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

[Alec Conroy]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 2:56 PM, effe iets anders
<effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow. That was a long read. Some very interesting points, I hope you will
> forgive me if I ignore most.

I'm so happy anyone found it worth reading! It's quite tome-ish .


> I do want to stress a few things. There is a difference between the Free
> Content Movement, the Group of People who Use Wiki's and the Wikimedia
> Movement.

Right.   "The Unnamed Movement", which I earlier sometimes called the
Wikimedia Movement, is definitely not the group of people who use
wikis.   Included, however, are the entire wikimedia movement.  The
scope of this Unnamed Movement is unclear, but it would definitely
have to be at least as wide so as to include "all the projects we wish
we could say were ours".     A wider circle, "projects that say in
good faith they share our values", is also part of this Unnamed
movement. That's the narrowest conceivable definition of the Unnamed
movement.

If we want, the Unnamed movement could be very wide in scope,
including anyone connected to free information-- from free software
foundation to eff to american library association, and any smaller
projects that lie in between those groups and us.  That would be a
very expansive vision of the Unnamed movment.

> I would not like us to confuse people even further by mixing up names
> (Wikipedia, Wikimedia, MediaWiki), so lets make that Wiki- and media-
> neutral.

Agree and agree.  Wiki- and Media- would be to express a connection to
the existing core-WM movement.   If we can find a name that still
evokes a connection to our core, without using the words Wiki or
Media, that would be a definite plus.

> I think there are already works in that direction (I think something like Free
> Culture Defined), and it would probably make most sense to work in that
> direction - with them, dont re-invent the wheel.

Here's why we re-invent the wheel.  From my vantage point, it looks
like we're at the epicenter of this Unnamed movement.  IF we us a
pre-existing 'wheel' (brand), then we forfeit the opportunity to
invent a wheel (brand) in which we are explicitly the central hub.

Right now, our status as the de facto central hub is, in fact, one of
our greatest assets.   If we pick a name that doesn't clearly promote
Wikimedia , e.g. "Free Culture Movement", then the resulting movement
won't promote Wikimedia every time its name is used.

We want a 'spin off' brand, something that evokes Wikimedia without
being Wikimedia.


> When it comes to Wiki's being used for good goals, I don't see Wiki's as
> special, sorry. Wiki's are a tool, not determining anything.

Agreed.  They're a very very special tool, but software not a
reasonable definition for a movement.   The Unnamed Movement should be
software-neutral, if not in name then CERTAINLY in practice.

I just mentioned only the Mediawikis because we currently host only
mediawikis, and I didn't want anyones head to explode if I proposed
too much change in one email .  But yes,  we would also have
absolutely no reason to exclude non-wikis from the Unnamed movement.
I'm really happy to see someone else stressing that-- it's something
worth stressing.

Alec