Talk:Worldchanging

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[edit] Could use an illustration of the book's cover

Anyone have one?

[edit] Does their book need its own page?

I think this whole article needs restructuring. Clearly it's an important site and deserves real discussion and explanation, but perhaps we need more information, more clearly broken down in sections? And maybe their book ought to be its own page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.124.184.13 (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Claim of word coinage

I have removed the following paragraph:

Finally, "Worldchanging" as a word is now also used as an adjective to describe efforts or plans which combine innovation, collaboration and sustainability, or even as a descriptor of cutting-edge alternative products, groups or people.

The implicit statement here is that the website and/or the book have become so well-known, admired and influential that their name has entered the English language as an idiom. But of course the words "world" and "changing" already existed before the creation of worldchanging.com, and have also been used in connection before.

The statement had been unsourced all the time. Now 71.35.107.237 has tried to provide a reference for it, but the cited source actually indicates sort of the opposite - from http://www.saatchi.com/worldchanging (the page linked there under "To find out more, visit ...") one learns that this "The Saatchi & Saatchi Award For World Changing Ideas" has been given out since 1998 (and a Google News archive search confirms that they had already been using the term "world-changing" for it back then).

This proves without a doubt that the term has been used for describing innovative ideas, products or people before, and if someone seriously doubts that this is just because it's an obvious descriptive choice in the English language, they would be led to the conclusion that Alex Steffen and Jamais Cascio were copying the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency when they picked the name of their web site five years later.

Regards, High on a tree (talk) 15:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the statement is quite clear: that the term is now widely used to mean the same thing as the web site's usage. This is obviously true, as even a brief Google search will show. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.107.237 (talk) 05:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

To any reader who knows the meaning of the words "world" and "change", the meaning is obvious. Thus there is no need to explain "the web site's usage". Instead, as already said, the statement gives the wrong impression that the usage of this expression is due to worldchanging.com. Dumping Google hits for the expression as "references" into the article doesn't address this issue. Regards, High on a tree (talk) 18:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

No, actually, the meaning of worldchanging in the contemporary usage is not self-evident, as it does not include any attempt to change the world in any direction, but innovation applied to social and sustainability problems, as for instance the Saatchi award shows. Making blanket statements of what you think is obvious is not a form of proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.110.124 (talk) 01:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, the claim that you keep adding to the article ("Worldchanging" as a word is now also used as an adjective...) implies that worldchanging.com coined this usage, and the given reference actually disproves it. Regards, High on a tree (talk) 19:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)