On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 2:56 PM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Wow. That was a long read. Some very interesting points, I hope you will forgive me if I ignore most.
I'm so happy anyone found it worth reading! It's quite tome-ish .
I do want to stress a few things. There is a difference between the Free Content Movement, the Group of People who Use Wiki's and the Wikimedia Movement.
Right. "The Unnamed Movement", which I earlier sometimes called the Wikimedia Movement, is definitely not the group of people who use wikis. Included, however, are the entire wikimedia movement. The scope of this Unnamed Movement is unclear, but it would definitely have to be at least as wide so as to include "all the projects we wish we could say were ours". A wider circle, "projects that say in good faith they share our values", is also part of this Unnamed movement. That's the narrowest conceivable definition of the Unnamed movement.
If we want, the Unnamed movement could be very wide in scope, including anyone connected to free information-- from free software foundation to eff to american library association, and any smaller projects that lie in between those groups and us. That would be a very expansive vision of the Unnamed movment.
I would not like us to confuse people even further by mixing up names (Wikipedia, Wikimedia, MediaWiki), so lets make that Wiki- and media- neutral.
Agree and agree. Wiki- and Media- would be to express a connection to the existing core-WM movement. If we can find a name that still evokes a connection to our core, without using the words Wiki or Media, that would be a definite plus.
I think there are already works in that direction (I think something like Free Culture Defined), and it would probably make most sense to work in that direction - with them, dont re-invent the wheel.
Here's why we re-invent the wheel. From my vantage point, it looks like we're at the epicenter of this Unnamed movement. IF we us a pre-existing 'wheel' (brand), then we forfeit the opportunity to invent a wheel (brand) in which we are explicitly the central hub.
Right now, our status as the de facto central hub is, in fact, one of our greatest assets. If we pick a name that doesn't clearly promote Wikimedia , e.g. "Free Culture Movement", then the resulting movement won't promote Wikimedia every time its name is used.
We want a 'spin off' brand, something that evokes Wikimedia without being Wikimedia.
When it comes to Wiki's being used for good goals, I don't see Wiki's as special, sorry. Wiki's are a tool, not determining anything.
Agreed. They're a very very special tool, but software not a reasonable definition for a movement. The Unnamed Movement should be software-neutral, if not in name then CERTAINLY in practice.
I just mentioned only the Mediawikis because we currently host only mediawikis, and I didn't want anyones head to explode if I proposed too much change in one email . But yes, we would also have absolutely no reason to exclude non-wikis from the Unnamed movement. I'm really happy to see someone else stressing that-- it's something worth stressing.
Alec