Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Quick question - though I suppose it might become something for the council to discuss among themselves.

Yesterday morning, Nokia rolled out the preliminary update. I don't know the exact time, but it was about 7am GMT the first thread started.

In the hours that followed, threads proliferated asking the same questions, people having the same problems etc.

Some 18 hours later, Flandry posted this sticky thread, which was absolutely brilliant. It calmed things down, gave people with problems somewhere to go; people could be directed there from threads, twitter - wherever they were asking their questions.

Now, please don't take this as a complaint, but I found myself wondering whether things could have been slicker. And whether the mods (especially in the n900 and fremantle forums) had had an warning that their forums were about to go nuts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting for one moment that Nokia should tell the entire world the e.t.a. of anything it plans doing. But they're supposed to have a close, trusting relationship with the council. And the council could have tipped the poor mods the wink about their forums, and maybe prepared a basic sticky thread (the memory issue and how to use the NSU could be anticipated) for adding in questions which were frequently asked.

Did the council get warning? Did the mods? If not should they have? Could they have?

Those were my questions: how to make the support element here run more smoothly through an event like yesterday now that we have a lot of us non-linuxes on board.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

I received no information in advance. I do not know if Reggie, Tim, or Simon were given any warning, but I do suspect Quim knew.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Would it have helped you if you had known things were going to go nuts? (well, more nuts than usual)

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

No, the council generally doesn't get forewarned about releases (especially releases as small as this one).

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

I sure didn't hear anything other than what was publicly released (and echoed in my blog) for testing... but like most, I wish there were more details released before or at the time of release...

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

I accept it was a 'small' release - I think what made it big was it being the first for maemo 5, so the first for that whole audience of new, non-linuxy people we have around now. Like me.

I just wondered whether it would have made things easier. And if so, whether that's something the council could take up with Nokia.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

The change was small in some ways, big in others...

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Ok :)

Well, I've thrown the question out there. And I know it's been seen by members of the Council. They can do with it whatever they want. Whether they choose to follow it up with their Nokia contacts is down to them now, and really not any of my busness. ;) So I'll shut up.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

I see Quim reading the thread, and out of participants thus far his word has the most bearing. ;)

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

I wrote yesterday night a few lines, eg a bit similar piece, thou from a bit different angle. I believe that using the maemo.org more effectively during the big events would be so good in so many levels.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

You'd think Nokia themselves would write up a single email and send it to maemo-announce or make an announcement here or *something* for people to look at and understand what they are downloading. They have some seriously broken processes. Who does a release without an announcement except the smallest of smallest projects?

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Out of curiosity, was the minor update released to 'beta' testers as well as the forthcoming main update, or did the need for the minor update arise from the 'beta' testing of the main one?

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

it doesn't make a big difference i think, big or not, at this phase everything new is blown with threads. the thing is, helping people that have no idea what is going on. it turned out very nicely if you ask me, with the great update needed for... thread.
you cannot control this, maybe if the info is given on the device while updating.
but many people don't read it and the problems are not to be predicted. they happen afteward, and the problems with problems is, they can not be forseen often.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

it turned out ok this time on the whole.
but when the big update comes what needs double the amount of free space on rootfs its going to bring triple the amount of people with problems,
a 24 hour notice to mods will not change much but least they can be around to merge the million of duplicated threads and point them to Help pages

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

In the future Flandry could use his sticky as a template but from my experience (nothing different from anyone who has been a member here for very long). Whether the sticky came after 2 hours, 18 hours, or even a day before, it would make little difference in forum volume or the quality of the posts.

When something comes along that was anticipated for so long, people are going to post. And of course everyone thinks their opinion or the point they are trying to make is so unique it needs a new thread. ;)

People want to post. They are looking for a reason to post. However, the same people who do not read a thread throughout or bother to see if a subject has been posted before will start a new thread, sometimes in the wrong forum, regardless of the topic.


BTW, stickies are a good thing. I think they should be used more often and depreciated as new topics create new interests. Members may become accustom to them and condition themselves to look there first.

Sticky early, update often... imho. :)

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Neither. It's been planned for forever. PR1.1 is a large update delivering a lot of fixes (including new CMT firmware) and changes needed to be pushed to the update system to allow it to be delivered OTA.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Release information has to be kept confidential until release. Unless you've got people under an NDA, it's difficult to pass that sort of information on to them and hard to justify for smaller things.

Nokia has informed the council of upcoming things in the past, but they were are all larger scale or more directly relevant to the community.

konttorri has almost always been an invaluable source of information during release days (95% of the information about PR1.0.1 and its specifics came from him the morning of). So perhaps somebody could make a point of interrogation him after a release and stickying that info here. ;)

Of course, this could all be made really, really simple if Nokia could just manage to put together a 3-paragraph announcement about the release with a short overview of the major changes. . . .

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

this.


We shouldn't have to go out of our way to find out what's going on.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

When I first came around these parts, I came across the maemo-announce mailing list and saw it basically empty. So I opened a bug report suggesting it be used or shut down. I just assumed they had started using other methods of providing announcements. But they do *no* announcements.

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6565

It seems clear they should just start using that list again and letting people know what is up. Simple announcements can really make the whole process more sane.

Perhaps voting for that bug will help.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

What went through my head was that having been a mod in various places over the years, I know that if I'd woken up on a Monday morning to find my forum had gone bananas over something for which I could have had a few hours warning and hadn't I'd be really, really pissed.

Like it or not, Nokia is using this place as a support forum. I assumed that 12-24 hours warning that they were going to do something that would draw in people needing support would be courteous.

As I say, I recognise the need for confidentiality in these things, but Nokia are supposed to have that sort of relationship with the Council. My feeling at this point is that the maemo.org council members should decide whether they feel that in future they'd like a bit of notice on events like that, and if so negotiate with their Nokia counterparts. And neither side need tell Us the result as it's not our business. ;)

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Hmmm... not explicitly they aren't. Yes, it is being used as one, but that's not a corporate directive... and we need to keep clear on that. Support here is voluntary.

To your other points though... again, I also wish there was more transparency, even if that was limited to the council in some aspects. I also wish there was more cooperation between Nokia and the community council, and I don't say that lightly.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

There are legal issues involved that make things complicated and managers nervous and I'd like to avoid having the council sign NDAs. So beyond the larger issues and the ones that directly involve the community, I don't think its really workable with the current process.

Announcements should be reasonably straightforward to put together and should provide most of the information needed to keep things sane.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Since qgil's reading (and thanking ;-)) on this thread; can we get some kind of indication as to whether or not there'll be a single page that can be copied into a sticky here/reposted on the mass of Maemo blogs for PR1.1?

It should contain:

• High-level changes/purpose of release
• Whether there's a staged rollout; if so, how long will it take to show up in various regions?
• A link to nokia.com page about updating and http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

You shouldn't.

On or before Thursday, January 7, Microsoft had announced to the press the Windows updates that would be available on Tuesday, January 12. Adobe announced their January 12 updates on or before January 8.

Mature computer companies regularly announce minor updates, major updates, and new releases before they are available. Nokia should start emulating them.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

To continue just a bit. As good as sticky topics can be, they're not good enough. The problem is that they are still inside the subforum areas and one should stop to skim sticky threads through before posting. I admit, i hardly ever do that, and i suspect that many others are like me in that way, unfortunately.

I try to avoid discussion about can Nokia made announcements beforehand or not (if not to everyone, then at least to mods). If Nokia could do it, it would be great and helpful, but all the needed (coming to this in a few secs) information could be collected by the Nokia maemo workers / mods asap after the upgrade has been officially published.

My reasoning is that if we want to lower the noise on the forums, we have to catch the people before they reach the forums. This means we have to a) offer as much info as we can in one place and b) direct them there with banners at the frontpage and other visible locations. The same goes with the possible problems; if we try to minimize the amount of ppl coming to the forum complaining about every problem, we should try to offer them an easy way to find out if the problem is already solved somehow.

Enter the picture attached number one. When a big fw is going on publish a big banner on the frontpage telling the user where to find relevant information. (I would put up a banner for the regular newcomers as well: 'new to maemo devices? start here' to be shown at all times as well. )

Enter the picture attached number two: the big event / fw upgrade page. Wiki is great and all, but i am afraid that the normal average joe won't have the patience to go through it. We need more visual presentation about the big picture: in one starting point one should get an easy instruction on how to upgrade. And if known, one should learn on the same place what the upgrade is all about and find out where they can find more information about this particular upgrade. And last and most importantly they should learn in this very same spot about the possible problems and how those can be overcome (the solution might even be a direct link to the discussion forum).

(this 'upgrade page' would need a simple admin tool to admins to be able to publish the info and to update it, but it shouldn't be too big / complicated task for the maemo.org web team to build if it would be considered useful)

I think the benefits would be two-folded: a) a lot less noise and frustration on the forum and b) new people being more happy and feeling more confident about the maemo as their concerns/uncertainty/problems might have been solved in a pretty easy way without them have to start asking around on the forum.

I think we often easily forget that it is also about the image. At least i feel that a specific simple good looking and helpful upgrade page has a lot more professional feeling than going through hundreds of forum posts. Little details are often very very important.

* * *

Btw I think that this need for a more visual presentation goes with the getting start part as well. Please note that I am not talking about overdoing it, it doesn't and it shouldn't look like this. It should be compact, but well structured with some visual hints.

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...update-part-2/ + http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_5/PR1.1

I'll continue editing the wiki page. By now it's open so feel free improving it (without touching the changelog content itself, please)

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Again: bravo. I was pleasantly surprised at the immediate and widespread "press".

Re: Big events - does the council get warning?
 

Much, much better handling.

Thanks to all at Nokia!

(Now where's my update?)