<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Feb 2, 2009, at 4:21 PM, Graham Cobb wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Monday 02 February 2009 20:12:29 Ryan Abel wrote:</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><br><blockquote type="cite">On Feb 2, 2009, at 9:12 AM, Graham Cobb wrote:</blockquote></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Maybe<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">that is the way it should be: maybe the council **should** represent<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">contributors rather than users, but we should at least get the<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">opinion of the<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">users on whether they care.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Dave also hit the nail on the head here, but I'll elaborate a bit.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">The Council isn't in place as a consumer activism group. We're here<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">for the *community* and its members (i.e., contributors), which is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">only a subset of all users (i.e., owners). <br></blockquote><br>When I said "users" I didn't mean tablet users, I meant Maemo.org users . . .</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>s/Maemo.org/maemo.org/g ;)</div><div><br></div><div>I don't really think in terms of "maemo.org" or "not maemo.org". maemo.org is only a website. Generally, when people refer to users, they mean "owners of tablets".</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite">. . . who I consider to be just as much members of the community as the contributors.</blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>I disagree. In order to belong to a community you have to participate in it and contribute to it.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Are you suggesting the "community" in my local small town only consists of <br>the shopkeepers? There are well over a thousand (probably many more -- I <br>got bored flicking through the pages in the user listing) people with Maemo <br>accounts and fewer than 25 karma points. Many more than have more than 25 <br>points.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>A flawed analogy, as"contributing" isn't just developers "selling" their wares, but I'll humor you for the sake of argument.</div><div><br></div><div>You live in the area, shop at the stores, attend social events and interact with others in your community in a dozen different significant ways, right? Obviously you're a member of the community. But what about somebody who stops in for a weekend, rents an apartment then is never seen again? That is the type of person who we're discussing here. Somebody who stops by, registers an account and is never heard from again.</div><div><br></div><div>Now, obviously there are people who do care about and pay attention to the community who have less than 25 karma (the number of these people is steadily dropping with every karma improvement), but if they truly are that interested in participating, it isn't difficult to accumulate 25 karma in a relatively short period of time.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>All these people have visited maemo.org and created accounts. Why should the <br>council only represent people who contribute to the Maemo community, not all <br>those who are trying to use our downloads, our documentation, our <br>community-contributed software, our forums, etc?</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, first, (as Benson pointed out) are these people's interests really so radically different from the interests of the people with more than 25 karma that they wouldn't already be covered? If so, I'd be interesting in hearing exactly how.</div><div><br></div><div>Second, we'd like to prevent ballot stuffing, and requiring each account that gets a vote to have some sort of appreciable presence accomplishes this nicely.</div><div><br></div><div>Third, let me flip the question back on you, why do these people _need_ a vote? What is being overlooked that makes it so important for them to have a vote? Many of them may not even _want_ a vote (can you delete a maemo.org account if you no longer have an interest in the community?). . . .</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>I'm not saying that the council is doing a bad job of dealing with those <br>people's concerns (the new site, the debmaster, all these things are helping <br>those users) but why on earth don't they get a vote?</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><div><blockquote type="cite">I must admit, I completely fail to see why we do not give a vote to anyone who <br>has a maemo.org account. Can someone explain the rationale?<br></blockquote><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#144FAE"><br></font></div></div><div>Well, if all they've done is register an account, how on earth are they going to make an informed decision about which candidates to pick? Democracy for democracy's sake is very high-minded and all, but it's rarely very useful.</div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><div><div><div>Ryan Abel</div><div>Maemo Community Council chair</div></div></div></div></body></html>