Hi James,
I'd like to agree with you, but in practice because WMF controls both the trademark agreements and affiliate agreements, in practice WMF has wide latitude in determining who other than them an claim to "represent Wikipedia". There are some good things about this (e.g. we don't want people selling clothing with the Wikipedia globe logo and claiming that the proceeds "go to Wikipedia" when they actually go to someone's private bank account; another example of a problem would be someone who claims to "represent Wikipedia" and then engages in large amounts of copyright violations). However, there is always the prospect that WMF could use the trademark, affiliate, and grant agreements to penalize affiliates whose opinions differ from those of WMF. I'm not sure how we untangle this web of keeping the good while reducing risk of the bad. The current system, imperfect though it is, seems to me to be good enough for the moment. To tie this into one of my other thoughts: I think that WMF should become a membership organization, which would have the effect of increasing my comfort level with the high concentration of risk, money, and legal authority in WMF.
We are digressing from the original subject of the thread about de-recognition, so please fork the trademarks discussion to a separate thread if you'd like to respond.
Regards,
Pine
On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 4:35 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
The second part of this IMO is not accurate "The Dutch chapter does not represent Wikipedia or any of the other projects. It cannot do this because the Wikimedia Foundation has this exclusive right."
The Wikimedia movement which is a combination of the WMF, chapters and thorgs, along with the communities represent Wikipedia. The WMF only exclusively represents the WMF.
James