There is an alternative brand strategy: making use of the strongest brand (Wikipedia) to identify all activities of the Foundation.
As a wikibookian almost exclusively, i have some issues with this idea. * Wikipedia is like the domineering older sister, and other WMF projects have been trying long and hard to differentiate themselves from wikipedia. I know at en.wikibooks we've spent considerable time explaining why we are not wikipedia, and how it is that we differ from that project. Naming us "wikipedia books" would simply blur the lines even further, and stamp out our attempts at forming an independent, successful project. Wikibooks is still small but it is growing steadily, and we hope (perhaps naively) that we will be big and important some day just like wikipedia is now. Renaming us to "Wikipedia books" is akin to saying "you will never be as important as wikipedia". * Along the lines of the above, many projects have very different policy then wikipedia does. Naming all the sites "wikipedia" will raise confusion because every project handles things differently. Users will be needlessly confused by us saying "no, you can do that on the other wikipedia, but you can't do that on this wikipedia", etc. * Saying "Wikibooks is a sister project of Wikipedia" is far less confusing then saying that "Wikipedia books is not quite the same as the regular wikipedia, even though we have the same name." * What would be the new URL? would it be something convoluted like en.books.wikipedia.org? There are alot of links that would need to be updated, on-wiki and elsewhere if our URL was changed. * The WMF has some history of loving Wikipedia and ignoring the other projects. For example, what percentage of WMF board members have an account at en.wikibooks? any language wikibooks? Other then giving up on other projects and focusing on wikipedia, you should be encouraging other projects to grow independently. changing our name, while you may call it "rebranding" seems alot to me like squashing our identity and our potential as an independent WMF project. * Since an encyclopedia and a dictionary are "books", it would really be less confusing to rename wikipedia and wiktionary to "Encyclopedia Wikibook" and "Dictionary Wikibook", respectively. Alternatively, since all of the books at wikibooks are not encyclopedia's, it makes no sense to brand them with the 'pedia suffix :)
--Andrew Whitworth
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Andrew Whitworth wrote:
There is an alternative brand strategy: making use of the strongest brand (Wikipedia) to identify all activities of the Foundation.
As a wikibookian almost exclusively, i have some issues with this idea.
- Wikipedia is like the domineering older sister, and other WMF projects
have been trying long and hard to differentiate themselves from wikipedia. I know at en.wikibooks we've spent considerable time explaining why we are not wikipedia, and how it is that we differ from that project. Naming us "wikipedia books" would simply blur the lines even further, and stamp out our attempts at forming an independent, successful project. Wikibooks is still small but it is growing steadily, and we hope (perhaps naively) that we will be big and important some day just like wikipedia is now. Renaming us to "Wikipedia books" is akin to saying "you will never be as important as wikipedia".
There is one big advantage to having the sister projects fly below the radar. Wikipedia will get a disproportionate number of vandals, spammers and other ne'er-do-wells. Wikipedia is welcome to them. ;-)
- Along the lines of the above, many projects have very different policy
then wikipedia does. Naming all the sites "wikipedia" will raise confusion because every project handles things differently. Users will be needlessly confused by us saying "no, you can do that on the other wikipedia, but you can't do that on this wikipedia", etc.
Absolutely.
- Saying "Wikibooks is a sister project of Wikipedia" is far less confusing
then saying that "Wikipedia books is not quite the same as the regular wikipedia, even though we have the same name."
The sister projects developed specifically because they were not compatible with the pillar, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." A very broad definition of "encyclopedia" could have accomodated them, but room had to be made for diverse approaches to knowledge that did not fit into the encyclopedia mould.
- The WMF has some history of loving Wikipedia and ignoring the other
projects. For example, what percentage of WMF board members have an account at en.wikibooks? any language wikibooks? Other then giving up on other projects and focusing on wikipedia, you should be encouraging other projects to grow independently. changing our name, while you may call it "rebranding" seems alot to me like squashing our identity and our potential as an independent WMF project.
I agree with this. Innovation thrives better if these separate nodes can develop autonomously. It's easier for newbies to feelo welcome in the smaller projects where they can be a part of project's policy development. Trying to do that in a huge project like en:Wikipedia can be intimidating.; this can too easily leave the impression that newbies are not welcome. It's easy to argue that changing the names is only a superficial change, but that can still have radical implications.
Ec
Hello,
Andrew Whitworth a écrit :
There is an alternative brand strategy: making use of the strongest brand (Wikipedia) to identify all activities of the Foundation.
I am very surprised by this proposition, and I agree 100 % with the objections below. Nowadays I participate in many Wikimedia projects, and I think it important not to mix up things which are different.
Regards,
Yann
As a wikibookian almost exclusively, i have some issues with this idea.
- Wikipedia is like the domineering older sister, and other WMF projects
have been trying long and hard to differentiate themselves from wikipedia. I know at en.wikibooks we've spent considerable time explaining why we are not wikipedia, and how it is that we differ from that project. Naming us "wikipedia books" would simply blur the lines even further, and stamp out our attempts at forming an independent, successful project. Wikibooks is still small but it is growing steadily, and we hope (perhaps naively) that we will be big and important some day just like wikipedia is now. Renaming us to "Wikipedia books" is akin to saying "you will never be as important as wikipedia".
- Along the lines of the above, many projects have very different policy
then wikipedia does. Naming all the sites "wikipedia" will raise confusion because every project handles things differently. Users will be needlessly confused by us saying "no, you can do that on the other wikipedia, but you can't do that on this wikipedia", etc.
- Saying "Wikibooks is a sister project of Wikipedia" is far less confusing
then saying that "Wikipedia books is not quite the same as the regular wikipedia, even though we have the same name."
- What would be the new URL? would it be something convoluted like
en.books.wikipedia.org? There are alot of links that would need to be updated, on-wiki and elsewhere if our URL was changed.
- The WMF has some history of loving Wikipedia and ignoring the other
projects. For example, what percentage of WMF board members have an account at en.wikibooks? any language wikibooks? Other then giving up on other projects and focusing on wikipedia, you should be encouraging other projects to grow independently. changing our name, while you may call it "rebranding" seems alot to me like squashing our identity and our potential as an independent WMF project.
- Since an encyclopedia and a dictionary are "books", it would really be
less confusing to rename wikipedia and wiktionary to "Encyclopedia Wikibook" and "Dictionary Wikibook", respectively. Alternatively, since all of the books at wikibooks are not encyclopedia's, it makes no sense to brand them with the 'pedia suffix :)
--Andrew Whitworth
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org