as long as you said there are rewards in with the reputation system, I don't think you'll have problems with people signing up... unless of course your registration page takes an hour to fill out.

I don't see a problem with the current site since it's very functional to me but I'm sure you have your reasons.

Hope the new site is not very heavy to load, my work computer is wuite old hahaha

where do i sign up? I love this place.

For the geeks of us, add OpenID. There was also a way to identify using gtalk account, but not sure how.
I am not afraid to stay behing my name. I just am fed up of remembering usernames and passwords.

I've seen arguments both for and against anonymous comments.

I'm not sure you *increase* the value or utility of the Beta Labs by not having both available to users.

Surely users who want to interact over multiple posts will register, while those doing 'drive-by' commenting will still be able to leave feedback. The signal-to-noise on the current Beta Labs is far higher than other similarly-focused tech blogs - why the need to change it?

The drive-by-commenter may still have an insight or idea that registered users may not - and their contribution may spark further debate amongst other users.

Sure, why not. It would also help get recognition for good suggestions and testing.

To those suggesting OpenID, i think Nokia Account would be better. A common ID accross all Nokia's services would be much appreciated.

Also, account login on beta labs would enable a proper interaction with other users, replying to others comments.

Yes, require registration. How useful is feedback if that person has no verifiable way to be contacted back for further information or clarification?

An open & anonymous system is fine to have for general feedback, but if you're looking to actually work with people it makes sense -- even Wikipedia sometimes resorts to locking pages down for identified-users only when a page gets too contentious.

I like the idea, and if it's tied to our existing Nokia IDs it adds legitimacy to our comments.

I like this idea as well. I have posted blog comments before in the form of a piece of feedback on an app, which included what I wanted to see AND included a bug report. It'd be nice to have one place to go with this. I probably should have submitted that bug in the right place, but having it in a system that requires registration and is more clear about what should be where is a great idea.

Good Job Tommi.

You have done your home work well.
I agree on leaving the rewards out.
We need Quality NOT Quantity.
Hope to see the New Beta Labs soon.

Ciao...!

> Whatever happened to

@Tommi re #28 - I think you are right, bug reports contain a lot of noise (i take my suggestion back ;-)

Anyway, I guess Nokia soon (like yesterday ;-) will offer Nokia account registration or login at the first startup of a new phone (including Ovi Sync), so soon everyone will have a Nokia account - it shouldn't be a barrier.

(Offtopic: when that happens, it would be cool to see a counter with the number of Nokia account users - like counting up to 100 million in one year.)

I would love to participate. I think it's a great idea.

I don't think you quite understand the dynamics of online communities.

The vast majority of users, the lurkers, may give comments rarely, but when they do, they have given much thought for what they say. If you force registration, the lurkers have no way of giving feedback.

You should encourage the lurkers to participate, not block them completely out. By requiring registration you would not "improve the opportunities for public debate" nor would you get "statistically representative" feedback - quite the contrary. You would only hear the thoughts of the tiny but loud group.

"Unfortunately, those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights." - http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9708b.html

Please read also this article with thought: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

I agree with Matt and don't think registration will improve the overall quality of the feedback unless you start giving away money which will increase the number of betalabs members to thousands ;-)
can you keep both, and strongly invite users to register?

"the most passionate and most insightful Nokia users only" <- What do those words mean? People who will only write positive things about Nokia? Then limiting the registrations to Nokia Accounts might be a good idea.

The comments of those people who are not already fully on "the nokia waggon" (don't know how to express the thought correctly in english - sorry for that) might be the most valueable ones. Thus I would suggest OpenID, too.

I have a Nokia Account already. So this is nothing about me, personaly.

I really like the idea of everything being in the same site (forums, bug trackers, etc.).

Count me in.

I like the idea, I will do it even if there was no rewards. I would love to have a say in whats going on. To help Nokia become better.

I have no problem with Nokia Labs having my email address and reaL name, but I prefer to use a (consistent) pseudonym in public online forums, so as long as was possible, I'd be more than happy to register.

I personally think registration is an excellent idea, most sites now implement this. Will also show the more "passionate" contributors. It will also benefit Nokia as they will be able to contact users for more detailed feedback if needed on Beta Products.

Based on experience from my blogs, I think registration wouldn't have any noticeable downsides on the amount of contribution (and I would register).

Yet, there are two points two consider:
- registration would effectively limit responses to Nokia users (as you say above). So you would get responses from your loyal userbase and not from the ones who could give you insight on why a beta is not gaining enough popularity :-)
- Anonymous commenting _only_ gives you decreasing quality over time, if you voice opinions, make judgement, post flamebait topics etc. Introducing new beta apps is not that category, so the remaining few comments could still.

Last remarks:
- if registration, then tie in to Nokia account. I would register, yet I skip 9 sites out of 10, if I need to create another ID nowdays.
- you could actually separate user comments (same as today) from non-registered comments (e.g. below commentbox), like it is common on blogs with comments and trackbacks.
- it would give you a good tool to build up your internal Karma system (as mentioned by Ricky #4)
- it would work better with some extra functionality provided for registered users. E.g. comment-reply notification, new version notification, personal summary page of new blogposts, new comments, updated apps since last visit.

Hi,

laying down a registration "barrier" may or may not be an effective method, even though my first thoughts are more to the ineffective. Someone who's keen on spilling sour, bitter remark without any use to others won't be stopped by a simple registration system. Nonetheless I do believe registration would be usefull for other purposes, more on that later on.

First, let me suggest a different approach towards your in-site "trolls" (= loud noisy ego trippers, caught in a bad bad trip). Apparently there's software available wich over here (netherlands) goes by the nickname "cave the troll".

Basically what this software does is give the webmaster the abillity to create personalized versions of the site and "isolate" the unwanted persons and their contributions in such a way that the other users don't see anything posted by a troll person, while at the same time presenting a troll with a version of the site where all his or her contributions are visible, creating the illusion of participating without any off the benefits (thought to be mainly attention from others). This way you'll have a powerfull means of filtering content out of the discussions without pissing of a customer (even though they're trolls, they do bring in money for Nokia)

Another way of achieving this filtering is somewhat cruder, and I seriously doubt whether you

I would participate in debates more, if you used bigger font for your blog :)

Without trying to look too smart, and re-word already expressed overall approval for registration by most beta lab testers, I decided to draw on my fine command of English to say nothing.

:) Leaving my trail here, in case it helps get invites to selected Nokia Beta Labs events...

Registration would be a good idea. "Drive-by" commenting can be disruptive and non-productive. A simple way of registering will help other users decide if the comment is fair or just a flame.

Also it would be useful in the user profiles to have what Nokia phone each user has. This gives other less confident users the chance to ask questions about the phones and software before they try Beta software.

Also Nokia will have a better idea of how the software reacts on different phones, at the moment they rely on user commenting about the product and then saying what kind of phone they have. If Nokia has a list of known Beta users as well as their phone types they can assess the situation better.

I'm all for registration to post comments and my feedback , currently whenever I get an application from Beta Labs , I post about it on my blog . ourn958gb.blogspot.com

I don't see a big deal, specifically if it's linked to our Nokia Accounts. In fact, I think it's a rather obvious evolution, given the purpose of the Beta Labs in the first place.

I think as long as the registration is quick and free (or, in the case of Nokia Account, useful for other things), that's greatness. This would also allow even more quantifying (did I make that word up?), as you, or other teams, could possibly see just how active a particular person is. I.e. while Johnny P. might be really active on Beta Labs, he may not be as valuable to someone else as Billy G. who is somewhat active on Beta Labs, but uses his Nokia Account for every other Nokia/Ovi feature that's offered.

I'm for it.

I think its reasonable to require registration for access to downloads.

Yes I think you may lose some people. But if people aren't willing to put their own name to feedback is it worth getting it? Of course one thing you could do is have a way of providing anonymous feedback (e.g. in case some one is to shy to provide negative feedback associated with their name).

There's definite logic to having people self-select.

it wuld b interestin 2 write comments n be appreciated (if itz meaningful!!).....n the fact tht the feedbacks culd really help nokia 2 improve itz features really makes sense....n m sure ppl were waitin 4 such a thing 2 cum frm nokia.......my thumbs up 4 beta labs....gonna join it......

another suggestion for the redesign is to add mobile browser tags to the css to allow easier viewing from a nokia phone. I mostly read this site on my n95 8gb

Would like to contribute and a registered comments system would be a lot better

I like the idea of reputation and addition of the nokia account. more like convergence of services. a dedicated community would prove more fruitful.

hey tommi, wud u also keep a watch on the comments here OR u plan to change the whole site something like the nokia discussions forum?

but how would the reputation system work, is what i wud like to knw...

Thanks folks. Since the overwhelming majority of you seem to accept this direction, we'll go for it.

About lowering the barrier for lurkers, seriously good point.

About drive-by commenters, is it enough to have the blog comments open for them, or should we let them participate everywhere? (I'd prefer limiting them to the blog comments only)

About the reputation system, first of all, we are not going to make it competitive. We are trying to encourage cooperation, not competing against each other. Nokia tried explicit user rankings at discussions.europe.nokia.com, and it backfired (some top contributors started voting each others down, to improve their own rankings). Instead, at Beta Labs, we are going to have some badges like "labber", "innovator", "bug inspector", "top reviewer", "mr. know-it-all" or whatnot that people can achieve with certain levels of quality contribution (during the past 12 months). If you want to learn more about reputation systems, here are some links I found useful:

http://bokardo.com/archives/social-design-patterns-for-reputation-system...
http://bokardo.com/archives/social-design-patterns-for-reputation-system...
http://bokardo.com/archives/5-ways-to-improve-reputation-systems/
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/parent.php?pattern=reputation
http://www.slideshare.net/soldierant/designing-your-reputation-system

About monetary rewards, we are not going for it. At least not for now. One of Ilkka's recommendations based on his Master's Thesis research was against this. We need to find other ways to keep the site and the debate motivating.

>

Maybe the drive-by system should be set for bug reports also. Usually, a user is already in the "pissed-off" state, when trying to report a bug ;-) No need to deepen that state with additional registration process :-)

> Maybe the drive-by system should be set for bug reports also

In theory, yes. In practice, we get loads of bug reports / complaints / strange support requests, that are quite useless for the R&D teams (typical example: "It doesn't work, please help!! Call me at +123456789")

Unless (most of) the bug reports are truly useful, it doesn't make sense to integrate the system in our official error management systems.

Therefore, in bug reporting area, we might make things purposefully more inconvenient: ask more details, make the look&feel "techy", etc.

For drive-by commenters, it's better to open the generic discussion, troubleshooting, or review-writing area. Methinks.

Whatever happened to "Nokia Pilots" concept, Tommi?

I agree with the "Title" label for contributors. I'd be happy with that. Although good contributors will still be noticed and introduced to other people/teams within Nokia (the Nokia-Pilot scheme will hopefully be a good example.) :D But I'm just glad to take part in the Beta Labs and know my comments are being read by Nokia (It feels like you are ignored in a lot of Company forums these days).
Can't wait for the "beta" of the Beta Labs site :D lol

i don't know where to start as unfamiliar with this blog thing. what i would like to suggest is an improvement to the organiser/calendar on the s60 devices. i have a E66 and previously had a 6288. on the 6288 i could just select an event and copy it to another date, very convenient for repetitive shifts and events. i cannot do this on the new E66 BUSINESS phone. Why not? please implement this function as soon as possible as it would make my life so much easier. thanks.

vcefgssngkopkxcwwell, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how's life? hope it's introduce branch ;)

RPX (http://rpxnow.com) makes it pretty easy to support OpenID on any website. John McCrae of Plaxo has a review of RPX at http://therealmccrea.com/2008/12/19/as-online-identity-war-breaks-out-ja...

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