Hey Pine.
So in this instance we sought advice from both Legal and Communications
about some of the ideas that we were proposing and from their feedback we
took the banner in the more conservative direction to give us clear ground
between us and any potential intellectual property issues however remote.
We tried to keep the references more generic so that it related to very
broad themes that are not series specific. If we can find success in doing
as we have done with this banner then I think that would be a more ideal
situation for both fundraising and the movement.
I think we should be cautious about taking any road whereby trademark
licenses being a common thing for fundraising. Firstly, the time and
effort we would need to put in for that would quite prohibitive. Secondly I
think it starts us wading into a very murky area whereby it may seem like
we are actively promoting commercial interests etc. Any move on this would
need great care.
Seddon
On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 10:28 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Seddon,
I'm curious. Are the banners designed in a way such that it will be
necessary for WMF to obtain trademark licenses from others, such as from
the Game of Thrones trademark owners?
Pine
On May 6, 2016 09:34, "Joseph Seddon" <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Greetings all,
I wanted to give you a heads up about a small test WMF Online Fundraising
will be running over this weekend. Following a suggestion from
User:Wittylama we are for the first time going to be testing fundraiser
banners that are content specific. [1]
From now until Monday 9th May we will be running an A/B test strictly on
articles relating to Game of Thrones [2] and only within the United
States.
The reason being its huge popular appeal and
expected spikes of traffic
to
related articles during the airing of the next
episode this Sunday . This
is the first test of its kind so we are being reasonable in our
expectations. It's hoped that this sort of specific messaging will allow
us
to engage with our readership a little better
through our fundraising and
in time provide alternatives to our standard messaging.
The banner we are testing [3] has gone through several iterations and we
are trying to strike that fine line between engaging with our readers by
being content specific but at the same time avoiding being seen as
advertising or overt endorsement. There were certainly some more
extravagant ideas but we have gone with the more conservative option for
now.
If you have any ideas you would like to suggest about either our process
or
banner ideas feel free to contribute on our
fundraising ideas page. [4]
It is my plan going forward to provide more regular updates about our
testing and the results we find from it. What form that takes and where I
post those I'll decide in the coming weeks and will update you then.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas#Relat…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones?force=1&country=US&ba…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas
--
Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)*
*Wikimedia Foundation*
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