[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons logo vote

[Erik Moeller]

Jimmy-
> Yes, it was me.  It's not appropriate to have a brief vote on an
> obscure and generally unannounced web page

The Wikimedia Commons homepage is hardly "obscure", and that is where the  
vote was prominently linked, in bold text. Unlike Wikipedia, all the  
Wikimedia Commons languages are stored in the same wiki. Anyone working on  
the Commons on a regular basis will have noticed the vote. That is for  
whom it was intended.

Before you made your ex cathedra announcement that the vote was to be  
considered "inconclusive", "unofficial" and "informal", 99 votes had  
already been cast - hardly a small sample, particularly considering that  
50 of these votes were cast for a single logo, which will clearly be the  
winner even if we keep this up for 3 months.

There currently exists, to my knowledge, no written policy on logo  
copyrights or the procedure for choosing new logos. As always, we try to  
improve our procedures along every step of the way. I have no problem  
whatsoever with requiring the transfer of copyright to the Wikimedia  
Foundation for the winning logo before we put it into use. I do have a  
problem with the way this issue was handled, with no prior communication,  
no clear path of resolution, and an ex cathedra announcement. I am readily  
available for communication, so there is really no good reason for that.

Again, now that we agree that a copyright transfer is necessary, the  
deadline has been extended and the vote has been more broadly announced, I  
ask you to remove or rephrase your announcement on Commons:Logo as a  
gesture of good faith.

Regards,

Erik