Dear community,
on May 16, I initiated a project-wide survey for opinions related to Wikimedia's brand strategy. Branding is not the most exciting of subjects, so I'd like to thank all those who took the time to humor me, and also those who expanded the survey with additional questions and data.
While the survey can remain open indefinitely, I'd like to take a first snapshot of community opinions on a number of issues. I have anonymized all opinions for the purposes of this summary.
Because that's what many people will want to know first, I'll start by saying that there is a rough consensus against any major rebranding of our current project family, and I don't personally consider it a viable option at this point. Posing a couple of radical questions certainly did serve to energize people to respond to the survey, which was not entirely unintended. ;-)
That said, there is a diversity of opinions about our current names and what to do with them:
== Current names ==
Of all the names, "Wikimedia Commons" is widely identified (by 12 people, according to my count) as a confusing name which does not really identify what the project stands for, is not easily translatable, too long, and too close to "Creaitve Commons."
The confusion between MediaWiki, Wikimedia, and Wikipedia has been affirmed by about the same number of people, though the recommended response varies: some think we have to live with it for historical reasons, some would like to rename "Wikimedia", some "MediaWiki".
I count 8 people who have a problem with Wikisource and/or Wikibooks and the distinction/relation between them. Wikisource can be confused with "open source" / "source code", whereas Wikibooks identifies a ''type'' of work rather than its contents.
Of the remaining names, Wikiversity and Wiktionary have received criticism, but only by a small number of people, and Wikiversity in particular has also received strong affirmation by some of its current participants.
In principle, a lack of clarity about the relation between the different names was pointed out. For instance, it was suggested that "Wikijunior" could be renamed "Wikibooks Junior" in order to identify its relationship to Wikibooks. The fact that many other projects use a "Wiki-" prefix without being part of the WMF family was also stated as potentially confusing (Wikitravel being one of the most prominent examples that is often misattributed to us).
I count five people who criticized the large number of different names and projects. There are several suggestions to merge projects to reduce the number of names, in particular in the area of Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiversity. (However, it is clear that a project merge goes beyond a brand change, and I consider it somewhat out of scope for this discussion.)
== Current logos ==
The Wikisource logo was identified as the most confusing; I count 6 people who said so explicitly. The Wiktionary logo was rated mediocre to poor by 4 people. Several people pointed out that the Wikipedia logo could be improved in minor ways, but it is also generally seen as widely recognizable in its current form.
Beyond those trends, there were single criticisms related to each logo with the exception of the Wikimedia logo.
6 people suggested that all logos should follow a more consistent visual style, particularly in terms of colors (WMF palette), and some would even accept redesigning the Wikipedia logo to achieve that. On the other hand, 3 people affirmed the diversity of logos, and another 3 people suggested that WMF should impose no standards and leave the choice up to each community. In effect, there's a sharp split of opinion between those who ask for more consistency, and those who cherish the current diversity.
At the same time, 2 people pointed out that, if WMF does impose a strategy, it should at least be followed and communicated clearly, rather than intervening in a few isolated cases.
== Brand licensing ==
There was strong support (12 people) in favor of cautiously licensing WMF brands for selected products, with reservations about licensing that is too broad (action figures, luxury goods), because that is perceived to dilute the brand too much. Some people also pointed out that such licensing could be seen as an endorsement, which would be reason to be very careful about what products & companies to work with. 4 people opposed (in some case strongly) any kind of licensing deals.
One respondent suggested to empower the community directly to make creative uses of the brands (T-Shirts and other products). There was some misunderstanding about the current licensing status of the WMF logos (they are not freely licensed), and one respondent asked for the logos to be made available under a free license.
When it comes to licensing the brand to mirrors and portals providing access to our content, the response was similar; the majority (9 people) favored doing so cautiously, with attention to potential confusion and dilution of our brand. Revocability was listed as a criterion for future licensing agreements.
(I should note that one idea which has been suggested in this context in the past is to design a specific logo variant for mirrors and portals, effectively a "Powered by Wikipedia" logo for Wikipedia mirrors, such as a single puzzle piece with a "W" on it.)
== Level of protection ==
The general consensus here is that protection should be pursued widely, but with attention to the costs (a desire was expressed for more reporting from the WMF on its current strategy and expenses in this area). With regard to unofficial translations of the names into other languages, many people would like these to be at least somewhat protected, and 7 people suggested working with chapters to achieve that.
== Rebranding ==
With the exception of a few minority voices, the vast majority of people strongly opposed any major rebranding of all projects to follow a consistent schema, or to be brought under the "Wikipedia" brand (e.g. "Wikibooks" to "Wikipedia Textbooks" or "Wikimedia Textbooks). The general perception was that doing so would a) be confusing, b) make the names too long, c) be disruptive to the existing communities, d) in the case of the "Wikipedia" rebranding, give a single project undue primacy over others.
Opposition was slightly less strong when it comes to renaming the Foundation. "Wikipedia Foundation" was seen as troublesome by many for the same reasons as a Wikipedia-based rebranding of the projects. As for other names, some people considered it to be too late for any change, but I also count 12 people who either would support a change now, or might support it when presented with a specific alternative they like. It was noted that, if the name of the Foundation was changed, the names of the chapters would also have to change.
== Other opinions ==
Improving the reputation and content of our projects, showcasing sister projects more visibly, and strengthening the prominence of the Wikimedia brand were given as alternatives to major rebranding initiatives. The fact that all Wikimedia projects use the default thetme of MediaWiki (MonoBook) was also listed as contributing to potential confusion with other wiki communities.
== Follow-up ==
I'd like to recommend several follow-up steps. Some of these can be only taken by the Board/Staff, while others can be initiated by any community member:
* Now we have a reasonable sample of community opinions, it would be useful to collect answers from the general public who peruse our projects but do not contribute. How does perception of our diversity of brands differ? How are issues like the MediaWiki/Wikimedia/Wikipedia distinction seen by those who have never learned about it? * There should be a dedicated brainstorming about the Wikimedia Commons name and possible alternatives. * Based on the feedback about these two logos, it seems justifiable to revive the Wikisource and Wiktionary logo discussions and possibly getting more logo submissions. * WMF should clearly communicate its expectations for current and future logo contests. Should some/all logos use the WMF style and colors or not? * The idea of chapters protecting localized brand variants has been specifically proposed here for the first time, to my knowledge, so I do believe it needs to be discussed from different angles by WMF, chapter representatives, and affected communities. * The general trademark strategy of WMF should be more openly discussed so that the community can get a better feel how specific actions are justified. (We may need to be careful about squatting opportunities.) * The licensing status of WMF logos was mentioned several times. My opinion is that this discussion needs to be approached with the following question: How "free" can an identifying work such as a logo realistically be without undermining its purpose (identification)?
As for brand licensing for products and services, I think community opinion is largely in line with the strategy the Foundation has taken of cautiously exploring the available options and approving such deals only on a case-by-case basis.
Once again, I'd like to thank all those who responded. The survey suffers from a strong selection bias. One of the questions was also widely misunderstood, which is of course the fault of the questioner. Other questions may have predisposed certain answers and reduced the likelihood of other ideas being presented. So, the discussion is far from over, and should be continued, with more questions, more data, and more ideas.
12 people is not "strong support". If 12 people is a large majority of those that responded, then your survey was a completely failure and you can't draw any conclusions from it. You're going to have to try again and do something to get more people to respond.
I wouldn't say that. It was a personal survey Erik carried out and he is merely reporting what he discovers as it stands - it is still open and ongoing, as he says.
On 01/07/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
12 people is not "strong support". If 12 people is a large majority of those that responded, then your survey was a completely failure and you can't draw any conclusions from it. You're going to have to try again and do something to get more people to respond.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I wouldn't say that. It was a personal survey Erik carried out and he is merely reporting what he discovers as it stands - it is still open and ongoing, as he says.
In which case, he needs to wait longer before doing any analysis, because as it stands the survey is not conclusive.
On 7/1/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't say that. It was a personal survey Erik carried out and he is merely reporting what he discovers as it stands - it is still open and ongoing, as he says.
On 01/07/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
12 people is not "strong support". If 12 people is a large majority of those that responded, then your survey was a completely failure and you can't draw any conclusions from it. You're going to have to try again and do something to get more people to respond.
I would also think the survey is completely flawed if 12 people are considered a majority. Yes, you are right, Gary, this survey was a personal initiative from Erik. If we want to get more opinions, I would advocate for a larger survey that would be less "personal" and that would be organized in coordination with more people (for instance the Marketing Committee, whose members are advisors for the board in terms of visual identity).
Guillaume Paumier wrote:
On 7/1/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't say that. It was a personal survey Erik carried out and he is merely reporting what he discovers as it stands - it is still open and ongoing, as he says.
On 01/07/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
12 people is not "strong support". If 12 people is a large majority of those that responded, then your survey was a completely failure and you can't draw any conclusions from it. You're going to have to try again and do something to get more people to respond.
I would also think the survey is completely flawed if 12 people are considered a majority. Yes, you are right, Gary, this survey was a personal initiative from Erik. If we want to get more opinions, I would advocate for a larger survey that would be less "personal" and that would be organized in coordination with more people (for instance the Marketing Committee, whose members are advisors for the board in terms of visual identity).
This is more a survey of active Wikimedians who frequenly participant in cross-project communications. That is indeed a small and select group of individuals, not to mention that the survey was biased by not being randomly selected but by those who sought out the effort to participate in the survey. If they had heard about the survey at all in the first place. Still, it is a survey of active Wikimedians and if you ignore the conclusions based upon numerical statstics but instead concentrated on the different philosophical camps for each answer, it is perhaps a bit more accurate.
As for numbers as they would relate to say Wikimedia board election participants, that would be something completely worth trying to follow up on with a survey that could be substantially simplified and reworded better, with an attempt to pull a random sample from that list of Wikimedia users who are demonstrating substantial activity. With nearly 2000 people participating in the elections so far (a few duplicates based on the data I saw... but pretty close to that number) I think you could get a good statistical sample from 10% of that number and find out what the ratios might actually be in terms of the rank and file Wikimedia users. The suggestion here is that the support or lack of support for some of these ideas may be substantially different than the ratios suggested by the more informal and non-random survey method used here by Eric.
-- Robert Horning
Hello,
Let me provide a very short set of comments regarding the trademarks registration strategy.
First, I'd like to mention that we are actively registrering some of our brands. It is not a large spectrum registration (too expensive) though.
In the past, this was clearly and publicly reported on meta. This was stopped perhaps a year ago or more, along with the publishing of domain names information on meta, essentially because it was making life of squatters much easier.
Our trademarks registration is not confidential and obviously, anyone looking for this information, will find it. There is no reason to force any of you to lose time looking for it. So, if someone wants to know which one is and which one is not registered, please drop me an email. I'll add that I tried in the past months to regularly keep the internal community informed of this. Again, not because they are special people, but rather because chapters need this information and because we can not just plain publish all that stuff on a public list.
The lawyer in charge of most (but not all) of our registrations are Hugot (http://www.hugot.fr/uk/index_uk.html). He provides us with memorandums from time to time, to keep us informed of updates (new registrations and battles won).
Currently, our strategy is mostly to protect Wikipedia, as the most valuable mark, but all marks are registered or in registration process at least in one country. The preferred countries are those where there is already a chapter and those where it is pretty obvious a "commercial" activity might develop around Wikipedia. I got estimates for larger protection, but considered the overall price to be unreasonable *right now*. Total amount if no trouble was 100 000 euros (130 000 dollars ?). I do consider the level of protection it was giving is something we should do in the next few months, but not all in july... We might also run into oppositions, which are costly.
Also, remember that a mark does not need to be registered to be a mark.
As a side note, because it was recently mentionned. Only text was registered (project names), not logo. So, it is not an issue to change any logo right now, either in a major fashion or to fix minor errors. I would even suggest it is a good idea to do it NOW :-)
ant
Erik Moeller wrote:
Dear community,
on May 16, I initiated a project-wide survey for opinions related to Wikimedia's brand strategy. Branding is not the most exciting of subjects, so I'd like to thank all those who took the time to humor me, and also those who expanded the survey with additional questions and data.
While the survey can remain open indefinitely, I'd like to take a first snapshot of community opinions on a number of issues. I have anonymized all opinions for the purposes of this summary.
Because that's what many people will want to know first, I'll start by saying that there is a rough consensus against any major rebranding of our current project family, and I don't personally consider it a viable option at this point. Posing a couple of radical questions certainly did serve to energize people to respond to the survey, which was not entirely unintended. ;-)
That said, there is a diversity of opinions about our current names and what to do with them:
== Current names ==
Of all the names, "Wikimedia Commons" is widely identified (by 12 people, according to my count) as a confusing name which does not really identify what the project stands for, is not easily translatable, too long, and too close to "Creaitve Commons."
The confusion between MediaWiki, Wikimedia, and Wikipedia has been affirmed by about the same number of people, though the recommended response varies: some think we have to live with it for historical reasons, some would like to rename "Wikimedia", some "MediaWiki".
I count 8 people who have a problem with Wikisource and/or Wikibooks and the distinction/relation between them. Wikisource can be confused with "open source" / "source code", whereas Wikibooks identifies a ''type'' of work rather than its contents.
Of the remaining names, Wikiversity and Wiktionary have received criticism, but only by a small number of people, and Wikiversity in particular has also received strong affirmation by some of its current participants.
In principle, a lack of clarity about the relation between the different names was pointed out. For instance, it was suggested that "Wikijunior" could be renamed "Wikibooks Junior" in order to identify its relationship to Wikibooks. The fact that many other projects use a "Wiki-" prefix without being part of the WMF family was also stated as potentially confusing (Wikitravel being one of the most prominent examples that is often misattributed to us).
I count five people who criticized the large number of different names and projects. There are several suggestions to merge projects to reduce the number of names, in particular in the area of Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiversity. (However, it is clear that a project merge goes beyond a brand change, and I consider it somewhat out of scope for this discussion.)
== Current logos ==
The Wikisource logo was identified as the most confusing; I count 6 people who said so explicitly. The Wiktionary logo was rated mediocre to poor by 4 people. Several people pointed out that the Wikipedia logo could be improved in minor ways, but it is also generally seen as widely recognizable in its current form.
Beyond those trends, there were single criticisms related to each logo with the exception of the Wikimedia logo.
6 people suggested that all logos should follow a more consistent visual style, particularly in terms of colors (WMF palette), and some would even accept redesigning the Wikipedia logo to achieve that. On the other hand, 3 people affirmed the diversity of logos, and another 3 people suggested that WMF should impose no standards and leave the choice up to each community. In effect, there's a sharp split of opinion between those who ask for more consistency, and those who cherish the current diversity.
At the same time, 2 people pointed out that, if WMF does impose a strategy, it should at least be followed and communicated clearly, rather than intervening in a few isolated cases.
== Brand licensing ==
There was strong support (12 people) in favor of cautiously licensing WMF brands for selected products, with reservations about licensing that is too broad (action figures, luxury goods), because that is perceived to dilute the brand too much. Some people also pointed out that such licensing could be seen as an endorsement, which would be reason to be very careful about what products & companies to work with. 4 people opposed (in some case strongly) any kind of licensing deals.
One respondent suggested to empower the community directly to make creative uses of the brands (T-Shirts and other products). There was some misunderstanding about the current licensing status of the WMF logos (they are not freely licensed), and one respondent asked for the logos to be made available under a free license.
When it comes to licensing the brand to mirrors and portals providing access to our content, the response was similar; the majority (9 people) favored doing so cautiously, with attention to potential confusion and dilution of our brand. Revocability was listed as a criterion for future licensing agreements.
(I should note that one idea which has been suggested in this context in the past is to design a specific logo variant for mirrors and portals, effectively a "Powered by Wikipedia" logo for Wikipedia mirrors, such as a single puzzle piece with a "W" on it.)
== Level of protection ==
The general consensus here is that protection should be pursued widely, but with attention to the costs (a desire was expressed for more reporting from the WMF on its current strategy and expenses in this area). With regard to unofficial translations of the names into other languages, many people would like these to be at least somewhat protected, and 7 people suggested working with chapters to achieve that.
== Rebranding ==
With the exception of a few minority voices, the vast majority of people strongly opposed any major rebranding of all projects to follow a consistent schema, or to be brought under the "Wikipedia" brand (e.g. "Wikibooks" to "Wikipedia Textbooks" or "Wikimedia Textbooks). The general perception was that doing so would a) be confusing, b) make the names too long, c) be disruptive to the existing communities, d) in the case of the "Wikipedia" rebranding, give a single project undue primacy over others.
Opposition was slightly less strong when it comes to renaming the Foundation. "Wikipedia Foundation" was seen as troublesome by many for the same reasons as a Wikipedia-based rebranding of the projects. As for other names, some people considered it to be too late for any change, but I also count 12 people who either would support a change now, or might support it when presented with a specific alternative they like. It was noted that, if the name of the Foundation was changed, the names of the chapters would also have to change.
== Other opinions ==
Improving the reputation and content of our projects, showcasing sister projects more visibly, and strengthening the prominence of the Wikimedia brand were given as alternatives to major rebranding initiatives. The fact that all Wikimedia projects use the default thetme of MediaWiki (MonoBook) was also listed as contributing to potential confusion with other wiki communities.
== Follow-up ==
I'd like to recommend several follow-up steps. Some of these can be only taken by the Board/Staff, while others can be initiated by any community member:
- Now we have a reasonable sample of community opinions, it would be
useful to collect answers from the general public who peruse our projects but do not contribute. How does perception of our diversity of brands differ? How are issues like the MediaWiki/Wikimedia/Wikipedia distinction seen by those who have never learned about it?
- There should be a dedicated brainstorming about the Wikimedia
Commons name and possible alternatives.
- Based on the feedback about these two logos, it seems justifiable to
revive the Wikisource and Wiktionary logo discussions and possibly getting more logo submissions.
- WMF should clearly communicate its expectations for current and
future logo contests. Should some/all logos use the WMF style and colors or not?
- The idea of chapters protecting localized brand variants has been
specifically proposed here for the first time, to my knowledge, so I do believe it needs to be discussed from different angles by WMF, chapter representatives, and affected communities.
- The general trademark strategy of WMF should be more openly
discussed so that the community can get a better feel how specific actions are justified. (We may need to be careful about squatting opportunities.)
- The licensing status of WMF logos was mentioned several times. My
opinion is that this discussion needs to be approached with the following question: How "free" can an identifying work such as a logo realistically be without undermining its purpose (identification)?
As for brand licensing for products and services, I think community opinion is largely in line with the strategy the Foundation has taken of cautiously exploring the available options and approving such deals only on a case-by-case basis.
Once again, I'd like to thank all those who responded. The survey suffers from a strong selection bias. One of the questions was also widely misunderstood, which is of course the fault of the questioner. Other questions may have predisposed certain answers and reduced the likelihood of other ideas being presented. So, the discussion is far from over, and should be continued, with more questions, more data, and more ideas.
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Erik Moeller wrote:
Opposition was slightly less strong when it comes to renaming the Foundation. "Wikipedia Foundation" was seen as troublesome by many for the same reasons as a Wikipedia-based rebranding of the projects. As for other names, some people considered it to be too late for any change, but I also count 12 people who either would support a change now, or might support it when presented with a specific alternative they like. It was noted that, if the name of the Foundation was changed, the names of the chapters would also have to change.
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
My impression is that "Wikipedia" is the *only* name of ours that has any traction among the general public.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
On 05/07/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
My impression is that "Wikipedia" is the *only* name of ours that has any traction among the general public.
Ditto.
"Wikimedia", I suspect, owes a lot of its success to people thinking you said Wikipedia... or, in print, being somewhat unclear as to how on earth you spell Wikipedia at the best of times!
(The recognition of the others as related may have something to do with the fact that an awful lot of people think wikis are, well, invariably involved with us somehow)
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds? If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
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Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds?
Nope. It suggests that choosing to name the company with a new, unknown name ("Wikimedia") instead of our well-known brand name ("Wikipedia") might not have been a good move after all.
If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote: If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no difference between the various projects.
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote: If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no difference between the various projects.
Really? Have you ever worked for a non-Wikipedia project? Sometimes I get the feeling half of the readers think they simply *are* Wikipedia, despite the URL and logo and every other indicator. Even a significant amount of the OTRS mail for Wiktionary is either people complaining about something that happened on Wikipedia, or someone complaining that their band's article, or some other encyclopedic article they added because they thought it was Wikipedia, got deleted. And how many times have you seen some newbie at Wikipedia, ignorant of any projects other than Wikipedia, suggest that we include dictionary definitions to go along with our articles?
Dominic
On 7/5/07, Dmcdevit dmcdevit@cox.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote: If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no difference between the various projects.
Really? Have you ever worked for a non-Wikipedia project? Sometimes I get the feeling half of the readers think they simply *are* Wikipedia, despite the URL and logo and every other indicator.
I guess I didn't look at it that way. To my mind, thinking there's no difference between Wikipedia and some other project implies realizing in the first place that there are two projects to begin with. But I guess I misinterpreted that.
Even a significant amount of the OTRS mail for Wiktionary is either people complaining about something that happened on Wikipedia, or someone complaining that their band's article, or some other encyclopedic article they added because they thought it was Wikipedia, got deleted. And how many times have you seen some newbie at Wikipedia, ignorant of any projects other than Wikipedia, suggest that we include dictionary definitions to go along with our articles?
So, the assertion is that it's OK to get something for Wikipedia, and then use it for another project, because people who contribute to that other project think they're contributing to Wikipedia anyway, and because people who contribute to Wikipedia are unaware of the other projects?
I dunno, the second part of that definitely doesn't seem to fit. The fact that newbies at Wikipedia are ignorant of the other projects seems to go to my point. If that newbie donates money to Wikipedia, for instance, the money shouldn't go to some probject the newbie has no clue about. As for the first part, I guess you could argue that people get "wide eyes and bright smiles" when you talk about Wikipedia because they think you're talking about some other project like Wiktionary, but I kind of doubt that's true to any significant degree.
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Anthony wrote:
So, the assertion is that it's OK to get something for Wikipedia, and then use it for another project, because people who contribute to that other project think they're contributing to Wikipedia anyway, and because people who contribute to Wikipedia are unaware of the other projects?
That might make sense if we were to pretend that there's some kind of magic wall between "some-project-that-is-just-an-encyclopedia-and-nothing-else-ever" and "everything-else-that-we-do".
However, I don't think that wall really exists.
When people in general talk about what "Wikipedia" does or what they want "Wikipedia" to do or how they want to support "Wikipedia", they're nearly always referring to what we, the super-elite involved people, would call "Wikimedia".
To the rest of the world, Wikimedia *is* "Wikipedia" -- Commons, Wikinews, Wiktionary, etc are other things that "Wikipedia" does. There are still other things that many people would like "Wikipedia" to do in addition to those existing projects. People would like to see even more work done by "Wikipedia", not less.
This isn't because people don't know about other projects -- it's because the "Wikipedia" name is so well-known and well-entrenched already that when they do hear about them, "Wikipedia" is the name they're going to be able to remember to attach them to.
Whether that's what we _want_ or not, this is very much my experience to date, and it seems foolish to me to pretend that it isn't so. The "Wikipedia" name is much, much more valuable in both public and private communications than the "Wikimedia" name because of its established reputation and recognition.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
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Anthony wrote:
So, the assertion is that it's OK to get something for Wikipedia, and then use it for another project, because people who contribute to that other project think they're contributing to Wikipedia anyway, and because people who contribute to Wikipedia are unaware of the other projects?
That might make sense if we were to pretend that there's some kind of magic wall between "some-project-that-is-just-an-encyclopedia-and-nothing-else-ever" and "everything-else-that-we-do".
However, I don't think that wall really exists.
Well, I don't believe in magic, but I do think there are significant walls between the various projects. Different sets of users, different admins, different rules, different domain names. About the only thing the same is the software.
When people in general talk about what "Wikipedia" does or what they want "Wikipedia" to do or how they want to support "Wikipedia", they're nearly always referring to what we, the super-elite involved people, would call "Wikimedia".
I don't know about the "we" part. I personally try to avoid calling *anything* "Wikimedia". I do use the term "the WMF", but I use that to refer to the corporation, basically to the board and the employees.
To the rest of the world, Wikimedia *is* "Wikipedia" -- Commons, Wikinews, Wiktionary, etc are other things that "Wikipedia" does. There are still other things that many people would like "Wikipedia" to do in addition to those existing projects. People would like to see even more work done by "Wikipedia", not less.
This isn't because people don't know about other projects -- it's because the "Wikipedia" name is so well-known and well-entrenched already that when they do hear about them, "Wikipedia" is the name they're going to be able to remember to attach them to.
I don't see how you can discount the fact that the name is so well-known and well-entrenched because the website, Wikipedia, is so popular. And I also think you overestimate the extent to which people know about the other projects.
Whether that's what we _want_ or not, this is very much my experience to date, and it seems foolish to me to pretend that it isn't so. The "Wikipedia" name is much, much more valuable in both public and private communications than the "Wikimedia" name because of its established reputation and recognition.
I think it's equally foolish to pretend that the people who think that Wikipedia = Wikimedia are correct. Wikipedia is a much more valuable name than Wikimedia because Wikipedia is a much bigger success than Wikimedia.
On 7/5/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
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<snip>
I think it's equally foolish to pretend that the people who think that
Wikipedia = Wikimedia are correct. Wikipedia is a much more valuable name than Wikimedia because Wikipedia is a much bigger success than Wikimedia.
I'm not sure "success" is the right way of looking at it. Off the top of your head, what are Marlboro Reds? Now, what does Altria Corporation do for a living?
You may have heard of Miller Light and Pilsner Urquell. But what about SABMiller?
What about our friends at World Book? Who's their holding company, again? Oh, hmm, Berkshire Hathaway.
I'm not suggesting that Wikimedia should strive to be anything like one of these megacorporations. But brand recognition doesn't *necessarily* reflect corporate success -- not if Wikimedia's main goal is to quietly keep its very famous products, the projects, afloat.
Or maybe I'm just jaded because I spent an hour last night talking to a friend who wanted to know how he could get his online community of historical reenactors joined up with "Wiki"; he meant Wikipedia, and he just assumed that we had a good way to incorporate specific communities of interest. This is a sysadmin with his own install of Mediawiki, so not entirely clueless. But I suspect, as others have pointed out in this thread, that community distinctions elide most of the public once they've gotten the idea of 'wiki' anything.
-- phoebe
On 7/5/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/5/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
<snip>
I think it's equally foolish to pretend that the people who think that
Wikipedia = Wikimedia are correct. Wikipedia is a much more valuable name than Wikimedia because Wikipedia is a much bigger success than Wikimedia.
I'm not sure "success" is the right way of looking at it. Off the top of your head, what are Marlboro Reds? Now, what does Altria Corporation do for a living?
You may have heard of Miller Light and Pilsner Urquell. But what about SABMiller?
What about our friends at World Book? Who's their holding company, again? Oh, hmm, Berkshire Hathaway.
I'm not suggesting that Wikimedia should strive to be anything like one of these megacorporations. But brand recognition doesn't *necessarily* reflect corporate success -- not if Wikimedia's main goal is to quietly keep its very famous products, the projects, afloat.
You're right that brand recognition doesn't necessarily reflect corporate success, but *in this case* I think it does. Wikipedia is an incredibly unique situation which doesn't really fit into any analogies I can think of. Wikipedia is a project which grew out of a volunteer effort facilitated by a for-profit and rolled over into a non-profit. I can't really think of any other situation for that alone. Mozilla/Netscape fits most of that, but Netscape wasn't built by volunteers.
I also think you unintentionally make the point that it's not important for a company to be named after its most popular brand name.
(By the way, I did know what Altria and Berkshire Hathaway are, although for Berkshire I would have thought of "insurance" and didn't know they happened to own World Book.)
Or maybe I'm just jaded because I spent an hour last night talking to a friend who wanted to know how he could get his online community of historical reenactors joined up with "Wiki"; he meant Wikipedia, and he just assumed that we had a good way to incorporate specific communities of interest. This is a sysadmin with his own install of Mediawiki, so not entirely clueless. But I suspect, as others have pointed out in this thread, that community distinctions elide most of the public once they've gotten the idea of 'wiki' anything.
-- phoebe
phoebe ayers wrote:
Or maybe I'm just jaded because I spent an hour last night talking to a friend who wanted to know how he could get his online community of historical reenactors joined up with "Wiki"; he meant Wikipedia, and he just assumed that we had a good way to incorporate specific communities of interest. This is a sysadmin with his own install of Mediawiki, so not entirely clueless. But I suspect, as others have pointed out in this thread, that community distinctions elide most of the public once they've gotten the idea of 'wiki' anything.
Sometimes it makes you wonder how clueless the clueful really are. :-) There's a message of some sort in all that. People spend a goodly segment of their lives becoming credentialled in something, often to the exclusion of what that something is for. A couple days ago Ant mentioned teachers with no real world experience. Perhaps the educational hierarchy is just producing neatly stacked slices of white bread, and ignoring the more healthy production at specialty bakeries.
Ec
On 06/07/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Or maybe I'm just jaded because I spent an hour last night talking to a friend who wanted to know how he could get his online community of historical reenactors joined up with "Wiki"; he meant Wikipedia, and he just assumed that we had a good way to incorporate specific communities of interest. This is a sysadmin with his own install of Mediawiki, so not entirely clueless. But I suspect, as others have pointed out in this thread, that community distinctions elide most of the public once they've gotten the idea of 'wiki' anything.
I predict this will get better when corporate intranet wikis gain greater popularity. (Preferably MediaWiki, 'cos even though other engines are less work for the sysadmin, MediaWiki is nicest for the users. And looks like Wikipedia.) People become familiar with what they use at work.
- d.
Not really replying to David, but there's a ton of messages in this thread, and there isn't really one that fits as a "best email to reply to". It has been mentioned in this thread that most of our projects are considered part of Wikipedia in the general public's eyes. However, I showed a Wikinews article to a friend the other day, and she said, "Wow, I thought it was Wikipedia because it looks the same as Wikipedia." I kept thinking about that for a while, and I realized that we could probably visually distance the projects away from Wikipedia by changing the default skins for those projects. I immediately thought about this skin in Wikinews [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikinewsSkin-1024.png] that apparently never got finished. There are dozens of skin layouts available at the Gallery of user styles [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_user_styles] which could help Wikimedia sister projects obtain their respective visual identities. Of course, that begs the question of whether we would want to do such a thing, but if we wanted to, we could probably make a contest to design a new skin. That would encourage techies to look at the other projects, and feel a certain degree of satisfaction when they look at code they made being used on Wiktionary's Main Page. Comments? Titoxd.
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 1:34 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Brand Survey Analysis
On 06/07/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Or maybe I'm just jaded because I spent an hour last night talking to a friend who wanted to know how he could get his online community of historical reenactors joined up with "Wiki"; he meant Wikipedia, and he
just
assumed that we had a good way to incorporate specific communities of interest. This is a sysadmin with his own install of Mediawiki, so not entirely clueless. But I suspect, as others have pointed out in this
thread,
that community distinctions elide most of the public once they've gotten
the
idea of 'wiki' anything.
I predict this will get better when corporate intranet wikis gain greater popularity. (Preferably MediaWiki, 'cos even though other engines are less work for the sysadmin, MediaWiki is nicest for the users. And looks like Wikipedia.) People become familiar with what they use at work.
- d.
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello,
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Not really replying to David, but there's a ton of messages in this thread, and there isn't really one that fits as a "best email to reply to". It has been mentioned in this thread that most of our projects are considered part of Wikipedia in the general public's eyes. However, I showed a Wikinews article to a friend the other day, and she said, "Wow, I thought it was Wikipedia because it looks the same as Wikipedia." I kept thinking about that for a while, and I realized that we could probably visually distance the projects away from Wikipedia by changing the default skins for those projects. I immediately thought about this skin in Wikinews [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikinewsSkin-1024.png] that apparently never got finished. There are dozens of skin layouts available at the Gallery of user styles [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_user_styles] which could help Wikimedia sister projects obtain their respective visual identities. Of course, that begs the question of whether we would want to do such a thing, but if we wanted to, we could probably make a contest to design a new skin. That would encourage techies to look at the other projects, and feel a certain degree of satisfaction when they look at code they made being used on Wiktionary's Main Page. Comments?
Elian and I have been working on this issue and I will present our conclusions at Wikimania 2007.
See http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:GP1
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Guillaume Paumier Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 1:33 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Change default skins? (WAS: Wikimedia BrandSurvey Analysis)
Hello,
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Not really replying to David, but there's a ton of messages in this thread, and there isn't really one that fits as a "best email to reply to". It has been mentioned in this thread that most of our projects are considered part of Wikipedia in the general public's eyes. However, I showed a Wikinews article to a friend the other day, and she said, "Wow, I thought it was Wikipedia because it looks the same as Wikipedia." I kept thinking about that for a while, and I realized that we could probably visually distance the projects away from Wikipedia by changing the default skins for those projects. I immediately thought about this skin in Wikinews [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikinewsSkin-1024.png] that apparently never got finished. There are dozens of skin layouts available at the Gallery of user styles [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_user_styles] which could help Wikimedia sister projects obtain their respective visual identities. Of course, that begs the question of whether we would want to do such a thing, but if we wanted to, we could probably make a contest to design a new skin. That would encourage techies to look at the other projects, and feel a certain degree of satisfaction when they look at code they made being used on Wiktionary's Main Page. Comments?
Elian and I have been working on this issue and I will present our conclusions at Wikimania 2007.
See http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:GP1
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Nice to know some bright minds are thinking about this. :)
Just curious, for those who can't go to Taipei: would it be better to pursue a unified visual theme (to underscore coherency within the organization) or would it be better to pursue different themes (to underscore each project's independence)? I guess a lot of this boils down to the response individual communities will have...
Don't worry, not everything will happen in Taipei ;) There will be discussions with the community. What we would like to propose is a unified visual theme (different from MediaWiki's default) with slight variations for projects (for example, main colors). Our paper is not in its final version yet, but I'll send a link on this list when it's finished. All comments are welcome in the meantime, though.
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Nice to know some bright minds are thinking about this. :)
Just curious, for those who can't go to Taipei: would it be better to pursue a unified visual theme (to underscore coherency within the organization) or would it be better to pursue different themes (to underscore each project's independence)? I guess a lot of this boils down to the response individual communities will have...
There should certainly be unifying visual elements, but different projects have different needs from their interface. For example, I'm working on a new skin at the moment that draws on ideas from various image sharing websites which hopefully will be useful for Commons which deals primarily with media.
What about the few Wikipedias which already have different skins? For example, vi: (Vietnamese) has a yellow background on all pages except the main one (for example: http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%E1%BB%83_lo%E1%BA%A1i:%C4%90%E1%BB%8Ba_l%C3%...), and ar: (Arabic) has a light blue and white background, very different from the default skin (on the main page as well: http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%...). If we do change the skins according to projects (wp, wn, ws, and so on), would these projects keep their individual skins or have to switch to a Wikipedia skin? --Maria User:Arria Belli
On 7/9/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Nice to know some bright minds are thinking about this. :)
Just curious, for those who can't go to Taipei: would it be better to
pursue
a unified visual theme (to underscore coherency within the organization)
or
would it be better to pursue different themes (to underscore each
project's
independence)? I guess a lot of this boils down to the response
individual
communities will have...
There should certainly be unifying visual elements, but different projects have different needs from their interface. For example, I'm working on a new skin at the moment that draws on ideas from various image sharing websites which hopefully will be useful for Commons which deals primarily with media.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
My last sentence is a bit messy, I'll admit. ^^ I meant to ask if the Wikipedias with non-default skins would have to switch to whatever skin is chosen for Wikipedias as a whole. --Maria User:Arria Belli (Mental note: Reread self before pressing "send".)
On 7/9/07, Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com wrote:
What about the few Wikipedias which already have different skins? For example, vi: (Vietnamese) has a yellow background on all pages except the main one (for example: http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%E1%BB%83_lo%E1%BA%A1i:%C4%90%E1%BB%8Ba_l%C3%...), and ar: (Arabic) has a light blue and white background, very different from the default skin (on the main page as well: http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%...). If we do change the skins according to projects (wp, wn, ws, and so on), would these projects keep their individual skins or have to switch to a Wikipedia skin? --Maria User:Arria Belli
On 7/9/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Nice to know some bright minds are thinking about this. :)
Just curious, for those who can't go to Taipei: would it be better to
pursue
a unified visual theme (to underscore coherency within the
organization) or
would it be better to pursue different themes (to underscore each
project's
independence)? I guess a lot of this boils down to the response
individual
communities will have...
There should certainly be unifying visual elements, but different projects have different needs from their interface. For example, I'm working on a new skin at the moment that draws on ideas from various image sharing websites which hopefully will be useful for Commons which deals primarily with media.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, When a projects wants to gain a more distinct personality from the dominant project, he project that is not dominant needs to change. There is no reason for the English Wikipedia to change when the English Wikinews wants to get a distinct branding.
Likewise when a Wikipedia wants to underline the differences between it and the dominant Wikipedia, it is the less dominant Wikipedia that needs to change. When the English Wikipedia decides to change its look and feel, it is a good idea to either change with it or change to a completely different skin. Staying with the old skin will be seen as "old" and is, from a marketing point of view, not that great an idea.
As the purpose is to underline the difference, it should be part of some marketing for the changed project. Changing the skin is not a silver bullet, it needs to go with promotion that makes the difference more clear.
Thanks, GerardM
On 7/9/07, Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com wrote:
My last sentence is a bit messy, I'll admit. ^^ I meant to ask if the Wikipedias with non-default skins would have to switch to whatever skin is chosen for Wikipedias as a whole. --Maria User:Arria Belli (Mental note: Reread self before pressing "send".)
On 7/9/07, Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com wrote:
What about the few Wikipedias which already have different skins? For example, vi: (Vietnamese) has a yellow background on all pages
except
the main one (for example:
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%E1%BB%83_lo%E1%BA%A1i:%C4%90%E1%BB%8Ba_l%C3%...), and ar: (Arabic) has a light blue and white background, very different
from the default skin (on the main page as well:
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%... ).
If we do change the skins according to projects (wp, wn, ws, and so on), would these projects keep their individual skins or have to switch to a Wikipedia skin? --Maria User:Arria Belli
On 7/9/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/07, Titoxd@Wikimedia titoxd.wikimedia@gmail.com wrote:
Nice to know some bright minds are thinking about this. :)
Just curious, for those who can't go to Taipei: would it be better
to
pursue
a unified visual theme (to underscore coherency within the
organization) or
would it be better to pursue different themes (to underscore each
project's
independence)? I guess a lot of this boils down to the response
individual
communities will have...
There should certainly be unifying visual elements, but different projects have different needs from their interface. For example, I'm working on a new skin at the moment that draws on ideas from various image sharing websites which hopefully will be useful for Commons which deals primarily with media.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
So, the assertion is that it's OK to get something for Wikipedia, and then use it for another project, because people who contribute to that other project think they're contributing to Wikipedia anyway, and because people who contribute to Wikipedia are unaware of the other projects?
That might make sense if we were to pretend that there's some kind of magic wall between "some-project-that-is-just-an-encyclopedia-and-nothing-else-ever" and "everything-else-that-we-do".
Well, I don't believe in magic, but I do think there are significant walls between the various projects. Different sets of users, different admins, different rules, different domain names. About the only thing the same is the software.
That expresses that the universe is unfolding as it should.
Ec
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Whether that's what we _want_ or not, this is very much my experience to date, and it seems foolish to me to pretend that it isn't so. The "Wikipedia" name is much, much more valuable in both public and private communications than the "Wikimedia" name because of its established reputation and recognition.
Value of a brand and practicality are two different things.
Should we rename Mediawiki as "the Wikipedia Software" (tm)?
We've been trying for how many years to make sure that the Wikimedia Foundation was not mistaken for the "publisher" of Wikipedia, because that would make our lives a hell of a lot more complicated. Although I agree that calling ourselves Wikimedia probably wasn't the best move ever (still too close), I still think that changing the name of the organisation to the name of its most successful product is simply a wrong choice.
See Phoebe's examples, there are hundreds of others. Of course, there are other, counter examples. The Coca-Cola company, but that's historical. If the organisation was to be called the Wikipedia Foundation, it should have done so 5 years ago. Not now.
I believe that the organisation does not need to be called Wikipedia something or other to be "successful". You pointed it out, suffice to say "the organisation behind Wikipedia" and doors open. What more will a name change bring?
/me tries to imagine "Wikipedia Foundation, ah, the organisation that writes Wikipedia?"...
Delphine
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote: If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no difference between the various projects.
That's been my experience though---people basically take "Wikipedia" to be the overall brand for "putting free information on the internet created using a Wiki format", and so they find nothing particularly strange about the fact that there's also a dictionary and free media repository and whatnot. As a practical matter I mostly perpetuate that "mistake" because it's simply easier to communicate: If I tell people they should upload their images to "Wikipedia's free-media repository" or that I'm going to "Wikipedia's annual conference", they know what I'm talking about immediately. I *could* explain what the names Wikipedia vs. Wikimedia vs. Mediawiki mean, but most people have about as much patience for that as they do for Linux vs. GNU/Linux.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people often recommend we do additional things.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no difference between the various projects.
That's been my experience though---people basically take "Wikipedia" to be the overall brand for "putting free information on the internet created using a Wiki format", and so they find nothing particularly strange about the fact that there's also a dictionary and free media repository and whatnot. As a practical matter I mostly perpetuate that "mistake" because it's simply easier to communicate: If I tell people they should upload their images to "Wikipedia's free-media repository" or that I'm going to "Wikipedia's annual conference", they know what I'm talking about immediately. I *could* explain what the names Wikipedia vs. Wikimedia vs. Mediawiki mean, but most people have about as much patience for that as they do for Linux vs. GNU/Linux.
If I told people that I'm going to Wikmania, I'd have to explain what I'm talking about. When I tell them that I'm going to Wikipedia's World Convention, I only need to confirm that yes Wikipedia does have live conferences. Similarly, those of us who live in suburbs when we are responding to the question, "Where are you from?" will often answer with the name of our central city. That saves having to explain our suburb's location to somebody for whom that distinction doesn't matter.
Ec
On 7/5/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds? If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
My impression and interpretation of the situation is that the money effectively goes in three directions: 1. Staff (lightly associated with number of projects, strongly with project size) 2. Hosting (also lightly associated with number of projects, strongly with project size/readership) 3. SW Dev (not affected much by number of projects; scaling issues somewhat related to project sizes)
One could study the problem in more depth, but my impression is that for any useful definition, essentially all the money coming in does support the Wikipedia part of the Foundation's projects set.
On 7/5/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/5/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds? If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
My impression and interpretation of the situation is that the money effectively goes in three directions:
- Staff (lightly associated with number of projects, strongly with
project size) 2. Hosting (also lightly associated with number of projects, strongly with project size/readership) 3. SW Dev (not affected much by number of projects; scaling issues somewhat related to project sizes)
One could study the problem in more depth, but my impression is that for any useful definition, essentially all the money coming in does support the Wikipedia part of the Foundation's projects set.
I'm not sure about "essentially all", even if you take your three points to be correct, because not "essentially all" of the traffic goes to Wikipedia, just a significant majority. But I'll accept for the purposes of argument that the resources are *currently* distributed roughly in proportion. The thing is, by most accounts Wikipedia is currently receiving a tiny fraction of its potential.
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds? If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
At that rate investors in the Wright Brothers would be upset that they didn't stick to bicycles.
Ec
On 7/6/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just a data point from a practical perspective: we get blank looks when we tell people we're "the Wikimedia Foundation", versus wide eyes and bright smiles when we tell people we're "Wikipedia". The latter is a lot nicer to get when we're asking for something. :)
Doesn't that suggest that Wikipedia should be self-governing or at least in control of its own funds? If people are giving you something because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
At that rate investors in the Wright Brothers would be upset that they didn't stick to bicycles.
Investors have different goals from donors.
Investors have different goals from donors.
Both want to see a return on their money, that return just takes a different form.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org