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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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....
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
~m