Bikeshedding (Was: Suggestion for OOo branding...)

[Arthur Buijs <ar...@artietee.nl>]

Sometimes a discussion pops up that gets a lot of attention from a lot 
of people and it often leads to heated discussions. When this happens we 
(as a community) should be carefull not to run into the trap of 
bikeshedding [0].

This thread about icons and branding already contains more messages from 
more people than for example the move to SVN and some people are already 
throwing in accusations without explanations.

Because threads like this choke the community we should try to identify 
them early and see how we can work around them before they cause to much 
damage to our community.

For example in this case someone who is smart about branding and icons 
could do a proposal to add a page to the wiki and define (based on 
research and evidence) a set of guidelines for icons. Instead of 
discussing about a certain color on this list we discuss the reason to 
use (or not to use) colors. And then we hope this different discussion 
does not attract everybody with an opinion (because then the 
bikeshedding continues) but only those people who add value to the 
guidelines on the wiki with their knowledge and experience on the subject.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_Law_of_Triviality

-- 
Regards/groeten,
Arthur Buijs

Re: Bikeshedding (Was: Suggestion for OOo branding...)

[Wolf Halton <wo...@gmail.com>]

This is something new to me, "bikeshedding". I have participated in this
kind of discussio before, but never knew there was a term for the
phenomenon.
Thanks!

On Jul 24, 2011 7:09 AM, "Arthur Buijs" <ar...@artietee.nl> wrote:
> Sometimes a discussion pops up that gets a lot of attention from a lot
> of people and it often leads to heated discussions. When this happens we
> (as a community) should be carefull not to run into the trap of
> bikeshedding [0].
>
> This thread about icons and branding already contains more messages from
> more people than for example the move to SVN and some people are already
> throwing in accusations without explanations.
>
> Because threads like this choke the community we should try to identify
> them early and see how we can work around them before they cause to much
> damage to our community.
>
> For example in this case someone who is smart about branding and icons
> could do a proposal to add a page to the wiki and define (based on
> research and evidence) a set of guidelines for icons. Instead of
> discussing about a certain color on this list we discuss the reason to
> use (or not to use) colors. And then we hope this different discussion
> does not attract everybody with an opinion (because then the
> bikeshedding continues) but only those people who add value to the
> guidelines on the wiki with their knowledge and experience on the subject.
>
> [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_Law_of_Triviality
>
> --
> Regards/groeten,
> Arthur Buijs