Opensource.guide: [RFC] Getting Started > Branding

[nayafia]

Hey open source maintainers! We would love your feedback on the Getting Started > Branding article. We will leave this open for comments until Sep 1, 2016.

Does anything seem inconsistent with your experience? What is missing? Are there any other helpful resources on this topic?

Feel free to comment and discuss here, or even open a pull request to suggest changes.

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[MikeMcQuaid]

You can check for U.S. trademark conflicts here

Might be nice to throw in another country too just so it's not too US centric.

Otherwise, great work 👍

[benbalter]

You can check for U.S. trademark conflicts here.. You can check for similar project names here... You can check for domain name availability here.

I could write:

You generally want to avoid "here" links" for a variety of reasons. Click here to learn more.

But in modern web writing, it's generally preferable and more concise to write:

You generally want to avoid "here" for a variety of reason.

[benbalter]

Not sure if you're looking for design feedback, but two things I noticed:

1. Could use visiual distinction between article body and footnotes (e.g. an HR)

1. Could help distinguish block quotes a bit more (e.g., gray background):

[mlinksva]

Might be nice to throw in another countr[y's trademark search] too just so it's not too US centric.

The WIPO Global Brand Database is probably the right place to link to; @nsqe may be able to confirm or suggest something better.

[mlinksva]

Could use visiual distinction between article body and footnotes (e.g. an HR)

Agree.

Also, the footnote for the janl quote could be avoided. "helped create a positive brand" could be link text instead.

I wonder if footnotes could be wholly avoided in the entire text?

[nsqe]

The WIPO Global Brand Database is probably the right place to link to; @nsqe may be able to confirm or suggest something better.

International trademarks are fun.

The WIPO Global Brand Database is a great place to start.

ROMARIN is all international marks recorded under WIPO's Madrid System. The 113 countries who comprise the Madrid System include the countries of the EU, the US, Australia, Japan, Russia, and other major markets. China is the most significant non-member.

[nayafia]

@parkr: @bkeepers suggested you might have good feedback on this piece!

[mlinksva]

http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/romarin/faq_romarin.html#databases claims "The ROMARIN Database is fully integrated in the Global Brand Database." Seems the Global Brand Database could be the sole link, skip U.S. specific one completely.

[gr2m]

Beyond Jan’s experience that you quote at "How you write (and code) affects your brand, too!" I’d say that it’s worth to inform yourself on inclusive language, e.g. using "them" even for single person examples. It will go far to feel more welcoming and inclusive to your potential contributors.

Another related topic is to use simple language, as large parts of the developer community is not native English speaking. Hemingway is a great tool to help with that

[gr2m]

Maybe in addition you could mention that branding / tone is something that is hard to change later, therefore an early investment pays off

[orta]

Re:Naming could discuss that if you are building a project related to / expanding on another project, making the name a prefix to really helps e.g. as a recent example react-storyboards vs carte-blanche (you can tell offhand what one does, the other requires an explanation)

[parkr]

@nayafia Thanks for the ping! "Branding" is a fuzzy concept to me, but I will do my best to provide feedback for the content on this page. 😄

I didn't have to think about branding when it came to Jekyll, as the name was decided before I began helping out and @cobyism redesigned & reorganized the site and produced our branding right after I started working on the project without any help from me.

This appears in the Getting started section, which feels kind of strange, as most projects I am aware of start with the code, and change their name and produce branding later. Branding is definitely a crucial part of making a project successful, but I'm not sure that I would start with it. Could be personal preference, however.

I liked what @janl mentioned about your behaviour being a "brand." I think we could use more of that. This page could link out to any other pages in this Handbook around community building, especially the idea of bringing in a Code of Conduct or otherwise building inclusivity into the basis of the brand.

It might also be useful to note that guidelines should be written down somewhere in the project's documentation (e.g. a Code of Conduct or guidelines about how to write a blog post for the project). Consistent tone can be difficult to produce across many maintainers and writing this information down is a good first step to creating it.

[nayafia]

This appears in the Getting started section, which feels kind of strange, as most projects I am aware of start with the code, and change their name and produce branding later. Branding is definitely a crucial part of making a project successful, but I'm not sure that I would start with it. Could be personal preference, however.

@parkr this is good feedback and a tricky question. The "best practice" seems to be that thinking about branding earlier vs. later is good. In reality, however, we know that a lot of projects don't do this (and many turn out just fine!). I'd like to use this handbook to highlight community best practices, without sacrificing accessibility, but finding that balance is going to be tough.

@bkeepers FYI- this is a broader theme I'm seeing in some of the 1st section feedback.

[nayafia]

Closed per #106.