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gratipay / inside.gratipay.com

Here lieth a pioneer in open source sustainability. RIP
https://gratipay.news/the-end-cbfba8f50981
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rename Gittip to ... Gratipay! #73

Closed chadwhitacre closed 9 years ago

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

It's time. See https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138 for our first go-round on renaming, nearly two years ago.

Task List

Internal:

Customer Support:

Marketing:

Hosting & Product:

Legal:

Financial:

Afterwards:

Gittip has been a serviceable name for the past two years, but it's not ideal. For most people, Gittip doesn't have any relevant natural associations; it doesn't suggest anything about our mission. It's hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and hard to remember. For people who know what git and GitHub are the situation is worse, because Gittip puts us in a box we don't want to be in. We're building a mass-market product, not something for a tech niche. And for pete's sake, my own kids confuse Gittip with GitHub.

Benefits of Gratipay:

Drawbacks of Gratipay:

If you have a really compelling reason to veto Gratipay, please share it ("In {Chinese,Arabic,Russian} that word is a heinous insult!"). Otherwise, let it sink in. We've been building Gittip for two years. Now let's build Gratipay! :D

screen shot 2014-07-01 at 12 22 50 pm

clone1018 commented 10 years ago

The name makes me want to :dancer: when I say it.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

IRC

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

+2 from @ericmeltzer @colindean over on https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/2533.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

"totally neutral" in Chinese (IRC)

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

I'm not crazy about it, but I have nothing against the name.

I disagree that it's primary association - gratis - is not ideal. I think it just needs to be approached from the opposite side of the transaction. From Wiki:

Gratis [...] is the quality of an action where the action is willingly provided without any requirement by the provider for compensation or monetary remuneration.

That seems like exactly what we're all about to me - the act of practicing a craft and freely giving the result to others out of generosity and compassion, without requiring that the recipient of that work enter into any sort of obligation to you, monetary or otherwise.

Flip it around - we're here to help pay people who provide benefit to the world around them, gratis.

I also believe that the association that people who are involved in F/OSS have with the words "free", "libre", and "gratis" are not necessarily shared with society at large. I think Gratipay creates strong enough associations to remember later and be distinctive, while aligning well enough with our mission to be built into a strong brand.

ribasushi commented 10 years ago

I am sitting in a mongers meeting this moment, can't think/write much right now. But the off-the-hip reaction is -42. Will think more on the drive back home and chime in if it's not too late.

tshepang commented 10 years ago

-1

Sounds horrible, perhaps even worse than both versions of saying gittip. Feels forced. If only it were April 1.

There were many superior suggestions proposed in https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@tshepang "Feels forced" is not a sufficient veto, sorry. :-)

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

How is this pronounced? Is it like "rot" or "rat"?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@lyndsysimon Fair question. How would you pronounce it?

tshepang commented 10 years ago

@whit537 why not pick from the winners in https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138.

tshepang commented 10 years ago

gray tea pay?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@tshepang Per https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138#issuecomment-7432306, the winner over there was Gittip.

We're moving forward with Gratipay unless someone presents a compelling veto. The only thing that would count as a "compelling veto" would be an embarrassing double entendre or cross-cultural association.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

It's pronounced like "gratitude."

tshepang commented 10 years ago

Why are you assertive this time around @whit537? Tired of bikesheds?

colindean commented 10 years ago

Grætɪpeɪ is how I'd say it

http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciation

On July 1, 2014 4:09:55 PM EDT, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe notifications@github.com wrote:

gray tee pay?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/gittip/building.gittip.com/issues/73#issuecomment-47703990

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@tshepang Yes, I'm assertive this time around because I'm not up for another bikeshed. :-)

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Here's the sort of thing I have in mind as a compelling veto (from Stripe's naming story):

So back to the drawing board it was. The next name we came up with was “forge” — big, strong, building something. I ran the name by one of my friends from school, whose reply was along the lines of “um... you're kidding right”? I wasn't kidding, so I asked him what he was talking about. He pointed out that forge has an alternate meaning when it comes to currency, documents, and the like.

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

I hadn't read Stripe's naming story, that's cool :)

Funny thing - there is a "Forge" now... but IIRC they use Balanced for their backend.

ericmeltzer commented 10 years ago

Hah, forge is showing me an SSL error... to get back on track, I like gratipay and find it pretty easy to pronounce "gratitude+pay"

Eric Meltzer @wheatpond https://twitter.com/wheatpond http://theopencompany.net +1 408 874 6552

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

:-)

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

If a "compelling veto" doesn't surface by tomorrow, I'm going to start making a task list.

tshepang commented 10 years ago

@whit537 you can call a vote, which sounds better than imposing... "you have 24 hours to weigh in". What's the rush BTW? We've had this name for 2 years, and waiting for a few days (or weeks) should not be too much more, right?

tshepang commented 10 years ago

Regarding the great renaming Issue, fundhub.org looks like the winner... 65%?

ericmeltzer commented 10 years ago

I was also curious about that, but apparently fundhub domains aren't available, aren't even owned by the same owner, and also there's someone who registered the twitter name in 2009 (which could present some tm issues for us if we used it..)

On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe < notifications@github.com> wrote:

Regarding the great renaming Issue https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138, fundhub.org looks like the winner... 65%?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/gittip/building.gittip.com/issues/73#issuecomment-47706521 .

Eric Meltzer @wheatpond https://twitter.com/wheatpond http://theopencompany.net +1 408 874 6552

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

I agree on the "what the rush?" question - but I also agree that we need to make a decision.

Chad - what would you think about having a slightly longer open comment period, followed by defined decision-making process? Leaving the question open until this Friday sounds reasonable to me.

tshepang commented 10 years ago

tip.me is available for $10; sounds perfect to me

tshepang commented 10 years ago

Ok, that was according to https://instantdomainsearch.com, but clicking Buy says not really.

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

New TLDs are interesting too - that's new since the last conversation. The following are $15 / year on Namecheap, and available:

liveon.tips recurring.tips ongoing.tips

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

Also:

libre.tips glad.tips

At least initially, I really like libre.tips.

ericmeltzer commented 10 years ago

I am strongly in favor of not considering new names, and just deciding between keeping Gittip or going with Gratipay. I like Gratipay because it's more intuitive to spell, and gets away from Github associations which are obscure to many of our future users :)

colindean commented 10 years ago

deciding between keeping Gittip or going with Gratipay

:+1:

tshepang commented 10 years ago

nice finds @lyndsysimon

patcon commented 10 years ago

+1 for gratipay :)

ribasushi commented 10 years ago

@whit537 The question of "why now" still hasn't really been answered. Are you trying to distance yourself from "The Gittip Incident"...?

In any case - this seems like a done deal at this point, which kinda makes me sad. But a name is just a name, whatever works I guess...

chrisdev commented 10 years ago

:+1: My wife instantly understood gratipay without me having to explain it. In contrast, she always wants to know how and why we selected Gittip as a name for the service

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@tshepang @lyndsysimon No more new name suggestions, please.

@ribasushi Yeah, that's part of it.

clone1018 commented 10 years ago

@whit537 I really disagree with changing the name purely to get away from "The Gittip Incident".

ribasushi commented 10 years ago

Ok, let's not cross the streams. The jury is still out on the name, with a sizeable majority thinking of it as a massive step back from #gittp.

The real question is - will this change facilitate @whit537 and the rest of the actively contributing team moving ahead with building a kick-ass radically transparrent sustainable non-profit crowdfunding platform with a funny name? Or will it fracture the team further and stick a fork in the project.

If the core set of contributors is looking forward to the change - so am I :)

Cheers

lyndsysimon commented 10 years ago

I concur with @clone1018 - I urge caution in changing the name so quickly after that, because I believe it may be perceived as an attempt to conceal.

In short, I don't think we should change the way we do things within Gittip in a reactionary way at all. There is absolutely room for change with an eye toward being more inclusive of communities that do not feel welcome on the platform today. We should work toward making those changes, but I strongly believe that it must occur in a thoughtful and intentional way, and through a process that is inclusive of those groups.

Now is not the time to try to build that coalition. Soon, perhaps - but not now.

After all of the above is said, I'm comfortable saying that "Gratipay" is a better name for our platform than "Gittip". I'm uncomfortable with the timing of the change and with the process through which the rebranding seems to be occurring, but I agree that we've needed to change the name for a long time.

ericmeltzer commented 10 years ago

I agree that we shouldn't change the name just to escape controversy, but I think with ALL name changes, the cardinal rule is: if you're going to do it, do it immediately. We don't want to waste any more time, because we need every single moment of name recognition we can get :)

So regardless of why this was proposed, my vote is: do it, do it now :)

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 6:52 AM, Lyndsy Simon notifications@github.com wrote:

I concur with @clone1018 https://github.com/clone1018 - I urge caution in changing the name so quickly after that, because I believe it may be perceived as an attempt to conceal.

In short, I don't think we should change the way we do things within Gittip in a reactionary way at all. There is absolutely room for change with an eye toward being more inclusive of communities that do not feel welcome on the platform today. We should work toward making those changes, but I strongly believe that it must occur in a thoughtful and intentional way, and through a process that is inclusive of those groups.

Now is not the time to try to build that coalition. Soon, perhaps - but not now.

After all of the above is said, I'm comfortable saying that "Gratipay" is a better name for our platform than "Gittip". I'm uncomfortable with the timing of the change and with the process through which the rebranding seems to be occurring, but I agree that we've needed to change the name for a long time.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/gittip/building.gittip.com/issues/73#issuecomment-47778157 .

Eric Meltzer @wheatpond https://twitter.com/wheatpond http://theopencompany.net +1 408 874 6552

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

IRC

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

I really disagree with changing the name purely to get away from "The Gittip Incident".

Agreed. The way I'm approaching this is that changing our name is a momentum buster, so since our momentum is already busted we might as well take advantage of the opportunity and get the name change out of the way while we're here in momentum-busted-land.

Also, I should say that Gratipay is playing really well with people I'm talking to IRL that aren't plugged into Gittip or tech. I've talked to about 15 people so far. I've been showing them the name and asking, "How do you pronounce this company's name? What do they do?" Pretty much everyone has been able to pronounce it, and has gotten the connection to "gratitude" and "pay" in some form or another.

ethangj commented 10 years ago

I think Gratipay is clearly a more consumer-friendly name. GitTip is always going to be boxed-in to a technical crowd. I don't have a lot of deep philosophical thoughts on the issue overall, but in terms of trying to push for a wider donor base GitTip is going to be a liability in comparison to something more comprehensible.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

I urge caution in changing the name so quickly after that, because I believe it may be perceived as an attempt to conceal.

I can see your point, @lyndsysimon. How soon is too soon?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

task list moved to description

seanlinsley commented 10 years ago

I'm not sure it's best to make the change now, but I'm +1 on Gratipay.

wilkie commented 10 years ago

Also, I should say that Gratipay is playing really well with people I'm talking to IRL that aren't plugged into Gittip or tech. I've talked to about 15 people so far. I've been showing them the name and asking, "How do you pronounce this company's name? What do they do?" Pretty much everyone has been able to pronounce it, and has gotten the connection to "gratitude" and "pay" in some form or another.

@whit537 Are you going to open the data on your market study? Also, if you are willing to do this, shouldn't you make a decision based on that plus a few other names?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

What order should we change things in? I'm thinking inside out. Basically, start with Freenode/Slack, and end with www.gittip.com.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Are you going to open the data on your market study?

I haven't done a proper market study, so I don't have data to share. I've been asking people informally. I considered doing a more formal study, getting a permit to set up a table at the mall or whatever and keeping track of the responses. I don't think we need that much process. Do you? Why?