[Pidgin] #451: No Proticol icons

[Pidgin]

#451: No Proticol icons
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  Reporter:  AishaDracogryph  |       Owner:        
      Type:  defect           |      Status:  closed
  Priority:  minor            |   Milestone:        
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)     |     Version:  2.0   
Resolution:  wontfix          |    Keywords:  Icons 
   Pending:  0                |  
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Comment (by dogfood):

 Seeking volunteers to fork Ostrich to introduce Protocol Icons.

 The Ostrich developers both seem to have their head in the sand when it
 comes to legitimate user requests as well as to be placing greater value
 on theoretical notions of UI design and abstraction than on the way people
 actually exist as social creatures.

 To wit, protocol icons are highly useful as evidenced by the number of
 requests for them. This, in and of itself, should be enough to for the
 developers to put them back. However there are also deep and impossible to
 refute socio-theoretic reasons to include them as well.

 Since the Ostrich developers insist on adhering to their model of reality
 as opposed to actual reality, I will also attempt to explain a very
 significant (but absolutely not the only significant) theoretical reason
 why protocol icons are good.  Ostrich developers are correct that there
 are good reason to be more concerned with who we are communicating with
 and what we are communicating than how we are communicating,

 They, of course, are willfully ignoring that different protocols have
 different strengths when it comes to communications beyond simple text. In
 fact it's useful to know what one will be able to easily communicate
 before initiating communication. More concretely, if I want to send a
 particular photo or video or joke
 or file, it's nice to know at a glance who I can easily send it to.

 More importantly, Ostrich developers ignore that, as social creatures,
 protocol icons give us a vital context clue as to who we have represented
 ourselves as in the past to be, and who we wish to continue to represent
 ourselves as, and how we know people. We have different identities in
 different contexts and we need visual clues as to which identity belongs
 where. These clues also help us remember who others are. Some complaints
 about missing protocol icons would disappear if Pidgin could simply
 display different icons based on the combination of messenger/screen name
 and protocol that tends to signify our identities and how we met others.
 However this could require a potentially infinite number of icon sets and
 also require impractical mental or mouseclick effort for users to
 associate different icons with different identities.

 As a practical matter protocol plus group is an excellent context clue to
 know what identity a counterparty will know us as. Protocol plus group
 plus name is a much better mnemonic for who someone is than group plus
 name alone. Unfortunately this reality doesn't seem to accomodate the
 dizzying heights of abstraction of the Ostrich developers.

 To be more concrete, I have one MSN messenger name, and one yahoo
 messenger name,
 and  two AIM screen names. Partly this is because I go to Burning Man and
 I have a "Playa name"
 that is different from my real name and I have some IM friends who know me
 from a Burning Man
 context and others from "real life." However it is also because I have an
 AIM screen name that I
 use for people who I worry might be camgirls, bots, or scam artists.

 It's not that I give a shit whether I'm talking to someone using AIM or
 Yahoo or MSN protocol. It's that I generally represent myself slightly
 differently with one account than another. The combination of group and
 protocol lets me know who I am before I start communicating. It also helps
 me remember who my contact is. Seeing it on top on a buddy list right away
 lets me know who might be appropriate to communicate with given the mood
 I'm in. When I'm feeling like FinanNerdDude I want to see who is online in
 certain groups using MSN messenger that I use for that part of my life.
 When I am PlayaTechnoGod I like seeing a visual representation of people
 who know me as that via Yahoo Messenger.

 I understand that the Ostrich people will claim that this can all be
 solved if I reorganize my groups. However
 I have several hundred IM friends and better things to do than organize my
 groups when I had a method
 that worked fine with GAIM. Only a fool spends his time reworking a
 taxonomy to get to 98% accurate classification when he had a prior
 taxonomy that was 99% correct.

 The removal of protocol icons appears to be wishful thinking on the
 Ostrich developers part that the world is simpler than it, in fact, is.
 They should put protocol icons back or Pidgin will go the way of MIT LISP
 versus  Bell Labs C like all who prefer abstraction to reality.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/451#comment:17>
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