[Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark being used incorrectly

Delirium delirium at hackish.org
Fri Nov 19 06:30:47 UTC 2004


Rowan Collins wrote:

>Having a name that uniquely identifies Wikipedia as being Wikipedia is
>very useful, and enforcing it as a trademark is the only way we can be
>sure of having such a name. What would we say if it became truly
>generic "the Real Wikipedia"? "the original and still the best"? "the
>Wikipedia wikipedia"?
>  
>
Well, I do think Wikimedia has picked a rather poor naming scheme in 
terms of enforcing a unique brand, although I'm not sure what to best do 
about it.  The scheme is essentially Wiki____, where the ____ is the 
project-specific name, but that's a completely generic naming scheme, 
because we are not the inventors, owners, or exclusive users of the 
prefix "wiki".  This leads to a confusing situation where an arbitrary 
Wiki____ may or may not be a Wikimedia project, and there's no way of 
knowing without investigating.

So you end up with the confusing situation where it's: Wikipedia?  
that's us.  Wikitravel?  that's someone else.  Wikibooks?  that's us.  
Wikicities?  that's someone else. (etc.)

-Mark




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