[okfn-discuss] Next steps on the Open Knowledge Tagline

Tue Jun 17 11:48:38 UTC 2014

On 16 June 2014 17:31, Aaron Wolf <wolftune at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Rufus. I agree. The concern was initially about potential shift in
> focus and concern about inclusion of the community in the decisions.
>
> To be clear, I always thought it was great that lots of Open Data stuff was
> happening, but I saw "Open Knowledge" as basically including "Free Culture",
> and when I think of stuff cultural works like music and art, I see zero
> place for that in "See how data can change the world". And I think that will
> remain the case for everyone who ever sees that tagline. Nobody will ever
> see that tagline and think OK has anything directly to do with free/open
> art.

Piping up from the background... I felt somewhat uncomfortable about
the "data can change the world" idea, and I think this is a key point.
It's certainly true to say "yes, of course, it encompasses cultural
things as well, regardless of the tagline"... but that doesn't help
someone who isn't familiar, doesn't already know that silent footnote,
and may well be put off engaging by the emphasis on something that, to
them, seems tangential.

To me, one of the best and most interesting things OKFN has done is
the Public Domain Review - which is a thousand miles from data.
Likewise, the whole OpenGLAM work has been very much content-oriented
(though data work plays a part). Neither of these are what you'd
expect from "see how data can change the world"

To go back to Rufus' comparisons, this is a bit like Greenpeace
deciding its tagline should be "caring for the whales". I mean, yes,
it's certainly correct, but it might also be a bit misleading ;-)

(Obligatory preference: "Open knowledge: open data, open minds",
without repetition, is quite neat at bridging the full range)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk