It involves the fact that plumbing, while not glamorous is an absolutely essential function to any city or town (community) infrastructure. It must work. It is often hidden from sight (something that with proper themeing you can do with Drupal) and reliable. You can build a basic irrigation system so your plants don't die or you can build works of art with fountains and ponds but the pipe's are still often behind the scene.
The beauty of Drupal is that you can expose as much of the CMS as you need or hide it completely. No visitor ever need to know you are using Drupal. The phrase should easily be a selling point for consultants, it is unpretentious and pragmatic. It should actually make it easier for a consultant to demonstrate that Drupal will not get in the way of your sites message. It's not about Drupal, it's about the site you are using Drupal to build with. That you are using Drupal is just cool.
Comments
I think...
'Community plumbing' is a bad tagline for the Drupal CMS. It is a reasonable though unneccesary analogy.
You've explained the analogy between plumbing and the benifits of using Drupal but this analogy is not easy to understand at first glance...which is what a good tagline should be.
A tagline should grab ones attention, offer something and be easily understood. 'Community plumbing' is a good analogy to explain some of the benifits of Drupal, however it is too complicated to be an effective slogan. The tagline is supposed to sell/explain the CMS to people that are unfamiliar with it.
I've been using Drupal for a few months now and I've never understood (never bothered) to understand the slogan. Your explanation is reasonable but how does a newbie understand it? I don't think the slogan does anything to sell the CMS.
Plumbing for me is something dirty, clunky, and leaks a lot.
The word I associate with Drupal is 'elegant'.
Here is a definition of 'elegant' from dictionary.com:
Characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style.
well....
I do not know where the slogan originated, it was before my time. It is however one of the things that attracted me to Drupal.
So, it seems you have some assumptions:
I don't think that 'Drupal' should sell itself. I think you should sell yourself and your abilities to design a site. That you use Drupal is something you mention in passing. People do not want a 'Drupal' site in general, they want a site. That you use Drupal is a selling point. Now, if someone wants a Drupal developer then they are already sold on Drupal... Generally they are sold on the solid infrastructure.
Drupal can be elegant but frankly, visually, out of the box it's not. It provides you with a solid infrastructure backend though. Site design with dynamic content is not easy. It requires a lot of thought, planning and effort on behalf of the implementor. There are not a lot of people with all the skills necessary to do this. You must be a mini Information Architect. To get an idea of the scope involved, check out IBM's developerworks series. Most people don't need that level of detail or scope, but you really need to have at least a passing familierity with the concepts to develop an effective site.
Of course, the above is only my opinion and other opinions may and will vary.
When I redid my theme to this current one, I discovered that my last one really had usability problems (color, layout). The difference between this one and the last in terms of my posting to it and using my site is huge. I am still looking at how and what I want to do with this site and figuring out how to implement what I want in a clean, usable fashion.
If plumbing to you is dirty and leaks a lot, then you should probably invest in a good plumber. Plumbing should not leak a little or a lot. Good plumbing takes a professional to do right. Any well done mechanical room is generally clean and is effective at what is designed to do. If it's not, then it will cost you lots of money.
So I leave you with this word.
unpretentious
Unpretentious yes, abstruse yes, good slogan no.
Just to make it clear, I am referring to the Drupal slogan and I think that a slogan should sell (promote is a better word) something, be it a person, software package, soft drink, community, entity...whatever. I think that is one of the main functions of a slogan and a slogan can be judged on that criteria.
Community plumbing is too abstract.
>>There is no single entity known as Drupal.
Yes, but there are many people involved with 'it' and it would make their newbie experiences easier if things were stated more simply. The site slogan is one of the first points of contact for many people with Drupal, and while you may have understood it easily with your experience/background there are others who won't (silly old me for example).
If the Drupal slogan is unpretensious it's because it doesn't claim ANY position of distinction or merit (I'm talking about the homepage). The slogan is also ABSTRUSE because it is too abstract.
I agree with the title of your article, however I don't agree with this:
'Community plumbing' is the perfect choice for a slogan.
Maybe a poll would be a good way to find out other peoples opinions. Maybe Drupal is better off without a slogan, the text in the peach box on the homepage explains it well and a clearly written explanation in the of the page could complement it.
well
we'll have to agree to disagree. I tried Drupal in part because of the slogan. It's just right. It doesn't try to sell you, if you are looking you have to be willing to invest the time to investigate completely to see if Drupal will fill your needs.
I still don't feel it's Drupal.org's job to sell itself. That's all our jobs.