wanted to voice their displeasure with the whole process.

If it wasn't colors it would have been something else. The fact was the transition/explanation was handled poorly and some members felt alienated. Forum colors had nothing to do with that.

It also took an election cycle or two before some forum only members had enough karma to vote I believe. Those metrics have since changed but it wouldn't surprise me if the recent comment about "democratic representation" hasn't ripped off a scab or two. Hopefully not, but the "ripping of scabs" was my objection to the framing of that question in the first place.

I believe some things are done best when autocratic. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the US for one. Forum administration is another. The forums need to react swiftly to changes but be stable in nature.

That is why if elected I will push for a Council appointed forum administrator who will have autocratic control over the forum and its moderation.

The term should pro'ly be no less than a year or no more than 3 years without reappointment. The details of which can be determined by Council vote I hope. He or she would also be subject to recall of course.

I'll put a link to these posts in my mailing list thread and hopefuly we all can answer and debate any furthrer questions in EIPI's thread found >> HERE <<
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Last edited by YoDude; 2010-03-19 at 04:23. Reason: added link to EIPI's thread
 

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#109
@YoDude

If I could thank you more than once for the last two posts, I would. You obviously put some time, effort, and thought into your posts here (not that others have not).

I also appreciate you (and all the others who have) posted here in the forums, where I believe the majority of the community would have a chance to see it.
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#110
Originally Posted by YoDude View Post
[big snip of stuff]That is why if elected I will push for a Council appointed forum administrator who will have autocratic control over the forum and its moderation.
So, as a council member, you'd push to have talk.maemo.org taken away from Reggie?
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