change the name from gittip to something else

[chadwhitacre]

The word "git" is somewhat problematic because of its association with GitHub and programming. The word "tip" is non-ideal because restaurant tips aren't really gifts. There's a ticket about changing the nomenclature we use from tipper and tippee to donor and donee (#136). This ticket is about rebranding the whole site.

---

The best alternative in my (not large) stable is:

https://whoever.im/

How does that look to you? I think it's not bad, for a personal funding platform. I think it's pretty strong, actually. "Whoever I am" rolls off the tongue easier than "Gittip," and it evokes personhood and freedom. I checked whoeveriam.com, and unfortunately it is taken but unused. Meh.

A bigger deal for me is that with Heroku we can't use https://whoever.im/, only https://www.whoever.im/. That is, "[n]aked domains (also known as bare or apex domains) are not supported." They used to be called IP SSL and cost $100/mo, but that's now deprecated. Here's the details on why. We would have to choose, and my inclination honestly would be to leave the warmth and comfort of Heroku, in order to look more like https://github.com/ and https://twitter.com/. :-(

[steveklabnik]

You can do what I do with my book project: have a home page at whoever.im, click signup, it goes to secure.whoever.im

[jezdez]

Have a look at the ALIAS record from dnsimple for the "naked domains": http://blog.dnsimple.com/introducing-the-alias-record/

[mitsuhiko]

There are more problems with naked domains than just dns. It's the www. prefix really that bad?

[chadwhitacre]

@steveklabnik, @jezdez Cool, thank you for the suggestions.

Is the www. prefix really that bad?

Dunno ... what other problems are there? :)

Also, this is sort of secondary. The main question is whether the Gittip brand is fundamentally flawed.

[mitsuhiko]

CNAMEs not working on that level, very limited cookie control (can't have cookies just for the www. part), it's harder to recognize urls with the scheme removed, wildcard ssl certificates don't work for the naked domain etc. All things considered it's just a lot more hassle for not showing for bytes to the user.

[whitmo]

+1. though I would pick a name that is still tip / gift related.

and... maybe eventually add a way to pay toward an actual gift vs. simply payments (yeah yeah, patches welcome). I make the point because I think it would be interesting to add a complement the BM idea of a currency free "gift" economy. Not exclusively, just as an option.

[mitsuhiko]

What about “periodic” as a name?

[timothyfcook]

whoever.im is okay. not quite right though.

It seems like .do domains are now available.

give.do is available. "Give me support so I can Do xyz" or giveto.do

Or, similar to your suggestion. whateveri.do is available

Other Ideas:

letme.do thank.do soican.do goodto.do letus.do

[joeyespo]

What about hinting at open source somehow? http://opentip.com or http://opengift.com. Might even be able to play more on the word 'open' here, even though tips are largely anonymous. Tie it back into the open company you're aiming for.

Now, is the focus on those who want to tip or those receiving them? The latter is a shift. It would be something you the hacker would want to share. Whereas the current name 'Gittip' sounds more for those seeking to give the tip.

I do like the 'periodic'/'recurring' idea. That would make for a good tool to follow Kickstarter with. Kickstarter to get initial funding and demand. Continued with [new Gittip name here].

[joeyespo]

Another one. It's for sale, though unfortunately not for cheap: http://fund.me

Maybe something along those lines though? http://tip.me is also taken, but not actively used.

[chrismdp]

Slightly boring but something like http://openfund.com?

http://freeme.to http://freemeto.be http://freemetobe.com (all available) ?

[chrismdp]

Or something around the word "grant"? Minigrant? Microgrant? Crowdgrant?

[chadwhitacre]

View from Australia (via HN):

Historically, Australians don't tip. During much of the the 20th century Australia had quite a strong (relative to the US) tradition of socialism and unionism, resulting in a strong set of minimum employment conditions. There was very much a view that a decent living wage was an entitlement and a matter of dignity, not something that a worker should have to stoop to collect. People didn't tip, since the common perception was that the potential tipee was as equally entitled to a minimum wage as the potential tipper. Indeed, I'd say that people actively didn't tip as an act of homage to equality.

Tipping is probably more common today than in the past, and the above is being eroded, but I think the above is still generally true. A tip is rarely expected, or let on to be expected, as that is a sure fire way not to get a tip.

I mention the above, in the supposition that it has connotations for a site like gittip that liberally uses the word "tipping". Some cultures don't do tipping. As an Australian, I'd be more inclined if the idea of compensation was being sold on a "equity" (as in fairness) basis rather than a giving basis. I know it's semantics, but semantics does influence decisions.

[chadwhitacre]

Another view from Australia (same HN thread):

The American "I am obliged to give you a tip because minimum wage sucks" doesn't seem to be what gittip is about. In fact, it's much closer to the Australian idea "I am giving you more money because of your impressive performance, and I want to say thanks".

In Australia, I tip when service is awesome. In America, I tip when service isn't absolutely terrible.

Full disclosure: I am Australian

[jturnshek]

Hey Chad, we haven't met yet but I hope to soon...

autograt.com

Servers in restaurants call the automatically included gratuity for large parties an "autograt". I'll leave you to reason through the implications. I actually think it's incredibly well aligned.

I just reserved the domain in case you want it.

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @turnshek, for the intro, thoughts, and domain reservation. :-)

Was actually coming over here to say that I just bought:

http://www.gfftd.com/

I also reserved @gfftd on Twitter and GitHub. Has the advantage of probably still working with @dmdj03's design over on #66.

[timothyfcook]

why two 'f' s if gfftd.com ?

autoGrat.com is kinda nice.

You could still have the (G) logo, since "Grat" is the functional word there.

it almost sounds familiar

makes me think of autocrat / autocracy, which is a very different sort of meaning. also makes me think of autograph, which is irrelevant.

[chadwhitacre]

Two effs because the domain wasn't available in other variants.

[chadwhitacre]

Also, gifted.com is taken but not used. Down the road we could have a shot at it.

[chadwhitacre]

In the mean time there's also http://gifted.im/.

[chadwhitacre]

Oh, well. My latest moment of name-changing insanity has passed. Back to Gittip.com for now. :-)

[psineur]

Few! Saw tweet about gfftd (sounds like pfff), thank god you don't want to rename to it. Other suggestions: gifttip gifthub

[pfrazee]

openwire freewire fosswire

[jturnshek]

Hey no problem, you can never have too many domain names. D:

I like that "autograt" is already in the common lexicon and essentially describes the literal function of the service, but it's really the "gratuity" part that I think is worth mulling over. It's likely the closest a single term can come to the spirit of what you're trying to do here.

Whatever you go with, just make sure it makes sense for street fashion photographers, community organizers, font creators, or business bloggers. The foss / programmery stuff is probably the wrong direction.

[johana-star]

opengrant.com is available.

[chadwhitacre]

@turnshek Good reminder re: broader appeal. Could you say more about how {Gittip} can work for non-programmery folks? I want to take it in that direction (#80) but obviously I'm programmery so input from a different perspective is welcome.

@strand I think opengrant.com is pretty strong. The "crowd-sourced genius grants for the rest of us" hook has seemed to work for a lot of people. A grant falls clearly in the category of "gift" without the question mark that "tip" introduces. What I really like, though, is that it emphasizes the aggregate and not the individual contribution. The "grant" is the crowd's gift of $1,000 per week to a person, whereas a "gift tip" is just my $1 per week contribution. The power is in the aggregation.

I bought opengrant.com and opengrant.org.

Perspectives on OpenGrant?

[chadwhitacre]

OpenGrant works for both individuals and groups. An organization or group or project (see #27) can receive a grant as well as an individual.

[ironfroggy]

At first "opengrant" didn't really sound right, but your explanation @whit537 makes a lot of sense.

[steveklabnik]

:+1: opengrant.org, I like it a lot.

[kennethreitz]

opengrant sounds amazing

[chmullig]

+1 opengrant, if you're changing the name.

Are people thinking .org or .com? I like .org because it suggests that opengrant's business isn't to make money directly. However I like .com since the point is the transfer of money to individuals, which is commercey...

[kennethreitz]

That is, assuming this will become a non-profit organization.

[brandon-rhodes]

I suspect that “grant” is a poor choice that will limit attention because of its very narrow meaning: grants, in normal English, are made by governments, not individuals; they are created for some specific purpose, different nonprofits compete in a grant-writing process to argue that they can fulfill the grant's mandate, and then one of them gets the money; and they have to be able to survive an audit later to show that the money really went toward the stated grant purpose.

In other words, a “grant” has to be spent on something specific. Anyone at a University or government, at least, would assume that “opengrant” made it easier for non-profits to browse and then apply for specifically-earmarked monies.

The word, then, would obscure the fact that individuals can participate on either end of the “granting” operation, and — more importantly — would imply that people are promising to do something specific with the money in the future (like, “Kenneth MUST do more work on requests with this grant, he can't use it for beer or some other module”), whereas this weekend you strongly indicated that these monies are to serve as the thanks we give each other for how useful the things are that we have ALREADY created in the past.

[jlkeiper]

-1 on using "grant". "tip" is good. I would think these might be cool (no idea if they are taken):

• tip4code.com
• tip.me
• tipacoder.com
• codetip.com
• tipper.com (does Al Gore own that one?)
• tipstream.com

[chadwhitacre]

@mitechie and @hansent point out that OpenGrant puts pressure on us to widen beyond GitHub, which is indeed something I think we want to do anyway (#80). Good call:

The day a second service works I'd go for the rebrand and hit the news trail like mad with it though. It's a good new name.

[chadwhitacre]

@jlkeiper Say more? I like grant because it emphasizes the aggregate, whereas tip emphasizes the individual contributions that in and of themselves aren't that interesting. Also note that we don't want to lock ourselves into "coders." See @turnshek's comments above and also #80.

[chadwhitacre]

@kennethreitz See #101 for registering {Gittip} as a charity.

[joeyespo]

+1 for opengrant.org. Would you redirect opengrant.com to it?

[pfrazee]

+1 grant. It feels like what's happening is a grant: a crowd charter to pursue work with a social (rather than fiscal) return. Good vibe; clear roots in an existing practice.

[hansent]

i like opengrant, just throwing out someother ones for purposes of brainstorming:

crowdgrant(s) openfunds creativegrant(s) shareback

[chadwhitacre]

Anyone at a University or government, at least, would assume that “opengrant” made it easier for non-profits to browse and then apply for specifically-earmarked monies.

@brandon-rhodes I suspect this is where @jlkeiper is coming from as well?

In other words, a “grant” has to be spent on something specific.

The counter-example, of course, is the MacArthur Fellowship, "nicknamed the Genius Grant" [wikipedia]. The "Open" in OpenGrant could start to suggest the no-strings-attached nature of the gift here.

I see where you're coming from that "grant" has a specific meaning for a certain segment of the population. The English namespace is crowded. I think it's going to be easier to explain what we mean by "grant" to the university and government set than it would be to explain what we mean by "tip" to the general population. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people at universities and in government are probably fairly likely to know about the MacArthur genius grants, right? So we can just say "think genius grants" and we're most of the way there? The fact that the MacArthur Fellowships are nicknamed Genius Grants in the first place may indicate that the word "grant" probably just means "free money" to most people.

[jlkeiper]

@whit537 "grant" means "one time gift with strings attached" to me, but that's probably because I work at AMPATH / OpenMRS / Regenstrief Institute. Also, grants renew but not like your system is set up ... but these restrictions are typical real-world implementations of a word that ideally means something much simpler.

Also, understand the domain name itself has to lend to common interpretation. Tipping is a very common thing. Giving a grant is reserved for academia and the philanthropic.

If branching out from just coders, tip.me is an acceptable simple and possibly catchy domain.

[chadwhitacre]

I've reserved OpenGrant on GitHub and (importantly) Twitter.

I searched for opengrant and #opengrant on Twitter and got nothing but a couple tweets that are part of this conversation. :-)

I searched for opengrant on Google and got:

• List of Currently Open Grant Competitions
• Before applying for an Open Grant
• Open Grant Program Open to proposals
• etc.

I.e., from the university / government domain that @brandon-rhodes is reminding us of.

[pfrazee]

@jlkeiper tip.me is pretty good

Also, I'd bet the divide on opengrant has to do with personal experiences with grant systems. I don't have any.

[jlkeiper]

@whit537 just having this much discussion about the term "grant" vs "tip" or any other variation (gift, bonus, boost, etc) lends to a need for simplicity and possible unrelated domain name.

How about reaching into your linguistics background for some related and hip-sounding alternatives?

[hansent]

"grant is reserved for academia and the philanthropic" @jlkeiper @brandon-rhodes

I do see where you guys are coming from, especially having applied for research and business grants before. Overall I'm not opposed to using the word though...nothing wrong with a little disruption and trying to change the meaning of a common terminilogy (I guess that goes for any words though ) :P

[chadwhitacre]

@jlkeiper Okay, so that falls under the "grant already means something" argument against. I'm willing to accept the task of explaining what we mean by "grant" to people for whom it means "one-time gift with strings attached."

Are there other arguments against OpenGrant?

[joeyespo]

@jlkeiper Good point, "grant" does have some subtle implications. The "open" part of the name could be what mentally detaches the strings though parhaps.

I do like the name opengrant though. It's catchy.

The main difference is that the name "tip" sounds like a giver-oriented site, while the name "grant" sounds like a place you'd go to request grants. Attracting givers should be more heavily focused to make the site successful. However this attraction could be part of the marketing effort. The name, with or without a change, won't do that alone.

[jlkeiper]

@whit537 as long as it conveys the purpose of the service, it is a nice and tidy name (three syllables, has "open" in it).

@joeyespo I totally agree, "open" helps and makes it appealing to the open source community. I guess we are not really targeting the closed source (rather, open-agnostic) community ... or are we?

[chadwhitacre]

@jlkeiper @pfraze tip.me is taken. Even if it weren't, I believe we have to have a .com to reach a mass audience, even if we redirect it to a .org or something else.

just having this much discussion about the term "grant" vs "tip" or any other variation

@jlkeiper I'm seeing a lot more convergence around the word "grant" than anything else to date. I accept that it means "one-time gift with strings attached" to people in a certain industry, and I'm willing to take that risk, given the convergence otherwise and the fact that we now own the name in DNS, Twitter, and GitHub.