www.loomio.coop

Yes I am interested in what it would take for Loomio.coop to work and what the difficulties might be?

I fear we'd hit some of the same limitations using loomio.coop as we did with loom.io

@josefdaviescoates microgenius looks great. Wish there was an international solution for something like that...

@alannakrause What were they?

Maybe I'm missing this and I don't see it - is there currently any sense of distinction between product and organisation? Sounds like a level of potential confusion that a domain won't necessarily solve - and yet there is wordpress.com and wordpress.org ... although if you make another product then we're all stuffed :-)

@neilmorris mostly email deliverability issues based on having an unusual domain name

Here's an interesting discussion on worker-owned cooperative development, relevant not just to Loomio but you may find yourself being asked similar questions by others around the world wanting to start a worker co-op:

http://www.geo.coop/node/631

@alannakrause I do not see an issue with email addresses, see that at the beginning there were no "nationals" domains such as .es .nz .in. co.uk ... and now they are fine, I think the opposite, coop domains might be a trend sooner than later.

In addition to the deliverability problem (not so big in this case imho), the main problem with having an unusual domain name is that people look at it and don't recognise it as a domain name!

Personally I am very keen for loomio.coop to be a knowledge repository but not keen for it to be the primary address simply for that legibility issue.

@richarddbartlett I think in terms of long term sustainability of Loomio it is important to appeal to a wide range of potential customers from a wide range of sectors. Using the .coop domain name may (unfortunately) decrease the appeal to some potential customers. (Is there any research that has been done on this @ramseymargolis ?)

If Loomio ever decided to do specific marketing aimed at the coop sector the domain name could be very useful in terms of potential customers/users of Loomio recognising the value base of Loomio.

@tomlord I remember there was originally the production site (Loom.io) and an organisation site (Loomio.org). The organisation site seems to have been dropped or merged? It makes sense to me to put the legal structure documentation I mentioned earlier under Loomio.coop.

I'd use it but point to the existing address. We can then see whether it is worth that positioning. I personally find .coop a bit confusing as it doesn't co e across as co-op!! But let's see w/o risking the existing site identification

Best
Nick

@neilmorris I'm interested in why you think a Co-op would be less attractive than other kinds of organisation to some "customers" (I prefer the more neutral term "users"). I tend to think the opposite, that most people interested in using online democracy would be those frustrated with state-corporate structures, and keen to support alternatives to them.

I think that we should activate the domain .coop - and point it to the existing site and see what happens. Its simply pragmatic in that we need people to find us - they can't use us or get excited about us unless they know we exist. We are already operating on the .org platform - I am not personally aware of anyone else using .coop

So why make it hard for ourselves? Certainly let's try .coop - noting that to me it reads .coop (as in Chicken....) and not co-op - so I'm not sure that the obvious and effective brand driven association with this domain actually exists at this point. Best Nick

@nickgerritsen I think you have missed two points, both of which are in the Context Box. One is that a .coop domain is a privilege Loomio has been offered, nobody is proposing to discontinue the existing domains (loom.io and loomio.org). Secondly, it doesn't have to be used for the production site at all. I have put another idea on the table, perhaps we can see if there are others before we rush into activating and pointing this "badge of honour" (as @benjaminknightloom puts it).

@strypey I wonder if this post is a bit more abrupt that you would normally communicate? Or maybe I am over reading the tone here.
Actually we spoke about this in 'all hands' meeting today and agreed we would register the email addresses for the business team and we would use them within the cooperative community where Loomio.coop lets people know that we are one. This doesn't have to be either or, ad like pretty much everything we do we will observe and see what works.

@vivienmaidabornloo thanks for holding up the mirror. Could it be a contrast thing? I'm normally quite informal and chatty in my use of language, and this comment was quite business-like. Also, I admit that starting out with "you have missed..." could be read as a bit adversarial, although it wasn't intended that way.

I am continually amazed and impressed at the quality of respectful discussion in this community. This feels like the most insightful, respectful, compassionate place on the internet :)

@benjaminknightloom congrats for your TED talk...

Cooperatives should grow up to the level of compiting not in size but in customer base with the biggest companies in the world for a better future for all of us, and I think for cooperatives, Loomio is a great tool (we are using it at the cooperative of engineers), so having www.loomio.coop is a very good idea.

@strypey I didn't actually say that a coop would be a less attractive form of business. I felt that the use of the top level .coop domain might not attract so many people/organisations to Loomio.

I believe that many people don't know what the domain means. As you may have seen in my earlier post I questioned whether there had been any research done about the perception of the top level domain. (I was hoping that I would be proved wrong with my assertion)

@neilmorris right, which I addressed when I said it can be used alongside other domain names (.io .org etc).

One way for people to learn what .coop means is for co-operatives to make the effort to use it, no? ;)