At common's deletion discussion the question surfaced, whether the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines apply only to the trademark or also to the Wikipedia logo. Especially concerning the ''The logo should not be turned around or distorted'' part.
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Bouncywik...
Regards, Peter
Hello Peter,
On 6/29/06, Peter Jacobi pjacobi.de@googlemail.com wrote:
At common's deletion discussion the question surfaced, whether the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines apply only to the trademark or also to the Wikipedia logo. Especially concerning the ''The logo should not be turned around or distorted'' part.
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Bouncywik...
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
The case is a difficult one, for many reasons.
First. At this stage, the Wikimedia Visual Identity guidelines do indeed apply to the Wikimedia Logo only.
Second. There is a fundamental difference between the Wikimedia logo and the Wikipedia logo in this that the Wikimedia logo still needs to be established in the mind of the general public. It represents the organisation, and the wish behind the Wikimedia Identity guidelines was to make sure that no derivation of the logo would be used to ends that do not serve the organisation, or for misrepresentation. The Wikipedia logo is well established and recognizable, even when transformed.
Third. The Wikipedia original logo has already been derived many a times, if only by being translated in all the Wikipedia languages, and historically for marking events, milestones etc. which makes it difficult to assert a "non derivative" policy for the Wikipedia logo, such a policy being in my opinion non desirable.
So this is my take on this:
At this time, there is no official policy concerning the use of projects logos, whether Wikipedia or other projects.
It is high time we did this.
My personal opinion on projects logos is that they *can* be transformed, as long as they are properly tagged with the Wikimedia copyright notice and *only* used in the Wikimedia projects.The Wikimedia logo however should at all times follow the present Wikimedia Visual identity guidelines.
However, this needs to be formalized, so as to avoid endless dicussions on the subject and legitimate questions such as yours.
I believe the communications committee should create a "visual identity and trademark use" subcommittee that will reflect on the best way to go about this and that will issue a general policy for the use and derivation of projects logos, use in projects/banners/advertising etc. So this is an appeal to the Communications committee.
It is also high time for a general logo and trademark use policy concerning non commercial use (ie. information, news, sponsors etc.) which is drafted somewhere but was never brought to a conclusion.
No need to say that I am very interested in being in that committee, I know Elian was also interested as we started reflecting on the matter together.
Hope this answers some of your question.
Best,
Delphine
On 6/30/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
My personal opinion on projects logos is that they *can* be transformed, as long as they are properly tagged with the Wikimedia copyright notice and *only* used in the Wikimedia projects.
Yes, I agree. Community use is separate from external use, and giving people a little leeway here is better than constantly trying to clean up after them.
The Wikimedia logo however should at all times follow the present Wikimedia Visual identity guidelines.
You know that we've argued about this in the past. I don't agree with the rationale that increasing awareness is a good reason to do this, but in some ways, the notion that the Wikimedia logo - being about the organization rather than the individual projects - needs to be "sacred" does make sense. It is, after all, strongly tied to the notion of organizational authority.
I do still believe that there might be some derivatives that we should explicitly authorize, such as slight variants for each committee. I don't see a consistent pattern of combination of the unmodified Wikimedia logo with a small icon representing a particular area of work (communications, research, etc.) as inconsistent with the need for a stable corporate identity.
Erik
As a follow-up, here's a quick template hack for these kinds of derivatives: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:InternalUseOnly
Erik
On 6/30/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
First. At this stage, the Wikimedia Visual Identity guidelines do indeed apply to the Wikimedia Logo only.
Second. There is a fundamental difference between the Wikimedia logo and the Wikipedia logo in this that the Wikimedia logo still needs to be established in the mind of the general public. It represents the organisation, and the wish behind the Wikimedia Identity guidelines was to make sure that no derivation of the logo would be used to ends that do not serve the organisation, or for misrepresentation. The Wikipedia logo is well established and recognizable, even when transformed.
I noticed today Wikimedia visual identity guidelines has no translation, at least on the foundation site. For me it seems to worthy to translate in several languages. Or not?
If we have translation(s) a certain policy, however, it will be useful to determine whether the translation is as official as the original one(s). Which case is that? Or can we simply say "as for all policies of the Wikimedia Foundation, basically you should consider the original one(s) as official"?
On 7/5/06, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
If we have translation(s) a certain policy, however, it will be useful to determine whether the translation is as official as the original one(s). Which case is that? Or can we simply say "as for all policies of the Wikimedia Foundation, basically you should consider the original one(s) as official"?
That would be my take, yes. For all official policies, there should be a disclaimer that says that only the English version is the official one.
And yes to the translation in several languages. Thank you if you're willing to coordinate it.
Delphine
Delphine Ménard wrote:
On 7/5/06, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
If we have translation(s) a certain policy, however, it will be useful to determine whether the translation is as official as the original one(s). Which case is that? Or can we simply say "as for all policies of the Wikimedia Foundation, basically you should consider the original one(s) as official"?
That would be my take, yes. For all official policies, there should be a disclaimer that says that only the English version is the official one.
And yes to the translation in several languages. Thank you if you're willing to coordinate it.
Delphine
I created a subsection on the (right?) WMF translation page on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF#Miscellaneous
'Need to go, so it's work in progress for fr. I hope it's the way to go, hit me if I've been bold *too much* and made a mistake.
On 7/6/06, Jean-Denis Vauguet jd@typhon.org wrote:
I created a subsection on the (right?) WMF translation page on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF#Miscellaneous
'Need to go, so it's work in progress for fr. I hope it's the way to go, hit me if I've been bold *too much* and made a mistake.
Thank you. Yes, that is the way to go.
A disclaimer at the top saying that the English version is the official one would be grand.
Best,
Delphine
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