Re: Cultural Issue with the Foot Logo

["Theppitak Karoonboonyanan" <thep linux thai net>]

Dear gnome-i18n,

I believe this is an appropriate place to discuss about cultural
conventions.

How is a foot interpreted in your culture? Do you have the same
issue I have met? In my culture, showing foot is considered rude.
And the foot is not something to impress people who are totally new
to GNOME.

I am not asking to replace the foot logo. I just wish to have a secondary
one which can also represent GNOME in my culture. But to convince
people for the proposal, the effect of this issue may need some
estimation.

Note that icon theming also helps at some degree to avoid showing the
foot. But when talking about something outside the UI, such as
screenshots in documentations, web site logos, and any other kinds
of promotions, we need more consistency. That is, we need some
alternative logo which people recognize as GNOME.

So, how about your culture? Is a foot considered offensive?

Thanks,
-- 
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
http://linux.thai.net/~thep/

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 4:18 PM, Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
<thep linux thai net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have thought about this issue for a while whether it
> should be raised or not, as the logo has been in use
> for a long time. And I'm not sure if it's ever discussed
> anywhere about the cultural issue with the GNOME's
> foot logo, which may obstruct GNOME promotion in
> some way.
>
> In Thai culture, and I'm pretty sure also in the nearby
> regions, showing foot is considered rude, as it's the
> lowest part of the body. And a variation of the word
> 'foot' in Thai is used for scolding, in the tone close to
> "f**k" or "b*tch" in English.
>
> I have had hard times introducing GNOME to Thai people
> who never know about it before, and their reactions
> are awkward when seeing the foot logo. I have to
> explain that it's a footprint, not the foot itself. But that
> doesn't help much, as footprint also indicates treading
> with a foot.
>
> Some people simply refuse GNOME with the reason
> that it's impolite.
>
> That sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable to
> promote GNOME to new users as-is, or with
> distributions that try to keep upstream look-and-feels
> like Debian. But with Ubuntu or Fedora, where the
> main menu logo is replaced with something else,
> that's more OK. Just avoid letting them see the animated
> foot on Epiphany or Nautilus, until they are familiar with
> GNOME enough.
>
> I don't know if this is an issue for other cultures.
> Just want to raise it for awareness on an obstacle.
>
> Should there be an alternative logo for GNOME?
> For example, using a gnome head instead is OK.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
> http://linux.thai.net/~thep/
>