Hi,
this is not really specific to Mobian but I have noticed that activity on Pine64 forum for the Pinephone is very low. Instead if I look at the Telegram channel, it's quite active.
It's super easy to post on Telegram for example but then everything which is discussed there is not really useful: there is a lot of "noise" because all different channels are bridged together. OK I can still make a search but it's not as useful as what I read on the forum. The only way is to follow all the messages from the day to try to dig some useful information... I have other things to do than read all these messages, where most of them are useless.
I think this is in the end not in the interest of the project. Would there any way to improve this situation?
Thanks
Moving to General PinePhone subforum
04-14-2021, 11:42 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-14-2021, 12:01 PM by biketool.)
(04-14-2021, 08:22 AM)vongillus Wrote: (snip)
I think this is in the end not in the interest of the project. Would there any way to improve this situation?(snip) Agree 100%, I will not use Telegram for several reasons, I suspect many of us who actively sought out a phone with a hardware switched radios and camera will agree with me.
It is like documenting a fix, hack, or project 100% on Google's youtube, I need to be able to use a search engine to find specific things in text.
Anything posted on Telegram, or even Signal(better; FOSS 100% clients and server, open secured crypto, not-for-profit NGO but tied to your mobile phone number) is lost to the community who will not install or use non-anonymous messaging clients, Telegram a for-profit corporation current raising funds through sale of bonds and a future stock IPO where it needs to show profitability uses a closed server and home-spun crypto so who knows if it is back-doored accidentally or by design. At least neither are owned by facebook, though signal is one of whatsap's devs attempt to buy back his soul after selling out to one of the great privacy stealers.
In my opinion these forums and the community here should be the primary home for discussion on Pine64 related topics as talk.maemo.org is and was a large and active dev and support hub for Nokia Maemo Linux devices. The existence of these forums was a factor in my decision to go with the pinephone(and other pine64 projects).
(04-14-2021, 08:22 AM)vongillus Wrote: Hi,
this is not really specific to Mobian but I have noticed that activity on Pine64 forum for the Pinephone is very low. Instead if I look at the Telegram channel, it's quite active.
It's super easy to post on Telegram for example but then everything which is discussed there is not really useful: there is a lot of "noise" because all different channels are bridged together. OK I can still make a search but it's not as useful as what I read on the forum. The only way is to follow all the messages from the day to try to dig some useful information... I have other things to do than read all these messages, where most of them are useless.
I think this is in the end not in the interest of the project. Would there any way to improve this situation?
Thanks I partially agree, it feels like the honeymoon phase of hype around the pinephone is absolutely dying down. However, the people that have been working from the start on the pinephone have never stopped, and progress is still happening. Getting support is kinda rough for even the most basic issues, and I've had the most luck actually filing bug reports directly to whatever project is crashing for things I need help with.
I think that the community (these forums) are going to be a slow burn until the software side of things is much closer to stable, and things will especially take off when it is easier for even beginner programmers to make apps for the pinephone. More/better software will bring in more users to help each other out in these forums.
04-14-2021, 12:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-14-2021, 12:52 PM by vongillus.)
@ gamerminstrel : I hope it's not the end of the "honeymoon" because it's just starting to be interesting! Hopefully no other better alternative to Pinephone will soon come, to be on the selfish side so that development continues on this hardware 
And having low activity on these forums is not going to attract people from the Internet. Having all contributions from these forums indexed through search engines is really a big plus. It's a pity that so much useful information is lost in those chat rooms.
Are these forums accessible in an easy way with an App from Android or Iphone? Because I think one of the key point is that it's some kind of effort to file a message in here. I think it's one reason why there are so few messages. Mostly "old school" guys like me (I presume) are filing information, questions or feedback from a computer!
If I could file questions easily (for example choosing by default the Mobian subforum), I think it would help the whole community.
Actually it seems that Tapatalk should work with these forums. I will give it a try.
Ok. One has to be motivated to install Tapatalk, create an account and find the way to access these forums. But it works, I am writing from there now.
Envoyé de mon Pixel 2 en utilisant Tapatalk
Actually that might be a strong point, this site is not very well optimized for mobile users at all. Not even for the Pinephone! You can go to telegram on your phone and chat all day, whereas you have to be in front of a PC for forums like this.
(04-14-2021, 11:42 AM)biketool Wrote: (04-14-2021, 08:22 AM)vongillus Wrote: (snip)
I think this is in the end not in the interest of the project. Would there any way to improve this situation?(snip) Agree 100%, I will not use Telegram for several reasons, I suspect many of us who actively sought out a phone with a hardware switched radios and camera will agree with me.
It is like documenting a fix, hack, or project 100% on Google's youtube, I need to be able to use a search engine to find specific things in text.
Anything posted on Telegram, or even Signal(better; FOSS 100% clients and server, open secured crypto, not-for-profit NGO but tied to your mobile phone number) is lost to the community who will not install or use non-anonymous messaging clients, Telegram a for-profit corporation current raising funds through sale of bonds and a future stock IPO where it needs to show profitability uses a closed server and home-spun crypto so who knows if it is back-doored accidentally or by design. At least neither are owned by facebook, though signal is one of whatsap's devs attempt to buy back his soul after selling out to one of the great privacy stealers.
In my opinion these forums and the community here should be the primary home for discussion on Pine64 related topics as talk.maemo.org is and was a large and active dev and support hub for Nokia Maemo Linux devices. The existence of these forums was a factor in my decision to go with the pinephone(and other pine64 projects).
Another issue with Telegram is the phone number being tied to the username. Without making phone numbers public anyone can so called "spoof" another's username (without a way to verify properly). And as you also insinuated along the lines of privacy: many are not interested in sharing personal contact information like cell phone numbers with unknowns. I have no doubt bots collect user phone numbers (or at least could easily do so).
I mainly stick to this forum for Pinephone related stuff (and discord). I see Pinephone expanding use cases as time goes on/creative developments expand. 
- RTP
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." -Shunryu Suzuki
[ Pinephone Original | Pinetab v1 / v2 Enjoyer ]
Linux Device Privacy / Security Playlist
Quote:It's super easy to post on Telegram for example but then everything which is discussed there is not really useful: there is a lot of "noise" because all different channels are bridged together. OK I can still make a search but it's not as useful as what I read on the forum. The only way is to follow all the messages from the day to try to dig some useful information... I have other things to do than read all these messages, where most of them are useless.
If the activity here was "high", you'd have the same complains about a lot of "noise" with little and hard to find information. And if there was a lot of activity, the company would be too busy moderating instead of producing hardware. Some activity is good, but professionals also have "other things to do" (including vacation and rest time) and I presume that they're more important than generating activity on a forum all day.
And to make the most of my comment, which sadly is generating only noise, is there a web bridge to search into those Telegram messages? Something which is not heavily based on javascript, because I tend to disable it for non-essential sites.
04-16-2021, 07:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-16-2021, 12:12 PM by tophneal.)
There used to be logs from the IRC side of the chat bridge (don't want to leave out those using IRC, Telegram, Matrix, and Discord,) available through the main site. Maybe it's possible to restore the feature and the admins can be convinced to do so. It looks like the link probbaly just got dropped when Pine made the switch to their new style/theme.
The Pinephone chat room is also available (bridged) through Matrix (i.e.: Element) along with chat rooms of Mobian, KDE Mobile, Purism... AFAIK.
Matrix does not need any phone number or email address to register.
Just go to riot.im/app and install or run (web) the official client Element, register on the default server or another server you trust, and find the Pinephone offical channels names on Pine64 wiki.
As I said, Matrix channels for PP projects are often bridges to IRC or Telegram, so once there you're on official channels.
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