FEDORA MASCOT

[Naoki]

On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 11:23 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Naoki wrote:
> > I've got two for the goat, do I hear any other bids?
> 
> Please, *focus*. Do not vote on what animal the mascot should be, but 
> instead *if* a mascot will be used or not.
> 
> For reference go back to 
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-June/thread.html 
> and read the huge thread starting with "Cool Fedora schwag idea" and 
> ending in "Logos: everybody wants one but nobody seems to have any 
> constructive comments"
> 
> There a lot of ways to get a cool mascot, but let's decide first if we 
> will have one or not, we got already a lot of cold showers to start very 
> enthusiastically on a new initiative.

Opps sorry, got into the thread waay too late it seems. In my defence
though a vote for a goat is a vote of a mascot (which could be the
slogan for the "Goat for FC mascot" campaign..)

A logo is a must, and we have a good one already.. A mascot is nice,
people like mascots, but there are arguments against having one, such as
they are cheesy, or gimmicky.

Here are some arguments against a masocot made on meta wiki
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_mascot#No_mascot.2C_please.21) :

"Mascots have an inherent playfulness in them that is fine for most
projects, but dangerous ground for an encylcopedia" - In this case an
OS..

"mascot serves no purpose/an animal popular or recognizable in one
culture may be tabboo, feared or unrecognized in another." - True.


But the vastly overwhelming response is people do want a mascot, which
is fine, but does it actually help the project, or the marketing of that
project. No. It does not. It doesn't help the project, and the marketing
should be about evangelising the technical merits, or the benefits of
open source.

There is one place a mascot helps though, and that is mind-share, it
gives people something a little tangible to associate with. 

So at the very least we need an un-official mascot so that our local
Zoos can nick-name a goat "Fedora", and techs can have something on the
back of their T-shirts for proud display (snarling horned goat staring
you down and so on).

It will also give FC loving sites a plush toy to sell for revenue.