Re: [Snowdrift-design] new video script draft

[Stephen Michel]

PREFACE: I agree with nearly everything you said; If I didn't 
explicitly disagree, consider me agreed.


On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Aaron Wolf  
wrote:


```
NEW SCRIPT:

Things like software, music, movies, journalism, and research *can* be
public goods, freely used and shared by *everyone*.

But instead, publishers typically add restrictions in order to secure
funding. Meanwhile, projects releasing their work under free and open
terms struggle.

Our innovative crowd*matching* system empowers you to join with others
in supporting the public goods *you* care about.

For each project you wish to support, you pledge to give a monthly
donation of 1 cent for every 10 patrons who donate with you.

And you control your budget by setting a monthly limit for the system
overall.

Working together, we can have significant impact at little individual
cost. 1,000 patrons donating $1 means $1,000, but 5,000 patrons at 
just

$5 each would give a project a $25,000 monthly income!

*Matching* provides the necessary incentive to encourage more patrons 
to

join, and monthly donations hold projects accountable.

Join Snowdrift.coop today, and help clear the path to a free and open
future!
```

THOUGHTS/EXPLANATION:

First, this is a bit wordier and goes by a bit fast just to keep it
under 1 minute. I know this is stretching the acceptable length. Maybe
we can find ways to shorten it that are worth the benefit of being
shorter, but I want each decision to consider whether that's worth the
trade-off.

The overall idea is for people to actually grasp the system and have 
the

sense that this really isn't another copy of what they've seen before.


Additional thought: As we go through this, we need to think of what 
illustration we are going to pair with each segment.



PER-LINE NOTES (> is the script and * is commentary for line above):

 And you control your budget by setting a monthly limit for the 
system

 overall.


* I tried to fit in a statement about what your choices are when you 
hit

your budget, but there's just no way to fit it in unless we accepted a
longer video time. Otherwise, I find this wording very clear, even
though a pithy shorter version is possible.


What's the pithy shorter version?

 Join Snowdrift.coop today, and help clear the path to a free and 
open

 future!


* This fit as a better place to mention the site again, and we can 
then

tie in the snowdrift dilemma with an illustration showing characters
coming to join together and shovel snow.

o f
I love this phrase. But I love it *because* I understand the snowdrift 
metaphor. This is someone's first exposure to snowdrift, and we haven't 
explained the metaphor yet; in this context, it's much less impactful.



CONCLUSION: I'm happy with the semantic flow of everything and happy
enough with the wording of all of this. I always love when someone 
gives

feedback I see as even greater improvement. I wish this were a bit
shorter but also don't want to lose any element.


I'm concerned about the semantic flow of the middle, from an 
illustration perspective. We mention our crowdmatching system and its 
benefits (abstract), then give the specs, assuage fears with talk of a 
limit, more abstract benefits, and finally another example. I think if 
we combine the bits about "supporting public goods you care about" and 
"significant impact at little individual cost", and combine the parts 
with concrete numbers, we'll end up with something more concise and 
also easier to make visualizations for.


I think that the part where we discuss setting a limit is ultimately 
unnecessary. We need the limit to make people feel comfortable 
pledging, not to sell the message of, "crowdmatching is the key reason 
that this is NEW and CAN actually do this! Believe!! Be inspired!" I 
think if the very next place someone looks on the site mentions the 
limit, that's sufficient.


Also, it's really hard to fit this sentence in without breaking the 
flow of those paragraphs.


We could go back and compare this to other drafts, but this is the 
first
one that I feel is fully effective all the way through and as a 
complete

unit.


I think it can and should still be improved a little, but is good 
enough that we can use it, if push comes to shove and we haven't found 
anything better yet.


Based on all that, here's my attempt. There's a couple places (noted 
below) where the wording is very much not final. That's fine.


```
NEW SCRIPT SHORT:

Things like software, music, movies, journalism, and research *can* be
public goods, freely used and shared by *everyone*.

But instead, publishers typically add restrictions in order to secure
funding. Meanwhile, projects releasing their work under free and open
terms struggle.

Our innovative crowd*matching* system empowers you to join with
others in supporting the public goods *you* care about, creating
significant impact at little individual cost.

For each project you wish to support, you pledge to 

[Snowdrift-design] new video script draft

[Aaron Wolf]

So, we lost some work when an etherpad expired. It had a few sentences I
particularly liked, but it didn't finish out the script with the right
emphasis. I've rewritten the script considering all the concerns that
have come up in this process. First, I'll share the new script here, and
then I'll add some per-line thoughts below to explain the decisions.

```
NEW SCRIPT:

Things like software, music, movies, journalism, and research *can* be
public goods, freely used and shared by *everyone*.

But instead, publishers typically add restrictions in order to secure
funding. Meanwhile, projects releasing their work under free and open
terms struggle.

Our innovative crowd*matching* system empowers you to join with others
in supporting the public goods *you* care about.

For each project you wish to support, you pledge to give a monthly
donation of 1 cent for every 10 patrons who donate with you.

And you control your budget by setting a monthly limit for the system
overall.

Working together, we can have significant impact at little individual
cost. 1,000 patrons donating $1 means $1,000, but 5,000 patrons at just
$5 each would give a project a $25,000 monthly income!

*Matching* provides the necessary incentive to encourage more patrons to
join, and monthly donations hold projects accountable.

Join Snowdrift.coop today, and help clear the path to a free and open
future!
```

THOUGHTS/EXPLANATION:

First, this is a bit wordier and goes by a bit fast just to keep it
under 1 minute. I know this is stretching the acceptable length. Maybe
we can find ways to shorten it that are worth the benefit of being
shorter, but I want each decision to consider whether that's worth the
trade-off.

The overall idea is for people to actually grasp the system and have the
sense that this really isn't another copy of what they've seen before.

PER-LINE NOTES (> is the script and * is commentary for line above):

> Things like software, music, movies, journalism, and research *can* be
> public goods, freely used and shared by *everyone*.

* This makes the scope clear, defines public goods nicely, and of all
the drafts we had before, I liked the feel when "can" was emphasized.

> But instead, publishers typically add restrictions in order to secure
> funding. Meanwhile, projects releasing their work under free and open
> terms struggle.

* This makes the problem statement more clear and brings back the sense
I've wanted that emphasizes that we aren't saying music and software
etc. don't get made, but that the unfortunate part is the restrictions.
I want the visual to show locks and pop-up ads blocking some content.
This will really engage and hit home with a portion of our viewers.

> Our innovative crowd*matching* system empowers you to join with others
> in supporting the public goods *you* care about.

* This is less my wording and more the stuff others seemed to like most.
It's not a lot of information but it gives a certain emphasis to the
viewer. My wife was saying she's not sure she buys the "empowers" part
because people can join with each other already, we're helping
facilitate but not really giving people *individual* empowerment per se.
I'm fine with the line and like how it positions the "crowdmatching"
bit, but it's a bit redundant in some ways.

>For each project you wish to support, you pledge to give a monthly
> donation of 1 cent for every 10 patrons who donate with you.

* "pledge to give… donation" fixed the parsing problems with trying to
group monthly, base amount, others all in a single verb of "donate". I
think this is the easiest to understand wording we've had.

> And you control your budget by setting a monthly limit for the system
> overall.

* I tried to fit in a statement about what your choices are when you hit
your budget, but there's just no way to fit it in unless we accepted a
longer video time. Otherwise, I find this wording very clear, even
though a pithy shorter version is possible.

> Working together, we can have significant impact at little individual
> cost. 1,000 patrons donating $1 means $1,000, but 5,000 patrons at
> just $5 each would give a project a $25,000 monthly income!

* This is the key place where I added the thing that is more important
than consensus: the idea that we can really do something even though you
don't donate a ton yourself, implying that just $5 via the classic
donate button costs you the same but accomplishes nothing. I think most
people will immediately get that *if* we can make this work, it would
indeed make a *major* difference.

> *Matching* provides the necessary incentive to encourage more patrons
> to join, and monthly donations hold projects accountable.

* This new sentence may not be the perfect final version but it finishes
things better than anything we tried before. Instead of emphasizing how
neat the qualities of our system are, the point is to say: "we KNOW it's
always been true that tons of people could just donate, but they don't,
and we won't