[erlang-questions] Coon - new tool for building Erlang packages, dependency management and deploying Erlang services

Wed Feb 14 11:49:48 CET 2018

it seems to me that the main problem is growth of classification of  acts
as offensive in general.
what i mean is that in digital and (archive all) age it seems that number
of acts (words, expressions etc.) that are viewed as offensive only grows
in time, and
they *do not* die out. given multinational context it seems to be the truth
even more so.
not dying out is the biggest problem. it is easy to make something
offensive but is is very hard to emancipate the same thing  back to benign
and
in most cases original meaning.

moral dilemma is should we police others or should we first police our own
reactions? should i be offended regardless of context or should others make
sure that i don't have to consider context?

should one use coon or be offended by it? with context "raccoon"
should one use cowboy of be offended by it? with context "genocide"

here i must stress out that in case of cowboy intended context was actually
bound to tech world and i don't in any shape or form believe that author
was implying otherwise. but as cruel as it sounds context *is* derived from
historical fact packaged in perception of entertainment in less developed
times
(cartoons and etc.).

this leads me following problems:
1) how do we emancipate back words, and acts in general
2) how much time should one spend in analyzing words and acts to deem them
acceptable

for one i think this thread is great because it gives author and community
time for consideration and action before product is widely spread

we should be kind, but also we need to be more resilient!

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 4:06 AM, Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya <
mahesh@REDACTED> wrote:

> Naming and Branding are not complicated things. Oh, doing it *well* can
> take any amount of time and effort, but the basics are very *very*
> straightforward. Here are two excellent example
>    - https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2017/10/26/
> before-naming-your-startup-read-this/
>    - https://landor.com/thinking/how-not-to-name
>
> It really is not terribly different from software development
> 1) Identify the requirements for the name
>    - What kind of name is it? (made-up word? an experience? etc.)
>    - What are you trying to accomplish with the name?
>    - What is your target market?
>    - What are your evaluation criteria?
>    - etc.
> 2) Generate a bunch-a example names based on the above
> 3) Test these names thoroughly
>    - Does it sound good? In the target markets?
>    - Will it get misinterpreted?
>    - Is it confusing?
>    - etc.
> 4) Deploy to production
>    - Update docs
>    - Send out emails
>    - etc.
>
> In the world of Marketing, there is an entire sub-genre of Naming /
> Branding.  It exists because, despite the fondest beliefs of the
> tech-world, Excellence does *not* win out, if you build it they *don't*
> come, and just making yourself heard in the din of the marketplace is
> frightfully hard.
>
> The tech world is particularly replete with the Dunning-Kruger effect -
> and this is rarely more apparent than when we talk about Marketing & Sales
> (admit it - as you read "Marketing & Sales", you mentally added a sarcastic
> tone to it, didn't you?).
> Sales is *hard*. Do *you* have the ego-less-ness to do cold-calling? The
> stamina to repeat the same sales-pitch over and over and *OVER* again?
> And Marketing, well, it's just about the same - those sales funnels don't
> fill themselves.
>
> Which brings me back to Naming/Branding - and the process that I described
> above. Right up front, in the requirements for the name, you should be
> making sure that it isn't offensive. (Or, maybe you're a white supremacist
> group, and *want* to be offensive! Whatever). Thing is, these are
> table-stakes in any brand-exercise - to the point where not doing this is
> usually an actionable offense.
> To Jesper's point - of course the meaning of the brand-name can change.
> And it doesn't have to be around names like "Darkie Toothpaste" (yes, that
> was a thing) - pity the manufacturer of "ISIS Chocolates", who were
> overtaken by world events. Hence the existence of the field of Brand
> Management, and nowadays Brand Safety.
>
> Yes, this is all a bit more than "Pick a name, and run with it". But hey,
> the world isn't what it used to be. 30 years ago, I could fix most anything
> that 'sploded in my car with the tools I had in my garage - nowadays, not
> so much.
> Does this mean that we should al study up on marketing, or pay for brand
> management, or whatever?  Not at all. It does, however, mean that we
> should, at the very least, be aware that these things exist, and act
> appropriately.
>
> Last of all, regarding the "I shouldn't have to do this" argument - *of
> course* you don't have to do this. It just depends on what you're trying
> to get out of the marketplace - the sad truth is that the better mousetrap
> doesn't always win out.  The problem is that
>    - A poor name can nuke all the work that you've done, and all the
> goodwill that you've built
>    - At best you're going to have to spend time, energy, and money to
> educate the market about your product's value. Headwinds do *not* help -
> you'll be fighting in the market against al the competition that doesn't
> have those headwinds, and, well, is your product *that much better* that
> the headwinds don't matter?
>    - You get but one chance to make a first impression, and the product's
> name is, usually, that first impression.  Be aware of this in the markets
> that you are targeting....
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> *Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> <http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/204a87f81a0d9764c1f3364f53e8facf.png>That
> tall bald Indian guy..*
> *Twitter <https://twitter.com/dieswaytoofast> | Blog
> <http://dieswaytoofast.blogspot.com/> | G+
> <https://plus.google.com/u/0/108074935470209044442/posts> | LinkedIn
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/dieswaytoofast>*
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 9:19 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen <
> jesper.louis.andersen@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 4:41 PM Fred Hebert <mononcqc@REDACTED> wrote:
>>
>>> It is very possible. This mailing list is full of folks boasting of
>>> writing systems that run on hundreds or thousands of nodes and handle more
>>> load than anything else out there with amazing uptime figures And somehow,
>>> nobody can be assed to just look up words in a search engine or use the
>>> link Mahesh posted that is meant just for that?
>>>
>>>
>> This is good advice. I'll just add you need to keep redoing your search
>> as the list of bad words tend to change over time. So a word which is
>> perfect now can be "illegal" tomorrow. However, the risk of words changing
>> behind your back is much smaller. It can be literal hell for a brand if it
>> gets caught in such a fistfight.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
>
> *Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> <http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/204a87f81a0d9764c1f3364f53e8facf.png>That
> tall bald Indian guy..*
> *Twitter <https://twitter.com/dieswaytoofast> | Blog
> <http://dieswaytoofast.blogspot.com/> | G+
> <https://plus.google.com/u/0/108074935470209044442/posts> | LinkedIn
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/dieswaytoofast>*
>
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