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improve sciencefair slogan, project description #153
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PS I am just saying, as I'm creating a new dat-awesome page and was adding you.. https://github.com/aschrijver/awesome-dat/blob/fresh/awesome/readme.md |
PS2 A 'open source p2p desktop science library' is probably not why your users will install and like sciencefair, that's all I'm saying :) |
How about:
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+1 on tighter language etc⁽¹⁾ Rationale:
Following the path of least resistance usually leads you to a proprietary product with a freemium business model. Having academics as your prospective users doesn't really get you very much further, apart from a small % of power users. For a pertinent example, just look at how many among the needs-a-reference-manager cohort both ⒜ give lip service to Sci-Hub and ⒝ don't think twice about using & promoting Mendeley⁽²⁾ — because it serves their immediate needs with lots of happy-shiny, low-cognitive-load UX.
So you can expect most of its prospective users to have little / no prior familiarity with dat, and to be seeking passive participation in the network — in other words, to be looking more for a ReadCube or Mendeley substitute, less for a P2P sci-authoring workflow. As it stands, I'm not sure that the description can be substantially improved. The roadmap would need more explicit inclusion and exclusion of feature matrix-y stuff⁽³⁾ to be able to nail down something more descriptive than 'library', or maybe 'reference library'. ¹ ex: pictures on the main site :^) |
Thanks both of you for the suggestions and thoughtful discussion. I agree with @jcahill - I certainly think we can improve the wording, but to deviate much from the first-pass wording (in the directions suggested, or any i can think of) right now would likely not reflect the goals of the project accurately. Right now I'm working flat out on documenting and articulating the project at a higher level. Once I've got that to a useful stage, I'll link back here and we can fruitfully attack this :) |
Hi @jcahill
I've made a more-or-less similar argument on Dat technology as a whole. Despite the enormous enthusiasm and incredible hard work of the team and community members, I have questions if current development approach is viable in the long run. It would be very sad if it is not. I love the Dat technology ideas. It is my impression that there may be some 'developer myopia' (similar to marketing myopia) at play:
For this reason for Dat I have created a lengthy discussion topic: Positioning, vision and future direction of the Dat Project Another thing I observed in the general development approach: programmer anarchy
But not explicitly recognized, chosen or followed. The anarchism follows from of the community culture of mostly scientists and/or hackers venturing in new tech field, informally structured and with ethical / moral motives that may favour an 'under-the-radar' approach. I know these statements may be tickling. They are not meant negatively, and not as strong as might seem. PS I am going to post this as separate issue on dat Discussions.
Not sure if you are right here: https://github.com/sciencefair-land/strategy (WIP)
Sure it can. Agree on the feature matrix. Existing slogan already contains some that could be listed lower down the landing page of Sciencefair ;) |
I don't think this is needed. Some polishing to the landing page will already clarify much. |
Just to comment on a few things:
These are all excellent questions we should answer on the site when we make these changes. There are some other users who have suggested things - we should try to collect and align the suggestions.
I think the ones attracted by this or something like it are probably the most useful initial users. Right now we're looking for general awareness and early technical contributors. We're far from ready for mainstream. The same applies to:
At some point however, and I am at least attempting to predict when this will be in the planning docs, we will want to make that switch. At that point these guidelines become relevant and crucial to the marketing of the project.
This will be guaranteed to never happen - we'll have at least a full "open lock" legal structure and hopefully a considerable pyramid of other safeguards and supports in place. You'll have to wait for details I'm afraid, but the project is non-negotiably free-or-die-trying!
Not at all - in fact we expect users not to know or care about the technology underneath. For developers on the other hard, and a small, highly technical portion of the user base, we will be trying to help prove the benefits of decentralisation in general and of the technologies we use in particular.
I doubt there's anyone in the world looking for a ReadCube substitute - everyone I've ever heard from about it is just trying to avoid it altogether. A lot of people are looking for a much better experience creating and/or consuming the literature, and over time I believe we'll deliver that in a small way and enable it in an unprecedented way. But I don't think it will ever involve chasing users of particular software (and especially not Mendeley). If we succeed in our goals, Mendeley and everything else will look like a stone tablet. If we fail, I don't want to have riled up potential enemies (more than necessary) or, worse, misled users by trying to draw them away from some other tools. |
Also to reiterate a point I've made in the general dat threads: ScienceFair is currently not suffering from a problem of having too few people using it. Actually we've been a victim of our own success in that I've essentially had to go dark and completely restructure my life in order to keep up with the current interest, and to plan for the future. If there comes a day when the software is achieving the basic goals of the project and not having enough users is the problem, that will be a day I stop to celebrate before returning to optimising our marketing :) All that said, I do think we can leave users less confused and more informed, and should always be trying to do that without creating hype or disappointment. So this discussion is super valuable and we will definitely iterate the site content and other materials based on this. |
Well yes, that is the point I am making all along for Dat. You should not need to go dark if there is sudden traction. But that needs preparedness and strategy. |
I was a little fast-and-loose with inferential gaps.
Good to hear. Think that was the primary thing I was looking to voice.
"Following the path of least resistance" was intended from the users' POV. As in: when most people want very little out of a tool or service, and can't readily be convinced that they should want more, mainstreaming cool FLOSS stuff has a way of becoming ridiculously hard. [not to encourage going dark or anything, but from the project's POV it better be guaranteed to never happen :)]
I think that's exactly what I meant to suggest by "gateway drug". Just that ScienceFair is highly visible, user-facing, and all that → if any element of the ecosystem should err on the side of user-friendliness, this'd seemingly be it.
sounds good.
easier for me, i just make most of my open source contributions pseudonymous! |
Agreed, but the preparedness would be wasted for close to 100% of all projects ever. So doing it before any strong reason to believe there will be traction would be premature I think, especially when it starts out as one of many side projects. I hope this is the optimal time to do it for ScienceFair, and appreciate your encouragement and input :) |
@jcahill ah, sorry yes it seems we were talking slightly across one another. It seems we're largely on the same page, and I'm sorry for reiterating what you said. |
cc @daniellecrobinson @BettyWaitherero could you take a crack at some ideas for the tagline and description on the website? See thread above for some starting points :) |
Sounds good - appreciate the input everyone! |
sciencefair - human wisdom distributed fairlyps. slogan freely given @blahah if you want to use it.. in the public domain :) |
btw.. the url sciencefair-app.com(mercial) is one i wouldn't use for an open-source project, especially given your mission / vision why don't you benefit from the new domain extensions? results in attractive, easy url's cool ones:
others:
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Hi Everyone! ok my first attempt at rewriting the landing page - sorry it took me a while to literally go through everything about ScienceFair and Dat Project. I have combined with Danielle's previous paragraph as well. Title: "Bridging barriers to human wisdom, through decentralized file sharing networks" Why Science Fair? |
looks good! i would make the Why Science Fair? paragraph a bit shorter still and make it 2 or 3 paragraphs also the last sentence should be improved: "Because we believe in ceding centralized control fuels innovation, ScienceFair provides users the ability to customize their experience and control their data." -- > because decentralization leads to innovation, we allow you to customize experience / control data does not make sense.. one does not follow from the other :) |
also the last sentence should be improved: "Because we believe in ceding centralized control fuels innovation, ScienceFair provides users the ability to customize their experience and control their data." -- > because decentralization leads to innovation, we allow you to customize experience / control data does not make sense.. one does not follow from the other :) |
Sorry for my late response.. I am kinda busy :) I just meant that the construction of the sentence was incorrect. Not conveying meaning well.. confusing. So:
I know what you mean to say. An innovation is that you get to have [..the experience of..] full control over your own data. Rephrase that last part and you would be cool :D |
The slogan for sciencefair is completely non-descriptive. If one only sees:
What does it do? What is a desktop science library? How am I not in control now? What control?
Also the 'Why Sciencefair?' paragraph that follows does not mention how I get control back.
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