I think I vote against "Carry Shit Olympics", and I have three reasons why:
- yes, it is profanity. That actually will limit its reach. That's contrary to our goals.
- it sends a slightly misguided message. We want "you can do this, if you want to". You, a normal person, not some sort of athlete ("olympics") or some one straining towards a goal ("olympics"). I know there is touch of irony to the name, I love irony, but I think this is somewhat at cross purposes to our goals. "Haul of Fame" has this same problem.
- the arguments in favor have a bit of an "installed base" or "insider" feel to them, and from experience in other fields (software, programming languages), that has led to the persistence of inferior initial choices that later must be explained, again, and again, to new-comers, and that causes friction. If we were starting from scratch, what would be the best name, given our goals.
There is also, from software and programming languages, this sort of a trick to attracting more users, which is to change only what is necessary and important, and to leave the rest as familiar as possible. This means both maybe using both names for a while (to keep the installed base unconfused) and also the new (i.e., two hash tags) and it also means thinking about how things look from a car-oriented world, and which parts of that are good to change (for example, a standard new-to-biking mistake is to use the same routes that were formerly driven, and sometimes those are not great).
All that said, I'm not sure of the best name. LTCAH is better than CSO. I'm trying to think "is there a name that minimizes the need for explanation?". The message, which doesn't fit well in an acronym, is that a bike is perfectly capable and maybe even better for a lot of things you thought needed a car. The
flickr "cargobike" group has the title "I carried this on my bicycle", and I like that -- it's not profanity, it doesn't imply extreme effort, and it doesn't need much explanation. And also, there's a precedent.
I need to upload some photos there and add them to that group and maybe start putting them here with some explanation. It may be necessary to be repetitive, too -- the picture of me carrying a cargo bike on a trailer, needs to mention how much cheaper the trailer is than a truck; the picture (video) of me transporting my niece's belongings from Chinatown, Boston, needs to mention that how much cheaper the trailer is than a truck, that it did not need a parking permit; the picture of the snowblower on that trailer, needs to mention how much cheaper the trailer is than a truck, and how easy it is to load, compared to a truck (especially when the snowblower is broken and cannot propel itself up a ramp). Repetition looks stupid here, but for isolated examples, someone looking could easily not look at all of them, might not get the message unless it is repeated.
Another thing to perhaps emphasize is how much the biking choices are anchored in reality (versus the aspirational truck-advertising stuff). The snowblower repair place is 2 miles away; that does not need a truck, it just needs capacity, which the trailer provides. The bicycle repair trip, was just one urban mile, terrible for truck parking at both ends, easy for a bicycle with a trailer. And nonetheless, even though I bike more than almost anyone I know (there's one guy at work who is a commuter AND a long-weekend-rides roadie), I am still anchored at "I can't believe I spent $1300 on this trailer, I don't use it enough" versus for a truck, nobody thinks "am I using this 20x-more-expensive truck's truck capabilities often enough?" Once or twice a year, and that truck is thumbs-up-totally-worth-it, don't give it a second thought.
Apologies if I went too long.
