BitShares is an amazing brand name, BitSharesX is a terrible brand name.

[Rune]

I agree with your OP that it can be confusing, though I havn't found a suitable alternative.  calling the tokens behind BitShares X , simply BitShares can be misleading.  Do you call the tokens behind BitShares DNS BitShares as well, or BitShares Play, BitShares Music.   I suppose in conversation it would be acceptable in each case to do so but if the listener needs something more specific you have to call them exactly what they are.

If any token represents the "BitShares Ecosystem", It would be BitShares PTS but that's not really correct either because it only represents the Future BitShares Ecosystem, not including the past ecosystem.

There really isn't a token for Whole Ecosystem.

There is no BitShares token.

I think its just a word that can mean any one or all the individual tokens.

This is at best a philosophical and purely semantic argument. However the tokens used on blockchains in the bitshares ecosystem are clearly not called bitshares, they're just called shares. I don't think you'd be able to find any post on this forum where someone has used the word "bitshareholders".

[Xeldal]

I agree with your OP that it can be confusing, though I havn't found a suitable alternative.  calling the tokens behind BitShares X , simply BitShares can be misleading.  Do you call the tokens behind BitShares DNS BitShares as well, or BitShares Play, BitShares Music.   I suppose in conversation it would be acceptable in each case to do so but if the listener needs something more specific you have to call them exactly what they are.

If any token represents the "BitShares Ecosystem", It would be BitShares PTS but that's not really correct either because it only represents the Future BitShares Ecosystem, not including the past ecosystem.

There really isn't a token for Whole Ecosystem.

There is no BitShares token.

I think its just a word that can mean any one or all the individual tokens.

[Rune]

The problem now is that changing all that stuff is a lot of work.  I think it might be possible to refer to it as Bitshares when talking, but I doubt the name can be changed at this point.  We have a wiki, pages and pages of content on bitshares.org.  3rd party services.  Just too much traction and work to fix it IMO.

A DAC that is able to rebrand itself to something with superior value will have a massive advantage over one that can't. If we don't currently have the capability to change the name, then we need to gain that capability.

Everyone has ideas, but time/labor is the bottleneck I would think.  Only way to gain the capability would be if you used it, and then you really have to ask if it is worth all the effort.  Your reasoning is sound, I just don't see it being worth doing, but then I can't gauge how negative "Bitshares X" is to people who are not already familiar with it all.  I've been blinded to that effect being around for so long, so you'd need to make a real strong convincing argument I would suspect.

This is absolutely true. In fact, I think I'll do just this. I'll take some samples and see how average, non-crypto people react to one name vs the other. Then, with data in hand, it will be much easier to have this discussion.

However, I'd say that a namechange would be something "average" people like many of us on this forum, who don't code, would be able to carry out. The coders, who are the real labor bottleneck, wouldn't have to be affected much.

[Rune]

The naming/branding was extensively debated many months ago (well before the release).

I'd say it is not the time to re-open the debate.

On the contrary, I think it is crucial to find out if the DAC and community has the capability to rebrand itself and carry out largescale votes of consensus on a singular, important topic, before we start largescale marketing. We might later find ourselves in a situation where the entire community might need to mobilize itself in order to achieve some shared goal, I'd say a namechange would be the ideal way to practice this, since it doesn't involve changing any actual system or code.

[gamey]

The problem now is that changing all that stuff is a lot of work.  I think it might be possible to refer to it as Bitshares when talking, but I doubt the name can be changed at this point.  We have a wiki, pages and pages of content on bitshares.org.  3rd party services.  Just too much traction and work to fix it IMO.

A DAC that is able to rebrand itself to something with superior value will have a massive advantage over one that can't. If we don't currently have the capability to change the name, then we need to gain that capability.

Everyone has ideas, but time/labor is the bottleneck I would think.  Only way to gain the capability would be if you used it, and then you really have to ask if it is worth all the effort.  Your reasoning is sound, I just don't see it being worth doing, but then I can't gauge how negative "Bitshares X" is to people who are not already familiar with it all.  I've been blinded to that effect being around for so long, so you'd need to make a real strong convincing argument I would suspect.

[serejandmyself]

At least I3 did a little better than Coindesk, as in, not using the Cyrillic alphabet http://www.coindesk.com/russia-proposes-fines-bitcoin/

I mean BitsharesX is slightly better than 'Толкачев и Партнеры'

had to see it for myself 

[onceuponatime]

The naming/branding was extensively debated many months ago (well before the release).

I'd say it is not the time to re-open the debate.

[Rune]

The problem now is that changing all that stuff is a lot of work.  I think it might be possible to refer to it as Bitshares when talking, but I doubt the name can be changed at this point.  We have a wiki, pages and pages of content on bitshares.org.  3rd party services.  Just too much traction and work to fix it IMO.

A DAC that is able to rebrand itself to something with superior value will have a massive advantage over one that can't. If we don't currently have the capability to change the name, then we need to gain that capability.

[tonyk]

At least I3 did a little better than Coindesk, as in, not using the Cyrillic alphabet http://www.coindesk.com/russia-proposes-fines-bitcoin/

I mean BitsharesX is slightly better than 'Толкачев и Партнеры'

[gamey]

Well I think you'd be free to call it Bitshares.  I doubt many disagree.  There just weren't necessarily a dozen guys with marketing talent sitting around in the early days.  Even the ticker symbol was chosen by the exchanges and not dacsunlimited if I remember correctly.  (Or perhaps DU suggested it somewhere...) 

The problem now is that changing all that stuff is a lot of work.  I think it might be possible to refer to it as Bitshares when talking, but I doubt the name can be changed at this point.  We have a wiki, pages and pages of content on bitshares.org.  3rd party services.  Just too much traction and work to fix it IMO.

[Rune]

To be honest, if in-spite of all the innovations behinds BitSharesX, the name was the only thing that stopped you from committing, perhaps BitSharesX isn't for you...

This is not a counterargument.

If an arbitrary name is more important to you than maximizing adoption, shareholder worth and chance of success, perhaps BitSharesX isn't for you...

[questionsquestions]

To be honest, if in-spite of all the innovations behinds BitSharesX, the name was the only thing that stopped you from committing, perhaps BitSharesX isn't for you...

[Rune]

When I first read about DPOS a couple of weeks back, I instantly wanted to buy some bitshares for obvious reasons. The first thing I did was to hit up coinmarketcap.com, to check out which exchanges had the highest volume.

When I saw BitShares X listed as number 4 on coinmarketcap, I was immediately confused. My first thought was literally "Why is the X there, does that mean it's not the real BitShares?". I scrolled down further to see if I could find the "real" bitshares, and when I failed to do so, I went to google "bitshares x" to find out what it actually was, and if it was the DPOS coin I was looking to buy.

Had the number 4 spot on coinmarketcap been BitShares, I would have just clicked for the exchange, then went to buy immediately.

One of the things that makes bitcoin so great is the name. I assume Satoshi is primarily a programmer, but he deserves a freaking prize for choosing a name that is such an amazing brand as Bitcoin.

Every altcoin since bitcoin has had a stupid name. Seeing rows upon rows of coin coin coin coin makes me want to facepalm. Bitshares is the first alternative blockchain system that has a good name. And by insisting on calling the main blockchain BitSharesX, we are throwing that massive advantage away.

I understand the reasons why the x is there. Bitshares is an ecosystem. Bitshares is a toolkit. Bitshares is more than just a coin.

But the fact is that decentralized banking and payments is the most important and revolutionary use of blockchain technology, by orders of magnitude. Decentralized music, DNS, computer games, whatever is a big deal, sure, but it is not nearly as big of a deal as decentralized money.

Since BTSX is, and will always be, the flagship of BitShares, I think it is a massive mistake not to use the fantastic brand name that could be used on it. Something that handles your money is something you need to trust pretty much more than anything else. And anything with "x" in it, just becomes instantly less trustworthy. Honestly, X is the least trustworthy letter in the alphabet, I'm sure some sort of psychological test could be done that would back up my opinion on this .

edit: Also, given that BitSharesX is the flagship, that also means it is the gateway from which many people will be introduced to all the future DAC's that will be based on BitShares. This means that BitSharesX having a crappy name will reflect badly on all the other DACS, and also hurt adoption of them.

Why can't what is currently called "BitShares" just be called "The BitShares Ecosystem", and BitSharesX be called BitShares? Right now, whenever I see bitshares mentioned in casual conversation, people just use bitshares anyway (see what I did there?). And when people talk about what is really called BitShares, they always specificy it as "Bitshares is actually an ecosystem etc...". So this is already the de facto case, and it would be really easy to switch over.

The currently dual use of the words even amplifies the negative aspect: Newcomers get really confused when they see people talk about bitshares, and then find out that they cant actually buy it, but have to buy something with an X instead. I'm sure interest is often lost due to this extra confusion in a space that is already incredibly complex and confusing. I'm convinced that switching to BitShares would have a massive benefit for adoption in the longterm, and that it will even help with regulatory acceptance ("BitShares... That sounds like Bitcoin" vs "Bitshares X... Is that for porn?")

Also another thing I hate about bitsharesx is the placement of the X. It's never consistent, and that makes it confusing. Sometimes its BitSharesX, sometimes its BitShares X. Sometimes it will freely interchange between the two within a single post or document, and that is just terribly ugly to read.

This is all just my rambling personal opinion, of course. I'd like to see the counterarguments, but I imagine many people who have recently gotten into bitshares(x), like me, agree with me because they still remember their first encounter with "what the hell does the x mean?". If there is sufficient controversy about this, perhaps a stakeholder vote could be done at some point using the delegates as a proxy.