[tor-dev] A proposal to change hidden service terminology

[A. Johnson]

Good point. We (the Sponsor R group) have done no usability testing nor are we planning to. I don’t think we really have the time or skills for that, unfortunately. Maybe Tor more broadly has resources to put into a sophisticated re-branding effort. In any case, we do use these words every day and can make an intentional choice now. And for some things, words just didn’t even exist.

Best,
Aaron

> On Feb 10, 2015, at 2:22 PM, Adam Shostack <adam at shostack.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 01:13:26PM -0500, A. Johnson wrote:
> | Hello all,
> | 
> | Several of us [0] working on hidden services have been talking about adopting better terminology. Some of the problem
> 
> | 	1. '''onion service''' should be preferred to refer to what is now called a "hidden service". If other flavors of onion services develop in the future, this term could refer to all of them, with more specific terms being used when it is necessary to make the distinction.
> | 	2. '''onionsite''' should be preferred to refer to a website (i.e. an HTTP service serving up HTML) available as an onion service. This can be extended to other specific types of services, such as '''onion chatroom''', '''onion storage''', '''onion cloud service''', etc.
> | 	3. '''onion address''' should be preferred to refer specifically to the xyz.onion address itself.
> | 	4. '''onionspace''' should be used to refer to the set of available onion services. For example, you can say “my site is in onionspace” instead of “my site is in the Dark Web”.
> | 	5. '''onion namespace''' should be used to refer to the set of onion addresses currently available or used "recently" (context-dependent).
> | 
> 
> 
> Have you done usability testing to see how people react to the onion
> terms, how explainable they are to non-technical journalists, or what
> connotations it might have across cultures?  
> 
> My experience has been changing terminology is expensive and slow, and
> it's worth exploring lots of alternatives.
> 
> Adam
> 
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