On 01/05/2016 10:57 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> On 01/05/2016 09:25 AM, Michael Siepmann wrote:
> <snip>
>> - I'd stop using the phrase "Let's clear the path to a better world"
>> because it confuses things. Based on your explanation, the clear public
>> road itself represents the better world here, not a path to a better world.
> The "clear the path" is the part I like better, and "to a better world"
> was really filler. I'm not sure what is the best wording for the call to
> action, and I don't really like "to a better world" and am happy to drop
> that. It used to be "clearing the path to a free/libre/open world" but
> that's jargonny.
>
>> - The current tagline "Free the Commons" and the invitation on the home
>> page "Join us in setting the world free!" do not seem to me to convey
>> the meaning you explained as effectively as I hope is possible. The
>> issue is that the commons is under-resourced, not that it's not free,
>> correct?
>>
> "Free the Commons" is definitely a bit, well, abstract, but of all the
> complex challenges of how to express the issues, it works very well. We
> spent excessive time looking for the best option and that's the best we
> got. I think impossible to get better.
>
> Here's how to think of it: the *commons* is a general term for stuff
> that is public and not private. It's currently unfree in two respects:
>
> 1. it's covered in snow metaphorically (i.e. the public road needs to be
> freed of obstacles in order to be more usable) and
>
> 2. things that in every sense *should* be public goods are instead
> locked down artificially and turned into private "club goods" (the
> economics term). So, when we get rid of those, we have freed the things
> that *should* be commons. Now, this is something I'd like to convey
> potentially… this form of "freeing the commons" is the tearing down of
> the toll-booths and reclaiming *those* private roads and returning them
> to being public roads! How do we do that? By not only advocating for
> public roads generally, but by providing an economic basis effective
> enough to convince some owners of private roads to free them and make
> them public (given that we will continue funding their work anyway). I
> want to see that sort of "help proprietary go FLO" be part of our system.
>
> "Join us in setting the world free!" is really just filler that I wish
> we had something better in that spot.
>
> Thanks, Michael, for all your persistence and help in questioning
> everything and helping us consolidate the presentation clearly!
On 01/05/2016 02:09 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote: [in another thread, "Getting
intro messaging feedback at SCALE"]
> <snip>
> Looking over the screen-shots already, and in light of discussion about
> metaphors, I propose we clean up the wording (which wasn't carefully
> thought through yet) first.
>
> * how about "Join us!" instead of "Join us in setting…" ?
> * maybe for now we drop the "Let's clear the path…" line? (although I
> like the clear-the-path for the metaphor, I don't like the rest of that
> line)
> * I was emphasizing this more before, but I'm going to push for it a
> little more strongly now: I think we should use the term "public goods"
> in our introductory context (and thus the term will be there for people
> to provide feedback about). It's the best, most accurate term, and the
> question is whether it comes across clearly, hence feedback forms like this…
First, re "Free the Commons" you may well be right that it's the best
possible option, and I know I'm missing the context of all the work all
of you did to come up with it. I also agree that, when considered in
light of additional explanation as you provided above, it makes sense.
However, I would still keep the door open for the possibility that
feedback or ideas from outsiders may lead to an even better
possibility. Just as ideas that may or may not have come up in previous
discussions, and /not/ to argue for changing the tagline right now, here
are a few variations that occur to me:
Catalyze the commons.
The commons catalyst.
Catalyst for the commons.
Catalyzing creation of public goods.
Nourish the commons.
Grow the commons.
Nurturing a thriving commons.
Second, re changing wording on the home page before getting feedback at
SCALE, all of your three bullet points above seem good to me. Here's a
suggested rewrite of the text below the "How it Works" button,
incorporating your three proposals above and also changing "We
sustainably fund" which I think gives the wrong impression that
Snowdrift.coop actually provides the funding (like a grant-making
foundation) and "and we cooperate to help them" which seems a bit
unclear to me:
We help people cooperate to sustainably fund projects that create
sharable, freely-licensed public goods that benefit everyone.
Join us! <https://snowdrift.coop/auth/login>
Best,
Michael
Michael Siepmann, Ph.D.
The Tech Design Psychologist™
Shaping technology to help people flourish™
303-835-0501 TechDesignPsych.com OpenPGP: 6D65A4F7
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