Thoughts on the rebranding initiative: "Movement" - Wikimedia-l

22 Jun 2020

[From my comments in the rebranding survey]

"Movement"

Please stop calling us a "movement". I am an active Wikipedia contributor,
but I do not feel part of a movement. Know that I feel excluded when we are
referred to as a movement. I would guess that most Wikimedians do not
consider themselves part of a movement. I feel that I am part of the
Wikimedia _community_.

Note that in the English Wikipedia the title of the relevant article is
indeed "Wikipedia community", _not_ "Wikipedia movement" (which is a
redirect). In fact, the word "movement" does not appear in the main text of
the article at all. "Wikimedia movement" is the title of its article, but
it is described as "the global community of contributors to Wikimedia
Foundation projects". A community of contributors is not the same thing as
a movement. I would say that none of the definitions given in the
Definitions section of the Social movement article apply to us.

One significant problem to using "movement" is that some, including the
WMF, exploit the connotations of the word towards social justice, or a
"greater good", as a rationalization for behaviors that a community might
not support (and in many cases our community has indeed opposed WMF's
behavior). Another is the implication that there is basically a core set of
beliefs and priorities that all those involved support. This is clearly not
the case in the Wikimedia community. I also think there is an assumption
that in a movement, there are institutions that those in the movement
explicitly or implicitly authorize to speak for them. Again, clearly this
is not the case in the Wikimedia community overall.

Paul Weiss
User:Libcub