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
On 26 Sep 2003 03:03:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de gave utterance to the following:
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 ;-)
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.
--- Richard Grevers lists@dramatic.co.nz 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.
I took issue with PM about it, and there was some confusion about whether final was final-- I nagged Erik a bit about the problem--- that if little details like clutter were to derail a good logo concept, how collaborative would that be--
Erik made it clear, as he did in the last message that the "final logo version" is a concept piece-- its minor details (like how much junk to throw on it) to be worked out by consensus. PM agreed to open up the creation process for his logo, so that people can take a crack at it themselves, seeing that a great concept should not have to sink on the weight of its merest bugs, if the original designer cant think of everything themselves.
It might even be cool to try out different things, maybe photos (like the sunflower) mapped to the PM puzzle-sphere-- maybe a change like that weekly for the main... it would be easy to get carried away.... But some simple color mods will likely be the way to go to select a solid "final final" from, that will have dispensed with some of the commonly noted bugs.
Until a better idea comes along, ~S~
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
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!)
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,
Gutza-
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.
First, you are free to make suggestions to improve the logo. Paullusmagnus has said that he is open to ideas. Different people will perceive the logo differently because brains work differently. What we see as annoying clutter is simply ignored by other people's brains.
If the current logo is not ratified by any of the Wikipedias, we could proceed by letting them vote on whether they want to ratify the runner-up. However, let's talk about that first when it happens to avoid total chaos.
As for having one common logo, I agree that this would be the best outcome. I hope that the voters will agree, too. This is basically an experiment in the Wikipedia constitution -- are individual Wikipedias to be treated like nations, or like states within a nation? I personally favor the last option, but in order to accommodate those who seek greater independence for their Wikipedias, I have chosen to make the ratification process reflect that. This was also always the initial proposal -- "Individual Wikipedias will get an opportunity to hold their own votes on whether they will use the 'official' logo." (from [[International logo vote]]).
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
As for having one common logo, I agree that this would be the best outcome. I hope that the voters will agree, too. This is basically an experiment in the Wikipedia constitution -- are individual Wikipedias to be treated like nations, or like states within a nation? I personally favor the last option, but in order to accommodate those who seek greater independence for their Wikipedias, I have chosen to make the ratification process reflect that. This was also always the initial proposal -- "Individual Wikipedias will get an opportunity to hold their own votes on whether they will use the 'official' logo." (from [[International logo vote]]).
Erik, I completely agree with everything you say on a conceptual level, but take my case in this particular situation: I'm the all-hands-person for the Romanian Wikipedia (except dev), I have been working in graphic development for years and I find that logo to be horrible. Can you honestly ask me to support that logo for the Romanian Wikipedia? I hate it, I'm sorry, it's nobody's fault, but I do. And the worst thing psychologically for me is that I believe my opinion is based on experience, not only on taste. Changing the logo to match my criteria of usability would mean restyling it beyong recognition, I can't expect Wikipedians who voted for *THIS* logo to accept being cheated on this way, I wouldn't accept that if I liked the chosen logo. That's why I have no option but oppose the logo for the sake of it, and ultimately accept it because of the braindead decision to have at least 10 wikipedians with 10 edits vote. (We don't have this number of contributors, and I expect several other Wikipedias don't, but who cares when you design one-size-fits-all rules? We're probably considered way too small for self-determination--the large Wikipedias must vote for us, look how great we all did working together to choose a logo!)
These are the reasons why I'm extremely frustrated with the chosen logo. I will use it and will not resent Wikipedia because of this, as I said before, it's nobody's fault that, well, after all, *I'm* not happy with this logo. (Wanted to write "it's nobody's fault that we chose a horrible logo", but that'd be POV; I feel however that my POV would be NPOV for logo designers around the world. Feel my pain! :) )
Ok, I'll stop whining and ranting now, and unless provoked I won't open this up again. But I had to get it out, you know how it feels.
Gutza
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 11:36:01AM +0300, 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.
OK, we've seen voting in action twice - first with article count reform, now with a logo. And both times with a horrible results. If anyone wasn't convinced that voting is bad, he can definitely see it now. So can we stop making decisions this way now ?
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 11:36:01AM +0300, 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.
OK, we've seen voting in action twice - first with article count reform, now with a logo. And both times with a horrible results. If anyone wasn't convinced that voting is bad, he can definitely see it now. So can we stop making decisions this way now ?
Suggestions? If such a significant minority is so dissatisfied with the results of voting, do you think Jimbo or some board picking a logo would yield higher levels of satisfaction among wikipedians? In this particular instance, I personally would've been happier with Jimbo picking one because I know which one he prefers, but I'm 100% certain that would've upset quite a lot of "betrayed wikipedians" "appalled by the acts of dictatorship" etc. And they'd be right, as far as the WikiWiki community goes.
So, what would you suggest?
Gutza
I'd like to suggest we now proceed to formalize the process by which the final logo is improved: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_logo_variants http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM logo (copy of the [[Image talk:Pallusmg.... .png]] without all the chat-- just how to recreate the logo-- for those who want to make their own variants.
Gutza, Anthere, others just now coming out of the woodwork -- your criticisms about the aethetic problems with the winner ("Christmas tree decorating") are valid, and now your help will be needed to make the PM logo (and the runners up) as good as possible for possible good use.
Erik: Nice job-- I know I gave you some heck a couple weeks ago -- but I thought it was better to raise that issue (that strength of concept should takes precedence over minor flaws in the execution) during rather than after. Considering the scope of the process, the lack of precedent for something on this scale-- there isnt a single person here who could honestly state that they could have done it better.
Id like to announce that "Beat Up on Erik Day" is now over. ~S~
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
After reading all these Mails about the logos, I'm very happy and have the feeling that the weekend will be fine.
- I din't voted (saved a lot of time downloading and choosing a logo) and I don't have the feeling of missed something important - I'm impressed of Eric - playing voting master, get these unlucky results and still not exploded - wow! - I learned a lot about voting and started to like dicatorship
My propoal for this weekend: take a good sleep, write a fine wikipedia article, take another sleep to think about democracy and accepting decisions and take all a lot easier.
Happy Weekend
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, 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.
The vote was wikipedia's logo, the Wikimedia Foundation is still logoless.
Imran
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 10:03:21AM +0100, tarquin wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
Now for the tricky part. Each Wikipedia can choose to "ratify" the new logo, or to keep its current one.
The whole point of this lengthy voting process was to have ONE common logo! *wail*
Unless something changed, the choice is still up to each Wikipedia. Fortunately.
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 03:03:00AM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
What now? As you may have noticed, I have taken the liberty to put the logo on the English Wikipedia already.
Reverse it immediately and do it the way it's supposed to be done - by changing the link to image, not by replacing existing image by completely different one. The way you've done it every link to old logo is replaced by link to this new logo.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org