[Foundation-l] Progress on wikimedia.com?

[Erik Moeller]

I seem to recall that there were negotiations underway at some point 
with the owner of wikimedia.com on transferring that domain name to the 
Foundation. To this day, there is no content under the domain, not even 
ads, just a German "Under construction" notice. I would like to inquire 
what the outcome of the past negotiations was. If they failed, is there 
any chance that we can get the domain by virtue of owning the trademark 
rights to "Wikimedia", and the domain name not being used in any other 
way by its owner?

My interest is primarily that I would like the Foundation site to move 
from wikimediafoundation.org to wikimedia.org - a domain which is 
currently just an ugly portal site, but also a subdomain of Meta, the 
Wikimedia Commons, and the mailing lists. I think having the foundation 
site there could help to strengthen the Wikimedia brand identity, but 
when that was discussed in the past, the problem that we do not hold the 
.com was the main (only?) reason not to do it.

So, to get the ball rolling, what's the situation? If I can help by 
getting in touch with the owner, I'll see what I can do. Are we willing 
to pay for the domain, or does it have to come for free? Legal 
proceedings cost money, too, so if the owner is happy with a small fee, 
that might be the least troublesome approach.

On a different note, yes, Wikimedia and Wikipedia are very confusingly 
similar. Individually, our naming choices have been good, but taken 
together, they're a mess. I think it's too late to rename Wikimedia, 
with international organizations in place and 2 million Google hits on 
that name. The best way to deal with that problem, in my opinion, is to 
give a short explanation on the wikimedia.org page  (which would then be 
the foundation page), with a small icon and a link to Wikipedia.

All best,

Erik