define the mission of Gittip

[chadwhitacre]

I want it to be something unbounded, like Google's "Organize the world's information," not something bounded such as "Turn the economy inside-out."

[colindean]

Fund others' contributions to the betterment of the world

[jlkeiper]

Enable beneficence.

[xen]

Open your respect.

[artlung]

Fund and fund alike.
Fund and code alike.
Code and fund alike.
Coding and funding reciprocity.
The Cathedral begat the Bazaar begat Kickstarter begat Gittip.
Microcode and macro group funding.

[cakey]

Freedom to be productive.

[chadwhitacre]

A mission is a proper sentence, with a strong verb. So far the verbs have been: organize, turn, fund, enable, open, and code.

[artlung]

Gittip enables rewarding contributions.

[chadwhitacre]

I like the double-entendre on "rewarding contributions." It's like the double-entendre on "inspiring generosity."

[mrhwick]

Support ordinary rewards for extraordinary contributors.

You could use that wordplay in other ways, but I think the ordinary / extraordinary pair works well in the context. Alternatively, you could drop the wordplay altogether and use two different modifiers that fit their objects more closely.

[chadwhitacre]

The mission needs to be something big and concrete and ongoing.

"Organize the world's information." The world has information. Google organizes it.

What does Gittip do? We're a platform, a marketplace, a tool, a means to an end.

The thing I want to do with Gittip is to reverse the economy. Right now it's based on taking and competition, I want to build an economy based on giving and collaboration.

Gittip's mission is to build an economy of collaboration.

But if "build" is the mission then that's bounded: "build" implies a point in time at which it's built and we're done. Options:

• Use "build" and don't care.
• Add a second verb like sustain: "... to build and sustain an economy of collaboration."
• Find a different verb. Enable? Facilitate?

I also want to get global in there, because this is big:

Gittip's mission is to enable a global economy of collaboration.
Gittip's mission is to facilitate a global economy of collaboration.
Gittip's mission is to make possible a global collaborative economy.
Gittip's mission is to realize a collaborative global economy.

I like "global economy" because it's a thing, "the global economy." Saying "global collaborative economy" sounds to me like we're building something alternative, like there's the "real" economy and then there's this fun little thing we're doing over here. No. Gittip intends to alter The Global Economy. Gittip wants to build the real thing, not a kinda fun sideshow. But along with that, The Global Economy is decentralized and Gittip is centralized, so I dunno.

Gittip's mission is to tweak the global economy.
Gittip's mission is to gently reverse the global economy.

[artlung]

I toyed with adding "ongoing" to a few of my suggestions. But shorter is better.

But "continuing" is what it really facilitates - rather than project based funding, or short term loans, it's more like a recurrent pledge drive. It's rather like watering a garden, or nurturing an ecosystem.

Star Trek: TNG included the phrase "Its continuing mission" -- some words to consider adding: ongoing, continuing, sustaining, cultivating, nurturing, nourishing.

[colindean]

"Gittip's mission is to foster community and personal growth by enabling sustainable giving."

Colin Dean
[email protected]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Joe Crawford wrote:

I toyed with adding "ongoing" to a few of my suggestions. Shorter is better.
But "continuing" is what it really facilitates - rather than project based funding, or short term loans, it's more like a recurrent pledge drive. It's rather like watering a garden, or nurturing an ecosystem.
Star Trek: TNG included the phrase "Its continuing mission" -- some words to consider adding: ongoing, continuing, sustaining, cultivating, nurturing, nourishing.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub (#1227 (comment)).

[infinite-tape]

"Gittip's mission is to liberate the world's artisans."

[chadwhitacre]

For example ...

"Top 10 Company Mission Statements"
http://drdianehamilton.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/top-10-company-mission-statements-in-2011/

Companies often list their vision and their mission statements on their sites. The difference between a mission statement and a vision statement is that a mission statement focuses on a company’s present state while a vision statement focuses on a company’s future. However, some companies tend to blend these statements. The following are some of the top technology-based company mission statements:

Amazon: Amazon’s vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online. (They list this as their mission as a combination mission/vision on their site).

[Amazon (2013): We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.]

Apple: Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.

Dell: Dell’s mission is to be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve.

Facebook: Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Google: Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Microsoft: Microsoft’s mission is to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.

Skype: Skype’s mission is to be the fabric of real-time communication on the web.

Twitter: Twitter lists its mission as “a work in progress” as it has yet to be fully developed.

Yahoo!: Yahoo!’s mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses

YouTube: YouTube’s mission is to provide fast and easy video access and the ability to share videos frequently

[chadwhitacre]

Verbs:

Amazon, Dell, Skype, Yahoo!: be
Apple: bring
Facebook: give
Google: organize
Microsoft: enable
YouTube: provide

[chadwhitacre]

Let's think in terms of "the economy" and not "the global economy." Amazon is going to have to drop Earth from their mission statement before too long, I daresay. ;-)

https://www.paypal-galactic.com/

PayPal: PayPal is creating a better shopping experience from start to finish, no matter what’s being bought, how it’s being paid for, or where it’s being sold.

PayPal: create

[mrhwick]

Gittip's mission is to support [insert user objective/habit that we are fortifying alongside a global economy objective].

[chadwhitacre]

Gittip for me is about changing nearly everything about the economy. It's radical and drastic and all-encompassing. It's a total refactor. It's like going from a threaded server to an event loop: you've got to rewrite all of your libraries. It's deep and wide and pervasive. It's not just about artisans (though "liberate" is a nice, strong verb). Fostering community and personal growth is closer, though the mission shouldn't say "by ..." because that's an implementation detail and implementation details belong elsewhere, not in the mission.

At the same time, Gittip is not Occupy Wall Street. Gittip for me is not about revolution, it's not about upheaval. It's not defined by what it's against but by what it is for.

We could say:

Gittip's mission is to evolve the economy.

But "evolve" in the scientific sense is blind and value-less. The mission should be value-laden, it should be meaningful and give us something to rally around and aspire to. "Evolve" is used in a value-laden way in activist / psychedelic / new-age communities a la www.evolver.net. I certainly want Gittip to welcome and work for and be friends with those communities, but I'm not ready to adopt that value language. For better or for worse my own value language is Christian. I generally try to keep my religion in my pants (so to speak), but since we're at the naked heart of Gittip here, I'd like to propose that we borrow a term from Christian theology:

Gittip's mission is to gently redeem the economy.

I want an economy of trust, collaboration, cooperation, sharing, openness, transparency, mutual submission, belief in humanity, care for the other, inclusion, inspiration, purpose, generosity, patience, empathy, optimism, and love. In the context of Christian theology, "redeem" is a strong, weighty, inexhaustible verb that opens up into a long list of these positive values. Practically, it gives us something to focus our decisions around and gauge our success by, while at the same time being boundless—the process of raising the economy to this new, heightened state and maintaining the economy in this state will never end.

The common-place meanings of "redeem" are also on point:

In other words, we could be understood to be saying, "Gittip's mission is to gently compensate for the faults or bad aspects of the economy." Not quite so inspirational, but perhaps more accessible?

I include the word "gently" to allay any fears of, and forestall any intrusion of, revolutionary motive.

The economy is the object of Gittip's activity.

Gittip's mission is to gently redeem the economy.

Thoughts?

[johana-star]

"Gittip's mission is to create and economy of trust, collaboration, and cooperation." ???

[pjz]

I think you left out the other useful meanings of redeem:

1. To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum.
2. To pay off (a promissory note, for example).
3. To turn in (coupons, for example) and receive something in exchange.
4. To fulfill (a pledge, for example).
5. To convert into cash: redeem stocks.
6. To set free; rescue or ransom.
7. To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences. See Synonyms at save1.
8. To make up for: The low price of the clothes dryer redeems its lack of special features.
9. To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of: You botched the last job but can redeem yourself on this one.

I like the wordplayish double-entendres as long as both meanings apply. To that end:

Gittip: creative economic redemption

which parses as "being creative and fixing/saving the economy" and/or "fixing/saving the creative economy" and/or "payment/fulfillment in a creative, economic way"... all of which I agree with.

Now... is it a mission statement? I'm not sure. But it's at least a good tagline :)

[chadwhitacre]

Gittip's mission is to create an economy of trust, collaboration, and cooperation.

That's an option. It moves the meaning out of the verb and into the prepositional phrase, as seen above at #1227 (comment). What I like about "redeem" is that it packs so much meaning, and if we try to unpack that meaning into the prepositional phrase we necessary have to cut ourselves short. "Redeem" is expansive and open to fruitful interpretation. It balances definiteness with indefiniteness. Also, I prefer the definite article to the indefinite, though, because we're looking to alter the main event, not start a sideshow.

[pjz]

Gittip's mission is to...

...bring more trust, collaboration and cooperation to earning a living.
...creatively redeem economics.
...enable distributed creative remuneration.
...create distributed remuneration.

[chadwhitacre]

I started a pull request for this at #1279.

Can be viewed here:

https://gittip.whit537.org/for/contributors/mission-statement.html

[chadwhitacre]

Here is me attempting to loop in the whole Gittip team by mentioning @gittip. If you have objections to this becoming the mission statement of Gittip please voice them now:

Gittip's mission is to redeem the economy.

We envision a future in which the economy is characterized by trust, collaboration, cooperation, sharing, openness, transparency, mutual submission, belief in humanity, care for the other, inclusion, inspiration, purpose, generosity, patience, empathy, optimism, and love.

[wyze]

There are 16 commas in that statement, FYI. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[chadwhitacre]

I like the commas because the mission packs a LOT into four words, "to redeem the economy," and the paragraph of commas starts to unpack that. It hints that the mission is essentially inexhaustible.

[chadwhitacre]

One question might be whether the Mission Statement belongs under "For Contributors" or somewhere else, such as under "About."

I located it under "For Contributors" because it's primarily addressed to ourselves, the ones building Gittip. If someone from outside wants to peek in of course that's fine and encouraged (and in fact essential to how we operate) but primarily this is a document for ourselves, is how I'm seeing it.

[colindean]

I'm not too hot on the word "redeem" because it is, in my mind, a negative word. "foster" is too often used and not as meaningful because of its frequency of use.

What is the meaning/intention of "mutual submission"?

[chadwhitacre]

What are the negative connotations of "redeem"?

I'm not sure what it would mean, "to foster the economy."

What is the meaning/intention of "mutual submission"?

I went ahead and dropped this, as well as "belief in humanity." The listing in the second paragraph is meant to be easily accessible, and those two terms were the least easily accessible.

[bruceadams]

Words are fun!

"redeem" is a strongly positive word, but it does bring a context of something being not quite right; something needs redemption.

In the proposed mission statement, the economy needs redemption. I'm fine with that. The economy has good and it has bad parts. We work to redeem some, even all, of the bad.

In this context I like the second definition in Merriam Webster: to free from what distresses or harms

[bruceadams]

I like the statement, as amended. Two minor comments: care for the other hits me as slightly odd phrasing. It is a key concept; I would be very sad to see it dropped. What do you think of care for each other or care for one another?

[chadwhitacre]

Good call, I've changed it to "care for one another."

[colindean]

Redeem still feels weird to me, but maybe it'll grow on me as I hear it more often in Gittip context.

Colin Dean
[email protected]

On Friday, August 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Chad Whitacre wrote:

Good call, I've changed it to "care for one another."

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub (#1227 (comment)).

[chadwhitacre]

Gittip's mission is to redeem the word "redeem"? :-)

[colindean]

👍

[mvdkleijn]

My suggestion:

Gittip: continues generosity inspiring global collaboration.

More a slogan than a mission statement. For me this slogan reads as: Gittip users are continuously generous in making funds available that allow others to collaborate on a global scale (due to the internet) by making blogs, youtube videos, software, etc. 😄

I feel it shouldn't be about Gittip too much... it should be more about what people do for / with / because of Gittip. Gittip is the vehicle towards the dream, just a short mention is enough to let people know it exists.

Edit: you can of course still use a more expansive mission statement next to the slogan.

[chadwhitacre]

Did I forget to close this? I forgot to close this. Sorry! :-)

PR was #1279.

[chadwhitacre]

And for the record, this landed here (though see #1296):

https://www.gittip.com/for/contributors/mission-statement.html

[abnor]

To redeem the economy by serving as a transparent platform which encourages initiatives through the exchange of monetary gifts.