## Renaming Tribes ### Background The term "Tribes" has certain colonial connotations that we could likely do well without and at the moment we're working towards a point where we can replace it. This page keeps track of that process to some extent. A longer summary of the matter can be found towards the bottom of this page, while more temporary discussions are held in the dedicated Slack channel. ----- ### The Short Shortlist #### Circles - Looks good on the mockup / Martin - Easy to remember while still fairly catchy. /Martin - Term used by other social networks for groups, so people might already be familiar with the idea. /Mikael - Circles has really nice visual connotations to the map (so does rings)./Mikael - Also like how circles has existing use in language already, probably making it easier to translate too: “a group of people sharing an interest, activity, or achievement: well-known in artistic circles.“ /Mikael - Rings/Circles is basically the same but circles is more intuitive /Noah - I'm more for circles because it is quite existing in various beliefs and philosophies and if you think of it also means what goes around comes around kinda thing /Paula #### Families - Warm & friendly sounding, but can also be little bit off-putting for some less tight communities ("Cars family? Vegans family?") /Mikael - Personally not overly happy with this one. Partly because it is less "abstract" than the others, partly because it's a discussion of family values waiting to happen, partly because the concept of family is not quite what I see "Tribes" as being or evolving into. /Martin - “Families Tribe” → “Families Family” can be odd /Mikael - It can be a good alternative to "Community" (mainstream and abused term nowadays). It keeps all the sense in it. /Ludo - Families is IMHO as challenging as 'tribes' as it is based on a conception of society that is understood different by everyone. With a slowly progressing society the old concept of family wears out and the term needs a proper new definition before I would use it that widely. /Noah - I think family is a bit too mushy for me though it is good /Paula #### Rings - Good middle ground between "circle" and the "roots-related words": it recalls the rings of the tree trunk, and I also like the double meaning with 'ringing': it makes me think about a sound which wakes people up and raise awareness. / Ludo - Works fine but as a word I like it slightly less than Circles. Reasons unclear. /Martin - Ring has some negative connotation like drug ring :joy: specially in Philippines with the whole drug war /Paula - ----- ### First Videochat Date: Friday - 2020-06-05 19:00 CEST Present: Dario, Julien, Ludo, Martin, Nick + Mariano (towards the end) #### Call summary - A shortlist of nine terms was created based on the suggestions gathered from Slack (the personal favourites of those present during the call). - Discussing pros and cons we reduced the list further to five terms (Branches, Circles, Communities, Families, Rings). Reasons for removal below. - Deviation 1: Future of "Tribes" likely close to the summary copy-pasted from Mikael in "The Long Read" below. Good idea to make it less prominent in the UI to avoid the impression that they are a necessity for using Trustroots. - Deviation 2: Introducing the change through a blog post is a good idea. Nick says that technically it would not be too hard to implement, but a bit long and boring as a task, so it might take some time before it gets done. - After an indicative vote to get a better overview of preferences - and the discussions that were born out of that - we removed Branches and Communities. - Mockups of the remaining three options will be presented to the others through Slack in order to get a more visual representation and eventually move things forward. (Thanks Julien!) - (Nick took off to party hard, Julien to make dinner.) - We went through the new tribe suggestions and it seems a good idea to introduce them at the same time as the main name change. At some stage it would be useful to create a separate Slack channel to discuss the additions, gather photos and prepare the launch. - (Around here Mariano joined the conversation while Ludo took off.) - The blog post will likely take less time to prepare than the term decision and implementation, but no harm in starting early. Mariano happy about writing a draft, Martin (and maybe Julien and others) will help with editing etc. About 1500 words probably good, three sections: Explanation of change, Summary of process, Implementation and introducing new "Tribes". - Concluding (somewhat unrelated) that bicycling is great for improving your mood we ended the call. #### Removed Terms - Branches: Divisive. Also used in commercial settings such as bank branches etc. - Communities: Overused, generic and long for UI. - Groups: Generic. - Interests: Describes what Tribes perhaps are at the moment, but for the same reason limits future development. - Networks: A bit too techy. - Spheres: Very similar to circles (extra dimensions, sure), trickier to pronounce? ----- ### Tribes #### Current Hitchhikers Dumpster divers Nomads Vegans & Vegetarians Ecoliving Hikers Foodsharing Musicians Cyclists Artists Yoga Spirituals Punks Rainbow gathering Hackers Dancers LGBTQ Climbers Buskers Families Sailors Van life Lindyhoppers Acroyoga Trustroots Volunteers Slackliners Jugglers #### Potential additions Anarchists Beer brewing Burners Cooking Circus Feminists Gardeners & Farmers / Agriculture / Permaculture Motorcyclists Naturists Photographers Pilgrims Skateboarders Surfers (on water, not couches) Squatters Winemaking ----- ### The Long Read At the moment Trustroots Tribes are little more than tags to show what interests you have, enabling filtering searches, and a way for us to communicate what our core audience is. In the future the concept can be expanded to some/all/none of: - A way to “sandbox” yourself to be visible only to your own tribes. Someone might, for example, want to be seen and be hosted only by cyclists. No matter how big the site, it would always feel small and cozy to them. - Give higher priority for tribe members. You could show up higher in the search list for fellow tribe members. You might want to have SMS sent to you if a fellow tribe member is writing to you, and regular notifications otherwise. - A way for communities to share and organize; there could be discussion forums etc. dedicated to each tribe. - Tribe specific meetings, visible only to tribe members and listed on the tribe page. - Links from other communities outside Trustroots; e.g. joining a tribe could require foodsharing.de account etc. - Closed tribes; you could join the tribe only via invitation (e.g. active volunteers). - People creating their own, custom tribes vs. us moderating the list. Historically the word Tribe has been used to describe groups of people external to (and often considered less "civilised" than) those describing them. As far as we can tell, no group referred to as a tribe has used the word to describe themselves, leading to its perceived meaning as "other" as opposed to the mainstream. Somewhere around the counterculture movement in the sixties, the term was brought into use to describe communities that felt another sort of connection than what was considered standard by the Western establishment, as a sort of protest against more traditional values. Fast forward a couple of decades and the term is still used by Western counterculture movements - such as Gogol Bordello and Trustroots alike - but due to the oppressive history linked to those that used the term and those who the term was applied to, it starts to look a bit more complicated. Add to this that it is very common for media to use the word Tribe when describing "less developed" societies there is also a rather paternalistic shade to the word's current meaning. Due to these colonial, eurocentric and oppressive connotations (and also due to the fact that nobody in Trustroots has seemed much opposed to changing the name during discussions) we have reached a sort of "why not?" stage. Some people find the term problematic, nobody is openly passionate about keeping it, might as well change it. There could be an issue of it seeming a similar move to the quite common mainstream changes to the surface while the underlying structures remain (see PC/inclusiveness discussion), but this would likely more be something for when informing the Trustroots community of the change rather than something relevant to this discussion. ### Mockups