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[Etan Reisner]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 06:19:44AM +0100, Michael Rozdoba wrote:
<snip>
> Why are you referring someone from the mailing list to a closed bug
> tracker thread which itself explicitly directs conversation to this
> list? Presumably since that thread there has been constructive
> discussion on this list?

Exactly that, he was suggesting that before launching into yet another
discussion of a topic that he familiarize himself with the available
background information about the topic, of which that ticket is a large
part (but by no means the entire story). This conversation has taken place
at least three times on this mailing list, in that ticket, in a small
handful of short duplicate tickets, and at least two or three times on the
sourceforge forums. Virtually every version has been a rehashing of the
same exact ideas with the same exact lack of support behind the requests.

And before you, or anyone else, jumps all over that as an indication of
the scale of the request, the total number of people who have ever
commented (even with the large amount of repition present) is likely
smaller than the number of people who join the #pidgin irc channel in a
single day. So no, the numbers don't hold up to 'but if so many people
want it' claims.

> Please forgive me if I misjudge you. It's merely that I get the
> impression you're saying 'this has been answered, end of story', rather
> than 'read this background material, then come back here to discuss it'.

For the most part that is likely because we have yet to see any indication
from him or anyone else attempting to rehash this conversation, that there
are new things to discuss. As more than one person on this thread said
however, if someone (who has read and understood the past discussions)
feels like they have a valid, as of yet unheard, reason for their wishes
we are always welcome to hearing a calm and rational explanation of it.
Let's not forget also that the presentation of said thoughts should really
refrain from outright (and unprovoked) vitriolic attacks of us, our
product, etc.

> What is ridiculous about the length of that thread? It is certainly long
> - I've just finished reading it. Your choice of that word suggests you
> don't understand why it created that degree of attention & are somewhat
> annoyed by this. Certainly I got the impression the devs have set ideas
> about design aims & have trouble integrating conflicting user wishes.

That ticket is ridiculous (as are most of the threads discussing this
issue) because there is an unfortunately common trend of people failing to
read what we write and failing to even attempt to listen to what we have
to say.

> I don't wish to rehash that entire thread but I do recall users being
> described as stupid & an insistence that the complaints would go away,
> along with a statement that only xx number of users had complained,
> shortly followed by shouting at one user who posted a 'me too' complaint
> (which clearly is a valid contribution since it modifies the stat
> involved in the preceeding argument). Since the latter was partial
> justification for the changes, if reality is proving this to be
> incorrect, those concerned ought to be reconsidering the issues.

The only 'shouting' about "me too" complaints that I recall anyone doing
were at the *very* tail end of the ticket *after* we instructed people not
to post to it anymore and to move the discussion to the mailing list. At
which time further posts to the ticket indicate nothing much more than
either an inability to pay attention to context or a lack of desire to
even attempt to listen to us.

> Of course there's no reason why users shouldn't be ignored altogether -
> it wouldn't make for good PR, but there's no clear cut reason why such
> an approach couldn't produce a good application, both in form &
> function. Not that that would be my favoured approach.

No one has suggested that we ignore users outright, from a policy
perspective, many people have suggested that thet 'think' we do that but
history proves otherwise if people care to do some research.

There are plenty of reasons to reject any given suggestion whether it come
from a user or from another developer. I know that the majority of the
developers have had at least one of our ideas vetoed somewhere along the
way (if not in fact all of us developers having experienced that). The
point here is not that we are ignoring anything, because we aren't, but
rather that we are choosing not to listen to arguments we have already
dismissed and for which no one can provide any new information.

The people who want UI changes, whether this change or any other change,
*love* bringing up arguments like "developers aren't UI guys" and "users
know what they want" and "options are always good", but as it turns out
most of them aren't UI guys either (even sometimes the ones that claim to
be). And, as it so happens, actual UI research by major companies has a
tendency (annoying to the people asking us for changes) to indicate that
they assertions about what does and does not make a good UI are often
wrong.

I have attempted to avoid direct discussion of the issue at hand because I
didn't want to prolong that part of this thread, so can we attempt to keep
any replies to this away from that topic?

> --
> Michael Rozdoba