I'm not sure about capitalization, happy to get thoughts there. Otherwise, as the lead for Communications in our Holacracy governance, I hereby declare that our new slogan is:
"Crowdfunding for public goods" Furthermore, I want to reiterate (and will update the terminology wiki page accordingly) that *the* term we shall use to describe our mechanism is "crowdfunding" and *the* term we shall use to describe the types of works we support is "public goods". Although I appreciate Stephen's feedback, the decision for the slogan is not based solely in anyone's intuition about the isolated effect of the slogan itself. The decision is based on the need for the slogan to fit a consistent communication strategy throughout the whole site. Although "free/libre/open" and FLO will remain prominent, that will be used to refer to the subset of public goods that we are focusing on for the foreseeable future. Public goods include lighthouses and arguably some public infrastructure (e.g. roads that have zero realistic possibility of getting overloaded with traffic), and we are not focusing on those things. It makes little sense to describe a lighthouse as FLO. A lighthouse is a different sort of public good. We will, in principle, consider expanding to cover all public goods, but we're focused on FLO public goods now and potentially forever. It's actually arguable that a non-free CC-ND licensed work is a "public good" and we will communicate that we see that as entering a grey, fuzzy area where the viewing and sharing of the video is indeed public good status but the work's lack of status as a cultural artifact to be used and remixed freely makes it not fully public good in all regards. I see FLO as an important term but with its own baggage. Anyway, I'm not going to take more time here justifying the decision. I'm not closed to further discussion, but we need to progress to launch, not debate every detail. I also need to be able to be decisive and effective in my role. Again, the communication policy for everyone going forward: "public goods" describes the type of economic works that face the snowdrift dilemma and similar, and we shall have a strategy of *spreading* that way of talking about it and *owning* this message. With a successful strategy, people will learn to talk about "public goods" and how they face the "snowdrift dilemma" and how Snowdrift.coop's "crowdmatching" solves the problems. We want to get people talking and thinking this way. This shall be our communication strategy, and our name and slogan serve as the initial prompt consistent with this. We shall not try to vaguely come up with alternate terms for ideas that already have clear definitions. Of course this policy can be updated or changed as needed, but this is the decision now. Let's please get to work launching the site and implementing this communications strategy wherever applicable. Cheers, Aaron On 09/20/2016 11:31 AM, Stephen Michel wrote: > On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 12:21 PM, Michael Siepmann > <m...@techdesignpsych.com> wrote: >> On 09/20/2016 08:40 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote: >>> On 09/20/2016 01:04 AM, mray wrote: >>>> On 20.09.2016 02:25, David Thomas wrote: >>>>> What about dropping "fund"? "Crowdmatching for public goods" >>>> What about dropping "for"? >>>> >>>> "Crowdmatching for public goods" >>>> "Crowdmatching public goods" >>>> >>>> You could say we ultimately crowdmatch for everybody, not for public >>>> goods. Omitting "for" also makes Crowdfunding more of verb than a noun, >>>> which is a good thing; more active and less static. >>>> >>>> Michael rightly notes that "fund" clarifies what we mean without >>>> depending on new words. Mike rightly notes that it implies some sort of >>>> funding. I think when we introduce a new word we also need to let it do >>>> some lifting, otherwise we shouldn't introduce it. Redundancy in a >>>> slogan is bad. Short is good. >>>> >>> I find "crowdmatching" as a noun is a little easier to parse when it has >>> no context (i.e. isn't in a clear sentence). Also "crowdmatching for >>> public goods" works if you parse it as a verb or a noun, whereas >>> "crowdmatching public goods" makes anyone who starts parsing as a noun >>> do the mental work of shifting it to a verb. >>> >>> The main reason I'm hesitant about (but not totally opposed to) >>> "crowdmatching public goods" is that the matching isn't matching of >>> public goods to one another, but it could read that way. It's patrons >>> who match each other. >>> >>> If we were to do without a preposition, we could use: >>> >>> "public goods crowdmatching" >>> >>> To me, that's a nice effect but feels more dense and jargony. Of all the >>> options proposed "Crowdmatching for public goods" feels like the least >>> mental work to read and parse. The preposition helps me chunk it into >>> two clauses. It's a noun (or maybe a verb) with a preposition clause. >>> That's easier to process than parsing one jargony, heavy verb clause. >>> >> >> >> "Crowdmatching for public goods" works for me. I'm persuaded by this >> recent discussion that it's probably OK to omit "to fund" and I like >> this less wordy version. > > The main (only?) job of the slogan are to peak the interest of someone > who does not already know what we are, preferably by succinctly > communicating the essence of what we do. Therefore, I don't think anyone > on this list can use their intuition to judge whether "crowdmatching" > (or "public goods") does that job effectively. Of course "crowdmatching" > has the right connotations in the context of Snowdrift! > > On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 1:54 PM, Aaron Wolf <aa...@snowdrift.coop> wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Denver Gingerich <den...@ossguy.com> >> wrote: >>> Overall I like that slogan. >> >>> There is one point I haven't seen come up in discussion (apologies if >>> I missed it) but should be highlighted. I don't have a strong >>> personal opinion on how important this point is, but because of whose >>> point it is and the projects Snowdrift.coop aims to support, it >>> should at least be mentioned: >> >>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#DigitalGoods >> >>> Now the slogan doesn't say "digital goods", but it does use "goods" >>> in a way that to me felt slightly confusing initially (and would >>> probably be more confusing to most people, since they spend less time >>> thinking about software than the majority of us). >> >>> I don't know if there are good alternatives, though. "Public works" >>> isn't an option since it has its own meaning ( >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_works ) and "public works of >>> authorship" feels a bit long to me. >> >>> Anyway, I just wanted to highlight this. To me, the current slogan >>> shouldn't be rejected solely on the basis of this, but it at least >>> warrants a review by people more connected to the project than I. >> >> Thanks for the thoughts, Denver! To address the concern: Yes, the >> metaphor of "goods" inherently causes problems in terms of thinking >> about non-rivalrous works, but actually "public goods" is the precise, >> accepted term in economics for non-rivalrous, non-exclusive works. See >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good >> >> So, it's not just a sorta-good description, it's *the* correct term for >> precisely what we're focusing on. > > Continuing the line of reasoning above: let's take a hypothetical > situation where "public goods" is doing a less effective job at peaking > people's interest by communicating the general idea than another option > would be, despite being the technically precise term. (I suspect this is > the case, but don't trust my intuition on this, either). Is being > technically correct worth the cost, or should we consider other options? > > > There are three parts to the slogan: Crowdmatching, public goods, and > (optional) filler words that tie them together. Mix and match: > > [crowdmatching/crowdmatched] > > [to/for] [fund/funds/funding] > > [public/digital/unrestricted/FLO/post-scarcity] [goods/works/economy] > > > I am not sure how to turn it into a good slogan, but I like the idea of > not talking about goods specifically but talking about the post-scarcity > economy more generally. That's a concept that people are already > familiar with (although it's slightly more of a buzz word than I'd > like), and talking about the economy as a whole communicates the scope > of the change we would like to create. It also implies funding, so we > can drop that word. "Crowdmatching [for] an unrestricted economy"? >
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