Hein ? ...speechless...no...I do not think I said that Or if I did, it was not understood the way I meant it I fear.
I am all for a common logo. I could go for variations. But all my contributions to the topic have been in the direction of us having a common one, under which we could all be recognised as ONE project. I think what I suggested once in a discussion was that old logos could be kept, but I meant a global vote would decide this. A wikipedia wide vote, where people would globally agree to use the new one, or to keep the current set as is. This was precisely the last option of the second part of the vote. Option 12.
My opinion is that it is curious to have asked people to vote for the 12 option globally, to again ask them locally. The option 12 specified that only "the set" was an option, and now we suggest that actually the individual option is ok.
I am very unhappy to be here associated with that third part, which I do not support. I supported the 12 option, not this. Should one wikipedia choose that individualistic path, I would consider that a failure for the current process. If some of my comments are responsible for this last part, I deeply regret them.
I have been unhappy for 2 years with our illigitimate logo. I supported this competition very much, I spent a lot of time trying to make logos myself and to get french people involved, I do not want to be associated to this third part, which is just going against all my wishes.
I want us to take decisions together, to work deeply on that. Not to pretend working together, to be allowed at the last step to be sessionnists.
The current french logo has a very deep history to carry. I want to say again that I respect and appreciate very much his original author, a very nice fellow. And to say again that I know he was doing what he thought the *best* at that time. He was acting in good faith. When the logo was changed, we were very few, still in phase I, with extremely little communication between wikipedias, and a software decision process entirely centred on en, which was strongly resented by several internationals.
"Our" logo was not a community work "Our" logo choice was not a community decision. One person draw it one day, then sent it to Jason, asking him to install it. Jason, quite naturally, said "let's ask the community first". The original author got in a frenzy, indicating the english people had no legitimity over french choices. So the logo was installed, with no french giving his opinion; just discovering it one day on Wikipedia. The decision to change the logo was made by one person, with no discussion whatsoever. For this, it is illegitimate as a community choice imho.
Besides, this affair raised tensions between Jimbo and the french wikipedia, and it also raised tensions between the french wikipedians as well. Some very harsch words were exchanged. Some talk of forking then. I was a one or two months old newbie, so I only protested, but let the logo in place. Just tried to explain to Jimbo what happened. Thanks for Brion for soothing people at that occasion. I hope people realise how important Brion is in the existence of the international wikipedias. Not only for software details, but just for his very helpful way to help people understand one another.
Were that logo change happen today, I would boldly revert a change that would be "today" said anti wiki. Actually, I think that anyone boldly changing the logo with an entirely new one that way today would be labelled a problematic user at best, a vandal at worse.
Consequently, not only do the logo has no right to be there, since no opportunity was given to "discuss" it and to "choose" together, but it also carry the weight of separatism.
This is bad for a common project to exist under different logos. A logo is precisely a message of unity. As I already said, variations are ok to me, as long as it is obvious to externals that they belong to a common network. But our logo was quite different from the original one, and would be even more different of the new one. I just fail to see it as acceptable.
Somewhere, in the french definition of consensus, there is a notion of "blocking position". If we were deciding upon consensus, I would use this right. Since we are currently using democracy, I can't. However, if the french choice is to keep the current logo, officially showing to the world, a clear desire of independance, I think this will require to be seriously worked on. If it is just an aesthetic choice (clearly, not everyone is happy with the new one), I wonder if I won't set a voting session every few months, to check if the group did not change his mind :-)))
And in any case, asking people to vote three times is bad.
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Since some people are not very happy with the new one they consider cluttered, why would not we adopt that logo for now.
And then a couple of artists quietly work on a few less variants, and make new propositions in a couple of months ?
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I wrote this last night, and thought I'd save it for today.
--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
"Our" logo was not a community work "Our" logo choice was not a community decision.
I didnt have the strength to read your whole email, Anthere... (its late) but I share some of your sentiments-- in that the "process of elimination" way of doing things-- the Darwinistic voting process as it were-- is ultimately entirely anti-thetical to the notion of wiki--which is primarily about collaboration.
There *could have been more emphasis on collaboration, there *could have been less of an emphasis on deadline, etc, etc, etc. But monday-morning quarterback is easy (American football reference=after-the-fact etc. ) And theser are things to think about and learn from. Before this whole production .. it hadnt occured to me how unwiki a "voting process" can be, if the wiki collaboration isnt considered. But now its more clear that the collaborative element needs to be enhanced in the future, and that the design of such endeavors and even the wiki itself will continue to change to better fit the collaborative ethnic.
Congratulations to Erik for nearly accomplishing the impossible task of pleasing everyone. :-) ~S~
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