Using a language of inclusion is very important to us at AboutUs. “User-generated content” is one of those phrases that doesn’t feel very inclusive.
In An alternative term for “User-generated content” Brianna writes:
For a long time I have not liked the phrase User-generated content to describe what Wikimedia is doing. There are just three problems with this phrase: the words “userâ€, “generated†and “contentâ€.
She’s talking specifically about Wikimedia projects here, but what she says applies to wikis of all stripes, including AboutUs. The word “user” in particular has bothered me for a long time. For me, people are “viewers” or “visitors” or “community members” or something else, but not “users.”
Somehow this seems similar to the distinction between “customers” and “riders” of public transit. Why does the voice on the platform say “Attention Customers, an inbound train, toward the loop, will be arriving shortly”? It’s true that I’ve purchased my fare, but this hardly seems the point. I have no problem being a “rider” or a “passenger,” it’s just the “customer” label that irks me.
Later Brianna says:
Community-curated works is the best term I’ve come up with so far, to describe what the Wikimedia movement is creating, and what most other wiki communities are creating too. The individual contribution is not what’s important, it’s not what makes everything work — it’s the fact that we have a community of contributors who implicitly agree to work together, to collaborate, to try and constantly improve the content.
She goes on to show how wiki collaboration is actually only a sub-set of “user-generated content.” Tags on Flickr and Delicious, reviews on Amazon, or ratings on Netflix are all “user-generated content”, and they are all quite different from what happens on a wiki. The benefit to me, as a user of those services (yes, I’m a “user” when it suits me), comes from the software doing an aggregation task, not from my collaboration with others in the community.
Truth be told, I’m not sold on “community-curated works” either, but it’s better than “user-generated content.” So let’s keep batting it around until something better comes around, shall we?
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I like it! Good post, too, Ted.
Ouch… I think CCW is 10x worse than UGC. UGC isn’t perfect and I would be open to a different term, but CCW is too esoteric and abstract. A good phrase has an immediate connection. “community curated works” sounds like like way a museum cares for its relics… things that the normal person cannot touch. But you can contribute to the museum and they will keep them behind bullet proof glass for you.
With a museum, the community doesn’t have anything to do with the curation.
And, as I said in the post, I’m not sold on CCW either. So what’s better than both? Let’s come up with something else!
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