Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Neil Harris <usenet(a)tonal.clara.co.uk>
wrote:
I agree: there can be many partners, and
there's no reason not to
be
partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process
for
registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I
believe
that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend its
trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the rights
over
that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].
Any value the wikipedia brand has comes from the content of the
wikipedia. The content itself does not "belong" to the Wikimedia
Foundation. The brand, well, I could not care less. Be careful that
you recognize value where it really is.
The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent. The
community is deeply tied up with the Wikipedia name and reputation; if
there's no community, there will be no encyclopedia. The name (and
logo) are a banner for everyone to unite around.
Trust me, the brand is worth a great deal, in both moral and monetary
terms: people want to contribute to "the" Wikipedia, not a fork, for
example, and donors want to fund the "real" Wikipedia project, not one
of the hundreds of knockoffs. The brand symbolically holds the community
and initiative together, and symbols have great power. Even the
strongest Free Software advocates like Richard Stallman and Linus
Torvalds jealously protect the GNU and Linux brands; and for good reason.
If things were to fall apart, the community _could_ realign around a
different organization, with a different name: consider x.org vs.
xfree86 -- however, that would be an option of last resort, after some
assumed failure of the current Wikimedia initiative, which is what the
Foundation exists to prevent. Hence the important of good branding and
trademark policies.
The Foundation
urgently needs an official policy before anything
damaging occurs to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia brand. An official
partner
list page would be a good idea: so the Foundation can say "if
you're not
on this page, you're not an official partner, and here's how to
apply to
be a Wikimedia partner, dear Bill/Melinda [delete as applicable]"
Do we? Is it so important that we "recognize" our "partners"?
Yes it is. Partnership implies two-way consent. On the other hand, the
GFDL makes all the content available to anyone, without any need for
recognition or permission save that explicitly given in the GFDL. And
letting self-designated "partners" use the trademarks without explicit
permission leads down the slippery path to genericization, which has the
potential to severely damage the project.
I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy
that says: "It
does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the wikipedia.
Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.
It would be kind of like saying "This unbiased beverage report
brought to you by our Partner: Pepsi"
Chris Mahan
I agree with you on this. Partner recognition should be kept well clear
of the content. Which is why I recommend having partnership info on the
Wikimedia Foundation site, not in the project content.
-- Neil