[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] Thanks (was: Re:  In need for name of a project)
From:       "Friedrich W. H. Kossebau" <kossebau () kde ! org>
Date:       2007-02-09 12:52:11
Message-ID: 200702091352.11690.kossebau () kde ! org
[Download RAW message or body]

Am Donnerstag, 8. Februar 2007 10:42, schrieb Torsten Rahn:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wednesday 07 February 2007 17:33:26 Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> > > "KDE 4, now with öjso9ijuw-poiw 1.2, sretoiusn 3.9, high quality
> > > äöplsaoiju a much better jhbsoewp and the best of all: sdfsppsa. Don't
> > > forget to tell your family and your friends about the new qwmvös+ß. And
> > > your boss will certainly be thrilled to hear that KDE 4 now also sports
> > > öpiclmiiiihsxx support."
> > 
> > Great exaggeration.
> 
> No exaggeration at all. Just let any person read an article with names
> like "strigi, akonadi, kalkhi" and names along that line for 5 minutes
> (without asking anything besides reading through it).
> 
> Then ask them after 6 hours to enumate the names and to assign them to the
> matching technology/application. Now try the same thing with Names
> like "Phonon, Oxygen, Decibel and Plasma". In a larger international set of
> people (no matter whether they come from Spain, Georgia, Poland, Japan,
> India, Russia or elsewhere) you will have a significantly higher percentage
> of people remembering the english names.

This is an assumption. But I can only ask the scientist in you to test the 
claim, or to reference studies.

I would only expect some trouble with the for some of us unknown writing of 
the sound kh. But else I would like some real experiments. I would not be 
asthonished if things are different. I even think to remember to have heard 
so... (It may have been about the increased attention for unusual things, but 
I cannot remember enough). The dose/rate could have an effect.

> Why? Because English is a worldwide accepted communication standard. And by
> learning english people have been trained to remember english word
> patterns. Once you have been trained to remember a certain language it's
> even easier for you to learn related languages. For example for somebody
> who has learned spanish already (no matter where he comes from) it's
> significantly easier for him to learn related latin languages like french,
> italian or romanian, partly due to similar words and wordpatterns.

Sounds logically, but again a claim. (and I cannot remember that it helped me, 
just the opposite ;)

> I myself have experienced that I have a really hard time remembering
> people's names if they come from turkey or if they are from somewhere in
> asia.

Feeled experiences are no measurements. It could be that you are just more 
aware of the problem to remember the right name when it is one from an 
unknown language (there is a psychological term that I miss right now to 
throw it in). Like people felt that everything was more expensive after the 
EURO introduction because they saw some things more expensive but missed the 
ones that were cheaper.

> > Besides, for many people in the world with all our current
> > latin/greek-based names this is already the situation.
> 
> You are missing the point: This list is about promotion. So we assume that
> you intend to maximize the success of your application worldwide by giving
> it a name which will easily be remembered by people and forwarded to
> others. I already pointed out in the previous paragraph why English is a
> better choice than Swahili or Chinese.

For the script I agree. For the rest I can only ask you for some backing. At 
least for Strigi and Akonadi.

> Of course you can assume that people will appreciate your intention to
> teach them something new and being unique.
> However don't assume that they will go through the hazzle of
> 
> - learning the pronunciation
> - learning the spelling
> - learning to assign the correct content
> 
> ... and all that for a language whose language patterns seems to be very
> far away from the language patterns they are used to. It will be considered
> by them as an obstacle for adoption.

If it is an obstacle, how big is it? Worth to obey?

> > And really, could you say the above with only the project ids and
> > have somebody understand what you say?
> 
> I can tell you that for each of the English names (or for latin-based
> names) I can assign a feel or association to each term. I have nothing like
> that for Khalki.

You have already. Sure, not in the beginning. That is where the promotion is 
totally free to fill it with emotion and image.

Khalkhi is about a cool KDE concept to make real world people available as 
first class objects to the programs. It's cool, it's hip, it get's you laid 
(well, perhaps).
Feel your neurons firing and increasing connections. 

> > You always have to introduce
> > the names with an description what it is about, unless the term has
> > already been introduced.
> 
> As I already pointed out it's still way easier for all people who are
> somewhat familiar with english (which is certainly one of the largest sets
> of people worldwide) to learn names that are of related origin.
> 
> Other criteria for ease of learning include:
> 
> - shortness of the word: MP3, KDE, IBM, Nova are certainly easier to
> remember than WRTPCUS6 or  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. 
Hehe ;)
> The less 
> letters and the less sylables the better. Khalkhi has about 7 letters with
> a non-obvious spelling which is already quite far from ideal (which is in
> practice 3-5 letters).
> - High usage of vowels, low usage of consonants. Helps a lot. Khalkhi has 5
> consonants and just 2 vowels which looks rather odd to me.
> - obvious spelling. Even Akonadi and Ubuntu are much better in this
> department than Khalkhi where "i", and the "kh" will probably be exchanged
> for "K", "C", "ie", "ee" and "y" a lot. So say hello
> to "Calcee", "Kalkie", "Kalki", "Kahlky", "Khalkhy", etc.

For sure three things that can help to take care of (and which I tried to 
follow with vivid and swarm). The Kh is a little bit problematic, yes. But no 
real stopper for promotion IMO.

> > Who would ever think of Oxygen as an interface style?
> 
> No, but I associate a feeling with it (fresh air).

You do. I think of gas welding. What do the masses of our target group do? And 
does it help to remember the name? Or is it more usefull for the image?

> > Just test with a person totally unaware of KDE. What is KDE, btw?
> 
> A historically grown abbreviation that has the advantage of being short
> enough to remember. There are enough people who aren't really happy with
> "KDE" either but changing the well established brand now without a good
> strategy would probably be pretty dumb.

Agreed.

> > Making sense and car names:
> > For sure Jaguar once had fun with their Silver Mist and the german
> > speaking people. The Chevrolet Nova and the Mitsubishi Pajero made it for
> > spanish speaking ones. And the Ford Pinto especially for Brasilia. ;)
> 
> That's an extra point you should make sure in general when choosing a name:
> Make sure that it doesn't mean "shit in your face" for 20% of the world
> population ;-) And concerning the "Nova":
> 
> http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/business.asp

Oha. And it was indeed Rolls Royce, not Jaguar. Thanks, Joseph.

> > > So we end up with a product with property names that are hard to
> > > remember, hard to spell, whose names are meaningless (and thereby make
> > > people feel unsafe) to 99.9% of the target population. Brilliant!
> > 
> > Hard to remember? What isn't? Vocabulary has to be learnt.
> 
> As I already pointed out, obvious spelling and usage of familiar
> wordpatterns makes vocabulary easier to learn.
> Take e.g. my invented term "Marvolic". It's not a real term in any language
> I'm aware of: But "Marv" associates "Marvelous" to me and "olic" is a
> pattern that I know e.g. from "alcoholic" or "hyperbolic" (where it's
> occurs during the creation of an adjective from a noun).
> Hence a name like "Marvolic" will likely be easier to learn for people who
> also speak english than e.g. "Akonadi".

All theory. Sorry. It might be easier, but will it be remembered? It could 
help with an image, due to the phonetic connections to some semantics, I 
expect. But more? I am already used to Akonadi, so I cannot compare.

> > For ignorant western centric people, sure. Bah. ;)
> 
> So I guess that your next message on this mailing list will be written in
> arabic to emphasize your intention of appearing more "international" ;-)

He, once more exaggerating ;) And if I would like to, I would use German, 
that's what I can most, if at all.

> I'm not sure that will work. I'd rather focus on making sure that the KDE
> environment and its applications get better and more widely used worldwide.
> Having good translations everywhere and having community involvement from
> all over the world would certainly be critical to make that happen. The
> attempt to make people familiar with terms from random languages doesn't
> help too much I'm afraid ...

What about the message that we are aiming at the whole world and aren't so 
much western centric?

> PS: I don't have a problem with Khalkhi specifically. I'm just worried
> about the result if this trend continues for other applications.

For the sound Kh I can even understand you. But than: hey, the promo works, it 
draws attention, you now all know the name and to speak Kh like ch in Bach :P

Not sure. Are you, Torsten and Pinheiro, really serious about your concerns? I 
guess so. What do the other think?
If you are, than we should do more and go and ask the Akonadi and Strigi 
people to consider some more streamlined names, too. Otherwise the discussion 
is lost a little.

Friedrich
 
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on \
or temporarily stop your subscription.


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]