Your point is quite valid. Although it would be best if the word “SAFE” were the globally recognized brand, that will not be achieved without mass adoption which could be slowed down without a consistent and easily searchable name.
In addition, the basic logo contains both words so it would be coherent to maintain them.
If the network achieves the desired recognition, it could be possible to change the logos using only the word “SAFE”.
I second this as well. I think that—as others have noted here—SAFE Network has built up enough traction to be uniquely linked to and identify this project.
I think the SAFE Network’s name and branding will evolve much like that of Federal Express. Consumers shortened the name to FedEx via common use and then the brand followed suit. With mass adoption, consumers will likely shorten the name to just SAFE, and then official branding can/should do so as well. At that point the chance of confusion with the change would be mitigated.
By the way, even now, if you search for “Federal Express” all the top results are still for FedEx. I think that’s a world we’d want to get to with SAFE Network/SAFE. SAFE might be a more generic word than FedEx, but so too is Apple.
So, just to be clear: It is being suggested that “SAFE Network” (with SAFE always in all caps) be settled on as the reference to the project, not “Safe Network”? Is all caps important?
Well technically SAFE is an acronym, so it should be in all caps, officially.
In everyday use people won’t really care if it is all caps or not, and if the network becomes widespread popular, just by sheer practicality people will naturally tend to the shorter “safe”.
In the same way that Coca Cola became Coke, or as @sotros25 said just like Federal Express became officially FedEx in '94.
Why not have both.
When translating take SAFE Network as a proper name (or noun).
And then when translating just SAFE just use SAFE without the network part
Personally, I think it is awkward to have the name SAFE Network in Swedish since we don’t use something like ‘the’ as a definite article (I hope this is what it is called). Instead we say ‘nätverk’ as a generall network, and ‘nätverket’ when we talk about a specifik network. So it is ‘SAFE-nätverket’ when we talk about ‘the SAFE network’. But I understand if you do want to have a brand like ‘SAFE Network’. But it gets a bit weird to talk about the network SAFE Network (nätverket SAFE Network).
Well I was expecting someone to point that out, yes, it may be as weird as the “PIN number”, “ATM machines”, or “HIV virus”.
Btw, I bet redundancies already exist in Swedish from borrowed terms from other languages such as CD-skiva or IP-protokoll, or even Forumtorget (“forum” means town square in Latin)
Yes, it may sound redundant when it’s translated to other languages, if you understand both languages. The same is in Spanish, if we call it “la red ‘SAFE Network’”, we literally would be calling it “the network ‘SAFE Network’”.
Being rational and efficient linguistically is not natural, that’s not how laypeople talk, and secondly it may harm in all the above examples the conveyance of meaning.
I think something like that is happening in our case not only in the efficiency of communication but more about the discoverability of this project, especially in the early stages when nobody knows about this project.
Nobody will find anything about our project with “Safe-nätverket”, but everyone will get precise results if they search for “Safe Network”, so let’s leverage that in the early stages of getting the word out.
Eventually as it becomes more widespread and it is in our everyday lives I think that people will adopt a shorter and more practical way of referring to it. And that will be the ultimate sign of success for the network.
My vote is to drop ‘the’. Official network branding becomes “SAFE Network”. Jargon used by participants will then be either “SAFE Network” or “SAFE”.
How are other projects with “network” referred to in Swedish? Are there any?
EDIT: Then I read the post from @piluso and now I think we should not stress ourselves about it - or any similar issue in other languages