[Pidgin] #2120: Developers fail to even read legitimate user bug reports. Protocol Icons

[Pidgin]

#2120: Developers fail to even read legitimate user bug reports. Protocol Icons
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 Reporter:  dogfood       |       Type:  defect
   Status:  new           |   Priority:  minor 
Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |    Version:  2.0.2 
 Keywords:                |    Pending:  0     
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 While some user complaints use hyperbolic and sarcastic language, it
 appears that that the developers close protocol icon defect bug reports as
 redundant without even reading new reports and making any effort to
 understand why the issue is so persistently important to users.

 In fact seeing a protocol icon is an important identity context clue.
 While developers and users may both wish that different protocols didn't
 exist, they in fact do, Users don't care about protocols, but users tend
 to have different identities and different contexts in which they know
 others on different protocols. The combination of group and protocol gives
 an immediately apparent identity context clue as to whom one is about to
 communicate with and what identity that person might know one as. Group on
 its own is an inadequate practical substitute. Group plus protocol
 supports a taxonomical complexity that group alone cannot. Showing
 protocol visually gives the user automatic extra identity information
 without requiring any additional user work. Note that the problem is  more
 about mutiple user identities than about IM counterpart identities.
 Different icon sets for different user identities could solve the problem,
 but would require extra user work deciding how to associate icon sets,
 risk running out of icon sets, and create consistency/additional work
 problems when switching machines.

 User complaints are unlikely to disappear until complaining users find
 another IM client which matches or exceeds Pidgin in other areas. Thus far
 no other clients equal Pidgin in consistency and functionality on multiple
 platforms. Forking or a plug-in is a theoretical solution, but is is
 impractical unless a substantial number of current Pidgin developers
 devote effort. Expect continued bug reports until affected users find
 other adequate substitute clients.

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Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/2120>
Pidgin <http://pidgin.im>
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