[Commons-l] Should Commons be renamed?

[Brianna Laugher]

Hi all,

Erik (user:Eloquence) conducted a smallish survey on Meta about
Wikimedia brand identities. (See the relevant parts of his email
below.) Some people identified "Wikimedia Commons" as a confusing
name, in that it doesn't clearly identify what the project actually is
or does. Do Commoners think the project should be renamed, and if so,
to what?

IMO Commons had rather no choice but to choose a confusing name,
because the obvious name - Wikimedia! - already stands for some other
idea that doesn't actually have a lot to do with media but only wikis.
Perhaps Wikimedia (& Wikimedia Foundation) should become Wikimmunity
(wiki-community - but it kind of sounds like wiki-immunity :)) and
then Commons can take over the Wikimedia label. Otherwise we're
looking at "Wikimedia Media"... er... then should MediaWiki be
"Wikimedia Wiki"? :)

If I search in google for "Commons", Wikimedia Commons is 7th, behind
Jakarta Commons (something to do with Java), Creative Commons,
"Commons" (NIH grants?), two Wikipedia articles, and the UK govt
"House of Commons" website. Clearly using the word Commons is going to
be an uphill battle in terms of creating an identity. (Doesn't mean
it's impossible, though.)

Is there any other word like "media" in English that covers the
meaning of images/graphics + audio + video (+ documents) ?

Wikimedia Formats? (urgh)
Wikimedia Multimedia?
Mediagenic? (I just learnt of this word via Wiktionary. It's formed
from media + photogenic, I quite like it. but there's some companies
that have taken it already I think.)

Does Commons need a "Wikimedia" identifier in the name? (None of the
other projects have one.)
Does Commons need a "wiki" identifier in the name? (All of the other
projects have it, but I think it's not as essential to Commons as to
other projects.)

Ideas welcome,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
Date: 01-Jul-2007 22:16
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Brand Survey Analysis
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

== Current names ==

Of all the names, "Wikimedia Commons" is widely identified (by 12
people, according to my count) as a confusing name which does not
really identify what the project stands for, is not easily
translatable, too long, and too close to "Creaitve Commons."

[...]

== Follow-up ==

I'd like to recommend several follow-up steps. Some of these can be
only taken by the Board/Staff, while others can be initiated by any
community member:

[...]
* There should be a dedicated brainstorming about the Wikimedia
Commons name and possible alternatives.
[...]


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