Bipartisanship // Plasticmind Blog

Bipartisanship

A few days ago, Jane Wells put out a call to all WordPress-loving Icon Designers over at WordPress.org to design the icons for the new WordPress admin screen.

Now, it’s no secret that I work primarily with Movable Type, but I’ve tried to make Plasticmind Design less about the tool and more about helping users succeed. I’ve worked with everything from Blogger to WordPress to Zen Cart in an effort to maximize user efficiency and experience (all tools fail in those areas at times). I’ve been critical of both platforms on my blog when their flaws justified it.

I saw this call as an opportunity to participate in the WordPress community, so I sent over this email:

I’d be very interested in designing the icons. I’ve done a lot of interface work with Movable Type and would love to branch out.

You can see my portfolio over at http://plasticmind.com/portfolio

Cheers! Jesse Gardner

The post made it clear that “to be taken seriously, you’ll need to show a background in icon design” and that “someone with experience (and possibly existing work they can leverage) is going to be the best candidate.” I’ve done fairly extensive icon work (having designed icons for several Movable Type plugins) so I thought it would be a good fit.

Earlier today I received this email:

Hi Jesse. Thanks for your interest, but the main goal of opening up the icon design to the community instead of just hiring someone was to give designers in the WordPress community a chance to contribute. From your blog it looks like you’re more of a Movable Type guy, which is cool (I was on MT for years myself), but would defeat the purpose. About a dozen hardcore WP users volunteered for the icon design, so we’ll most likely wind up using one of them.

Thanks for volunteering, though! Jane

Now, I’m not naive. I did realize when writing this email that getting chosen would be a stretch given the title of the post. I was just hoping that we could set our partisanship aside and focus on the issues (a better UI experience for WordPress users).

Update: I just got this email from Jane:

Hi Jesse. I was talking to Matt last night and pointed toward your post, and he agreed with your position. I think he’s also a pre-existing fan of your work. Anyway, if you’re still interested, you are welcome to participate.

The icon design project has basically been turned into a contest/competition. Since over a dozen professional icon designers from the WP community responded, rather than make a choice and put all our eggs in one basket, we decided to give everyone with a good portfolio a chance. About half a dozen designers were still interested after hearing the following plan.

Each designer is making two icons (posts and links) to show the style they would propose for their icon set. We’ll review them and give feedback to those that seem at least relatively on track, and will let anyone who’s super far off brand know that their icons aren’t really what we had in mind. The ones who move forward will create a full set, which we’ll then review. As long as the completed set still feels in brand, we’ll include it in the community vote for default icon set. The final decision rests with the lead developers, but the community vote will carry weight in that decision.

I’m actually really excited to be able to participate in this. It’s easy to start playing favorites based on platform, but it ultimately comes down helping more people get online, finding the right tool for their situation and making the current tools even better. That’s how we’re all going to succeed.

posted on 29 October 2008
by Jesse

Comments (10)
in the chapter, "CMS"
tagged with icon, Movable Type, WordPress

InterAction:

29 October 20081. Ray:

they don't know what kind of talent they are skipping over.........

29 October 20082. Mark:

The title of the WP post is "Calling all WordPress-loving Icon Designers." The last paragraph in the intro is "I’m always meeting people at WordCamps or via email who say they wish they could give back to WordPress, but that since they aren’t PHP developers, they feel like there isn’t any opportunity for them to be a part of the open source project. Well, here’s a golden opportunity. Want to design the new WordPress icons?"

It seems that the call is to avid WordPress users more than it is to designers. For you in the MT community it could be a serious horn-honking thing to "win" this opportunity, while at the same time not be in the best interests of the WP community.

If all they want is icons, it seems you would be an excellent choice. If they want community-provided icons, a star in the MT world might not be the best choice for them.

29 October 20083. Dr. Mike Wendell:

That's a shame. I do note that any trackback from this post is not showing up on the wp.org blog post. That doesn't surprise me.

I think that this Jane person is quickly on her way to alienate as many folks as she can. Sounds like a typical Automattic employee if you ask me.

29 October 20084. Jane Wells:

Jesse, I certainly didn't mean to slight you. The point of posting on the WP dev blog (as opposed to a general design community blog) was to put the opportunity in front of the WP community, for the reasons I outlined in my post that Mark references above. I was trying to give the people who'd been asking for a way to be involved a chance at bat. Bringing in a professional who doesn't use the application for their own site would have been like bringing in a designated hitter, which was the reason we didn't just hire someone in the first place. I'm trying to move WP design stuff out of the perceived "Matt is a design dictator and Automattic makes all the decisions"-land and into "This is an open source project, and the community has a voice"-ville. I'm not trying to play Platform War... I have a friendly history with the founders of both MT and Blogger, have used both platforms happily in the past, and I think the animosity that seems to occasionally spring up between the communities is just plain silly. I mean, it's just software, right?

The point was that this wasn't a design job, it was a community opportunity; surely you can appreciate the difference. You'd be eminently qualified to be hired outright, but in order to be a community volunteer you'd first need to be part of the community. If I'd posted on a design blog and then said no because you don't use WordPress, I would see your point, but the post was on the WP dev blog and stated clearly that it was a community thing for the open source project. I don't understand why that screams partisanship to you, but to me it's just giving an extra opportunity to the people who've been asking for it.

Dr. Mike: You don't even know me; do you need to talk about me like that? I'm a nice person, and I try to give people opportunities to be involved in the dev cycle that they didn't have before. "This Jane person" wouldn't write things like that about you. Can't we all just play nice?

And for the record, I would absolutely approve this trackback if it had shown up in the dev blog moderation queue. The only criteria for approving trackbacks is that it must contribute to the conversation, which I think Jesse's post does. However, no trackback has come into the queue from this post. If Jesse wants to send one, I will certainly approve it.

29 October 20085. Jesse Gardner:

@Dr. Mike: I'm not a fan of generalization, it usually does more to hurt than to help. If you don't have personal experience with "this Jane person", it's probably better to keep those comments to yourself.

@Jane: Sorry for the nasty comment; my rule of thumb is to let things stand where they may and reply rather than delete... just wanted you to know I don't share the same sentiment.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify. I guess I was a little disappointed that consideration for the job wasn't based on best fit but rather alliances, especially since this was a non-paying job. It seems like you'd have nothing to lose by having several people submit samples and then take the best one on the merit of the work itself. If anything, I'd be the one losing out by making WordPress look better and alienating my Six Apart insider status. *wink wink* But honestly, I do thank you for stopping in and I will end this comment with:

http://xkcd.com/438/

30 October 20086. Dr. Mike Wendell:

Sorry you feel that way but I've seen her stepping on a lot of folks toes recently. As to the "Can't we all just play nice?" comment, I await the day that she and the other Automattic employees start to play nice. I invite Jane to go look up support ticket UJE-369880 and wonder when they'll start doing so. I'm actually amazed that she didn't make a racist or bigoted comment in my direction. They have in the past.

30 October 20087. Jesse Gardner:

@Mike: Let's try to keep support tickets where they belong and focus on the main point of this post.

30 October 20088. Anil:

i think those of us who have been at SIx Apart long enough have known Jane since before WordPress existed, and it's great to see her putting her talents into helping bloggers the way she is doing.

The idea that there's an "MT community" vs. a "WP community" is stupid, and people who perpetuate the idea usually are either uniformed or have an agenda that goes counter to what's good for blogging. Pretty much anyone who's serious about blogging uses multiple platforms and adopts technologies from everybody in the space, and if they identify as belonging to a community, it's based on the topics they talk about or perhaps as part of "the blogging community" as a whole. If we see someone from the MT community helping WordPress users, we think that's great for blogging, and the MT team itself and all of us at Six Apart have created a ton of resources and services and tools for WP users -- the latest I just blogged about on sixapart.com today.

Jesse, glad to see more people appreciating your talents, and good luck!

30 October 20089. Mark:

I admit I am probably quite uninformed, and that I am anything but an "avid" blogger. I can easily say I have no agenda, since I'm not active in either MT or WP. But I know there is a pride in accomplishing something or in being defined as a part of something. If Jane and the WP community had decided to keep the icon contest limited, would that have been a bad thing?

The idea of separate "communities" may be stupid, but it's life. The recognition of communities does not imply a need to move to commonality or non-distictiveness (?). Neither does it require battle-lines and mud-slinging. Congeniality is certainly desired! SixApart certainly holds meetings and functions that are not open to "non-community" (non-employee) members? Sure, we can (and do!) all benefit from shared resources, but the notion that we HAVE to share resources all the time seems silly.

As if I have a handle on it all. My point is simply that limiting a particular "thing" to a specific community is not, by default, stupid.

Also, I know that Jesse has enough talent in his pinky to run most others out of the game. Go, Jesse!

18 April 200910. new_job:

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