wyatt: indeed, msn-pecan handles the mobile icon differently.

In the official plug-in the mobile icon is only set when the user is offline. In
msn-pecan I decided that people can be online and have the mobile icon on.

So there are two ways to fix this issue you are having:
a) make msn-pecan set the mobile icon only when users are offline
b) fix Pidgin so the mobile icon has nothing to do with the priority

My take is that it should be b) so you should fill a bug report in Pidgin and mention
the bug id here. What do you think?

As far as I can tell the icon is intended to show that a user is logged on to a
network via their mobile phone.  I think msn-pecan probably needs to follow the same
rules, or at least have an option.

http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/79

This guy wants his mobile phone contacts to have less priority over the rest, this
makes sense i.e. if someone logs onto MSN/AIM/whatever on their phone but is using
Facebook chat on his PC ideally you'd want to talk to them on their PC rather than
over their phone.

wyatt: yes, but logged in mobile != has mobile support.

IMHO the mobile icon shouldn't have anything to do with the priority, but for now
there doesn't seem to be much option.

I think a lot of it's down to preference.  Apparently there is a Protocol Priority
plugin for Pidgin but you have to compile it in, should be included methinks.  I'll
maybe take a look at this and see what options it gives me.  Anyway, it's a minor
inconvenience.

Actually, thinking about it, I think you're right.  What if someone leaves their
computer logged on, it goes idle, then they log onto another IM network with their
phone.  Won't it still show the computer which isn't being used over the phone which is?

I won't file a ticket to Pidgin yet as I'm still unsure about the exact behaviour and
also the reasonings behind it.  So I won't risk making an arse of myself, yet.

Yes. Or maybe it's an urgent matter and you would prefer to send the message by phone
(SMS), if there is that option. A quick way to find if there is that option is with
the mobile icon.

I have filed a ticket to the Pidgin devs:

http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/7963

Here is what one of the Datallah said in reply to my ticket:

The emblem itself has no impact on the priority of the buddy; if msn-pecan is also
setting the "mobile" status for the buddy that will have an impact on the priority,
but that would be a decision for the protocol plugin, not libpurple - if the buddy
actually is mobile, then it seems reasonable that the priority would be lowered (you
can configure this with the contact priority plugin).

Almost forgot about this ticket.  The ticket was closed on Pidgin's site.  I vote an
option in Pidgin to either disable the mobile phone icon or alter its behaviour in
msn-pecan.

I don't think it should be an option.

We can simulate the proper behavior that IMHO Pidgin should have. We can manually add
the mobile icon when user is online, and when the user is offline the set the "mobile
status".

How does that sounds?

Fixed in git master.

Please verify.

Well, bizarrely it hasn't been much of a problem lately.  Before loads of my contacts
had mobile phones next to their names, and the icons would appear and disappear
randomly it seemed.  One of my contacts who I knew was just using her computer at
home would sometimes have the icon and sometimes not.  Anyway lately no one has the
icon and I haven't experienced the issue for a while.

So, I'm not sure what's changed but it hasn't been an issue for a while now, for me
anyway.