[Foundation-l] roadmap for WM affiliation ; a name for self-identified affiliation

[Samuel Klein]

We're discussing setting up an "Affiliation committee" to oversee
simple, low-overhead wikimedia affiliates and associations.  These
could be organizations 'under the umbrella' of free knowledge --
requiring just basic review of their work and standards to confirm
they are in line with our basic principles.  [1]

Wikimedia Associations could be individual wikiprojects, clubs, or
meetups run by one or more people that want to establish a lasting
identity as part of the movement.

Third-party wikis and larger groups could be Wikimedia Affiliates.

Both could use web-badges and icons to identify them with the movement
(derived from the WM community logo?).

SJ

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_roles_project/New_group_models

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 8:32 PM, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Prompted by discussions in another thread, I ask a related question--
>
> ;1--  A roadmap towards affiliation
>
> How should a currently-unaffiliated project go about becoming 'part
> of' Wikimedia?
>
> One easy step they could take would be to simply  say, on their
> website, "This site considers itself to be part of the Wikimedia
> Movement".   (alternate text welcome )
>
> Later, a self-identified affiliate could be formally designated as
> "part of the Wikimedia Movement" by the global community or the
> foundation or both.
>
> Such recognition would have lots of benefits for the new projects that
> share our values-- other WM projects would know to visibly link to
> them whenever they have relevant content (as we currently do across
> WMF projects).  We could permit access to the unified login, we could
> allow template-sharing or image-sharing.  We could set up
> interwiki-linking, and other interoperability functions.
>
> Such recognition would have even bigger benefits for us.   We could
> get an affiliation with an established, successful project that shares
> our values.  The kinds of project that we would build ourselves if
> someone else hadn't already built it.   Their userbases and readership
> would see get to Wikimedia as something larger than just WP, and it
> would help cement public understanding that Wikimedia is a Movement,
> very big, very diverse, and very special.
>
> ; 2--   We need a name for self-identified project affiliation.
>
> External projects needs to be able to claim, on their own initiative,
> that they are "part of" something.    That something should be a
> something that is connected to us.
>
> But self-identified affiliation has no gatekeeper, so whatever it is
> new projects can be "part of", there could be lots that we don't
> approve of.
>
> I'm the founder of a project and I want signal my ideological
> affiliation to WM.   I think my own project's values match the
> Wikimedia's values, in my opinion anyway.
>
> Recognizing that I may or may not be right-- what should I say I am a
> "part of"?
>
> We could just tell projects in this situation to say they are "Part of
> the Wikimedia Movement", but perhaps that name is one we want to
> reserve just for officially recognized projects.   If so, what name
> should such projects use instead?
>
> Note that they need to be saying something different than just "I like
> Wikipedia, here's a link".  They need to be _identifying_ their own
> efforts as _under the umbrella_ of what we do.   They need to be
> "investing" in us and our mission, saying "This project is our attempt
> to help share the world's information".
>
> Right now, I think we can craft any statement, logo, or button we want
> and like-minded projects would use it if prompted.   We just have to
> be thoughtful about what we want those things to look like.   We will
> no longer have total control over whichever name or logos we recommend
> projects use for self-identified affiliation.
>
> So that's my question -- what should third-party wikis say they are
> "part of", if they want to express a connection to us?
>
> Alec
>
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-- 
Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266