Re: [Social-discuss] "GNU social" sucks.

[Bob Jonkman]

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Adam Moore wrote:
> Also, "Herds" should be an acronym.

And it should be a recursive acronym, of course:

  Herds Exchanging Realtime Distributed Speech

Or something.


And the verb for participating should be "Yakking".

- --Bob.


On 11/01/15 05:10 AM, Adam Moore wrote:
> Not the project!  I'm actually quite enthusiastic about the
> project.  I think it's great; I use the software every day.  I want
> the fediverse to grow, and thrive, and obviate the big, closed,
> commercial services.
> 
> But the name sucks.
> 
> Sticking "GNU" in front of the name of piece of software buys you
> some interest with a small group of computer users who happen to
> share a particular set of values, but the wider world couldn't be
> made to care less.  So, take the GNU away and you're left with
> what?  "Social."  Ugh.
> 
> "Social media" is a noxious catch-phrase.  Naming
> projects/products after noxious catch-phrases makes you look
> *really lame*.  Imagine a TCP/IP stack released under the name
> Superhighway.  Yeah.  It would only be worse if you named it
> Superhighway '95.  Worse still, it's an ~old~ catch-phrase (Twitter
> exploded in, what, 2007?).  The term might stick around
> indefinitely, but right now it's been overused, overhyped, and is 
> rapidly becoming quite passé.  That's not good for attracting new
> users, new interest, and growing the network.
> 
> Furthermore, GNU projects have a long history of humorous,
> whimsical, and punny names.  'GNU social' is boring as shit.
> 
> I'm gonna make a bold proposition, here: the name should be changed
> to GNU Herds.
> 
> Now, Herds isn't the most inventive name in the universe, I know.
> But it's got some strengths that "social" does not:
> 
> * It's homophonous with "heard".  As in, stand up and be herd!
> Or, more simply, BE HERD.  That's not only a solid tag-line, but
> it's a dual reflection of what we want GNU social to be about: herd
> to signify unity in opposition to proprietary corporate media, and
> heard to signify free expression through free software.
> 
> * It's an animal metaphor for what the software actually does: it 
> globally unifies the communications of a panoply of *local herds*
> (what we now call instances).
> 
> * It invites a thematically unified set of system jargon, and that 
> reinforces community.  Right now we have people talking about 
> "statuses", "notices", and "dents" interchangeably, all of which
> are artifacts of various incarnations of StatusNet.  All are also
> inadequate terms.  "Notices" and "statuses" are inaccurate --
> *conversations* take place on GNU social, not just notifications
> and status updates -- and "dents" is ...incoherent.  A more general
> term is needed: bleats.  (Yes, it's like "tweets" only less
> humiliating to say aloud.  And, yes, I know that wildebeest do not
> "bleat", but the unifying theme isn't "herds of gnu", it's simply
> "herds".)  So, a GNU Herds user might be ~grazing~ the public feed
> of their local ~herd~, see a ~bleat~ they like, and ~rebleat~ it...
> you get the idea.
> 
> Also, "Herds" should be an acronym.  Better yet, it should be
> multiple acronyms, because I love when the names of projects are
> understood to be acronyms, but no consensus has been reached about
> what the acronym actually is.  Here are some starters:
> 
> Heterogeneous Exchange of Remote Data Subscriptions Humane
> Ecosystem of Reticulate Data Stores Human Expression Relayed via
> Distributed Servers
> 
> You might be thinking, ah, but we don't want to confuse people by 
> calling it Herds when there's a 25-year-old GNU project that's
> never going to be completed called Hurd.  Listen -- NOBODY is going
> to confuse Herds with Hurd.  Of the billion GNU/Linux (and
> derivatives) users on the planet, how many of them have ever heard
> of the Hurd project? Probably no more than point-one percent of
> them, and that's being generous.  Moreover, those who ~have~ heard
> of it know that a Hurd is a Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons and is
> nothing to do with herds. It's a non-issue.
> 
> Alright, that's my rant/proposal concluded.  Let's hear the yays
> and nays and their rationales, shall we?  STAND UP AND BE HERD!
> 
> Or remain seated, whatever's more comfortable.
> 
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