[maemo-community] Sprint meeting this month - and beyond?

[From: Dave Neary]

quim.gil at nokia.com wrote:
>> * One more example from a Bugzilla comment I saw today (some words
>> changed to protect the innocent): "We are reviewing the request, and
>> considering one more optimized product & component structure to support
>> [your request]" - this kind of comment gives the impression that there
>> are conversations happening to which I'm not privvy, that there are
>> "we"s thinking great thoughts waiting for them to be "ready" before
>> announcing them to the waiting world
> 
> Please share the bug report. Why this excess of respect if you think someone is saying something that is not right? We need to bring all that work to the open. I have filed bugs against aspects of Bugzilla (e.g. IA architecture and Neetbok UX being default when filing bugs) so don't think that everything happens is well settled and agreed behind curtains.

Not excess of respect - I simply suspect that this is not intentionally
cutting people out, and identifying one comment which was intended to be
representative of a general feeling isn't that useful.

This is the bug: http://bugs.meego.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1145

And as you can see, I asked for some precision.

But again, this one case is just an example that came along today. I
could point out others where I don't think there's any ill will, but
where I wasn't satisfied with the transparency of answers (or the
answers didn't answer the question).

For example: http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=100 - Ibrahim
didn't really answer my question, and now on this particular question
I'm waiting & hoping that the Linux Foundation counsel is considering
the right question.

And if every time I get an answer I say "excuse me, that answer wasn't
really satisfying, can I have another?" I will get very annoying very
quick, and I don't want to be annoying. So in this case I said, let's
wait for counsel to come back & then see if they come up with something
OK, and if so, great, if not, I'll make a proposal then. But complaining
about process all the time's no fun for me.

>> Please, correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> You are not wrong, but the discussion started around the maemo.org sprint
> meetings, that never had platform or application development in their main
> concerns. In the context of this discussion I'm more interested in seeing
> how to fix the community aspects (as opposed to the software development
> aspects).

The discussion started when I proposed that we jump out of the normal
sprint meeting process and think about meego + maemo + what that means
for maemo.org staff, council & Maemo community members over the next few
months.

I think that a good step forward might be to work to get maemo.org staff
assigned for part of their time to meego tasks and community
co-ordination in meego - I've mentioned this to you before, and Tero was
clear that in the short term, our main priority remains Maemo. Perhaps
we have an opportunity to clarify this now.

>> For infrastructure, it is not an easy problem, but you can start small -
>> maybe set up a community moderation team for Mailman mailing lists,
>> start adding regular editors as WikiSysop or admin on wikimedia, maybe
>> start adding some admin permissions to some community members for
>> Bugzilla... the point is, you need to seed the teams & processes to
>> spread admin access around.
> 
> It was only few days ago that I succeeded putting the names of the actual
> people in charge at
> http://wiki.meego.com/Community_working_group#Web_infrastructure Yes, we
> need to be more proactive involving people. But if the main candidates are
> in wait & see that doesn't help pushing them from 0 to big involvement. If
> you are interested please push!

In interface design there's a term I like a lot called "affordance".
Certain interfaces are designed so that the right thing to do with them
is obvious and natural - flat push-plates on swinging doors that are the
natural place to push, pens that fit the form of the hand, handles that
are meant to be grabbed. In response to your request to "please push", I
would reply, "where?" I think with very little effort we could create
some affordances for community effort in MeeGo and break out of the
vicious circle we seem to be in.

> If you don't find space in the current tasks at
> http://wiki.meego.com/Community_working_group#Tasks (are you sure there is
> no space in a single one? Look again)  :)  then why not start adding the
> tasks you want to push and convince the rest about their relevance? Texrat
> is a good example on this. Concentration on the task pushed also helps.


I hope he's not the only good example of doing this... I have been doing
my best :)

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary at maemo.org
Jabber: bolsh at jabber.org