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Comment by po | Hacker News Reader

I would suggest one thing that may be controversial, and I hope you take it as constructive criticism: Change the name of Gittip.

Maybe you've discussed this before somewhere but… The name suggests two things that I think hinder the service:

- This is a service for software developers only (git)

- A tip is a small amount of money in exchange for quality service

There is no reason to tie yourself only to software developers. There are a lot of other places where people may want to show appreciation for each other in an open way.

There is also no reason to associate yourself with tipping culture. Tipping causes many people anxiety and has power dynamics and cultural norms attached to it. Tips are supposed to be small and in exchange for service.

I really think a more abstract name would allow people to connect with it better.

Good luck with year three!

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As a non-target-market neutral observer I have a comment on this point. What it lacks in directly relevant meaning, the name makes up for in memorability. The sound/rhyme/rhythm, simple length, inference (devs/money) are all well thought out enough to encourage further investigation.

It's true that tipping culture varies widely around the world, but if visitors are aware of how tipping culture works in the States then the name's function is fulfilled.

Many tips can indeed add up to a living in many places, even in the States, and making a reference to tipping culture can also reflect the humble requirements of OSS developers who have by definition not opted to work on OSS projects for the money.

Seems sensible enough from that point of view.

Thanks for the feedback! We actually had a loooong bikeshed on this a month into Gittip. Here's the thread:

https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138

Maybe someday we'll rebrand, but that would be a fair bit of work at this point and would distract us from more pressing concerns such as better discoverability and usability.

While I suspect the name isn't the most important thing to be spending time on at this point, it is good fun.

'Opengrant' was a good suggestion from that thread not only because of its 'monetary grant giving' meaning but also its original permission-giving roots: "With these resources I hereby grant you the ability to work on this for the betterment and embiggening of my interests".

On an even lighter note, 'adoptadev' seems pretty open for the taking...

I suspected that there was already a PR where what I'm suggesting was discussed. :-)

Now you've learned more about the people who are interested and the words/terms they use, you are more in a position to make that decision now. So, in some sense it was good to wait.

However, I think that if your growth has been relatively flat and you have evidence of other platforms clicking with consumers in a big way, then it may actually be time to think bigger than incremental improvements on what you're doing now.

One thing you could do is run a set of ads with 10-20 different names along with a catchphrase like:

    Gittip
    An economy of gratitude, generosity, and love

- or -

    NameIdea
    An economy of gratitude, generosity, and love

And then see how well you perform. It would be a fairly affordable way to determine if you have a problem or not.

Good idea on testing names with ads. If/when we decide to rebrand I'll keep that in mind.

Our growth has only slowed in the past few months. We doubled three times in the 16 months before that.

How about this: it seems patron-age.org is available...

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