Hoi, Dear WereSpielChequers, the thing with bias is that it shows in the choices made. You are a Wikipedian, do not really care for the other projects and you make that plain in what you say. The problem with bias is that it has consequences in how you approach issues. When Wikipedia "consensus" has it that we do not collaborate with Wikidata, it follows that you will not consider linking blue and red wiki links to Wikidata items and not to Wikipedia titles. From a Wikipedia point of view it is perfectly acceptable but no longer a great choice. From a Wikimedia point of view, not considering options shows that there is no consideration for our overall goal; sharing in the sum of all knowledge.
Wikimedia has multiple projects and we will have more impact when we collaborate. Commons is searchable in any and all languages thanks to Special:MediaSearch [1], when we expose it on every Wikipedia, it will be easier to illustrate Wikipedias. Wikidata can rid Wikipedia of much of its false friends problem and it can ensure that lists are better maintained. Magnus has shown that this is true even for English Wikipedia and as always English Wikipedia is only one of the Wikipedias.
When Wikipedia is mentioned, English Wikipedia is implied. It has something like 50% of our traffic and it does represent less than 50% or our target audience. I am all for improving the marketing of our projects but the bias for and the toxicity of English Wikipedia makes me oppose it. In essence, it is English Wikipedia that has to polish up its act, accept opposing points of view from others before it becomes reasonable to accept it as a flagship. Thanks, GerardM
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?type=bitmap&q=boo...
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 23:06, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Natalia,
I wouldn't say that it was a badly designed survey, more that it was a survey designed to constrain responses to three specific options. The problem is with the choice of those options and that the survey seems to be designed to push the community into a particular direction, rather than find out what direction if any the community wanted to go in.
"No name change is necessary" is not the only missing option. I'm sure I am not the only person who accepts that Wikipedia and Wikimedia are sufficiently similar that it causes confusion, or who knows that some people assume that we are connected to WikiLeaks. Changing the name of the WMF to something that is a suitable parent for all the projects, not just Wikipedia, and that reduces confusion with WikiLeaks should be a relatively harmless thing for the WMF to do. There are only a limited number of projects that the WMF can take on at any time, and this wouldn't have been my priority. But if you are going to rebrand, then doing so without differentiating yourselves from WikiLeaks, and without maintaining some sense of being a parent for multiple projects not just one favoured child, does seem to me to be a mistake. So "if you want to change your name, don't change it to Wikipedia, Wiki or to something you can't trademark" is also a position, I suspect it is stronger than "no name change is necessary".
Regards
WereSpielChequers
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2020 02:27:11 +0300 From: Nataliia Tymkiv ntymkiv@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Board update on Branding: next steps Message-ID: < CAKt1n5oKs9e_vaez4LKizJrV_9p4OQjSCC26FvyVYKiP13yu7Q@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Dear all,
I want to share with you the next steps of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees about the Brand Project.
Originally the Board meeting dedicated to the brand project was supposed
to
happen no earlier than October. The expected outcome from the project
were
the recommendations on what the rebranding should look like - from
changing
fonts/logos to renaming. And if there is going to be a renaming - to
what.
Of course, the Board’s role is not in approving a change in fonts, but
if a
recommendation to rename was to be made - the Board’s role would have
been
to make a decision on that recommendation. The timeline has now been changed, and the renaming part of rebranding will be discussed in our August meeting.
Moreover, the Board will meet in early July to receive a briefing about
the
project and talk about the process between June 2018 - June 2020. The consolidated materials on what the brand project team has been working on for a while now will be presented to the Board, and these materials are also going to be posted publicly. The more-strategic conversation is planned for the August meeting. Time to prepare the materials is needed, and the ongoing conversations need to be summarised, so the Board can
have
an in-depth discussion about this, before making any kind of decision.
We would like to continue with the survey [1] - we have discussed the possibility of technical changes to the survey with an additional option like “no renaming is needed” (not the exact words, mind you), but with
more
than 700 respondents it is not methodologically sound to change the
survey
now. Staff have confirmed to the Board that responses to the survey will not be calculated as support for a change. The survey was only designed
to
collect feedback on the possible renaming options, not as a yes/no vote
on
whether to adopt them.
Thus the timeline on rebranding for the next 6-7 weeks is as follows:
- Early July - special Board meeting with the Brand project team to
review
and discuss the process so far, and for the Board members to receive the briefing on discussions happening;
- July - consolidated materials prepared for the July meeting will be
posted publicly after the meeting;
- August 5th - the Board meeting on renaming part of the rebranding, not
about the process. The Board will make the decision about whether to
stop,
pause, or continue the work on this, within the framework of a discussion on strategic goals, tensions and tradeoffs, and potential next steps.
- August (after the meeting) - the Board statement on the next steps
about
the Brand project.
I also want to acknowledge receiving the Community open letter on
renaming
[2] that was posted this week. Thank you for this statement on the
position
of those of you who signed. I know there are other perspectives, and that some would agree with it who have not signed it, and that there are also some who would not agree. We expect that the Board meetings and communication after them will address the concerns raised in the letter.
Stay safe, antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv Acting Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
[1] https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9G2dN7P0T7gPqpD
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming
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