Hello Affiliate Liaisons,

We’re back and ready to take on naming together! The naming phase is starting on 16 June. Here is an update of what happened and what to prepare for:

After additional weeks of legal review and a conversation with the Board of Trustees at their 22 May meeting, we have alignment to present three naming convention proposals for movement-wide review on 16 June. 

The Board of Trustees affirmed support for the project and reviewed various naming options. They considered legal and financial implications of different approaches, and evaluated them based on their potential to act as compelling, unifying tools to elevate the work we are currently doing and ensure the future of our movement. Based on these assessments, the movement-wide review will revolve around two naming convention proposals centered on Wikipedia, one that is a Wiki/Wikipedia hybrid, and an open response area where respondents can share their own naming proposals. We feel confident that the vetting process has led to solid proposals, while we also want to ensure we are open to your ideas  and are committed to reviewing suggestions made in the open response area.

While these weeks of work have reconfirmed that naming structures centered entirely on “Wiki” would not be legally feasible or financially responsible, we were able to uncover ways in which “Wiki” can be used as part of movement naming. We know there will be questions around this, and look forward to discussing more in detail during the upcoming live presentation.

Join us for the live presentation of the three Naming Convention Proposals on 16 June at 15:00 UTC. We will present the various options that were considered, the risks and rewards of each, and how the process arrived at the three options for review. 

As previously planned, the movement-wide review to follow will be multilingual and will rely on surveys for individual contributors, affiliates, and Foundation staff, as well as open discussion on Meta-Wiki, from 16 to 30 June. The two weeks of feedback will help to remove, refine and recombine elements from the proposals into a single, synthesized proposal.

Please see below for more guidance on how to prepare for the feedback period. We will be sending additional resources next week, including the basic survey structure, naming convention FAQs and project graphics.

Thanks, as always, for being part of the Brand Project. We are excited to move into this major phase together.

Samir & the Brand Project Team 

Recommendations for how to be prepare for affiliate feedback

• Pre schedule affiliate online meeting(s) / discussions: Depending on what works best for your affiliate we recommend deciding now on a date(s)/time(s) during 16-30 June for your affiliate regroup to discuss and align on the answers from the Collective Affiliate Feedback Survey. 

• Join our optional Affiliate Liaison office hours: if you have any questions that you would like to discuss with the Brand Project please join us on the dates below. All meetings will be recorded and made available. 

• Before release of survey-- 11 June at 15:00 - 16:00 UTC (Join via this link)

• During the 2 week feedback period-- 24 June 15:00 - 16:00 UTC ( Join via this link) 

• Review the Affiliate Liaison Toolkit on meta-wiki
  This toolkit will continue to grow throughout the project to prepare Liaisons for each step.