[maemo-community] Brainstorm: useful?

[From: Quim Gil]

ext Andrew Flegg wrote:
>> Similarly, there's no chance of persuasion and debate. Mailing lists
>> are a much more powerful tool, IMHO.

A mailing list can be a powerful to brainstorm about one topic. How much
an you scale before it collapses, though?

Currently the Brainstorm forum has

Threads: 107 | Posts: 1,463

Yes, there are mailing lists that can afford such traffic and much more,
there are good filtering tactics, and etc. All this tends to a setting
where a very engaged and qualified minority can handle well the process,
leaving all the rest outside.

The current Brainstorm/Talk forum (unfinished until there is an
automatic integration) has an opposite risk of dispersion, but offers
clearly better entry points to anybody.

I believe brainstorm (even without the Talk discussion) help
summarizing, where we are. You can forget about a proposal, go back in 3
months and still get a quick idea of where are we more or less.

For instance:
http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/watching_brainstorm/

Instead, if an intense debate in a mailing list goes quiet for 3
months... good luck with the recovery. You rely on people's memories or
on your own time going through the thread again. For instance: is it
clear for everybody what should we do to improve the QA process?
Immediate actions for Niels, for instance?

Sorry for not providing success stories, but the Brainstorm is still
missing core features so I'm not surprised about not having them yet.

-- 
Quim Gil