[SCC_Active_Members] Re-Naming the SCC

[Bernard L. Peuto]

SCC Friends

Please find below my suggestions on renaming the SCC. Feedback is kindly
requested. We will also have a discussion at the next SCC meeting tomorrow
10/18.

Bernard

Bernard L. PEUTO, Ph.D.
Chairman Software Collection Committee
http://community.computerhistory.org/scc/
Concord Consulting,
1333 Jones Street #1106,
San Francisco, Ca 94109-4118
Phone: (415) 775-7801,
Fax:   (415) 775-7265
blpeuto at peuto.com
 
*********************************                   WHAT'S IN A NAME?

**** The Problem ****

As I have expressed in the past I feel that our current name "SCC" does not
describe well what we are, would like to be and would like to do.

Clearly as an acronym it does not tell anything about us. Worse Googling for
SCC gives 12,800,000 links with answers like Supreme Court of Canada as well
as the Correctional Service of Canada and many more ... we may be there but
we are buried. Note also that SCC history has 1,900,000 links and no high
ranking link pointing to us. I must admit than an interested party searching
for sites like ours is more likely to look for the subject matter of
historical software collecting (or collection) and thus would not think to
use SCC for Googling. We found that historical software collection has
19,900,000 links with the Babbage institute and the Museum showing up early
in the list but not the SCC. While ranking success is achieved with
historical software collecting pointing first to Paul's Lisp and Fortran
pages among 26,300,000 links. We know in this case that this high ranking
was increased by his blog and multiple references to it.

It is clear that we must abandon the acronym and rename our group or
activity with descriptive words like software collection (or collecting)
historical etc before we push up ranking with other well known methods.

**** The right direction: Software Preservation ****

So what combination of words should we pick? Obvious candidates like
Software Collection Committee and all its derivatives should be a good
starting point. Software Collection (or Collecting) Committee works quite
well with excellent first rankings. But software Collection (or Collecting)
Group (or SIG) do not. Since we cannot expect an interested party to know
about our organizational structure we must find as better alternative. Also
it would be nice to have only 2 words instead of 3; using tag lines and
other subtext methods to foster even higher ranking hits. Software
Collection works well with first page ranking. Software Collecting  works
better with a second rank.

So we could decide to use SoftwareCollection (or Collecting) as our name or
handle, still with the intention to use a subtext or tag line as will be
discussed below.

But early feedback from the group suggests that Software Preservation might
be a better name. Collection or collecting do not convey the historical
nature of the efforts (as many links found under this name suggest) while
preservation prominently mentioned in our mission does. Preservation also
conveys more that just the collecting/storing aspect and hints at displaying
or recreating the experience and many other important concepts. Clearly
Software Preservation would not detract from being found by  interested
parties looking for the subject matter of software collections or collecting
as they currently do. In fact Software Preservation points to a much higher
proportion of groups with similar interests and focus to us than any of the
other combination. So it would seem that by using the Software Preservation
name in the current web site, its url and many other obvious locations
related to the museum we would achieve a high ranking among groups that we
would like to be associated with.

Note that Googling "software preservation" finds many references to these:
	The Internet Archive has the Classic Software Preservation Project
(CLASP).  http://www.archive.org/details/clasp.
	Software Preservation Society formerly the Classic Amiga
Preservation Society is interested in preserving computer games.
http://www.softpres.org/
	At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, there is this
vestige in a wiki.  http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/Museum/Manifesto

*** Tag lines, modifiers and subtext ***

What other modifiers should we then use in our statement of goals and
description of activities? Mike Powell pointed to me that three classes of
modifier exist which might qualify us further: the group, the activity, or
the repository. I cite below Mike's numerous suggestions to foster better
feedback from the group.

** For a GROUP modifier we might use:
These may be too latinate to use after Preservation:
	association, coalition, collaboration, confederation, consortium,
federation, foundation, organization

Open source terms:
	collective, community, conspiracy, cooperative, movement

Possible, but unlikely:
	society (too fancy), guild (too archaic), posse (too modern)

These would suggest affiliation with the museum:
	committee, center, institute

Mike and I  like these, which suggest involvement with others:
	alliance
     		Software Preservation Alliance
     		Alliance for Software Preservation
	forum
     		Software Preservation Forum
	league
     		Software Preservation League
	partnership
     		Software Preservation Partnership
     	Partnership for Software Preservation

** For an ACTIVITY modifier we might use:
	These suggest that we're actually doing something:
		operation
		program
		project
     	Software Preservation Project

** For a THING modifier we might use:

	These describe the thing we are creating, perhaps metaphorically:
		archive(s), bank, conservatory, depository, depot,
collection, gallery, library, repository, storehouse, vault, warehouse

**** A recommended solutions ****

"Software Preservation Alliance"
"A group of volunteers hosted and supported by the Computer History Museum"
Using a url (or url element) like softwarepreservation.org

At this point I strongly favor a name based on "Software Preservation". I am
more ambivalent on the modifier text but do favor "Software Preservation
Alliance or Partnership" and related combinations.

The choice of a different url than computerhistory.org (and derivatives)
recognizes the reality that we do pilot projects and experiments which most
likely will be used by the Computer Museum but require specific steps to be
transferred while contributions to the softwarepreservation.org site have
different rules.

A web site with superior content and activities is helped by a good name but
the name is clearly not sufficient. This discussion brings as a subtext the
relationship of our site with the main CHM site as well as the emphasis that
we might to give to our association with the museum. I propose the tag line
above "A group of volunteers hosted and supported by the Computer History
Museum" to express our relationship. I recommend that we choose first the
new name for the SCC congruent with our current association and then works
on how to improve the  visibility of that association.

**** Feedback is kindly requested ****

We hope that the feedback will help us converge on a better solution, but if
no clear consensus emerges we will use a small group to make a decision and
move on:-)

Bernard