In other forums, I've seen a feature that can set a thread to be mandatorily-viewed. So the next time a user returns to the forum, he has to view a particular thread (just once) before being allowed to pull up any other forum content.

@Reggie: Can we set this thread to be like that so we can raise the community's awareness of this topic and get their input?

PS: We may need to add an "I don't care" option in the poll if we do that btw.

There's some clarification that needs to be done here, but my own personal view is that it takes a little bit of involvement to be a part of a community, and that a "community member" is slightly different from a "user". A "user" simply has to have a device, nothing more, while the term "community member" implies some level of involvement (not much involvement, but a little)—maybe posting on the forums or mailing lists a bit, thumbing some Planet articles, filing a bug or two, etc.

As such, two points should probably be clarified, it's (in my opinion) really a maemo.org Community Council, so the focus is on maemo.org community issues. I don't believe its job is to play focus-group research for Nokia, as Nokia is perfectly capable of figuring out what "consumers" are interested in on its own. Rather, the council should be concerned with the maemo.org community interests, helping to communicate those interests to Nokia (and help communicate Nokia's positions back to the community), and acting as a source of leadership for the maemo.org community on things like the Maemowiki Action Group, the Bugsquad, brainstorms, etc.

The council's job is not to act as a channel for feature requests (though some community issues might fall under this heading), as this is the area currently covered by Bugzilla (and, hopefully in the future, a Maemo IdeaStorm). The council may help focus Nokia's attention on certain issues in Bugzilla or on the mailing lists, forums, etc., but it is not a feature request channel.

Basically, what this means, is that the council doesn't and can't claim to represent all consumer/user voices, but, instead, is focused on the issues of community members.

This is simply my own personal view of what the council could be, though.

Please don't. That sounds like a really good way to generate ill-will.

I agree completely that the council is necessary. Organization is a key piece to obtain the success, and I think that the maemo community has already an age to start being organized and working more productively, and the council can play a good paper in it.

On the roles that the council will have to do, the general lines are explained in the wiki, but I am sure that in the future there will be more situations/problems arising where the council has something that to do.

My only hope is this doesn't turn into a Gnome elections type where some people attack to others and so on.

Remember, we all are here for fun

I'm also one of those cautious yes voters, and my feelings are basically the same as Benny1967.
. I'll add some of my ideas. Maybe it's the word 'council'.It makes me think of politics. How about something with 'team' in it? Furthermore I suggest to communicate clearly:

- What kind of problems it is going to solve (use cases)
- A definition of the relation to Nokia, how much say it has and in which matters.

I can imagine that for newcomers not familiar with this community based approach it can be a bit confusing. It took some time for me to figure out what the relation was between Bugzilla, Maemo.org, ITT, Tableteer and Nokia, and whether ITT was paid by Nokia or just some enthusiasts. So when it is stated that the council is about Maemo.org it should be clear how ITT fits in and what Maemo.org is about, i.e. not about feature requests and not a help desk.

Aflegg is no more :-)

More seriously, the proposed community chair role shouldn't have any real additional power over anyone else on the council; unlike a president.

I read this a little bit, here's some quick side comments:

A) Where is the council going to be based such that the community shall see they exist? Will there be a possible tie-in to itT (such as a “community news” button between the software and gallery buttons (only asking because this is the site that I use))?

B) If I was actively interested in this, would want to know what the council is currently doing (“starting the logo contest”) and how/where to apply (and maybe also good to know that karma etc helps get in, but that's not as important to me)

C) It's cool that you have a good idea of who you want to do the voting, but are enough of these community members going to be actively involved enough to be willing to vote? I'm thinking yes, but don't see any ideas to make sure this happens

Likely from maemo.org. More specifically, from the wiki (think something along the lines of the Maemowiki Action Group), maemo-community mailing list (whenever it opens) and #maemo. There will probably be Community Council forum topics here, but it's not really something that I see being tied into itT very directly. Not really that high-profile and not really that itT-oriented.

Probably a "maemo.org Community Council" page on the wiki.

I agree with GeneralAntilles - if nothing else, minutes of council meetings should be published; and the council should be very active on maemo-community and particular initiatives (whatever they may be) would be announced in the best way possible. i.e. planet, ITT threads, maemo-announce (perhaps).

The single best way of keeping track of everything related to Maemo, though, is to watch the planet.

Any more interested parties want to add some more input?

I think by the end of the first sprint/timebox/period we can tie down the process and start soliciting nominations. It looks like we've got a consensus!