Currently, there’s a bit of a name collision between “SourceCred” (the technology and project) and “the SourceCred community”.
Similarly, there’s a name collision between “cred” (the reputation metric that SourceCred creates) and “cred in SourceCred”.
This makes for some confusion. For example, if I’m inviting someone to contribute to SourceCred, and I say that their contribution will earn “cred”, they might think that “cred” is a single universal metric. What I mean is, they’ll earn “cred in SourceCred itself”, but it’s super cumbersome to say this all the time.
Therefore, I propose the following names:
CredCore: The community building SourceCred.
CoreCred: Cred within CredCore.
I think they’re cute, but feel free to push back if they’re too confusingly close.
Attribution note: “CredCore” was first suggested by @nicola.
Another implication: “mana” would mean project-specific fungible currencies in general, “CoreMana” would be the currency being issued in CredSperiment payouts.
I literally just read this 10 seconds ago and I already don’t remember the difference between cred-core and core-cred. In my mind they’re the same because they’re the same words. Different concepts need different words.
What about:
SourceCred Community Contributors: the community building SourceCred.
Cred (with a big C): cred within for the SourceCred community.
Then every other project/community that uses SourceCred would be encouraged (required) to come up with their own names that are unique to their use case. The Aragon community has defaulted to birds and animals (BEEs/HONEY), but there’s lots of other words too that would work.
not thrilled about these suggestions, but it’s at least less confusing than just reversing the order of the same 2 words
I rather like the idea of capital-C Cred as cred in SourceCred itself, thanks for that! Based on this, I’m happy to give up on “corecred”.
Now, with “corecred” out of the way: what do you think of “CredCore” as an alternative to “SourceCred community contributors”?
Also, I think I am going to replace “mana” with “grain”. Mana made sense when I was really focused on the “SourceCred as a MMO meme”. But grain feels like it matches better onto the semantics: you “harvest” grain from your cred or you buy it on the market, and you “plant” grain (boosting) in ways that you think will produce more grain.
Credcore works. It’s like Bitcoin core, but for SourceCred.
The main thing is just making sure that the words that describe things each sound different so it’s intuitive to associate one with one concept and another with another concept
Not gonna lie, mana sounds really cool. Also the idea of SourceCred being a social/intellectual MMO is kind of the best thing ever…
Grain fits very nicely in the context of the metaphor (harvesting/planting), but it’s not as exciting. Also, how would one tie “cred” (abstract concept of reputation) to “grain” (not so abstract concept of stuff that grows out of the ground)? Seems like they should be more connected.
So I’m torn. Explaining cred/grain is 10X more intuitive and instantly makes the concepts stick, but it’s not as fun. Explaining cred/mana sounds super cool and I want to play, but I’m not exactly sure what’s going on (I’ll figure it out as I go). I dunno… there must be a happy medium somewhere here lol
Yeah-no. I think if the name is to be an improvement it should be mostly self-explanatory and I think CoreCred - CredCore is not that.
There’s some conflation of problems here.
The possible assumption that “cred” would be global instead of per-instance. To solve this with a different unit name means every instance would need their own unit name. CoreCred, TauriCred, SFOSCCred, … The same goes for CoreMana, TauriMana, SFOSCMana, …
Overlap between community and the tech SourceCred. As a regular contributor I’ve not had any issue distinguishing between the two, for as far as that makes sense in the first place. I believe CredSperiment is functioning well as the idea of using (dogfooding) SourceCred tech within the SourceCred community.
It was established in another thread, we’re relying on well-intentioned, informed participants for the CredSperiment and perhaps beyond. If our participants are confused what’s going on, this is imo not a naming, but documentation issue. If we need to drive home the point that cred is per-instance perhaps we need to bring a second early-adopters community doing payouts forward in the roadmap.
I think this is actually a good association. Cred is abstract and ethereal; note that cred can change retroactively. Grain is more tangible and familiar: it’s a digital currency, a quantity that never disappears or changes unexpectedly. The grain minting process gives you a durable token of appreciation based on your cred, so there is a “less abstract → more tangible” transformation there.
It’s more important that the name be clear than fun. The fun that comes from a clever name is superficial and fleeting. The fun that comes from the system being well-designed, engaging, and rewarding is what we are aiming for. Having clear names will help us build and communicate that system.
Executive decision: The digital currency that we’re issuing based on Cred is called Grain. SourceCred-generated reputation scores in general are called ‘cred’; cred in SourceCred itself is called Cred (capital-C). The fungible token in SourceCred-systems in general are called grain; grain in SourceCred itself is called Grain (capital-G).
I’m making this a decision so that we can communicate consistently; however it’s not irreversible. If you think this is a mistake or see opportunities for improvement, feel free to suggest them. And thank you @burrrata for the suggestions and clarifying questions and comments which informed this decision.
Oh that works. Also it could be said that the more “cred” you have the more “value/nutrients/richness” the soil has, thus enabling more grain. It’s a stretch… but it works!