On the actual point, I strongly believe we need to give much more weight to considerations of ease of use, functionality and accessibility when taking decisions about this forum. Right now I think we are tailoring this boards towards the preferences of just the most active members (and when you have a look at the forum stats, you can see I am part of that group). And in turn, that can not be helpful to reach out to lesser tech-enthusiastic Fairphoners and to make it easier for them to join and be active in the forum.
I wholeheartedly agree with @urs_lesse.
And I agree with @Chris_R that it - to say the least - was a case of bad communication.
So hereās my 2 cents in addition to the last posting. And please regard it as a general remark and no fingerpointing whatsoever
1 someone comes up with an idea
2 he/she asks for opinions on this idea
3 hardly a handful of users engages in the discussion
So, what to make of it?
A) Post, that you will test it and ask for opinions again,
B) Test/Change it and - at the same time - make an anouncement on the forum why you did it
C) Drop the case, as hardly anyone took part or even noticed the topic,
D) Change it without further notice?
Thatās just a few of the possibilities, but I really do hope, that we can agree on āD)ā being the least sensible choice.
Making any changes should always take into consideration, that they affect all users and that most people usually like the things they are used to, to stay unaltered. Thatās why rebranding, a change of name or packaging are quite rare and when they happen, they are accompanied by heavy marketing. Remember the new FP logo?
Thatās why I really opt for keeping changes to neccessary cases only and not for those instances, when one or a few users/admins/mods think āthat would be niceā
And thatās, where the - maybe a bit hefty - remark about abuse of power comes in (btw. it was not directed at someone specific if I get it right). When an idea is discussed between a few users only without reaching a conclusion and next someone goes ājust do itā simply because he/she can, it exactly feels like an abuse of power, as everyone else is still in discussion-mode.
@paulakreuzer
Do you remember, what you felt about my moving a posting (due to a misunderstanding on my side). See, thatās the way I guess @urs_lesse felt.
I do not care what colour the heart isā¦if you all want it redā¦I make it redā¦if you all want it purple I make it purpleā¦it looked like more people wanted blue so I did a minor css changeā¦so please let me know if the final decision is madeā¦than I can make it whateverā¦also I never feel attacked or insulted by anyone in the virtual worldā¦we all know that love rules the worldā¦love comes in all shapes and coloursā¦red, blueā¦as long as it is love
You are not talking about just one person here as the person who came up with the idea didnāt /couldnāt change it themselves.
From what I can see @Stefan asked @anon83519835 whether he could make the changes (I donāt know if Stefan intended that to be an invitation to do the changes). At Sep 11, 11:22 AM Stije announced that he did and not 2 minutes later the bashing began. Maybe Stefan was not online at the same time as Stije did the changes or maybe he was pissed because of the comments. Both a good reason not to post a level-headed explanatory post in-synch with the action I think.
This whole thing reminds me of another well-intended idea by Stefan: The āRefugees Welcomeā-account title. Itās okay not to like an idea, but there are limits to how harsh you should voice your disapproval. Stefan ended up closing and hiding the topic, because of a handful of very loud voices.
Sure that was an optional and voluntary change to your personal profile, while this is/would be a change that every forum member will encounter.
Hmmm ā¦ couldnāt it be made configurable in the Interface section of the Profile preferences?
If the settings there are fixed or not easily customizable, there could be theme variants (āFairphone Originalā/āFairphone Original Red Heartā and āFairphone-New-2017ā/āFairphone-New-2017-Red-Heartā) ā¦ and yes, Iām aware that this way of doing it wouldnāt scale well if we want to colour more UI elements differently .
Well, life goes on, blue heart or red heart ā¦
For Firefox thereās @Roboeās nice extension already.
And there are more general browser extensions out there for injecting CSS changes from the userās side into any site.
I asked @anon83519835 to make the necessary changes om September 2nd (over a week ago), when the discussion diverted and there seemed to be more people liking my proposal:
- me (btw. 7 / on the post).
- @paulakreuzer
- @stanzi
or not caring:
than being against it:
- @urs_lesse (btw 3 / , 2 of them also liked my initial post)
- @AnotherElk
- @ModularKing
I agree that a poll is a good idea and I admit that i hadnāt thought about it. Please ask for a poll next time (or create one yourself). Thanks to @paulakreuzer, who simply went ahead and created a poll.
The reason for my rushing was that I didnāt want a discussion to get delayed like this one: Rearranging Categories (again) . It has been going on for a year between only a handful of people, we have found a consensus and no action has been taken. I asked @anon83519835 to also go ahead and do the changes, but if you like, we can also make a poll about that decision.
I think that the category structure has a much higher impact on the entrance barrier to the forum than the colour of the heart icon.
I like this idea because of the old Fairphone logo, but I think there is a reason, why Discourse chose the heart rather than the star, which is more like a symbol to bookmark your favourite websites.
It was neither.
I also didnāt want to abuse any power (if I had more power I might abuse it and change the ugly favicon ;)) and want to apologize for causing bad feelings with some people here. I hope you can accept the apology.
Ps: I was indeed āafkā (away from keyboard) the whole day. If Fairphone paid me, Iād do the same working hours as @anon83519835.
PS:
Maybe you missed this part:
While @Stefan already explained everything, there for sure are no hard feelings on my behalf nor have there ever been.
Still, as I just now learned about the āRefugees Welcomeeā case, that seems to have had some parallels:
Stefan lists 8 users participating in this discussion.
There are nearly 20,000 registered users; maybe 2,000 of them active?
In my humble opinion the following could be a good basis for decisions:
If it enhances security, useability or is required by law, just do it and talk about it (parallel or in advance)
If itās just design, fashion or individual liking and there are less than 20 people even interested enough to join the discussion, donāt do it.
If itās design etc and you get a lively discussion between many users, do a poll and act according to it, talking about it (see above).
Of course, thatās just what I would do, as I would guess it could help minimizing miscommunication and misunderstandings.
Can you change my vote to ānot caringā please? I voted before I read the entire thread.
Youāll have to do that yourself. Just click on āhide resultsā and change your vote.
so what is the deal now?..I need to change the heart in a star?..a blue one? I can do that also if neededā¦
Wait till poll is over in 6 days.
Letās implement a āheart colorā option in the personal user settings.
This would of course be optimal.
@anon83519835 if you can do that then I guess we donāt even have to wait for the poll results. Default should probably be standard red.
Is a personal setting really necessary? Gosh, itās just a silly colour, so much drama for that. IMO it doesnāt worth the āmake a Discourse pluginā, āmaintain it between Discourse updatesā and ākeep a new register in the database for each user preferenceā efforts. But thatās @anon83519835ās decission, I guess.
I just see that as an arrogant solution* (āI donāt want anyone to take a decission so letās involve other peopleās work to non-fix this with absurd technology I wonāt take part inā). While Fairphone invest in going deep in how the production chain for fair gold in Uganda works, it really sounds like a totally Fairphone-antagonic solution to me.
Do whatever you want, I really donāt care about the stupid colour. But I care about this community. If a ālikeā colour has the power to break us in two parts, we are no longer a community but just a network of individuals. Think about that.
*= I shouldnāt need to clarify this, but anyway. An arrogant solution doesnāt imply the people that come up with that solution is arrogant at all.
Please donāt judge things that you donāt know anything about.
I like the idea of a ārelevance hurdleā that is binding for changes to the forum. Iām wondering, would it make Rearranging Categories (again) obsolete? āOnlyā 13 people have posted there.
In general Iād just like to mention that itās always easier to complain afterwards than to come up with good ideas before an action fails.
PS: Iām very happy with the browser extension @Roboe made and if Iād known that itās āso easyā Iād maybe never started this topic in the first placeā¦
I thought about it.
In my opinion itās not the question wether a blue or a red heart are to be preferred, that is ādividingā the community in this thread, but rather the way of communicating/acting with regard to that ācolorā-topic.
As I perceive it, it was the feeling āWhy do you ask my opinion, if you just do as you like before a decision has been reached?ā
And please ā¦ the āyouā is an impersonal one and not directed at any individual community member.
And doesnāt the way we communicate make it a community?
If someone is complaining about something I did or said, I often have to grant, that I used the wrong expression or said something that could be misunderstood or did not take someone elses interests into consideration.
As you can see from the following example:
I had no intention to judge anything. I just meant to reference a remark by Paula to explain, why I made the statement that followed.
And I am sorry, that you got another impression.
The poll has closed, can we switch back to the default setting (red heart)?
@anon83519835 the people has spoken. it is.
(or is it already switched back? I still have the plugin active, so I wonāt see the difference)
I have just liked your message to check, and no, itās still blue.