[Pidgin] #5559: No text input resizing

[Pidgin]

#5559: No text input resizing
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  Reporter:  hanscastorp   |       Owner:  lschiere
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  closed  
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:          
 Component:  unclassified  |     Version:  2.4.1   
Resolution:  duplicate     |    Keywords:          
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by deryni):

 Pidgin has never had it as a goal to do whatever the users wanted, nor
 should it have that as a goal. That isn't a maintainable, sustainable, or
 particularly useful goal. The fact that this isn't understood by more
 people is unfortunate.

 We do care about the preferences of our users when those preferences have
 grounding in real need. So far, as I've indicated, this preference has not
 been shown to have that grounding and most users haven't shown interest in
 trying to provide it. We have made changes based on constructive user
 feedback already and will continue to do so, we will not for purely (often
 aggressive) assertions of preference (we leave that up to plugins on
 purpose).

 Why? Because doing so means it will do some good. I've explained that a
 number of times already. (Not that anyone actually listens to anything I
 say.) People who are active thoughtful members of the community will
 understand why things change in the ways they do and will be able to
 helpfully present us with reasons why they need to continue changing to
 suit more people. Angry shouting members of the community do no such
 thing. Do I really need to explain why one of those is likely to get a
 better response than the other?

 I don't want a thousand people to "complain". I want a thousand people to
 "constructively criticize". Do you understand the difference? I do not and
 cannot shrug off constructive criticism (I can say it doesn't fit the
 pidgin design and so either will not be done or belongs in a plugin
 though). pidgin has a long history of making changes based off of
 constructive user feedback, and an equally long history of not making
 changes based off of belittling, insulting, angry complaints (we even lost
 a developer because of things like that at one point).

 Never have I (nor has anyone else to my knowledge) said "your opinion
 doesn't really matter". What I have said is that someone's personal
 opinion, when it has no factual or practical reason behind it (and when
 that person is not interested in constructive discussion about the opinion
 or idea) is not a motivating reason for me to spend my time on something.
 Are you really unable to see the difference there?

 A fork has already happened, I don't think it will pick up too much
 momentum as most of its features are things pidgin just got, will be
 getting shortly, or already has via the same plugins. But more power to
 them if they want to try.

 I'm glad you have enjoyed it, I hope you continue enjoying it. pidgin
 isn't the first client to have a automatically resizing input area, I'm
 sure it won't be the last. I'm also reasonably certain it isn't the first
 not to allow for manual sizing of the input area. But none of that
 matters, the change wasn't made to "change the IM client world for the
 good" it was made because we enough people asked for the feature, we felt
 it was reasonable, we saw it as improving the quality of pidgin, and
 removing an annoyance many users had to deal with. It still isn't perfect,
 but we've stopped getting much help on what still needs fixing.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/5559#comment:9>
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