[Community] ... (Organisation)

[Lukas Maerdian]

On 03.06.2014 18:46 UTC+0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> 
> Am 03.06.2014 um 18:42 schrieb Lukas Maerdian:
> 
>> On 03.06.2014 13:47 UTC+0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>>
>>> Am 03.06.2014 um 10:46 schrieb Lukas Maerdian:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> 2014-06-03 10:27 GMT+02:00 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns at goldelico.com>:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Am 02.06.2014 um 23:37 schrieb wonderphone at posteo.de:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Am 01.06.2014 22:11 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller:
>>>>>>> Well, the key factor for speeding up all this is more demand for
>>>>>>> specific devices
>>>>>>> as we currently see. The statistics currently say differently.
>>>>>>> Approx. 30 preorders
>>>>>>> for GTA04A5 and ~370 for a Neo900 device. And this is the result of 6 months.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The GTA04 platform has the potential to sell enough devices to match the Fairphone success (50k devices) or even let their sales look small. My greater fear than the one of never selling such a number of phones is the one that "we" are not selling them, i. e. Goldelico does not produce them and the rest of the community is ignored completely.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is the general startup problem: great idea, great potential, no money to produce devices for stock. This needs an investor or a group of micro-investors really devoted to build something really different from the mainstream. I guess Fairphone was able to attract some of the mobile network operator brands as investors because they apparently want to camouflage as being "fair".
>>>>>
>>>>> But I don't think Kickstarter or Indiegogo are the right approach because they are not for building a strong community that persists. They are for tapping one that already exists.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Once it becomes apparent that GTA04A5 or Neo900 are successful, a soft-spoken but hard-nosed manufacturer can fork the hardware development and offer the devices, say, 20% cheaper.
>>>>>
>>>>> Usually they don't. Because they get enough blueprints and reference designs from the big chip manufacturers (Samsung, MediaTek, RokChip, Intel), so that they don't look for community designed devices to copy them. Even if they are completely open. Rather, that is a drawback for them because they have to care about open source licences and don't get a design around the latest and greatest, but closed chips...
>>>>>
>>>>>> That will put extra pressure on the quantities and prices of the community manufacturers. The community itself is replaced by a bunch of kids that "like" the devices on Facebook. They have a say in which color they want their devices in but nothing more. The monolithic (and also opaque) manufacturer will add some features to his software distribution that add convenience for the users and also valuable user information to the manufacturers databases.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, Goldelico has made the community and is the strongest player in it. The openness that you, Nikolaus, have created is amazing. But the openness can be a weakness when it is not complemented by a well-organized community. That is why I am asking all these nerdy questions. I believe we need mechanisms in the community that make sure it grows because of its principles, stays always close to its ideals, and rewards those who have contributed in the past.
>>>>>
>>>>> Exactly. The community is the success factor. The devices can be adapted to the needs, which also will change over the time. Like Linux is developing from release to release, but the community stays.
>>>>
>>>> I think a big factor to increase the community size and participation
>>>> is an official, easy and modern way to communicate (like a
>>>> Forum/social Network). IMO many people (especially the younger and
>>>> less technical ones) never used a Mailinglist and somehow have
>>>> reservations agains posting/registering to such a list, whereas they
>>>> feel perfectly confortable in a forum and don't hesitate to create and
>>>> participate in discussions there (see Maemo/N900, OpenPandora,
>>>> xda-developers, android-developers, ubuntuusers, ...). I hope this
>>>> situation will improve, once HyperKitty/Mailman 3 is stable and can be
>>>> installed on the OpenPhoenux servers. It isn't quite a forum, but at
>>>> least it has a modern web interface with forum like semantic. Still,
>>>> editing and deleting posts, which they are not confortable with
>>>> anymore, is not possible. But maybe this is a minor drawback, if we
>>>> can provide a nice and funky HyperKitty theme, which presents the
>>>> OpenPhoenux Logo, etc..
>>>
>>> You are probably right. Look here for example:
>>>
>>> http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16340-current-development-team/
>>>
>>> This shows how big a team is waiting for programming and updating the Pyra website...
>>>
>>> The question is sort of hen&egg. We need a big team to create new web sites
>>> that can attract more people. And new people make a web site (and forum)
>>> attractive.
>>>
>>> BTW: we have a German language forum we could still use (but it isn't):
>>>
>>> http://freeyourphone.de/portal_v1/viewforum.php?f=75
>>>
>>> Or should we set up a forum.openphoenux.org ?
>>> Would take less than an hour or so...
>>>
>>> But there are some questions:
>>> * which BB system?
>>> * who is moderating it?
>>> * who is banning spam robots?
>>> * how do we get critical mass of participation?
>>>
>>> Or should we finalise the friendica.openphoenux.org installation first?
>>
>> The point I was trying to make with "*official* way to communicate" is
>> that this channel of communication should be the main/primary channel
>> for all questions (which is this mailinglist right now). In my
>> definition this means, that all discussion takes place there (be it
>> technical or non-techincal) and all people (especially the developers
>> and core members of the community) participate in that single place.
>>
>> Therefore, I think it's not a good idea to have an _additional_ forum
>> (be it freeyourphone.de or a self hosted "OpenPhoenux forum"), unless we
>> would close this mailinglist and move all discussion there... Closing
>> the mailinglist probably isn't a good idea, though, as it contains a lot
>> of knowledge already and the existing community members are used to it.
>> => HyperKitty/Mailman3 is a good compromise IMO, we just have to wait
>> until it is ready/stable.
> 
> Does anyone know if it is possible to just install the beta of the new
> Forum interface in addition to mailman2? Or if it needs a complete
> upgrade to mailman3?

Apparently Fedora has a "dual-stack" configuration, but I don't know how
it is implemented...
  https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/
  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo

> What we should not try is to switch to some beta too early. The risk is
> too high that we loose members because it does not work or we need
> to invest too much time to get it running. Instead of doing real benefit
> to our community.

Definitely.

>> An additional friendica instance might be an option, as it is
>> easier/more convenient to share pictures/videos/media there, compared to
>> a mailinglist. But we have to take care not to split the (already small)
>> community into friendica users and mailinglist/hyperkitty users and have
>> the discussions spread in different places.
> 
> Yes, that is important to consider.

Regards,
  Lukas


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