Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review/brainstorm

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Contest?[edit]

Copied from wikt:Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/March#You may now become 'Wiktionary — A Wikipedia project'.
Assuming that the purpose of having a unified brand is facilitating publicity for all projects, a major consideration is how evocative and easy-to-remember the brand name is. While currently Wikipedia is the best-known name associated with Wikimedia, with the right approach any well-chosen name can quickly become widely recognized; it is just a matter of generating publicity. I agree that Wikimedia was an unfortunate choice: not appropriately evocative (“media” is not a unifying focus), and easily confused with Wikipedia or MetaWiki. Replacing it by Wikipedia will raise the confusion to an unmanageable level. Wikimania may seem cool but has bad connotations that are just too strong and is irresistably inviting of the derived term Wikimaniac, which is fine for internal use, but we would not be able to keep its use contained. Why does the WMF not open up a contest for a unified brand name in the style of WikiXXX for some suitable term replacing XXX, with (after a preliminary selection producing a shortlist) the user community selecting the winner. My submission: Wikiworld. That certainly covers everything and has a nice alliteration. (I know there used to be a WikiWorld, but that has now been defunct for over 10 years.)  --Lambiam 14:52, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support the idea of having a brainstorm session here, now. Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’d rather see a community-wide contest, which will generate much wider involvement than the few people landing on this page and can be used to generate publicity. Another idea, spurred by the name of the Wikimedia Community Logo: Wikicommunity (although harder to spell ans pronounce than Wikiworld). I don’t give much weight to existing recognition of the name (which is pretty low for Wikimedia).  --Lambiam 08:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Lambiam, I like the idea, but where would we have a community-wide contest? Would it be possible to get more traffic on this page? One other thing: I think the numbers are starting to pile up here, so I don't think this is as much of a problem as it was when you commented above. I'd wait a few more days to see if this page gets more votes. SelfieCity (talk) 01:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I should think that if the WMF is on board with the idea, they can find a way to generate more attention and actively involve the projects. (If it had not been for users George Ho and Gryllida taking the initiative of going around the different projects and drawing our attention to this, I still would not know about the branding proposal and this "community review".)  --Lambiam 08:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm the same; I only knew about this discussion below because Gryllida linked to it. SelfieCity (talk) 14:16, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is Wikimedia considered to be unfortunate? The term “media” very broadly covers all “communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data” (quoted from Media (communication)) and “wiki” focuses on the aspect of collaboratively extending and modifying content using a web browser. This term covers perfectly the scope of our projects like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikidata, Commons and many more. The term is well established and does not need to be as well-known as Wikipedia. How many people are familiar with the brand of Google, how many know about Alphabet? Before we brainstorm about alternatives we should clarify first whether an alternative is indeed required. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:47, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Publicity on other Wikis[edit]

By the way, has this been brought up anywhere on Wikipedia? SelfieCity (talk) 02:16, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A link to Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review (the contents page of which this page here is the discussion page) was added to the English Wikipedia's list of centralized discussions by a user who, as far as I can see, has no special relationship to the WMF; their Wikipedia user page in fact suggests a healthy dose of skepticism re the Foundation and its doings.  --Lambiam 08:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia[edit]

Proposed by WMF

  • Oppose Oppose May or may not cause confusion, with some newcomers applying Wikipedia policies to projects and notability guidelines where they do not apply; see discussions above. Gryllida 00:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose unless Wikipedia itself is also rebranded so as not to be confused with the foundation and the sister projects. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:50, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    How would you suggest to rebrand Wikipedia? Gryllida 03:45, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gryllida: Any way they like, provided that it is easy to distinguish the encyclopedia project from the other projects and from the foundation that runs them all. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 09:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral Neutral I have explained at the Wikivoyage Pub. SelfieCity (talk) 02:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per others. Already, there are too many people voting on Commons not to feature (on Commons, mind you, not a Wikipedia) pictures they think (sometimes wrongly) can't be used as thumbnails on Wikipedia, and that's even an argument that's brought up sometimes at Quality Image Candidates. And on Wikivoyage, while of course more Wikipedians are most welcome, they are already at present apt to consider Wikivoyage an adjunct to Wikipedia, such that there should be no difference in style or number of links on the page relative to an encyclopedia which requires thorough documentation with secondary sources. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you please suggest which policies are different at these two projects? What is the difference in linking policies there? Gryllida 03:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gryllida: Please read v:Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians for an outline of this subject. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 09:51, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose--Cinemantique (talk) 05:48, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per the reasons I gave above.  --Lambiam 07:50, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Very bad idea. Wikipedia is not supreme. Leaderboard (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What consequences would it have if the Wikipedia brand was considered 'supreme' to others? Gryllida 03:43, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Every Wiki project would be automatically considered by all the standards and procedures of Wikipedia, instead of according to the standards and procedures developed to be appropriate to each project. As I mentioned, that already happens much more than it should; this would worsen that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose per my comment above. MER-C (talk) 19:31, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As this has been moved to a new page, the reasons were: 1) Having "brands" like "Wikipedia Travel" explicitly dilutes the notion of Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and help confuse the clueless hoards who already struggle to understand this concept further; 2) Renaming Wikivoyage etc. to Wikipedia X reinforces the idea that these projects are secondary/afterthoughts/also-rans/distractions when they should be first class citizens; and 3) exacerbating the problem where the clueless hoards believe the foundation has a greater control over Wikipedia content than they already do, that Wikipedia is the only thing they do and, of course forking out more donations (which is the underlying reason for the rebranding, not to fix the actual problem). MER-C (talk) 14:15, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there a reason why you oppose the change? Please include details. It would be great to know what problems would need to be known, and addressed, in the case the brand change is approved. Gryllida 03:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose We need to decrease the amount of confusion, not increase it. Low recognition of the Wikimedia brand (both current and future) is not a big deal. Ain92 (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you give examples of confusion? Gryllida 03:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Some country can't visit Wikipedia but can visit other projects. --117.15.55.42 05:01, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support - very good idea. Marcus Cyron (talk) 08:44, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I would expect it to finish at best with just as much confusion as we have today, but most likely make things even more confusing. --Psychoslave (talk) 13:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What confusion is there and how would you propose to address it? Gryllida 03:47, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That is, for general public, understanding differences between Wikimedia foundation, Wikimedia as a community, Wikimedia as a movement, and the miscelleanous Wikimedia projects is not easy to grasp. Actually even among contributors these disctinctions is not allways clear. And the feeling of being part of a larger movement than contributing to a single isolated project is not obvious to everyone. Using Wikipedia as main brand would even more diminish the spread of this feeling of being part of a larger family than the project one is more accustomed to. This has all chance to send to all contributors except those that are only focused on Wikipedia that "this project is marginal and their contributors are second class citizen in the Wikimedia world". To my mind, we have to reinforce the feeling of belonging to a larger community, rather than rise probability of antagonism and perception of sister projects as foreign communities. I would suggest to keep going with Wikimedia as main brand, reinforcing cross projects initiatives under this umbrella. And possibly create better documentations explaining in the most approchable way who are the different stakeholders in presence, how they all converge toward a common goal despite their differences. That would be great to have several out of the box communication material targetting different time constraints: Wikimedia explained in 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours or even 8 hours. Preferably this material should be easily translatable, taking advantage of technologies we already have on this side. Thank you @Gryllida: for asking the feedback, I hope these details help. --Psychoslave (talk) 05:47, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose (Reposting my reasoning from Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/March#WMF proposes rebranding Wiktionary as a "Wikipedia_project":) Not only will it cause confusion because of an old sense competing with a new sense, if you rebrand Wikimedia to Wikipedia or any other project’s name, but it will also be factually untrue if you call Wiktionary “a Wikipedia project”. Wiktionary isn’t a Wikipedia project, won’t become one, shouldn’t become one, even if you do hold the Wikipedia brand in higher esteem, which I do not, thinking that the abyss would stare back; the confusion and separation issue is enough of a reason. If you do a rebranding do it only if that is worth it and don’t mingle projects in so much as they are intentionally separate.
Currently your issues are that Wikimedia is not distinctive enough, being only different in one grapheme or phoneme, though this issue is minor and can be ignored as it until this proposal has been ignored, and that one the other hand the merits of Wiktionary, as a project being as much of higher quality as it works distinctly, – the analogous with other projects like Wikispecies – are not highlighted enough. If you show an attachment of Wiktionary to Wikipedia you will pull it down and achieve the opposite of what you want to achieve. The messages must be and stay: Wiktionary will give you an experience that is well above that on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has lost its chances to be taken seriously, I am sorry to blackpill you, though the usefulness of Wikipedia is of course not debated by anyone, and Wiktionary is currently above it, as is Wikispecies, but people do not know the difference, only know Wikipedia. It is important to make known for those who have, rightly, lost hope in Wikipedia, that Wiktionary is 1. made by other editors 2. editors working pursuant to dissimilar principles and workflows, even if they also edit Wikipedia 3. describes a wholly unlike subject matter, hence the resulting project should be put not all on one level with Wikipedia. Fay Freak (talk) 04:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support. I find it difficult to fault the major arguments and conclusions of the consultants' report, though I understand that change is always difficult. --AGK ■ 20:17, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I'm afraid that labeling sister projects as Wikipedia projects will chill boldness in editing. Mbrickn (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do you think it would chill boldness in editing? What are the expected outcomes? Gryllida 03:47, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As others have stated, I am concerned about the individual communities and feeling of the sister wikis being degraded or lost due to the change in name, and resulting association with the English Wikipedia culture. I can still feel the energy that people had about Wikipedia around 2007 in some of these projects, even if they aren't as known by the general public.Mbrickn (talk) 21:50, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose per MER-C's reasoning. As a Wikivoyage bureaucrat, if this proposal is approved I would advocate vigorously in favor of forking our site away from the WMF. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:49, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose--Ferdi2005 (Posta) 14:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you have a reason? Could you please indicate what difficulties the brand change would cause from your view. Thanks, Gryllida 03:48, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have yet said why a lot of times in these pages. Tl;dr: this is the most stupid idea I have ever read. Changing our names in Wikipedia or everything else could have consequences that we can’t control, for sister projects and local communities. It’ll also destroy the work of too many years.Ferdi2005 (Posta) 13:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose. We are not Wikipedia. Users/wikicommunity is Wikiprojects, but no WMF and no other marketing consultants. Digr (talk) 19:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you have a reason? Could you please indicate what difficulties the brand change would cause from your view. Thanks, Gryllida 03:48, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose. This idea introduces a false perception of hierarchy that other projects are under the umbrella of Wikipedia when they are on the same level. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:20, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. All projects should be equal. Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia and neither is wikisource etc. All projects are different and this diversity is important. Let us say that Wikispecies was the strongest brand. Does anyone think that we should rebrand Wikipedia into "Wikipedia a Wikispecies project"? Naming should reflect the things we name. Wellparp (talk) 21:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose. I think that this rebranding would not be beneficial from a diversity perspective. --Atropine (talk) 17:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Not broken, do not fix. Abzeronow (talk) 15:27, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Ok, people out there see nothing but Wikipedia. They even donate to Wikimedia Foundation and other non-profits like Wikimedia Deutschland, in response to a banner on Wikipedia, and are worried when they receive thanks from Wikimedia, just because they didn't realize the difference. Fixing this just by changing the brand name seems to be a smooth approach. At first glance. But for most projects, changing the name to Wikipedia would bear devastating effects. First of all, it devaluates any other project but Wikipedia, making it to be an appendix of the BIG WP. And, as far as the donators are concerned, changing the brand name to Wikipedia would result in their premeditated deception, because the donations are not for Wikipedia (the encyclopedia), as intended by most of the donators, but for a bunch of projects, including Wikipedia, the no-knowledge-but-commercial-usable-data project Wikidata, and several others. --Cimbail (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose I think that the findings about the awareness of each of the brands are useful, and it makes sense to define and implement actions to improve the situation. There are many possibilities to achieve the goal of making the least known brands --- or better, the organisations, the projects, the people and the results --- more visible. However, I disagree with the idea of rebranding Wikimedia as Wikipedia, because it seems to exclude other existing projects and other communities that are as valuable and have their own identity. The beauty of this group of wiki-initiatives is that people share common values. Having a global name and differentiating between organisation and projects is, in my opinion, a very reasonable way to give distinct labels to (i) the movement, the foundation and the chapters and (ii) the individual and interconnected socio-technical systems. I think that the important goal to achieve is to get people all around the world to know and use any of the systems with this wiki nature. Last year in a conference that was attended by mostly Wikipedians but also editors of other projects such as Wikidata and Wikimedia commons, the local press wrote many articles about the event. Most of the headlines mentioned only Wikipedia. I thought that was very unfortunate, especially because I saw many people from the different communities integrating, enriching each other, and sharing their experiences. I understand that for a headline to be attractive or viral, it needs to contain familiar terms. But wouldn’t such occasions be the right moment to talk about Wikimedia and all the other projects as well? --Criscod (talk) 18:46, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose The sister projects of Wikipedia are not Wikipedia projects, they are sister projects of Wikipedia. Therefore I oppose the idea using Wikipedia as common branding for all Wikimedia projects. Chaddy (talk) 12:53, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose At the moment, we have many problems to explain to the public, that it claims us for the articles of wikipedia, that we as chapter do not have incidence in the content of the encyclopedia. We always hide behind the argument that we are Wikimedia and not Wikipedia. If we called ourselves Wikipedia, they would confuse us with the encyclopedia and believe that we are simple editors, something that we are not, since in fact we also edit in other sister projects. Moreover, we would not have how to avoid the conflicts, even legal, of those who protest because they don't like the way their biographies are written. In the case of countries with more sensitive political situations (Venezuela, for example) this would even endanger the lives of the members of the movement.--Jalu (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania[edit]

Proposed by Gryllida.

WikiWorld[edit]

Proposed by Lambiam above.

Wikiweb[edit]

Proposed by Gryllida

Wikimedia[edit]

Current name.

Wikihana[edit]

Hawaiian 'wikiwiki' (quick)

  • + 'honua' (world)
  • + 'hui pū' (together)
  • + 'hoʻoponopono' (edit)
  • + 'hana' (create)

Seems 'Wikihana' is the easiest to write and remember, 'quickly create'. Gryllida 01:05, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WMF[edit]

Sometimes companies rebrand themselves using their initials, maybe it would work here? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:49, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikifoundation[edit]

Just as Wikimedia Commons becomes Wikicommons, so Wikimedia Foundation becomes Wikifoundation. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You really think the name "Wikifoundation" is arrogant? SelfieCity (talk) 13:32, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Mbrickn: the proposal here is exactly to change Wikimedia foundation to to Wikifoundation. SelfieCity (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SelfieCity: Good point! Sorry, I worded that very poorly.Mbrickn (talk) 05:46, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki family[edit]

  • Comment: I'm not sure I support this, and I can see the drawback, which is that someone could think it's some kind of literally family-oriented organization, but does this have a good ring to you? "Wikivoyage (or Commons or whichever), one of the Wiki family of sites", or something like that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:15, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak/mild Support Support. I'm gradually being convinced by this one. Perhaps it would be better if the name was, "the Wiki Family" with the in front, but otherwise I think it might actually work quite well. SelfieCity (talk) 01:37, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • not a good idea, there are so much more Wikis outsite. And for example I don't want to be confused with Wikis as Wikimannia, Wikileaks, Metapedia or such problematic Wikis. Marcus Cyron (talk) 08:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. For example, just because the political parties in England were historically called "Liberal" and "Conservative" doesn't mean that they claimed to be the only parties of such a sort in existence. SelfieCity (talk) 00:40, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Something involving the word "knowledge"[edit]

Not an exact word or phrase, but more a concept with the word "knowledge" in it, since we are a knowledge base — that's what at least one of the wikis calls itself. SelfieCity (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimovement[edit]

Transparent for English speakers, translatable (if one wants to), retains WMF acronym for the Foundation. Ain92 (talk) 23:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimovimentum[edit]

From Medieval Latin movimentum 'movement'. More or less transparent for speakers of English and Romance languages, retains WMF acronym for the Foundation. Ain92 (talk) 23:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimomentum[edit]

From Latin momentum 'movement'. Familiar to English speakers as a movement-related physics term, retains WMF acronym for the Foundation. Ain92 (talk) 23:08, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikicommunity[edit]

This one was proposed by Lambiam at the top of this section. I like the name in some ways, but like a lot of the suggestions, this one too is a mouthful (4 syllables). SelfieCity (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Movement[edit]

I've seen this used before in reference to the Foundation, but maybe it would be a good idea to make this the standard. See also Wikimedia movement. SelfieCity (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Community[edit]

A combination of "Wikimedia" and the "Wikicommunity" suggestion above. I think this is clearer than just "Wikimedia" or even "Wikimedia Foundation", but it keeps the old name. SelfieCity (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki[edit]

proposed by 117.15.55.42: can't we just use "Wiki" for our movement? --117.15.55.42 05:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Sister Sites[edit]

  • Moderate Support Support. We already use this terminology; this would just make it official. The drawback would be if people assumed all the Wikis concentrated mainly on women or sisterhood, but I still think this is an OK substitute for Wikimedia Foundation if a more approachable name is desired. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As long as it's used in situations like that, I would Support Support. It would just sound a little odd if the Wikimedia Foundation was renamed the "Wiki Sister Sites Foundation" everywhere. Thanks for clarifying. SelfieCity (talk) 00:37, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikisisters[edit]

Based on Ikan Kekek's suggestion above. Gryllida 07:34, 16 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WikiKnow[edit]

Only as a idea --Habitator terrae (talk) 15:22, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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