Valentines Special - Talk is cheap

In which we talk shortly on Valentines Day, refer people to the forum and comment on the comments of blogs. Also a short informational about whats going on and the issues facing us.

Juliana Coutinho / Creative Commons

I have a philosophy, I have several actually, but one that sticks out right now. Sometimes its better to just get going and do something than talk and plan for it forever. Its in action we show where we are going and its also only with some kind of result we can talk more precisely about what needs to be changed. Since it's Valentines here I like to think about it the way I met my husband. Our first date was done with skepticism from my part. I didn't know him that well, he seemed charming but I wasn't sold completely. But the only way to find out was to actually do something, to go out with him, and when he walked over Iron Square in Gothenburg towards me smiling nervously I think that was when I knew. But it was only through action, no matter how ill prepared it may have been, that we found out. It's only through risk that we gain the greatest things.

So I tend to applaud action first and then talk about problems with those actions later.

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... and I tend to take negative comments lightly. This may be a bit of a "uh-oh" moment for many as there is a false equivalency between "commenting" and "criticism" in Open Source which combined with the idea of the "customer" tend to wreck havoc with projects, but hear me out here:

Talk is cheap, some talk is cheaper than others. Anyone can say "This sucks". It takes no skill, it offers no input and its often more damaging than the original problem.
"Criticism", valuable criticism, is being able to not only say WHY something is bad or better yet suggest a fix, but also do it in a respectful way and a pedagogical way. If you can't even say whats wrong without resorting to rudeness and failing to properly describe it - chances are you have no idea what you're talking about anyway and nine times out of ten, your comment is a bigger problem to a project than the problem you are trying to address.

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Now for those who write blogs and get the first kind of comments on looks - refer them here to the Visual Design Group forum and say "Put up or shut up". A mockup isn't magic, a written suggestion isn't Olympic level mental acrobatics and being able to publicly and in an orderly way DEFINE what it is should be done - is not a high bar to clear. If you can say "this sucks" chances are you are capable of being a mensch about it and think about WHAT sucks, HOW it sucks and how it can be FIXED so it doesn't suck.

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But aside from that, whats going on with the VDG? Well for starters a majority of our designers are on Valentines Day leave (this one will too as soon as this post is done), we have a new member Andrew Lake a contributor to Bangarang and a designer of note from Seattle and things are slowly moving in the right direction!

Shapes, shadows and visuals are coming in place for Plasma 2 which swallows most of our time, attempts to balance it with design work for Plasma NM has been obviously tricky but hopefully they will get some help and there are PLENTY of work posted in the forums - so write a suggestion, post a mockup - don't be shy - better to do and doubt it than don't and regret it!

Next post will be the Monday Report and contain color choices, some motif's and our early moodboard. So stay tuned!