Maybe you read first
There it’s imho made clear that the Fairphone angels program has not been setup for a special group to “answer questions on the forum” but for local support…
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Then why prominently label all their posts on the forum, in a manner quite similar to those by Fairphone Employees? Fairphone Angels appear to be more prominently highlighted in the forum than moderators, with a similar bright blue badge to that of employees. And in practice, almost all support questions here will usually have Angels respond to try to answer questions.
You’ve read that. I’ve read that. But why would a new user looking for support have read that? It isn’t mentioned in the welcome message. It isn’t mentioned in the forum guidelines. Checking while logged out, it doesn’t appear to even be pinned in the Participate section; it appears to only be pinned if users go specifically to the Local section, and scroll below the calendar that appears. The Fairphone Angels group that users can sometimes get to by clicking the Fairphone Angel title next to posts doesn’t mention it, or describe what the Angels are.
Yes, the Fairphone Angels program was not set up to answer questions on the forum. But the reality of the user experience here is that a new user with support questions is going to come here, and get responses from users with a blue badge and “Fairphone Angel” next to their name. They might be forgiven for being confused about what that means, and making assumptions: the communication on this could be far more easily discoverable.
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Just on the general question of communicating with users, I’m pinning some hope on a really useful and dynamic revision of the My Fairphone app. I don’t know what proportion of users ever get to the forum at all (and for some of those it’s too late, look at the “rice” problem …), but the app is a potentially valuable channel for getting to all of them.
But of course the app is of less use if it’s not kept updated1. At the moment it’s mostly useful for keeping track of one’s Support tickets, and pointing to relevant articles on the Support website. It could be updated more regularly with info such as
- the consequences of the latest update, point to forum topics
- techniques some users may not know
- known bugs: progress and work-arounds
I’d like to see the app as the instinctive first port of call when you encounter a problem.
1 - For example, in user guides, many of the links are “broken”. Really basic stuff.
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The world and probably especially the smartphone/technology industry is a Minefield. I use a Fairphone, because think humans need to change their behavior and step back from faster, immediately, higher, more, I’m the most and only important, I want it now (not saying its what you are saying) and I appreciate that there are companies like Fairphone or Shiftphones who do their best to change the market from within the market.
So with this understanding I just start with me and I’m patient and give Fairphone a lot more “failure credits” I would give one of the big players, instead of the other way round. My personal way to assist them, is to help others, to keep their phone as long as possible and I don’t do this for Fairphone, but for “the world” and the people needing help. I don’t expect anything from Fairphone for this help, I just hope they will be strong enough to survive with the resources they have and I trust they learn and listen (in my eyes they demonstrated several times already that they do). Is this quixotic? Maybe, however I think without this, volunteer work would not exist.
I see as well fields for improvement and I know it will never be perfect as each person has its own priorities. I don’t want a smartphone or company to give me angry and negative emotions, so I stopped having non-personal expectations, because then there is nothing to take personal or disappoint me. And no, just because I’m more patient with Fairphone, it does not mean I don’t see obstacles etc., I just try to stop to evaluate this is as pos. or neg. and focus on how I personally can handle it within the situation as it is, as best as possible. I take my critics and address it directly towards Fairphone, as I don’t see how public discussions would help me with my situation.
I also think, that a Fairphone is not (yet) a phone for everyone and I think sometimes its better when one just accepts this and not feel guilty or whatever that they have to move back to a less-ethical/sustainable company. People have different use cases and needs and that’s fine.
I can’t tell you or others here how to think or feel or behave, I just try to open the room for other perspectives.
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I have no problem with helping others without any special compensation. I’ve been active in bike kitchens and repair cafés and think we should always try to repair things first instead of replacing them.
However - at least I expect that Fairphone listens to the users and let us know if and how they gonna work on reported issues. It’s not very motivating to explain others how to deal with specific bugs in the software if you don’t even know if Fairphone is aware of a bug at all.
Furthermore about the support system: recently I tried to contact support and the only reaction to this was telling me to contact the dealer where I got the pone and asking me for my proof of purchase if the purchase was more than 30 days ago. Without proof of purchase I would not get any support at all!
However the IMEI of the device in the support ticket was already registered at Fairphone to get the 5 year warranty. So Fairphone could easily check the manufacuring date of device and they could also easily know when this device was purchased since it was registered to get warranty.
I really appreciate the effort in creating sustainable products, but the way how Fairphone deals with customer requests should be improved.
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Have a look at this wiki (communty maintained, nothing official):
The idea is to collect reproducible issues, then report them to support and keep each other in the loop of their responses or any fixes we come up with. It’s a way to keep things central. Also, the more people report the issue to support, the higher the priority may become.
I know its getting off topic and I’m wondering why you think you have to do this? There is no Angel “job description” and I only do things I feel comfortable with. Just recently I had a help request and finally the user wanted to discuss with me over phone general Fairphone behavior. I just refused this, as I didnt feel like it in this moment. I’m not connected to Fairphone and have no obligations to do anything I dont want to do. Maybe it helps to see yourself as a repair cafe (in this case just for one product) and in a repair cafe you have normally no insights about the manufacturer of the products and I doubt you feel you have to defend them, or explain things you cant explain, you just look at the product, see if you can repair it and thats it.
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I appreciate the effort to keep such a list. However - does the support know that list or are only individual issues reported there?
Also this list is missing the “recent apps” bug with Android 12: when not using the stock launcher the “recent apps” button will stop working when used frequently. This bug is reproducable very easily and also affects other devices with early version of Android 12.
Workarounds: set animations in developer options to “off” or use the gesture navigation instead of 3-button-navigation.
Also see: Update to Android 12 broke Switch App Button (Square) - #38 by askaaron
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Support is aware of the list, I got some positive feedback in the past.
I find it tricky when you mention that 3rd party software is used. With early Android 12 versions you mean recent updates of Android 12? If you can reproduce it on different Android 12 devices, with this 3rd party launcher, then it’s not a FP issue. Then it’s best to bug the developers of that 3rd party launcher to improve their Android 12 support. At least, that’s what I can conclude with the info you provide me here.
To keep the overview useful for FP4 users I don’t want to make it a list of generic 3rd party issues that are not device specific and thus are in the scope of what FP can actually fix.
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Well - in this way all software related issues are caused by some problem with Android 12 and have nothing to do with FP4 at all. Also the AptX bug happens on other devices as well, not only FP4.
However Fairphone should be aware of that issue and keep an eye on that if this may be fixed with newer Android versions or maybe they need to fine-tune their build options to make sure that issues like these do not happen.
Besides that using another launcher is a completely normal use of Android. Launchers are offered as apps, you do not need any developer options and also on FP4 you can select the launcher to be used in the “default apps” setting. And if using another launcher causes the “recent apps” function to fail, this is clearly a reproducable bug - no matter who is responsible for that. Also it is not the responsibility of the third party launcher to provide the “recent apps” view. It also does not matter which launcher you use - it happes with all third party launchers I tested: Nova Launcher, Simple Launcher, OLauncher, P Launcher, Ruthless Launcher - I doubt that all of these launchers don’t support Android 12 correctly when we are already at Android 13 nowadays.
Edit: and “early Android 12 version” means: the version which is used by Fairphone. This is not the latest version of Android 12. They just included newer security patches. But things like “Material You” which are available on other devices with Android 12 are not available on the FP4 yet.
Edit: about the “recent apps” issue, also see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixel4a/comments/qdyley/recent_apps_button_not_working_since_android_12/
This already 1 year old(!). I am not sure if Google had fixed this meanwhile in newer Android version. But hopefully this will be solved. The stock launcher for the FP4 - Quickstep - is also not ideal since the “Google Glance” widget does not work correctly and you can not remove the Google search bar at all.
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What I’m trying to say is, the list is only useful if we include device specific issues which FP can actually fix. Core Android bugs are for Google to fix. 3rd party bugs are for those developers to fix. But if there is a device specific issue, then for sure we should list it there. Otherwise we can include so much stuff, the list would simply lose its meaning. We could e.g. also list Gcam bugs, those cannot be fixed by FP. Best to report that in the Gcam community, and for sure, maybe link that overview here so everyone knows where to find it. I hope this makes sense.
Since FP4 does not use GCam but its own camera app (which is just tightly connected to Google services like Google Photos and Google Lense) there is nothing to report about issues with GCam.
What I’m trying to say: it does not matter where issues originate from - but at least Fairphone should communicate about they are aware of this and if a fix can be expected at all and if yes, with which update. They know way better what exact version of Android they use and what changes from the upstream are included in their device specific version.
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I don’t get your point, you could also argue that the FP4 already comes with a launcher, which integrates with Google services, so also nothing to report about 3rd party launchers then? 
I’ve already spent a lot of time on this forum explaining things, often in a loop. Most recently about the adaptive brightness. Life is too short for this. Please, just accept that the overview is for device specific issues only 
Wrong. Using a 3rd party launcher is an official feature of Android. And if this causes issues, then they should be reported.
That’s why suggest that Fairphone(!) should provide a kind of bugtracker where this can be collected and commented by Fairphone(!) and not by users.
Still don’t get your point, you can also install different cameras, that’s also a first class feature in Android. The point is, who is responsible for the bug if its reproducible on phones other than a FP? Sounds like a 3rd party problem and you should report it there (as well as at FP) and likely the 3rd party needs to fix something. Not FP. So let’s not taint the overview with 3rd party issues. Feel free to create an overview of 3rd party issues of course! Problem solved 
Sure, report it to FP, if they say it’s their turf, then so be it. But I don’t get your logic so far Anyway, that was my last try in explaining this. Please don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just that we’re in a loop. Life is too short for that
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Fairphone provide support for the default setup, and warranty where that applies.
Any user software changes are not down to Fairphone, they have enough issues with the default setup. Here the user has a choice, 1/ Contact Fairphone 2/ Check the forum to see if a) others report the same issue and b) to see if there is a workaround.
Although Fairphone provide the Discourse engine they are not committed into using the forum as a support interface. They do however post version updates and therein can be placed responses. However a concerned user would really have to contact support if they want an official response.
There’s no ‘Fairphone should’ aspect in all decency, though some people want Fairphone to be responsible for more than they set out to be.
Still it is a little entertaining watching thoughts unravel.
Talk to Fairphone if you really want them to listen.
Take care.
That’s why suggest that Fairphone(!) should provide a kind of bugtracker where this can be collected and commented by Fairphone(!) and not by users.
So why not go ahead and make them provide a bugtacker?
With these recurring discussions I’m always pretty baffled what people expect. I mean, hypothetically, even if we users all would agree on “how to run things”, who is supposed to do what to make that happen? Writing “Fairphone should …” or “project XYZ does things differently” to other users again and again obviously doesn’t get things done.
But then, maybe as Urs has pointed out, this might just be an unfortunate moment in time where there is no community manager which makes things worse than usual.
One thing I need to think about was the hint that Fairphone Angels might look semi-official or could be confused with actual employees. Getting rid of that icon in the avatar should be doable in case its cons outweigh its pros.
Sorry for this rather short reply, I don’t have the time or energy right now to elaborate more on each of the different aspects.
Edit: included a quote because I didn’t type fast enough to have my post directly below the one I was responding to
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Yes - and of course one would expect, that other camera apps also work. Indeed Fairphone already provided a fix to make Camera2 API work correctly to give access to all camera modules, so you can also use Open Camera for example.
“Recent apps” is a feature provided by Android itself. When this function breaks using a 3rd party launcher and the 3-button-navigation nobody can fix this except Fairphone by providing an updated version of Android which does not have this problem. For the users it would be exteremly helpful if Fairphone would at least confirm that they know about this issue. Even if it can not be fixed because Google introduced a bug in Android which can not be fixed by Fairphone this would be a valuable information.
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If Fairphone needs assistance in getting a bugtracker up and running - I can provide whatever they need and I have servers available to do this. But if I just do that on my own without talking to any staff of Fairphone first, then it is still not a bugtracker of Fairphone and Fairphone will of course care what bugs are recorded there. Why should Fairphone pay any attention to any bugtracker a user has set up on his own?
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How can one apply as a community manager?
At Join our team - Fairphone Current vacancies there is no open position for this and all the positions offered are only for people living in or near Amsterdam as it is expected to be onsite for 60% of the time (except the Suppliers Sustainability Manager which is needed in China).
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