Bonjour Wikimedia Community User Group Guinea Conakry!

Zack here from the Wikimedia Foundation.

I’m emailing you because we are in the final weeks of Wikimedia community feedback on a brand proposal [1] and I wanted to make sure we had thoughts from you and your affiliate.

If you are just hearing about this discussion, allow me to offer a quick recap:

• The Wikimedia Movement’s shared goals outline an ambitious outreach target for 2030: “anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us” [2]  

• In 2018, the Foundation’s Communications team began a strategic review of the Wikimedia brand system to assess how well it works and what could be improved to reach the 2030 goals, specifically to simplify the invitation for new people to join us [3]

• The resulting research showed that Wikimedia is a confusing name that very few internet users understand, while Wikipedia has massive (80%+) awareness in Europe + North America and is fast growing in emerging internet regions [4]

• The research also produced a strategic proposal: adopt Wikipedia as our Movement’s central brand, expanding its definition and linking the project ecosystem around this most visible/popular project

It’s a big topic, but this is not the final point of discussion. Instead, we are collecting community feedback to deliver a report to the Board of Trustees at the end of May. The report will summarize risks, concerns, needs, and opportunities in changing our branding.

Your feedback is valuable to us and we hope you will decide to participate in the process. You can

• Share thoughts on the project’s Community review talk page [5]  

• Or send thoughts via email: brandproject@wikimedia.org

Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions or would like to coordinate a session.

Yours,

• Zack

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/project_summary

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning

[4] https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/07/how-does-the-world-see-wikimedia-brands/

[5 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/community_review

--