Consumerium talk:Brief introduction

This is not good. It starts with the wikis. It should start with the Consumerium buying signal that actually affects people's behaviour. Where's the text that was on the Main Page?

Well I'm sorry that everything I do is not great instantly ;) It's a good question about the text on the main page. It might have gotten lost in the upgrade fiasco a few days back. The main page was all blank but the history seemed to be there for a while after the upgrade. I'll work on Consumerium:Brief introduction to make it better --Juxo 14:28, 21 Mar 2004 (EET)

Rather than trying to create yet another "What this is, one size fits all", that will always be a compromise between trying to appeal to three quite different groups, why not work on the Main Page Consumer and Main Page Researcher instead?

It's better now. It links to essential terminology and is short and sharp. --Juxo 23:25, 25 Mar 2004 (EET)

Here's what was on the Main Page before the upgrade:

Consumerium is a not-for-profit project, being designed under GFDL license, to develop free software and infrastructure for storage, transport and display of varying levels of product information to consumers at the point of purchase.

A Consumerium Governance Organization may also develop or aggregate other software to assist in the compilation and validation of information to guide purchasing. For integrity reasons and to prevent bad copies and misleading competitors, this may require a more specific Consumerium License regime.

Major activism trends to promote fair trade and political consumerism are driving several essential projects that will combine to make moral purchasing a daily reality. Consumerium intends to focus this moral purchasing power to keep this planet as hospitable as possible for life. Here's a summary of anticipated Consumerium Services:

Our front end will be seen by the end user as a red/yellow/green light traffic-type signal, or as a score easily translated into a price premium, or as a note in Simple English about issues with, or merits of, the product. Release of this advice is keyed to bar codes.

There are several ways to connect back to front end: we may rely on frequently updated data embedded in hand-held devices, and/or dynamic retrieval via short-range wireless to the shelf front. Where possible, reasons for making buying decisions, or refusing a certain product, will go as feedback to the producers.

Our back end relies on opinion wiki comments compiled by software using a wikitext standard. Semantic link standards may be required also. To work out the conventions and issues involved, we are working through a wiki in the R&D phase.

This is that wiki. We invite you to participate by editing proposals and discussions below. Any page can be edited by anyone, or restored to a previous state by anyone, which is the convention we assume will also apply in operation:

I have read several pages of this wiki and still don't know what it is about or is supposed to do. Your descriptions are too vague and inaccessible to me. Too similar to those "Our goal is to meet or exceed expectations and create value for our customers!" meaningless nonsense mission statements, or maybe just creeping featurism in your ideas of what it will be? I have no idea. I've lost interest. Just letting you know. :-) - 141.155.5.232 18:02, 10 Jul 2005 (GMT)

I'm sorry to hear that. I'll try to give you a concise answer:

Consumerium is about:

Getting more information about companies, products, product groups, production processes and interdependencies of the before mentioned
1. From companies
2. From other consumers
3. From third parties
Providing a robust, free-of-charge, high-convenience feedback facility, so you can communicate to companies of the reasons why you didn't or did choose their product.
Act as a medium for consorting consumer power by campaigns and other forms of cooperation that emerge from the implementation wiki.

--Juxo 11:03, 11 Jul 2005 (GMT)