Santa hat

There is already an option to disable that, since years. This has been discussed over and over.

Note also that being offended is not an argument, and will never be.

closed

It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?

--I saw hate in a graveyard - Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 2005. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry#Others

Who said anything about rights? Yikes. I'm telling you how your software makes me feel. If you don't care, that's your prerogative. If you don't want to get feedback about it, tough luck.

I don't know where people have come up with this idea that Christmas symbols aren't religious. They're not all theological. Fine. But the only people who use these symbols are Christians. (If you look globally, I'm sure the number of counter-examples would be nominal.) These symbols are a group identifier. They bring with them a set of values and beliefs AND historical baggage (persecution, intolerance, etc). Values and beliefs have no place in free software, unless you are going to say upfront that your software promotes a set of values and beliefs (whatever you'd say they are -- pagan, spiritual, joyful, it doesn't matter).

I hope this clarifies the bug report.

You ALREADY have the option to disable that, in preferences.

And say "I don't like it", not "I'm offended", next time.

And in case you don't find the option:

Tools > Preferences > Show settings (in the lower left corner) > click "All" > Go to "Interface > Main interfaces > Qt > scroll down > Untick "Allow automatic icon changes" > hit "Save"

I'm not opposed to seasonal icons and actually think they're kind of cute, but I do agree with @tauberer that software shouldn't reinforce specific religions.

My suspicion is the developer that added this feature never suspected they were stirring a hornet's nest, but now it's been stirred and we have to deal with it with seeings to turn it off and tickets like this one.

One thought I had: I'm not a designer but why not keep the feature more or less as it is, but change the icon to something that doesn't promote a specific religion's iconography? I imagine that'd still realize the presumed goal of this feature (cuteness) while fixing the very valid issue that @tauberer is raising.

Is that something vlc would be opposed to?

A holiday hat is not a religious symbol. Are you going to complain that the end of the years have official holidays?

Moreover, there is a very simple way to disable it, that you would have found with a minimal Google search.

The more you go, the more the quote applies to you...

If you think you can improve the software, send patches.
If you can, and want, fork it.
If not, please use another software.

Patch sets default qt-icon-change value to false.

Added attachment:

qt-icon-change.patch

A holiday hat is not a religious symbol.

I wondered about that, but I think you're wrong. I did some digging on this. I couldn't find any great sources on the Santa hat's history, but here's a summary of what I did find:

The Washington Post's religion reporter was livid when her school made her son wear a Santa hat:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-should-my-jewish-child-have-to-wear-a-santa-hat-at-school/2014/12/19/262f0b9e-8234-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html

I assume she's an expert on this topic so that lends some credibility.

Everything else I can find indicates that the hat is based on depictions of Saint Nicholas, putting it squarely in the Christian category.

But aside from that, you've got to admit that if it's commonly called a Santa hat, and if Santa is based on a Christian saint, then it's part of a particular religion.

Obviously we won't be forking vlc over this bug any more than we would over another bug, but I hope my point is clear that this is a valid issue, unless the design of the feature is to promote Christianity or its iconography.

I know there's a backlash against people that are out to demote Christmas and I hear the frustration in your voice, but imagine being a non-Christian and having this iconography show up in your computer all of a sudden.

There are plenty of arguments to be made in favor of religiosity in software, I'm sure. If somebody wants to make Christian video software, that's their business, and I don't care. But there is no argument to be made that the iconic hat of Saint Nicholas—the gift-giving Catholic saint whose feast day falls in December, and whose Anglicized name is from the Dutch "Sinterklaas"—is not religious in nature. Go ahead and make VLC religious—I don't care—but don't insult users' intelligence by claiming that you're not. If this isn't about religion and you don't care if people are offended, then I try displaying the star and crescent associated with Islam, during Ramadan, and let us know how that goes.

Further, checking off a "don't mess with my icon" button isn't really helpful, because one has no way of knowing what other religious symbols might appear where (not necessarily limited to the icon), and one has no way of knowing whether changing the icon might otherwise be a useful feature. Only a "no religious iconography" option would provide the feature that you're looking for.

Original author: waldo jaquith

First, you never state what you believe the solution to be. You have no rights here. It's not the VLC team's job to make you happy; they choose to try to make most people happy while designing great software.

Second, As the user jb said, saying things like "I'm Jewish," "I don't appreciate this," "I find it offensive," "I find it totally out of line" is no argument. It's not even a bad argument. It's just pointless whining, childlike. A proper argument could have at least been something like "The use of the Santa hat alienates most of the VLC userbase."

Third, Santa is secular. Perhaps Santa Claus was based upon Saint Nicholas (whom even Christians know little about). Maybe. However, even if this were true (which it might not be), it holds little meaning. It's like how Christmas is said to have origins in Saturnalia, the Roman holiday beginning on the 17th of December, which involved gift-giving. Christmas was not a pagan holiday, simply because it was based upon one. It is argued by some that the modern Santa Claus was basically invented by Washington Irving who, in a satirical history of New York, described alleged Dutch beliefs about Sinter Claes, or Saint Nicholas. In any case, Santa Claus is a modern idea, maybe based in Christian tradition, but not, in itself, Christian.

Today, Santa Claus has no religious affiliation. Google, the United States government, Coca-Cola, and so many corporations which have Jewish users, understand this. That's why you see Google's Santa tracker, Michelle Obama's publicity stunt with NORAD (an official component of the U.S. government), and Coca-Cola's yearly winter advertisements. These are organisations which actually employ people for the sole purpose of analysing the effects of this type of thing, and have determined that the use of Santa does not discriminate.

Fourth, even if Santa Claus is religious (it's not), Christian symbols are all over. Do you sob every time you see a mosque? Do you scream with terror when you drive through the city and see a church, with a cross at its top? When you see an atheist, wearing a shirt promoting atheism, do you throw yourself to the ground, covering your eyes and ears? When you see a Christmas tree on your neighbours' lawns, do you attempt suicide? When's the last time that you filed a complaint with your municipal government because you saw wrapped gifts? The answer is never. You know that your complaint is baseless, I think. Perhaps you are just joking around.

The vast majority of Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and other non-Christian VLC users know that there's absolutely no problem with a hat being on the VLC icon. Why do you think that your single, completely irrational complaint, should carry more weight than the many users of VLC who enjoy the hat?

Also, mlissner links to an opinion piece. The reporter has no credibility in regards to the issue. Also, if you read the whole article, you'll find at the end: "But my son wore a Santa hat that year, and the world didn’t end." Again, just because something is based upon something else, does not mean that it is that thing. Grav-mass is based upon Christmas. It is not Christian. Great Value Cola is based upon Coca-Cola. It is not the same. Etc, etc.

"Santa Claus has no religious affiliation."

Such a statement is laughable to any Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Baha'i, or Jew. Or, indeed, to any non-Christian (or at least somebody who wasn't raised Christian.) You are like a fish in denial of the water in which you swim, angry at the suggestion that it exists.

The bulk of the rest of your comment is shameful, and I'll spare us both by not responding to it. I'm heartened by the knowledge that you will grow and change enough as a person over time that, one day, you'll remember that you once wrote this, you'll flush with shame at the recollection.

Original author: waldo jaquith

Getting angry at someone for being offended at something you did is extremely unhelpful.

Being offended is an argument when there's a reason for the offense. And there is: Santa iconography is about Christmas, and Christmas is fundamentally a Christian holiday. You've taken Christian iconography and put it onto non-Christians' desktops, which risks making them feel a certain way.

The only reason you swapped the icon was to make people feel something (some simple joy of Christmas, festivity in the holiday season), so it's useful to know what other feelings you might create.

You can view the offense as ill-taken if you wish, but it's not wrong to report to the software maintainers how the icon choice made them feel. It's something the software maintainers should know.

And Waldo's replies here are dead on: the option to disable automatic icon changes is a poor choice, because some icon changes may be just fine (even awesome), and talking about "rights" is digging a deep hole you don't want to go in.

For some extra context: I run what is literally one of the world's most popular Christmas sites, isitchristmas.com. I demonstrably like Christmas, and making people feel happy things about it. But I also very much consider how the site makes others feel, and the offense visitors might feel, and it drives the software decisions I make. That's an actual responsibility, and one you can't shy away from when you make the decision to deposit a Santa hat on the desktops of people around the world.

As neither of you can refute a single one of my arguments, I rest my case. There is currently no logical proof against anything I've said—I have currently proven my argument to be correct, and yours to be wrong.

When you say goofy things like "Such a statement is laughable," and "The bulk of the rest of your comment is shameful," without providing any proof whatsoever, you're acting like the kid on the playground who says, "I can't hear you!" and runs off. Please, try to act in a more adult manner.

Additionally, "I'm going to feel bad on behalf of other people, who actually aren't offended by this thing" is literally the worst idea that modern society has come up with.

Also: as an example, Google currently displays pro-LGBT things on its site, from time to time. Should these be banned, or opt-in, just because some people don't like them?

@Kaliraa: drop it, they will never understand :) It's almost funny how we have the same discussion every year, and it's always the same crazy people who complain. We almost drop the icon, but we had way too much good feedback to drop it.

@tauberer: patch rejected. We don't like it, because there is no good justification.

@konklone: being 'offended' is NEVER an argument. Especially when you have an opt-out option, when the software is free (and I mean totally free, not Google-like free) AND you are allowed to fork it. You will offend millions of people all the time, so it's never an argument. Btw, I'm offended you find my software offensive. Now what?

In the end, deal with it, end of the year is holidays time. It's fun to add a cap over the cone, and you can disable that.

The discussion is closed.

jb, I respect your decision. As a fellow free software maintainer, I've used the "this is how I want to do it" card lots of times myself. No hard feelings there. As I said way at the top, I was just reporting how I felt and explaining why I disagreed with you on the facts of the matter. You can do with that information what you want.

But you've just elevated this discussion to an attack. Unless I have actually posted about this before (correct me if I'm wrong), "the same crazy people" sounds like a derision against people who don't share your view of the santa hat, which, let's be honest, are people who weren't raised Christian. If you've got a problem with other cultures, then we have a new problem.

Replying to [comment:10 waldo jaquith]:

Further, checking off a "don't mess with my icon" button isn't really helpful, because one has no way of knowing what other religious symbols might appear where (not necessarily limited to the icon), and one has no way of knowing whether changing the icon might otherwise be a useful feature. Only a "no religious iconography" option would provide the feature that you're looking for. Privacy and Network Policies dialog during first VLC startup?

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