Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
(Re-sending this e-mail because I wrongly addressed the first) Op 30-11-17 om 16:26 schreef Gergely Székely: > I think it was not a good idea at all to change the "Join the ..." to > "Become a supporter". > > My point is that "being a member" of something (even if just an > associate one) suggests a much stronger bound than being just a > "supporter". So I think using phrases as "Join the FSFE", "become a(n > associate) member" etc is way more compelling for most of the people. I agree partially. There is a small problem, however: Previously, it was unclear that one could "join" the FSFE without making financial contributions. Upon clicking the "join" button, you were prompted to make a donation, and this was the only way into the fellowship. And upon joining the FSFE (i.e., becoming a fellow), you would not have equal status to all other FSFE members. Staffers and members of the GA would have a say in the FSFE's goings-on, whereas fellows didn't, not really. Thus "joining" the FSFE was kind of false advertising. Thus the logical solutions were twofold: 1. Allow people to become fellows without making financial contributions, and grant fellows voting rights. 2. Change the wording to better reflect reality. Understandably, option 1 isn't very appealing. However, I would be in _full_ support of reinstating the usage of "fellow" for volunteers who contribute time and effort. But then, maybe "volunteer" also cuts it? > I really miss this inviting spirit from fsfe.org. > (Also, why is no similar banner on fsfe.org in the last two months of > every year?) If you can contribute such a banner, we would be extremely happy to add it. Unfortunately it's outside of my abilities. I'm not a web developer. > I think recruiting members and encouraging people to donate is > important. So it worth making extra efforts to doing it right. I agree Yours sincerely, -- Carmen Bianca Bakker Technical Intern Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
On 01/12/17 10:28, Carmen Bianca Bakker wrote: > (Re-sending this e-mail because I wrongly addressed the first) > > Op 30-11-17 om 16:26 schreef Gergely Székely: >> I think it was not a good idea at all to change the "Join the ..." to >> "Become a supporter". >> >> My point is that "being a member" of something (even if just an >> associate one) suggests a much stronger bound than being just a >> "supporter". So I think using phrases as "Join the FSFE", "become a(n >> associate) member" etc is way more compelling for most of the people. > > I agree partially. There is a small problem, however: Previously, it > was unclear that one could "join" the FSFE without making financial > contributions. Upon clicking the "join" button, you were prompted to > make a donation, and this was the only way into the fellowship. > > And upon joining the FSFE (i.e., becoming a fellow), you would not have > equal status to all other FSFE members. Staffers and members of the GA > would have a say in the FSFE's goings-on, whereas fellows didn't, not > really. Thus "joining" the FSFE was kind of false advertising. > It is even more than that: because the "Join" click was immediately followed by a request for a recurring payment, people would be very likely to feel the recurring payment is like a membership fee and gives them a right to vote. > Thus the logical solutions were twofold: > > 1. Allow people to become fellows without making financial >contributions, and grant fellows voting rights. > > 2. Change the wording to better reflect reality. > > Understandably, option 1 isn't very appealing. > > However, I would be in _full_ support of reinstating the usage of > "fellow" for volunteers who contribute time and effort. But then, maybe > "volunteer" also cuts it? > >> I really miss this inviting spirit from fsfe.org. >> (Also, why is no similar banner on fsfe.org in the last two months of >> every year?) > > If you can contribute such a banner, we would be extremely happy to add > it. Unfortunately it's outside of my abilities. I'm not a web > developer. > >> I think recruiting members and encouraging people to donate is >> important. So it worth making extra efforts to doing it right. > > I agree > Another idea that was raised: keep the "Join" buttons and the "Join" page, but make it very clear on the page what people can do, e.g. give them boxes they can tick: [ ] I want to become a financial supporter but not voting member [ ] I want to volunteer [ ] I want to apply for a job or internship [ ] I want to attend meetings in my town [ ] I want to become a voting member Regards, Daniel ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
* Daniel Pocock [2017-12-01 11:32 +0100]: Another idea that was raised: keep the "Join" buttons and the "Join" page, but make it very clear on the page what people can do, e.g. give them boxes they can tick: [ ] I want to become a financial supporter but not voting member [ ] I want to volunteer [ ] I want to apply for a job or internship [ ] I want to attend meetings in my town [ ] I want to become a voting member Do you mean something like https://fsfe.org/contribute/ ? (We had the idea in the past to also have a longer list of todo items people could easily help with, and had an "activity" issues tracker for some time.) Regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html) ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
* Daniel Pocock [2017-11-30 16:43 +0100]: I think recruiting members and encouraging people to donate is important. So it worth making extra efforts to doing it right. What do you think? # Donations About donations, yes, you are right, we are behind our schedule this year and hopefully you'll soon read more about that, because yes: we need donations by many supporters to keep us independent and enable our work in the next months again. So everybody here who wants to support us financially, become a supporter now: https://fsfe.org/join # Membership A motion passed at the recent GA meeting aims to change the way people can become members in future: [...] That is just one of the motions. The other one was: 18. Future of Fellowship seats (Council) The executive should prepare a constitution change to remove the Fellowship seats. Result: 20 for, 0 against, 3 abstentions See our vice president's blog post http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2017/11/06/background-for-future-changes-to-membership-in-fsfe-e-v/ for more information. Regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html) ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
On 01/12/17 13:20, Matthias Kirschner wrote: > * Daniel Pocock [2017-12-01 11:32 +0100]: >> Another idea that was raised: keep the "Join" buttons and the "Join" >> page, but make it very clear on the page what people can do, e.g. give >> them boxes they can tick: >> >> [ ] I want to become a financial supporter but not voting member >> [ ] I want to volunteer >> [ ] I want to apply for a job or internship >> [ ] I want to attend meetings in my town >> [ ] I want to become a voting member > > Do you mean something like https://fsfe.org/contribute/ ? (We had the > idea in the past to also have a longer list of todo items people could > easily help with, and had an "activity" issues tracker for some time.) > The main page of fsfe.org has "Become a supporter" Maybe the button could say "Contribute" with a link to that page instead? The button currently links here: https://fsfe.org/fellowship/ams/join.php?ams=join and that page has "join" in the URL and it doesn't provide any link to the /contribute page Regards, Daniel ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
# Daniel Pocock [2017-12-01 13:27 +0100]: https://fsfe.org/fellowship/ams/join.php?ams=join and that page has "join" in the URL and it doesn't provide any link to the /contribute page Yeah, the /join pages lack a lot of useful information, features, and links. This is because it is built on our old Account Management System which is hard to maintain, not translatable, and tricky to integrate with our normal web pages. However, we are working on improving the situation by shifting to a whole new AMS. This will also make it much easier to choose between different options, e.g. becoming a volunteer or contributing in other ways. Please read the AMS Hackers' wiki page for more info: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/Ams-Hackers Best, Max -- Max Mehl - Program Manager - Free Software Foundation Europe Contact and further information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl Support advocacy for Free Software: https://fsfe.org/donate ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
Hi Carmen, Carmen Bianca Bakker writes: > However, I would be in _full_ support of reinstating the usage of > "fellow" for volunteers who contribute time and effort. But then, > maybe "volunteer" also cuts it? We discussed this choice of terminology many times. Some people really like it, some people, like me dislike it because "Fellowship" makes people at best think of Lord of the Rings and at worst makes them think of some sort of religious group which we very much don't want to be. I think it was a good idea to make the switch and also a good idea to not differentiate between people who donate money to us and people who donate their time. Both are valuable contributions that help us fulfill our mission. Happy hacking! Florian ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
On 01/12/17 16:06, Florian Snow wrote: > Hi Carmen, > > > Carmen Bianca Bakker writes: >> However, I would be in _full_ support of reinstating the usage of >> "fellow" for volunteers who contribute time and effort. But then, >> maybe "volunteer" also cuts it? > > We discussed this choice of terminology many times. Some people really > like it, some people, like me dislike it because "Fellowship" makes > people at best think of Lord of the Rings and at worst makes them think > of some sort of religious group which we very much don't want to be. I > think it was a good idea to make the switch and also a good idea to not > differentiate between people who donate money to us and people who > donate their time. Both are valuable contributions that help us fulfill > our mission. > The real problem is that both "supporter" and "fellow" are ambiguous. When FSFE is using either of these words, we are actually talking about recurring donors. For me, these words have clear meanings: Donor = somebody who gives money Volunteer = somebody who gives time Member = somebody who has a vote in the AGM Join = become a Member Any other words like "Supporter" and "Fellow" appear to be marketing and need to be qualified whenever they are used in the web site or other materials. Regards, Daniel ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
Hi, Didn't we have that discussion half a year ago? On Freitag, 1. Dezember 2017 16:15:44 CET Daniel Pocock wrote: > For me, these words have clear meanings: > > Donor = somebody who gives money > Volunteer = somebody who gives time > Member = somebody who has a vote in the AGM Supporter = somebody who gives money or time Both donors and volunteers are supporters. Well, almost: "donors" can mean both persons (like many of us on this list) and other entities (e.g. companies donating to the FSFE). I think the correct term for "somebody who gives money" is "sustaining member" (which does nothing to prevent further confusion). > Join = become a Member Not a native speaker, but I thought "Join as a " was unambiguous and clear? > Any other words like "Supporter" and "Fellow" appear to be marketing and > need to be qualified whenever they are used in the web site or other > materials. I really don't think that "Supporter" needs to be qualified. True - it's not as narrow a term as "Volunteer", but for a reason. Cheers, Johannes signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
Re: "Joining" vs "becoming a supporter"
Hi everyone, I agree with everything you wrote, Johannes. I wanted to write the same thing but you saved me some time. :-) Happy hacking! Florian ___ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
