[Ambassadors] FYI Fedora 12 one page release notes. :)

[Máirín Duffy]

On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 18:58 +0100, Nelson Marques wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 12:57 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> > On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 17:09 +0100, Nelson Marques wrote:
> > >  In the past when we selected "Rock it", I've pointed similiar points to
> > > the Marketing Team and we've actually issued a small context in which to
> > > fit the slogan. I remember Paul clearly saying not to associate it with
> > > rocks, and soon after the first image that poped out (from an
> > > ambassador) was a rock. The term rock itself can be related to crack for
> > > instance. 
> > 
> > Rock as a verb, not as a noun.
> 
> To stone someone, to rock someone, implying throwing a stone at someone.
> Stonings exist in middle east as a capital punishment. So in the Middle
> East it might raise problems. Doesn't mean it will, but might. Monty
> Python plays with this in the movie "the life of brian".
> I've pointed it out back then, and sorted a solution with Paul and et
> all, so that it would minimize the impact and reduce the chance of
> misinterpretations. 

I've never actually heard 'rock' used as a verb, only 'stone.' That
aside, rather than telling us what we can't use, I think it might be
more helpful / effective to tell us what we *can* use. Were there any
other suggestions on the list that you would deem usable? (I am honestly
finding it hard to imagine that anything would be acceptable based on
some of the interpretations you've posed but maybe I'm overreacting
because I personally don't agree with any of the potential
misinterpretations you've posed so far and I like to think I'm pretty
open-minded. :( )
> 
> > > 
> > >  In 2004, the GNOME Project issued a release name called "Temujin" (also
> > > known as Ghengis Kahn, or The Impaler). Apparently, this would not make
> > > much problems, until someone found on it ammunition and GNOME no longer
> > > issues release names. Nowadays, they even prepare themselfs for possible
> > > press attacks (being worked for instance related to gnome-shell).
> > 
> > Well, that sucks that GNOME no longer has release names. 
> 
> Since 2004. But anyway the point is that, even without knowing they've
> hurted the audience, not only GNOME suffered from that, as it's sponsors
> and eventually Open Source / Free Software.

I've been using GNOME since 2001 and I've never heard of that release
name before. Although the FLOSS community as a whole was definitely in a
different place back then, and while we've come a long way we still have
further to go (e.g., usage of male-centric pronouns for one :) )
> 
> > > 
> > >  On another field, Anthropology studies human behavior and human
> > > relations, in this field we study cultures, sub-cultures and
> > > anti-cultures and their roles in societies. It is normal that symbols
> > > are shared, and it is normal that symbols get deviations that resemble
> > > the original. So pointing this or that is really futile, as each
> > > individual will look them as they want to. You, me or whoever else, cant
> > > really control that. If it becomes wrongly interpreted, there might be
> > > ammunition to fire at us.
> > 
> > So we should just not design anything at all? This is an interesting
> > problem but I don't see any posed solutions here.
> 
>  Not at all. You should continue exactly has it always has been and most
> likely as it always will be, providing creative solutions. Fedora
> Artwork is one of it's most valuable things in my opinion. Always
> defended that.
> 
>  In fact, since I get the feeling you are the leader (no, I haven't
> runned background checks) of the design team, mind if I address later on
> through you to your community and get participation on something I'm
> working on for Fedora? It's a SWOT analysis, a strategical tool. We have
> to highlight Strength's, Weaknesses (factors we can control). Could your
> team provide some point in those fields that directly involve your work?
> It's actually good for your Team :) I will provide the links later on,
> as it's still not ready.

Sure, that'd be sweet! Sounds like an interesting tool.
> 
> > 
> > I mean, I have to get to work in the morning. Traffic in the Boston area
> > is dangerous and there are many accidents. I don't huddle in my
> > apartment for fear of getting into a car, though. You have to move
> > forward.
> 
> Well, even when I step out of the house, doesn't mean I'm safe, I can be
> hitted by a car. But this is by far not related to Brand Management,
> which obviously has guidelines.
> 
> > > 
> > >  Further more, my goal was not to diminish someone's work, in fact I've
> > > made strong compliments in the past to the "Release Notes". When this
> > > issue poped out, I stopped caring about this subject in particular, and
> > > as I've informed already the Marketing Group, I will make an appointment
> > > for a meeting to discuss this and will provide them the tools that
> > > Marketing uses to analyse this. If they choose to listen or not, that's
> > > another story, but from this, I wash my hands away.
> > 
> > What tools are you going to provide? What solution do you have in mind?
> 
> They are not actually mine, but for instance we're working (me included
> with some packaging) on providing a LimeSurvey plataform for Fedora and
> any other Open Source Projects that want to use it (which should be
> considered by your team as well, and in this field I can help you guys
> building the surveys, and providing information regarding questionnaire
> ethics and methods, I can offer myself to help you build it and for data
> mining purposes,
>  I would recon it's something that might be useful for
> your Team).

I'm not quite sure having surveys for every design decision is a good
plan, though? E.g., I wouldn't consider the one-page release notes a
major enough project to go through the overhead of setting up a survey
for so it wouldn't have helped in that situation. (As it was, time-wise
it was a quick & dirty project.) Maybe for the release backgrounds
though a survey would be useful! We're always looking for feedback on
those.

>  I've already pointed enough documentation on how to conduct
> surveys and stuff. This will give us enough data (non-personal) to work
> with. We have Robyn who will be a great help for data-mining.

Well, I think it's debatable whether or not a survey of personal opinion
on a design is personal or not! :)

>  From my personal side, I pretend to develop a campaign aimed to Fedora
> contributors with a easy approach on how Marketing can help Fedora
> establishing it's goals, and of course a small piece of documentation
> regarding the importance of sensible topics. It's mainly something for
> those who want to have another perspective to learn something out of
> their fields of expertise.
>  Anyway this is to be discussed after F13, right now there's a lot to be
> done regarding F13.

This sounds like a good project, sweet.
> 
> > > 
> > >  As for wikipedia, it is not an academical source, anyone can type what
> > > they want there. There's really no point in clearing it out, as one can
> > > change it easily and display whatever they want. Marketing doesn't
> > > follow wikipedia, follows the Academy where it is created as a science
> > > that operates in several fields, some of psychology, others of
> > > anthropology, mathematics, etc.
> > 
> > Having visited Hawaii and knowing two people who lived in Hawaii for
> > some time now I can independently confirm for you that in fact the 'hang
> > loose' sign is a friendly greeting actually used in Hawaii and by
> > surfers in California as well. 
> 
> Fedora is a distribution with a world wide audience (so we can't really
> focus on what I think, or what someone else thinks. We have to focus on
> large communities that share cultural factors, not on a personal basis).
> I know Hang Loose for ages, I own Hang Loose gear, and I do amateur
> surfing since the age of 16, as I live seaside. I am very fond of it,
> and I've also performed a Market Study in the past regarding Surf Brands
> (since somehow I was fond of them). That's why I used the Hang Loose
> example, and my point was exactly what it was... Hang Loose looses
> market shares in some areas because of the local cultures, the same
> doesn't happen much with Quicksilver, which seems to be interpreted by
> people in a whole different way. To be noted that their symbology hits
> very resticted controlled communities.

If an Italian in Germany makes a hang loose sign though....  
> 
> > >  Everyone misses the point, it is not about our message, but clearly how
> > > people can interpret it. As for the Shaka, it's a derivate from the
> > > Hands Horns or Voor which is far older, and if you make black and white
> > > and just analyze the silhouette across a sample population, you will get
> > > your results, not like this. Things are never done like this.
> > 
> > You can only control the message you send, not how it's interpreted.
> > This entire situation here is I believe an extreme example of how we
> > really have no control over how folks interpret things. If I wear the
> > color black, which symbolizes death, you can interpret that to mean I'm
> > either goth or someone died, but 99 cases out of 100 it just means I
> > happened to pick that shirt out of my drawer in the morning.... 
> 
> You can't actually control it, there will always be flaws and there's no
> perfect message. The main point is in before hand establishing some
> potential problems that might arise and work to minimize them. I've
> tried to avoid this subject in the past, but for instance in Portugal
> there are public monuments to very important people displaying a
> Swastika cross. Recent governments have tried to remove it because it
> could hurt (was actually doing so) tourists feelings. Not ignoring that
> during the 30's, Portugal had the most massive anti-nazi campaigns in
> Europe, and that we were actually a dictatorship, but a roman-catholic /
> pro-monarchy dictatorship, sharing nothing with fascism and nazism
> except the fact that we were also a totalitarian system.
> 
> Colors do have a meaning and it's actually something very present in
> Marketing. Black there, purple in Europe and White in Mouslin Nations,
> all of them are mourning associated colors. But they also have other
> meanings. Colors are analyzed in Marketing through "positive" and
> "negative" meanings, and there is another topic here, which relates
> culturally and historically colors to heraldics, actually those are the
> meanings that are more popular and percepted by people. Green for
> "hope", Red for "blood", etc etc. I will compile a list of meanings for
> colors in the Western Civilization and place it on the wiki.

Honestly? I don't think that's going to be a useful exercise. I think
that is taking things a bit far. You can spin anything to be positive or
negative. If the intent is clearly positive, I think it's really a
losing game to sacrifice the design in the minute chance someone would
struggle to take offense at it.
> 
> 
> > > 
> > >  My battle lies ahead with the Marketing Team, on this subject, I have
> > > nothing more to add. When I joined Fedora I said more than one time that
> > > I would start mainly with F14 preparation, so that none of this problems
> > > can actually happen or can be minimized. It was never my goal to be
> > > involved in F13, neither F12, though I ended up being involved.
> > 
> > It's the design team creating and selecting the artwork.
> 
> Did I ever interfered with the anyone's work? That is something I really
> agree. It's your field of expertise, not mine. Mine is just pointing
> stuff out and try to point/minimize potential harmful situations.

Criticizing the photo of Samuele as being offensive specifically does
not set a good tone.
> 
> > > 
> > >  Please, be understandable, that we are working on different fields,
> > > neither I am attacking your work. Personally that an image I would never
> > > use. But I have other topics to bring to the attention of the Marketing
> > > Team, like using children's images and so on. So in the future, maybe on
> > > a Marketing FAD, I hope we get some more accurate guidelines. What
> > > people fail to understand is that this was never related to my personal
> > > opinion (one reason is that I really don't care), but from what
> > > people/audience might interpret from this, and if they decide to use it
> > > as free ammunition against us, they will, and in most cases like this
> > > one, they will succeed. 
> > 
> > Has anyone actually interpreted that image to mean Satan's horns besides
> > yourself?
> 
> No, I don't interpreted it as Satan, neither I am a roman catholic by
> nature, I stopped being one when my local priest said people who aren't
> baptized go to hell. I've buried a brother already, because he died
> minutes after he was born, so he's probably in Hell. I'm a Pagan. There
> is no Satan is Paganism.
> 
> The matter, is not how I interpret it, but possible interpretations
> associated with it. Maybe not in the US, but Fedora ships worldwide, and
> thats the problem, people who have different conceptions of the world.
> Not accepting that, might be harmful. 

Okay. So NOBODY actually interpreted it as being Satan's horns. There is
no problem then.
> 
> I can gather information for you regarding this. Advertisement campaigns
> with world wide "friendly" symbology that went bad because someone
> (community or sometimes just a press article) remembered of attacking
> the symbol. Just by curiosity.

I don't need any information on this. I've heard the Chevy 'Nova' in
Spanish-speaking countries story, the palm icon story, etc etc etc. I
already gave you an outline of my background on these things, any
additional information is really not going to be helpful to me. I do
sincerely appreciate the offer though.
> 
> > 
> > Preparing time-intensive solutions to a problem that may not actually
> > exist doesn't seem like a good usage of time to me. Especially if it's
> > going to hinder my team's ability to get things done.
> 
> I wouldn't believe such thing would happen, neither I do want to
> handicap no one (specially not creatives, which are very important). But
> ignoring potential stressful situations (happened to GNOME in the past
> as referred) might not be good for the community, and probably that will
> reflect also on our sponsor.

Every situation is potentially stressful. That's it. 

If someone wants to twist 'rock it' to mean that in Fedora we stone
people, they can go ahead and do that. There is going to be no pleasing
such a person, so why bother trying?
> 
> And besides, if I have to prepare something to present, it's actually
> _my_ time, and if I spend time with it, it's actually because I think
> it's important. We are all working for the same goal, aren't we ?
> 
> > > 
> > >  As I am ready to hold my ground and take the fight to preserve our
> > > brand integrity, I am sure there might be some willing to the same for
> > > the opposite.
> > > 
> > >  Professional background isn't an issue, some of the biggest Advertising
> > > Agencies have been responsible for hundreds of millions in damages to
> > > popular brands like Adidas, Nike, Mazda, Citroen, Esso, etc etc. So this
> > > is actually rather more complex.
> > 
> > Right, which points out maybe the futility of having a cultural review
> > board...? If Nike ($$$$$$$) can't get it right, how can Fedora?
> 
> Recognizing other's peoples mistakes and learning something with them,
> would already be awesome, don't you agree? I'm pretty sure that the
> creative/designer who made the "flame logo" for Nike never realized that
> it resembled closely to the word "God" in mouslin dialects. Maybe if he
> was aware of it, Nike could have saved a couple hundred of millions and
> not be advertised on the negative by the press... 
> 
> Thats how people/industry usually evolve.

There's no possible way we can get the number of eyes required to make
sure everything is perfect, especially if large companies like Nike
can't. As it is the Fedora design team shares their designs pretty
publicly and widely. I understand people make mistakes and I'm familiar
with quite a few public cases of such mistakes. Knowing about these
mistakes doesn't really help, because they are never intentional, and
you just sort of have to know the specific context of the offense to
make sure you don't commit that particular offense. Generally, the only
thing you can do is get more eyes, more reviewing, more approvals - but
this sort of process slows everything down and adds so much overhead
that folks would rather not design a thing at all than be subjected to
such a long, drawn-out process. Better to have a design at all with a
minute chance of offending someone, than no design at all or a design
that takes months to complete because at the last minute someone decided
to be offended and everything had to be re-done.
> > 
> > >  PS: Maybe joining the Marketing List or establishing a bridge with it
> > > might help the artists to learn a bit more in other fields that are
> > > relevant to their work. That would be my suggestion.
> > 
> > We created the one-page release notes working very closely with the
> > marketing team. A good suggestion - it's just already in place.
> 
> If you read the archives, I've suggested that already a long time ago,
> as I fundamented why such should be accomplished.

We've been doing it for a long time. I'm on the marketing team and I'm
the team lead for the design team and it's been that way since 2007...
> 
> It's a clear +1.
> 
> I'm getting the feeling that somehow you have the feeling that I'm
> trying to handicap or diminishing your work. That is false. I can assure
> you that.

No, not at all. Rather, I feel like you're ruminating on an unsolvable
problem without providing any solutions to solve it - there is no way to
solve it. Sometimes you hit bad luck and you offend someone. In the case
of Samuele's photo, no one has even identified themselves as actually
being offended as far as I can tell. Why worry about it if it's not a
problem? It's really quite a stretch of the imagination to be offended
by a picture of three happy guys laughing, wearing Fedora shirts, in the
context of Fedora release notes, with no indications whatsoever of
anything having to do with Satan. If you're going to pick things apart
in the name of cultural sensitivity, you really shouldn't do so in
isolation - instead, viewing the photo in the context it's presented in,
if you could bend your mind to read Samuele's gesture as being Satan
horns, looking at the photo in the context of the release notes quickly
makes it clear that no such meaning was ever intended.

Sometimes you make a mistake but you have to move forward.... here we
haven't even made a mistake.

~m