Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo
Hi, On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Sergey Panov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've mentioned those two examples in the wain attempt to prove that some (many/most) of the cultural sensitivities are ridiculous to the point of being foony. When I saw foot(long, long time ago) as a Gnome Desktop emblem I was not happy. I thought that the stinkiest part of the human body did not deserve to be an emblem of the one of the most important GNU projects. It had nothing to do with the cultural(Russian) background, it was my personal reaction. I am still a Gnome bigot and that Foot does not bother me much anymore (all emblems are stupid). I even find it kinda cool now - rebellious, in-your-face sort of thing. Please, please think twice, trice, ... before claiming cultural differences/problems. Please check if it is just you. As said somewhere else in these two threads, it's not me either. And I believe most GNOME fans here like it. The question is not for you, it's about your culture in general. The problem I've met is a kind of barrier for new comers, as foot is considered the least respected part of the body in my culture. It's not that kind of disgust you explained. But it's a sign of strong disrespect. You should not point with your foot. You should not expose your foot toward others, bare or with shoe on. Raising foot over one's head, the most respected part of the body, by any means is a most obvious sign of disrespect. When sleeping, you should never point your foot to Buddha's image. On the other hand, allowing other's feet to be put over one's head is the highest degree of paying respect, which is reserved for one's beloved masters. And paying respect at other's feet is also the highest degree of respect, which is reserved for one's parents or higher people. These are traditions in societies where seniority plays an important role like mine. So, you can imagine how people think when someone showing foot to them. It's like claiming of higher status and treating the target person as a lower class or alike. A Wikipedia page [1] describes this as a taboo in countries strongly influenced by Buddhism. But I doubt this claim, as I find little relation to Buddha's teaching. Rather, I think it might come with religions from India in the past. The traditional Indian culture, obviously influenced by Hinduism, might come along with the priests and monks from India and Sri Langka. However, that's just my hypothesis about history. But the fact is that this convention has indirect relation to some relegious values. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot#In_culture Wow, a long description, isn't it? Just to clarify that it's not the same kind as what you talked about. PS. To me, the good example of culturally insensitive emblem would be the old indo-europen symbol for the raising sun (kolovrat in Slavic). Ah, you mean Swastika, right? Yes, it seems to be acceptable everywhere. I agree. Some academy, however, may distinguish between the right-facing and the left-facing forms. The right-facing form means clockwise turning, which is a sign of paying respect to some holy body for auspiciousness, while the left-facing form, counter-clockwise, is for misfortunes and is used in funerals. But this is just minor detail. The next in line is the sickle-and-hammer variant. Are Americans OK? Regards, -- Theppitak Karoonboonyanan http://linux.thai.net/~thep/ -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo
Murray Cumming schrieb: To make something happen, I guess you need to suggest a particular design. Then the GNOME board could approve it - you need to ask the board for a simple yes/no decision or it won't happen. That would be a very bad idea. Essentially a logo should be selected with care next time. Just something different could easily be approved by the board but then could result in the next issue one day later. A logo can be everything and it does not take much time to think of 'anything'. What would be needed is a well thought through logo idea with also some good people working on it. I think 'marketing by accident' is like one starts programming randomly without any standards or idea what one wants to accomplish. I would wish that some things would change at GNOME. Regards, Thilo -- Thilo Pfennig - PfennigSolutions IT-Beratung- Wiki-Systeme Sandkrug 28 - 24143 Kiel (Germany) http://www.pfennigsolutions.de/ XING: https://www.xing.com/profile/Thilo_Pfennig - LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo
On Sun, 2008-11-02 at 20:47 +0100, Thilo Pfennig wrote: Murray Cumming schrieb: To make something happen, I guess you need to suggest a particular design. Then the GNOME board could approve it - you need to ask the board for a simple yes/no decision or it won't happen. That would be a very bad idea. Essentially a logo should be selected with care next time. Just something different could easily be approved by the board but then could result in the next issue one day later. A logo can be everything and it does not take much time to think of 'anything'. What would be needed is a well thought through logo idea with also some good people working on it. I think 'marketing by accident' is like one starts programming randomly without any standards or idea what one wants to accomplish. I would wish that some things would change at GNOME. This assumes that the GNOME artists and the GNOME board are idiots. Note that I won't be discussing whether they are, or whether I am. -- Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo
Murray Cumming schrieb: This assumes that the GNOME artists and the GNOME board are idiots. Note that I won't be discussing whether they are, or whether I am. I never wrote or meant that. I think there are people inside the GNOME community who have marketing experience and who could lead a way to a new logo. I think issues like this is exactly where the GNOME marketing team should take care/responsibility. Regards, Thilo -- Thilo Pfennig - PfennigSolutions IT-Beratung- Wiki-Systeme Sandkrug 28 - 24143 Kiel (Germany) http://www.pfennigsolutions.de/ XING: https://www.xing.com/profile/Thilo_Pfennig - LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tpfennig -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 1:26 AM, Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 2008-11-02 at 17:25 +0700, Theppitak Karoonboonyanan wrote: The problem I've met is a kind of barrier for new comers, as foot is considered the least respected part of the body in my culture. It's not that kind of disgust you explained. But it's a sign of strong disrespect. You should not point with your foot. You should not expose your foot toward others, bare or with shoe on. Raising foot over one's head, the most respected part of the body, by any means is a most obvious sign of disrespect. When sleeping, you should never point your foot to Buddha's image. We all believe you, I think. Thanks for telling us about this. To make something happen, I guess you need to suggest a particular design. Then the GNOME board could approve it - you need to ask the board for a simple yes/no decision or it won't happen. Thanks for suggestion. We have got some ideas from the discussion so far. Please see a summary at: http://live.gnome.org/FootAndCulturalIssue Other ideas are still welcome. Maybe you could contact the GNOME Art team. They could make some suggestions. Don't focus on the Gnome idea. Few people think of small mythical beings when they think of GNOME. Unfortunately, I don't have a good suggestion. Some other form of G, maybe? I've also been trying to find some idea like that. So far, the OK hand sign showing a G is not passed, as it's said to mean something dirty in South America. A gnome hat and head seem to be the best we can get so far. (See the live page above.) Regards, -- Theppitak Karoonboonyanan http://linux.thai.net/~thep/ -- marketing-list mailing list marketing-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-list
