Re: [Usability] Better look Re: (no subject)

[Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

On 12/15/05, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-12-14 at 14:33 +0200, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> > On 12/14/05, Josue Farde <josuefrade sapo pt> wrote:
> > > thanks kalle
> > >
> > > but does that means that there isn't a responsable person for all
> > > that???
> > >
> >
> > GNOME is open source, driven by the community :)
> >
> > I'm not actually sure if anyone has the ultimate power regarding this
> > matter, it really needs to be a consensus.
>
> Well now, actually, we wallowed in our community consensus
> attempts for two release cycles without getting anything
> accomplished.

It tends to be that way with a group of people deciding on matters of taste.

What I meant more specifically was that nobody has been officially
appointed as the artistic director with the Grand Mallet of Theme
Decisions, so it must come from the community in one form or another.

> Everybody liked a different shade of blue.
> The insanity finally stopped when I put my foot down and
> declared ClearLooks our new default theme.

The consensus of the community (the one that really mattered) was not
that it should be X or Y, it was that the theme needed to change. You
acted as the finger on the community's hand to point the detailed
implementation of it's decision, not as the hand itself. IIRC the
theme candidates were not drastically different from each other.

A large group of people are good to point out what is bad and the need
to change, but it needs an individual or a small team to decide what
is good and how it should be implemented.

Those individuals usually need some form of merit to have the
authority to make the call. This usually means maintainers of
components, or other involved and skillful people.

I agree on the points you make about suggesting a new default theme.
It would be a long discussion with arguments on correct shading and
other little details which matter less than the actual move to a new
theme. But unless the gnome-themes maintainer or for example Gnome Art
project leader (does it have one?) is nominated as the decision maker,
I see no alternatives to this talk-long-then-someone-takes-action
process (in the good case that someone does take action of course,
often this doesn't happen as we know).

All the community can do as a group of people is to point out that we
need a change, express what's been wrong and what is the range of
acceptable solutions and let some individual take the lead and make it
so.

Unless you want to vote for the theme (not a good idea).

--
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi
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