Help me rename part of Richmond Sunlight.

Richmond Sunlight has a menu item entitled “Minutes.” This is a terrible word to use because a) a lot of people don’t know what it means and b) that section also contains video, audio, and some other goodies soon. “Minutes” is so dry and unfamiliar that nobody clicks on it.

What word (or two) can I use that means “an accounting of the events of the General Assembly throughout the session, including video, audio, tag clouds, narration, blog entries, news stories, and comments”?

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

30 replies on “Help me rename part of Richmond Sunlight.”

  1. How about just ‘Log’ or maybe something like ‘Multimedia Log’ if you think it’s important for the menu item to call out its multimedianess. (It might be better to keep the name short in the menu, then make it extremely evident on the minutes page itself that video, audio, etc are available.)

    I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that an audience intelligent enough to be following Richmond Sunlight does not know what minutes are.

  2. How about Rays of Sunlight. Or Beam of Sunlight. Lets folks know there is info behind that link…

  3. People are coming up with some fun suggestive names, but all your other menu items are extremely descriptive. Do you want this one to stand out and be the star of Richmond Sunlight? If so, the Sunray/Sundial type names are cool (although these types of names miss the point of renaming it so people understand what the link goes to). If you don’t want this to be the main attraction of the site, you’ll want to stick with a descriptive name. (I still like ‘log’ ;)

  4. I agree with Boxer4H and Mark Brooks: if the point of the site is Sunlight, then the Minutes page should have a name that reflects (reflects!) that theme.

    Something like “Rats Hate Sunlight; Watch ’em Scatter.”

  5. Jill wrote:

    I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that an audience intelligent enough to be following Richmond Sunlight does not know what minutes are.

    1) I know what “minutes” means, it’s simply not accurate for the content.

    2) Any audience that follows RS is intelligent? Have you *seen* some of the comments on the site? :-P

  6. I second Jeremy’s “coverage” – that’s a good word. Meeting Summaries is good too. Both of these fit well with the other menu item names.

    Tim – One of the 2 reasons Waldo provides for wanting to rename it is “a lot of people don’t know what it means.” It’s not inaccurate, it just doesn’t make the multimedia aspect explicit. And yes, I am disappointed that people who are intelligent enough to care about their General Assembly don’t know the word “minutes.” What can I say – I’m a linguist, I get a little sad when I see perfectly good words start to disappear :)

  7. At least for the House of Delegates, the only word I can think of is…”Errata.”

  8. I like Daily Log ….

    but something descriptive like

    “What was said today (minutes)”

    or “Who said what today”

  9. How about play-by-play? Does that translate well enough for non sports-minded people? Does it imply color commentary? I think it’s a pretty good descriptor for what you plan to put there.

  10. “Tick-tock.” The political journalist/insider term for how precisely political events unfolded over a specific length of time.

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