How about Eligius? (But I like my previous idea much better)
Hereās my thinking:
Whatās the demographic we want to encapsulate? Basically weāre geeks of one sort or another, right?
But just going with Geeksville or something is too dumb and literal, of course. It has to be a reference of some sort to have any cred.
But we comprise pretty much every flavour of geek; what sort of reference would cut across every subcategoryā¦?
Then it hit me - Douglas Adams.
We need a Douglas Adams reference. Failing that, Pratchett.
I disagree.
I feel any reference to a specific domain ties this forum to that reference- so if we were to use Adams (and I do like Adamsā¦), we look like an Adams-centric board.
Itās my feeling that the board needs to have itās own identity (in as much as is possible) unattached to those things around us.
Said another way: I donāt want to define ourselves as what weāre from (boing or otherwise), and I donāt want to define ourselves via reference to established ābrandsā.
my $0.02
I disagree. For the very reason I proposed Adams - he cuts across virtually every category of geek.
And get a load of this - I just went to another thread, and the first thing I saw was this:
Beware of leopard. There you go.
If not, then I guess gniobgniob is right out.
I used to hang out on a board called Atomic, and they had a splinter groupā¦ Otamic.
Adams doesnāt come close to cutting across āevery category of geekā. Heās popular with a particular group of people, but there are many, many people who should feel welcome here that will never have picked up a book by Adams.
Adams is sci-fi, and a fairly specific type at that. I (hope) this board isnāt just about that flavor of things, because there are many other fascinating and worthwhile flavors to sample.
I agree.
GoingGoingGone
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is a an example of the sort of thing we should strictly avoid, IMO. Any wink or snarky reference to the Olde Blog is going to look silly in two yearsā time. Letās come up with something uniquely our own, and broad enough to contain multitudesā¦ There are enough creative people here to make that happen.
Iād like to wait a little bit to vote. I feel like things are percolating. Iām not too worried about a cease and desist. We can just cease and desist if we get such a letter.
I feel like ideas are brewing.
I donāt want mutants in the name. I want an identity that does not refer to BoingBoing though rebel or underground stuff appeals.
What, like the Cafe at the end of the world? The towel enthusiasts? The Rag Flags?
Brogdinab, after the gray too swarm in Doctorow and Rosenbaumās True Names?
Iāve started thinking of this as The Other Place, although it looks like that domainās already been taken
That having been said, some of my favorite posts were departures from sci-fi and tech issues, like Mark Deryās article on Victorian post-mortem photography.
I want to make the case one more time for āhieroglyphicsā because it occurs to me that not only does the word itself inspire curiosity, but that it also juxtaposes the concepts of both āwordā and āpictureā (in much the same way that the TimeWarner logo is a mashup of an ear and an eye). It would represent the same naming strategy as Medium, which is also a contributor-driven site with a techie audience; it refers to communication in a way that allows for a broad range of topics, without resorting to a boring/generic moniker (āwriterplace.comā).
Arthur Machen, a forerunner of Lovecraft, used it as the title of a book of literary criticism where he defines art as that which evokes a feeling of āecstacy,ā or āwithdrawal from the common life.ā
I like Numbers Station for similar reasons; it references communication, but in an intriguing way. āThis is a site where people share ideasā¦but also, those ideas are actually interesting.ā
And if neither of those quite hit the target, it seems worthwhile to continue thinking in that direction.
Free Mutants?
LibertĆ©, ĆgalitĆ©, Mutation
Though I do like that idea too.
Iāve got an interim plan to work around my unfortunate naming choice.
Iāve got some backend work to do first, but Iāll provide some more details later this evening.
Keep working on names. Take the time to make it right. Iāll take care of the potential dark cloud looming.
I was going to say that I fully support everything @nothingfuture and @ChickieD said. Seriously, we should really be our own thing. We are awesome. We may have met at BB during certain phases of awesomeness that it has exhibited. But as we know, we became the draw; at least for those of us who are here and reading this thread
BUT
The last time I read HHGTTG was '87 (actually, listened to books on tape while I applied polyurethane to my godmotherās fence. In Nashville. In July) which means I was twelve. But, Iāve gotta say, if we can get something like cafeattheendoftheworld.org
, I could really get behind that, since it works in the sense of ācafe societyā and enlightenment salons, plus a certain learned, cynical outlook or prediction for our collective world fate. This would be valid irrespective of whether the user understands the Adams reference.
I have my own suggestion, too, but Iāll post it separately since voting with likes is easiest and that way itās unambiguous which idea the likes support.
I think thereās sufficient reason to be concerned that modern literary references could summon lawyers for the authors/their estates. Even though āCafe at the End of the Worldā isnāt the same as āRestaurant at the End of the Universe,ā if thereās enough expression to make it apparent that itās intended a Douglas Adams reference, then it would seem that thereās enough evidence for a lawyer to argue that weāre infringing on his IP. And, of course, lawyers donāt have to be right; just better-funded.
Iām not against it, but if we decide to go this route, we should consult with a lawyer first.