[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       |       Owner:        
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  closed
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:        
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.0.2 
Resolution:  duplicate     |    Keywords:        
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by deryni):

 We have responded to many many reports on this issue, and yes we do not
 respond to newly opened 'bug' reports when they do not contain any further
 information or argument about the issue, because we have covered it
 already.
 If you are expecting an entire rehash of every argument everytime someone
 brings them up again that is an absolutely unreasonably expectation.

 To say that group + 'some other piece of data' can encapsulate more
 information that just a group can is entirely undisputed and irrelevant.
 No
 one said they didn't carry extra information just that they were bad for
 the
 uses to which they were put, and in fact we have more than once suggested
 that
 the alias can be used as a much more powerful secondary piece of
 information
 (but you and basically everyone else just blindly ignores that).

 Your 'multiple identities' argument fails to be at all convincing because
 the
 protocol icons are *exactly* and *only* a pre-existing "icon set" that has
 happened to have been used in the past. So the claim that somehow the
 protocol
 icons are patently obvious and other icon sets are impractically
 complicated
 is absurd.

 Furthermore, I *fully* agree that more semantic information belongs in the
 buddy list (just not the current buddy list), there are *plenty* of pieces
 of information about a buddy that may be relevant at any given time and
 that
 I may want to be able to sort or search or scan by. Creating a buddy list
 interface that allows for all (or at least many more) of such options is
 an
 *infinitely* better solution then bringing back the (largely useless, and
 even when useful not as actual icons indicating the protocol in question)
 protocol icons. I fully support any such attempts.

 Also, for the record, the amount of work required to re-implement protocol
 icons in a plugin is likely about an hour or two of work, and either half
 or
 double that for a patch depending on the method chosen and associated
 trivia.

 Lastly, I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who have
 disjoint
 online 'identities' such that needing the extra prod is important, and if
 you
 look I imagine you will see that other than your two or three recent new
 reports on this there really haven't been very many overall, let alone
 recently.

 Oh and what if pidgin started showing (protocol) tags at the end of each
 buddy name in the buddy list, would that appease you? Do you think that
 would
 appease all of the other people who complained about this? Think carefully
 about what that says given both answers to both questions.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/2120#comment:2>
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