foodsaving or foodsharing?

A big debate has been happening for a while on wether we should keep on using the name Foodsharing in the process of its internationalisation through yunity or if we should skip to Foodsaving. In practice, we will be using it to name our Wiki guidelines - but it will probably encourage many communities to adopt this name. Keep in mind that each community is still completely free to chose the name they wish to have!

Following the precepts of do-ocracy, we are now fully using the term foodsaving, since our most involved FSINT members are already using and supporting this name. If someone has a strong resistance against this, we can of course proceed to a vote on the matter. Until then, happy foodsavin'!

Pros and cons

Suggestion: have two spaces, one for foodsaving that takes care of everything more complicated and one for foodsharing focusing on the community or private person encouragement.

Suggestion: stop! Let's just call it Foodshaving

 NB. This might just be a short-term concern, as the long-term name will be yunity. A temporary name for expanding the concept before launching yunity?

Debate

Trello

Janina A., 23.05.16 

Will make the initiative easier understandable (Luisa pointed out, that Copenhagen people were massively confused by the term sharing and thought they'd have to bring food as well) and much clearer differentiated from foodsharing Germany. 

Paul F., 23.05.16

....hmmm. I prefer foodsharing definitely more then foodsaving.
I see foodsaving as a part of foodsharing. And the reasons food is wasted I see it in having a lack of sharing resources, but focusing of trading for profit. Starting with sharing instead then returns to the reasons why food is wasted in the first.
Once labeled as foodsharing allows us to go behond the idea of foodsaving to as well producing food in collectives with the aim of sharing.

Janina A., 25.05.16

Well, the long-term name would be yunity anyways...^^ For now it's about enabling people to save food from stores and other businesses through organized cooperations and pick-ups, even without having any kind of online platform at hand. This part of foodsharing definitely is better reflected in the term 'foodsaving', and it also would save us a lot of potential trouble with the German foodsharing community because of branding issues.

Tilmann B., 26.05.16

Pro rename: Raphael has the domain foodsaving.org, but no international foodsharing domain

Kristijan M., 26.05.16

It might be due to "how society is" that nobody expects food for free. No matter which name- ppl will always first thing they will have to contribute something before they can gain from it. Both names maybe needed. The foodsaving part being in contact with cooperations and the foodsharing to enable ppl to share what they have at home. The term has to be lived. In germany ppl didn't expect in the beginning that they would get food for free. It is just so extraordinary and unusal that it won't be solved by changing the term.
Maybe foodsharing has more the community social aspect to it, of people getting together and sharing etc. whereas saving is more the "corporate/community organizational" part.

Taïs R., 26.05.16

Interesting debate. I think we should seriously investigate to which extent we can use foodsharing material. It seems quite complicated in general, if we don't stay in line exactly with what has been decided 3 years ago in a German context… And I think we want more flexibility than that.
It would mean taking the name and logo of foodsharing.de out of the documents we want to share with emerging communities … but would it also mean creating a new logo, association (Verein) and rules for Foodsaving? Then emerging communities would be like the many little children of the worldwide Foodsaving concept. It would be… a lot of work. Maybe not necessary? I want to know how viable it is to simply use Foodsaving as a floating name here and there, that people adapt to their wishes.

Kristijan M., 26.05.16

can you elaborate on the complicated part ? on the one hand a lot of publicity is drawn from foodsharing.de momentum gained and on the other hand it is treated like a burden. I think it's very sad and confusing at the same time.

Taïs R., 26.05.16

The burden lies in getting unanimous decisions from the Orgateam on whether or not we can 1.adapt, and so modify 2.openly share Foodsharing content. Probably because people within the Orgateam have different visions of what foodsharing is and should be, and it's ok.
But our goal being to move forward to a worldwide audience, I don't think we can wait for consensus to be reached within foodsharing. Changing it to Foodsaving, which would explicitly come from foodsharing.de's experience, simplifies this complexity (of which a good example is the work done by Janina on the wiki restructure, which doesn't seem likely to be approved by the Orgateam anytime soon)

Kristijan M., 28.05.16

There has been so far no mumble or personal contact besides writing between the "operatives" who wrote the wiki and who are working now on it. Which is a misscommunication desaster, i talked with Janina about this and hope to find a way to improve the situation.

Tilmann B., 28.05.16

 Feedback from Copenhagen (from Facebook group) :

I agree - some people I spoke with thought they had to bring food in exchange or to be able to attend and collect food themselves - which is what 'sharing' seems to imply to a lot of people. Food saving is good or if we keep the word sharing maybe we need to emphasis what this actually means..

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No, i think for us it is rather a task of sharing than only distributing. So it's not a one-way street at all or shouldn't seem like it. so I believe sharing is a good word.

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Saving is also a good word where we could emphasis that people can also share their own food if it is going to waste (dumpster divers are familiar with sharing as we find so much, there are some that still buy food). I think it is more about saving food through sharing what would go to waste rather than feeling they have to bring/buy something to 'share/swap' or not attending because they don't have anything to bring to share/swap.

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I think it is important for people to understand that we always share because we want to share. Not because we want something in return. Giving something back is always an option, but never a demand. This has to be clear!

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The name "Foodsaving" could also include commercial initiatives. Maybe we could use the name for a new group for making collaboration between commercial and noncommercial foodsaving initiatives?!

Janina A., 28.05.16 

@kristijan14 I agree that there are obviously big communicative issues, which i'd really (!) like to try to resolve. It would be a shame to lose the connection to German foodsharing and the resulting momentum you mentioned over petty misunderstandings. The name, however, is a different thing, i'd say. If we were to get on good terms with all of foodsharing again, we could still call the international movement foodsaving, if we saw it a better and clearer name, but then we would be able to use the existing branding, the colors, the logo and so on.
So i'd say those are two different questions.

Kristijan M., 28.05.16

if we go "back to the roots" it was first called "lebensmittelretten" in german . So maybe for a better national identification a country can also look for a word in their own language for foodsaving or have some "artificial Word" close to it, which is better received in a local context.
Sometimes there have been complains against "using to many english words". / anglizisms ?

Tilmann B., 28.05.16

Good idea! But we need to call our wiki section somehow, so foodsaving or foodsharing would be candidates for now.

Kristijan M., 28.05.16

@tiltec would it work to have two sections ? one for foodsaving that takes care of everything more complicated and one for foodsharing focusing on the community or private person encouragement ?

Tilmann B., 28.05.16

Two sections, yes. But I think two spaces like FSINT would dilute the focus.

Kristijan M., 28.05.16

or two spaces would make it possible to focues on each more ?

Karolina H., 29.05.16

Hi all. And if some group is starting with foodsharing - fair-shar-points, etc and then, due to local laws or anything else, is not even able/willing to do the 2nd step to foodsaving on a bigger scale - from shops, etc, what then? I think they are still Foodsharing and calling them Foodsaving would also be misleading. I feel the change is not that much needed, every name has some advantages and disadvantages. The old one is established, known and functioning. Or... as some say, let's split the two - Foodsharing is more about individuals and food saving is a second, more complicated step. One can be opening points without much technology, but for picking-up stuff, one needs an good online platform.

Tilmann B., 30.05.16 

If I read you correctly, Foodsharing doesn't have to include the saving part (from stores, bakeries, markets, dumpsters).
I definitely want to spread the saving part, as this needs more effort and more coordination. The name Foodsharing doesn't give the impression of saving food from cooperations big-style. But this discussion may not be necessary, as every community is free to decide about a name (even something in their own language)! This is just about the wiki space.

Slack

Janina A., 26.05.16

@channel: As you may have seen in the Trello notifications we are thinking about renaming the international initiatives to foodsaving instead of foodsharing, because many people expressed that international people with no connection to the German foodsharing movement are confused by the term 'sharing' and think they _have_ to bring food as well. What are your experiences in this regard? Do you think it would be a good idea?

I'm totally supporting this idea as I have noticed many times that it wasn't actually even clear at all for most of Germans (it's sad to say but the platform is not that well-known yet!). At first I was a bit worried by foodsharing.de's reaction (since we "claim their filiation" after all) but I've also read that you envision it as a way to get more independence as well, which I think might be a good thing. I've also read paul's concerns on Trello, which i found interesting, but think that it shouldn't affect too much our final decision as we are quite clear and communicative about our core philosophy (cf. yunity's slogan for example)

Raphael F., 30.05.16

@tilmann: yeahh definetly foodsaving - it makes it clearer, we have the domain and foodsharing does not actually make it clear that its about saving, even so this is the main part of foodsharing right now

Kristijan M., 30.05.16

Like already mentioned it's two parts with their equivalent main focuses

Janina A., 01.06.16

The more i think about it the more i like the idea of actually splitting the two parts again. That would be a bit 'back to the roots' like with foodsharing and lebensmittelretten, but it wouldn't nessecarily mean a step back. Clarity is important and focus is, too, and having the saving url for the international foodsaving initative is definitely a good thing. Me personally, i want to spread the saving part more than the sharing part, because that is the most innovative approach in this regard, i'd say, and sharing already happens via facebook groups, while the saving is a little more complicated and therefore more info, guidance and help is needed.
Yeah well, i'm not completely decided on this yet (that's also why i didn't comment this on the trello ticket, it's more like me thinking out loud atm...^^), but differentiation may not be the worst idea ever...

Elina L., 01.06.16

@janina: I don't really get how you concretely picture the two identities separately (does it mean that we would only support the saving part and let them organize themself freely when it comes to sharing?) but I definitely support your point about the saving part!

Stefan, 06.06.16

I also had a hard time choosing between Foodsharing and Foodsaving... in the end I decided for Foodsharing, as the german concept of Foodsharing got already quite some attention around the world and it might be easier grabing peoples attention by showing them how great Foodsharing is doing in Germany, Switzerland and Austria