Without drawing any conclusions for future decisionmaking, I'll just
point out that one of the negative side-effects of voting that has
been alleged is that voting encourages partisanship rather than
co-operation.
That is, if we are voting between A and B, then people who are in
favor of A have an incentive to speak badly of B, and people who are
in favor of B have an incentive to speak badly of A. And both have an
incentive to publicly posture in favor of their own candidate,
minimizing the flaws and maximizing the benefits.
A consensus process, though, and I'm talking primarily here about the
wiki process for actually settling on good versions of articles,
encourages people to try to see the best in what the other side is
saying, and to try to incorporate that into their own version, and to
produce a new synthesis that has all the strengths of prior proposals
with none of the weaknesses.
It seems that in the current case, those potential incentive problems
of voting are on display.
Now, as I say, I'm not drawing any conclusions. After all, I can't
think of how a wiki process could create a logo. Perhaps the Gimp
(GNU free image creation program similar to the proprietary PhotoShop)
people could be encouraged to implement collaborative image editing
features, ha ha?
So for decisions like this, voting might be the only way to go.
But, I think it *does* encourage bickering and partisanship, and I
think that's unfortunate.
--Jimbo
I suggest the following:
* we set out some basic design goals: image size, max filesize,
possibility to go greyscale for t-shirts & letterheads.
* we invite all 10 finalists to rework their logos, with help from the
community, to fit these guidelines
* after this process, we run the vote again, this time informing voters
of how the logos meet these requirements
> From: Anthere <anthere6(a)yahoo.com>
>
> A design will never please anyone unfortunately.
>
> But, should we shut the very numerous voices that
> scream "clutter" ? That have been screaming this for
> at least 2 weeks, and certainly before the second vote
> started (when it was quite obvious this one was an
> leader) ?
>
> What about a three voting choice rather
>
> * agree for this logo to be THE logo
> * will postpone my decision after some variants are
> made
> * want to keep my old washing power barrel ?
>
Yes, we should shut those voices. They were outvoted, and not by a small
margin. Sorry if this is a bit arrogant, but I just think that those who
have major problems with Puzzle Sphere wouldn't know a good logo if it came
up to them and winked while wiggling its hips. And for you graphic designers
who also hate it, well, maybe you should get into a new line of work. Puzzle
Sphere Rules! It looks so great on the Main Page-- just the right touch of
graphic interest, perfect reflection of the colored tables. It actually
manages to convey a strong sense of spherical volume in a tiny space, making
it much more interesting that the usual flat characteroid logo. I'm just
grateful taste prevailed. Now let it rest.... JDG
Another suggestion for future consideration: instead of voting for
images, how about voting for *concepts*.
eg:
would you like: puzzle pieces / something abstract / stylized W / books
/ planet earth or globe / etc
this would give a design team a *rough* idea of what people like -- they
could then try to come up with ideas based upon the results of such a vote.
Tarquin
> I suggest the following:
>
> * we set out some basic design goals: image size,
> max filesize,
> possibility to go greyscale for t-shirts &
> letterheads.
> * we invite all 10 finalists to rework their logos,
> with help from the
> community, to fit these guidelines
> * after this process, we run the vote again, this
> time informing voters
> of how the logos meet these requirements
I support this.
Except I don't think we need to rework the 10 (11 :-))
finalists, as it is clear that several of the
finalists will not satisfy people, not for technical
reasons (filesize, scaling...) but for the concept
they represent.
I suggest that we limit ourselves to the top options.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
The first runner-up may be simpler, but I find it as ugly as you find the
winner. I assume others feel the same way, since it didn't win.
Adam Bishop
>From: tarquin <tarquin(a)planetunreal.com>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New logo and further process
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 10:02:46 +0100
>
>
>
>Gutza wrote:
>
>>Richard Grevers wrote:
>>
>>>Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the logo
>>>that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction in other
>>>media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because it is far too
>>>busy.
>>>You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks, so
>>>everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.
>>
>>
>>Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so it's
>>not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo stinks big
>>time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a country this way.
>>
>>Gutza
>>
>>(Before y'all start with me, yes, I had a few logos in the competition
>>myself, and mine was obviously not chosen, but I would've been happy if we
>>chose the first runner-up, which is not mine either. That would've been a
>>logo, and a good one at that IMNSHO. The one we chose is neither good, and
>>not even a real logo. It's a coloured puzzle ball for Chrissake!)
>
>I am in complete agreement with you!
>It's horrible, it's too complex, and the first runner-up would be much
>better,
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
Regarding Wikipedia's need for a new server: I spoke with my boss to see if my employer would be willing to make a donation. He agreed to let me donate one of our older PCs for Wikipedia:
Dell Optiplex GX100
Celeron 433 mhz
20-gig Maxtor hard drive
64M RAM
Windows 98 SE
Of course, you can install Red Hat in its place, and upgrade the RAM and hard drive as needed.
If you give the okay, I can ship it to your address ASAP.
I hope this helps.
>From comments on the thread of fundraising as to lack of interest:
I suggest the creation of a mailing list dealing specifically with
the governance of the Wikimedia.
That place should include discussions on what else needs to be done.
=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
From: Andre Engels <engels(a)uni-koblenz.de>
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Anthere wrote:
>> So...Brion...could you please remove the
possibility
>> of making online linking from the international
>> wikipedias please ?
>
>> It is a consensus reached by those who worked
>>clearing
>> up the topic these past 10 days. With no opposing
>> voices. Thanks.
>If you just make them impossible, it would break
quite >a numer of pages.
>So IF you do this, and I do not agree with Anthere
>that the fact that noone said anything means that we
>all agree, then I think it will be
>better to keep the possibility to have this
>inter-Wikipedia, and just
>forbid such links to the outside world.
>Andre Engels
Hi Andr�
Glad you answered :-)
If you do not, how could I know you disagree ? :-)
To the point : you appear to agree with forbidding
links from outside world. Are you aware of some people
disagreeing with this, and if so, for which reasons ?
I agree with you it would be interesting to allow
inwiki linking. Uploading really is a pain, and that
make sense to share a common resource.
However, our users should be given the copyright
status of the information provided. Text is gfdl.
Images...not always so. They may prefer not to use
fair use images, or cp pictures, with author
permission to wikipedia. The problem of inline
linking, is that the user have no easy access to that
information. He could look for the internet link. See
the image displayed, and now what ? How could he know
how to tweak the link to get to the image description
?
If we keep inwiki linking, the user should have a way
to access the description file of the image. Do you
have a suggestion to do so ? I myself do not know.
Anthere
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com
We have a new logo! See
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/Results
for the contest results.
What now? As you may have noticed, I have taken the liberty to put the
logo on the English Wikipedia already. However, this is not necessarily
permanent but primarily serves to demonstrate how the logo looks in real
world use. The above URL contains a link to the logo discussion page. You
can make proposals for changes to the logo, and any change that finds a
consensus can be made. There is no time limit on this.
Now for the tricky part. Each Wikipedia can choose to "ratify" the new
logo, or to keep its current one. This was an idea by Anthere (I think),
and it seems reasonable to avoid hard feelings and to see if we have
strong enough support for the new logo. If not enough people participate
in this vote, the logo is automatically ratified.
Thanks for participating, and let's do this again in two years ;-)
Regards,
Erik