[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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