Re: [Discuss] Agree on a Slogan

[Stephen Michel]

At the risk of turning this into another discussion of free vs libre vs 
open, I'll also throw out there that I personally try to avoid using 
the term "free software" when I'm advocating, because people who aren't 
already familiar with the movement hear those two words, come to an 
immediate conclusion that you mean gratis, and will not be convinced 
otherwise (they'll say they understand, and then a week later will make 
a comment that shows complete lack of understanding). Instead, I prefer 
"Software Freedom" -- it's immediately clear what I'm talking about, 
most people haven't heard of it before, and are actually interested in 
hearing me explain more. One additional note to be clear: this isn't 
about "X word has become perverted by other groups, so we shouldn't use 
it any more," it's about "x word was never very good at explaining what 
we're all about in the first place, Z does it much better." Of course, 
the problem with 'freedom' is that it often leads to awkward wordings, 
which is why I love 'FLO' for when brevity is paramount.

Back on topic: we could use something like "Funding a culture of 
Freedom," (though that isn't as direct) or "Funding Freedom Culture" 
(though that's awkwardly phrased). "Clearing freedom's path," (short) 
"Clearing the path for a culture of freedom," (long) or a similar, 
medium-length slogan could work, too.

I also like "together" over "we." I think "we" is catchier, but to our 
detriment -- it feels too corporate, where 'together' feels more 
genuine and grassroots.

However, I'm still in favor of "WE FUND FREE CULTURE" over "clearing 
the path to a F/L/O world." It's much more skimmable, and in my 
opinion, more explanatory despite fewer words. If ALL I knew about 
snowdrift.coop was the slogan, I would not have a clear idea of what it 
is we do. So while the metaphor appeals to me and I definitely think we 
should include it elsewhere in the site, and our promotional materials, 
I don't think it should be our main slogan.

~Stephen

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 4:39 PM, Aaron Wolf <aa...@snowdrift.coop> 
wrote:


On 09/17/2015 09:55 AM, Bryan Richter wrote:
 On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 06:02:52PM -0600, Peter Harpending wrote:
 On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 09:50:13PM +0200, mray wrote:
 Hello everybody,

 So here is my candidate:


 "WE FUND FREE CULTURE."

 WE       indicates that it is about people (many!), maybe 
including you
 FUND     covers our financial angle
 FREE     is the best compressed version of Free/Libre/Open
 CULTURE  represents the scope of different content we support


 The slogan in the IRC channel's /topic is "Clearing the path to a
 free/libre/open world" or some such. I thought that was the 
slogan. It's
 a good slogan. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what a slogan is.

 It's true: We *do* have a slogan, and arguments to change it must be
 heard.

 Here are some other thoughts of mine:

 In Aaron's response on the design list, he seems to imply that 
"open"
 is dead to us as a word to describe the kinds of works we want to
 support. I reject that claim. We don't *have* to use it, but I 
believe
 we *can* use it. Just because there is a thing called "open 
washing",
 and just because some close-minded people at an otherwise
 freedom-favoring organization have declared it anathema, doesn't 
mean
 it is now a meaningless word. If we want to give up every word that
 somebody makes a concerted effort to pervert, soon our language will
 consist of nothing but "buy now" and "Coke". I don't want the o-word
 to become like the n-word.

 On that note, (again referring to Aaron's other email), the fact 
that
 some dastardly folks have decided to pervert the term "free culture"
 to mean something that is absolutely nothing like its current 
meaning,
 doesn't mean we have to play along. Free culture, in my opinion, is
 the English phrase where "free" has the strongest connotation with
 "libre". Culture is already free-as-in-beer. I won't be bullied or
 brainwashed into thinking it is anything otherwise.

 Regarding Robert's suggestion: putting aside the question of
 discarding our existing slogan, I would suggest one tweak. "We" does
 not, in fact, suggest to me that it is "about peaple (many!), maybe
 including [me]". It instead suggests an exclusive "we". I think the
 following has a more inclusive feel: "Funding free culture, 
together".

 That's all I got. I'm interested to hear more thoughts.


I agree with "open" as an acceptable term, particularly in reference 
to
the strongest (and totally aligned with us and one of our accepted
definitions for projects) "Open Definition" 
http://opendefinition.org/od/

Furthermore, although we've gone with FLO overall and I really want
consistency in our messaging, "Free & Open" or "Free and Open" is
something that I think has strong merit in various cases.

I agree *completely* with the "together" versus the "we" issue. "We
fund…" definitely sounds like "we, the Snowdrift.coop folks" in a 
way
that does not at all come across as inclusive. It's comparable to a
restaurant saying "we serve the finest wine" or whatever.

FWIW, the evolution of the current slogan was:

"Working together to clear the obstacles"
"Working together to clear the path"
"Clearing the path to a free, libre, open world"
"Clearing the path to a Free/Libre/Open world"

I remain pretty strongly in favor of keeping the current slogan, but
would accept removing "libre" if it were insisted (but don't favor
that), and I'm perfectly fine with any alternatives to the 
punctuation,
including return to commas or using bullets or hyphens.

--
Aaron Wolf Snowdrift.coop <https://snowdrift.coop>
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