I can't stand the sound of the term 'crowd sourcing', however the meaning that we all seem to grok is very useful and important.<p>'Crowd sourcing' sounds very technical and cold. Crowd... negative connotation... Sourcing... very robotic.<p>Just wondering if anyone has come across any other phrase that can evoke a similar concept with a more fluid and human feel?
what is the negative connotation with crowd? if it was herd sourcing i could see the negative connotation- with crowd not so much except when use along the lines of "i don't follow the crowd". still that use of crowd is spot on for what crowd sourcing is- following the crowd.
The Wikipedia article on crowdsourcing suggests both "community-based design" and "open call". You might consider perusing the rest of it for other ideas.<p>Excerpt:<p><i>Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.<p>For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design[1] and distributed participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).</i><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing</a>