I just voted. May the best candidates win.

Perhaps a new thread to discuss voting and answer questions about voting procedures?

I'm not suggesting any line is drawn, nor am I suggesting support should never be provided. What I'm saying is that it's not the job of the community council or maemo.org as an organization to make end-user support one of its core functions.

You're more than welcome to answer questions as you please. Heck, I've spent days of my life providing support for users of all shapes and sizes (you don't get over 4,000 Thanks! just by being insightful all of the time ), and it's something I generally enjoy doing, but it's not something I'd be spending time trying to support as a council member.

Exactly my point.

If users have issues with the business functionality, advertised features, or are generally dissatisfied with the device and your assistance hasn't helped to make them satisfied, then they need to contact Nokia Care and tell them why they're not happy. Feedback like that is extremely useful and (in aggregate) does have an effect on Nokia's future product decisions.

This is really more of an organizational issue and less of an individual one (thus why it's relevant as a council issue).

The biggest that comes to my mind involves Ovi failings. But that's based on my opinion and so I hesitate to draw it into anything that even appears to formulate community policy or obligation. If I take Nokia to task over Ovi shortcomings, it's not as a council rep but as an irritated user. So I would forward Ovi stuff on since that's all we can really do.

But yeah, let's move this elsewhere.

Thanks for the clarification. This is much more well written and sounds like a much more reasonable and friendly approach.

Thank you for your answers. I believe in the original question somewhere I said I do not expect you to act as support. The intention was more to see how you feel about the lowcount masses that have as a matter of fact put their trust in Maemo.org in addition to or instead of *.nokia.com. Noone expects a council member's day to go around looking for n00b questions to answer. Yet lots of enthusiasts do. Some with patience, some with less. For me, the interesting part is seeing where you feel they fit in.

Personally I have given up on most company-driven support forums a long time ago. I have yet to receive anything but standard phrases to any question. So people will come here. This is the core of the platform.

There ya go...That's the kind of thinkin' that's needed...You should run for Council.

~

I just got in so I'm sorry I'm late for your question volt...

I think it may be the other way around. Most new forum members arrive here out of enthusiasm for the product. The disgruntled ones just seem to get the most attention.

We have to take the good with the bad. The best way to deal with trouble is to recognize its potential before it happens and prepare for its possibility of occurring. Some of us should be thinking like our man qole is.

GA is 100% correct the forums and M/O should not be a substitute for customer care. This is something he and I have always been in total agreement on. It is also something that I think should be looked at by the council and reported to Nokia when it feels an inordinate amount of time is being spent here directing "average Joes" to customer care. Something may be broken on their end and they need this information in order to fix it…and I’m not talking about code.

The councils purpose as stated on the WiKi is:

I believe that a conduit by nature is bi-directional and because of that it is also the Councils duty to provide Nokia with accurate and relevant information generated by the community. Doing so I believe, does represent the communities best interest to Nokia ?

That could be debated for years and if that is the case I would prefer that this loose interpretation be known as "YoDudien" and those who subscribe to it, "YoDudiens".

The stricter interpretation of this is that the conduit is uni-directional and Nokia-generated information only flows downward from them to us.

This might in the future be called the "GeneralAntilien" interpretation. "Antilliens" for short would be nice to describe followers of this principle but then they might be confused with just some guy from Sint Maarten...

What has been debated for years is the notion that members should be divided into groups using some sort of artificial, token economy based on perceived merit.

This could perhaps stem from this strict interpretation and the need of its adherents to be closer to the top of that imaginary conduit in order to receive any information that flows down just a bit sooner than the peons do, or those they consider less worthy.

However, we are operating here in somewhat of a virtual world so I guess it can be whatever you imagine it could be.

My experience in both the physical world and the virtual world of forums and mailing lists is that schemes like the one described, usually end up with the top earners receiving more and more of the artificial credits while the ones at the bottom...well they don't count because look, they haven't earned a dang thing. :eek
:
In other words the rich get richer... and the poor ain't worth shinola to them. So who cares? We're rich!

In the case of a good forum a great deal of grunt work is done by new members once they feel welcome and have comfortably settled in. They naturally want to be seen as contributing. That won't happen if they don't feel welcome or perceive somehow that the fix is already in and they have no hope in achieving whatever status they perceive that the top earners enjoy.

I have always believed in the power of the forums. In other fora I am continually amazed at the amount of positive energy that is spent naturally by individuals for no reason other than wanting to make it an even better place to hang out in. We all win when that occurs. It seems in our virtual worlds we are capable of so much more than in our real worlds that may have placed greater restrictions upon us.

The best forums are forums where the majority of members use them as their primary source of information on the subject. Because of that, members will prune, shape, and manage that information for accuracy, and this will all again occur, naturally. Sometimes slower than some would like but if its intent is not malicious, we should all step back a bit and let the natural process occur.

These natural tendencies shown by members who feel a part of a community don’t happen so much on “company” run forums. Most of these companies are at a loss for an explanation as to why members don’t seem as involved as they do on independent forums; even when many of the same members belong to both.

That is why I also believe that we do Nokia and ourselves a disservice when we all seem to pile into a thread to defend Nokia at any sign of trouble. This gives the impression that we are in reality one of those “company” forums and perhaps, as a result of this incorrect impression we do not benefit from as much of the natural, positive energy that I described earlier.

That was the reason for my emphasis on separating the Council from the Forums lately. I wanted this discussion to occur. Not because I believe that the Council’s involvement in the forums is an extension of Nokia the company, but because I believe that it is the perception of many new members. We all should know by now that top down only communication with our community and a structured company response is the last thing Nokia wants. Nokia’s actions like “handing” the forum over to us while providing the funds so that the forums can remain non-commercial, as well as the recent “N900 PUSH” initiative being showcased at CTIA 2010 this weekend tells me that Nokia is actively seeking the focused, ground up input that we can provide. It reinforces the notion that the “conduit” is bi-directional.

People are going to rant and rave at times and others are going to seek attention no matter what is said to, or about them. Perhaps as guidance the council can suggest to moderators and forum administration that a place to do that be set up within the forum. In the case of rants perhaps a flaming and ranting thread as a place where moderators can direct and if need be, cull posts to.

As for the attention seekers; well, just like in grade school if you ignore them and show patience, they will go away. And as any mother will tell you, sometimes you will have to endure a tantrum, or an extinction burst before that happens. But, without additional attention, it will happen.

When disinformation is being spread that could lead to FUD; well, you can’t be everywhere all the time. Given the opportunity, other forum members involved in the thread will usually sort that out. If not, it’s amazing what a few well-placed PM’s providing the right information will do.

It has been a long day and this is a hella long post. I hope I was able to address your concerns volt.

For everyone else, please follow the example our good friend qole has shown. The best thing you can do for our community right now is to vote.

Thanks for reading.

Yo, Dude, that was excellent.

wohohow... it's early morning here, and I have to read this...
thanks YoDude!
edit: thanks for your effort,
although I don't agree with everything you wrote..

Sorry for bringing this back.

If we direct the user to fMMS, aren't we doing, how to put it, a little wrong thing in the long run?

Let me try to explain.
User puts fMMS and he's happy, and everything is ok, but in the end at Nokia support they look at the complaints and conclude: "Look we were right, no one needs MMS function, because no one complained that it's missing, so the next device doesn't need it too."
Don't know how corporate world works, so I'm maybe wrong in this, but I think customer support at a company gives invaluable information of what the customers need/want and what should the corporation improve.
Maybe we could tell the user: "Here's the solution and please write to Nokia support that you had this problem and that helpful people at maemo.org has helped, but you would like if this basic function was working without any additional work from a paying customer."

This way the user would be happy, because it works, but Nokia support would also get valuable feedback.