Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 movement brand project/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 4

A statement from the Board of Trustees

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has been actively involved in Wikimedia brand research and strategy since Wikimania Cape Town in 2017. During the November 2018 Board meeting, we reviewed the same Brand Architecture and Strategy document that was shared for Community Consultation in early 2019. As part of Board proceedings at Wikimania Stockholm in 2019, the Trustees approved this project to evolve Movement Brand elements in close collaboration with our communities and affiliates. The 2030 goals call for us to invite and welcome billions of new users into our Movement. Improving our branding can and must help with this. How this will look like at the end of the process remains an open question, one that we believe is worth exploring with the communities and affiliates to investigate our needs, challenges and opportunities.

The Board itself is making time to join the active collaboration sessions of the Brand Project. We invite everyone to join us in taking our Movement forward. On behalf of the Board, Raystorm (talk) 17:31, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this. However, it seems clear to me that the WMF has completely failed in the "close collaboration with our communities" part. (See ongoing RfC.) I'm not sure how exactly to read the statement regarding board approval, whether or not the project was conditional on collaboration, or if the project was just approved while simply recommending collaboration with the communities. Also, it's unclear whether the Board specifically approved the proposal to rebrand under Wikipedia's identity (as has been claimed), a proposal which was overwhelmingly rejected by the community. --Yair rand (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that consultations with various communities are ongoing (including hands-on offline workshops), and there likely will be also time for online consultations of some proposals soon. However, I don't think it is the time and place to ask our community as a whole about a specific opinion yet - the RfC was started way too prematurely. We should discuss the options, constraints, understand the needs of the future better, too - and for that we need data, as well as a constructive dialog. For now, having an RfC is more like a Brexit referendum - we don't know the hows and whys or solid analyses, and we're trying to jump to conclusions. That's my personal opinion, btw, and I don't want to start a lengthy discussion - just sharing a perspective. Pundit (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Pundit: I am glad to move to suspend the binary RFC pending a trinary preference straw RFC between Wiki Foundation, Wikipedia Foundation, and Wikimedia preference poll over 14 days. EllenCT (talk) 07:26, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

My attempt to do so was reverted. EllenCT (talk) 17:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi @EllenCT:, I see the change was reverted, but did want to clarify that Zack’s response last week on the RfC, as well as the project timeline, outline that we’ll be discussing naming conventions in detail in April, and Snøhetta is starting to work on that this month. In April, Snøhetta will present a proposal based on the concepts generated by community participation in workshops and in exercises, of which this is the first (the second is around concepts and is coming soon). Running a straw poll based on names that may have nothing to do with what is proposed in the process in April is premature and could create unnecessary confusion for volunteers. -ELappen (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): out of sheer curiousity: is there anywhere a list of community participants of these workshops? Because according to this, mainly WMF people took part in these workshops. Sincerely, tufor (talk) 22:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tufor: The vast majority of participants were not from the WMF. Now that the workshops have concluded (they wrapped late last week), we're working on project subpages that will show who participated and what the outcomes were of each workshop.--ELappen (WMF) (talk) 22:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Was trying to make an HTML/JS page which refreshes to a randomly selected foundation, chapter, affiliate, and/or project name from a list of possibilities, along with a randomly selected naming convention or other question(s), but I will hold off on that until you feel comfortable. EllenCT (talk) 22:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Pundit: Tbh, I was strongly considering starting an RfC on this months before EllenCT finally started it, and I was getting increasingly worried as time went on about the fact that we hadn't started one yet. For all I know, this RfC could be the only reason the WMF hasn't been renamed yet with the proposal presented as a done deal since the community hadn't specifically rejected it. All indications were that the Brands team was going full-steam-ahead, and that was before the news came out that they had lied to the board about the consultation results. Nobody knows what goes on inside the WMF, but even now they're simultaneous claiming that the (community-rejected) proposal to rebrand around Wikipedia has already been decided on and that "nothing is decided" yet. We've had hundreds of people pulled into this, and if this disruption were actually unnecessary, then the mess is clearly entirely the WMF's fault, and they could have fixed it at any time just by communicating. --Yair rand (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I second what Yair rand said above. As Raystorm said, these rebranding/renaming efforts began in 2017. According to the timeline presented here there are only 4 months left before we start implementing the new name/branding system. We are more than 2 years into the process and we still don't even have a slightest clue what the name will be! All we know is that despite clear rejection by the community (link), WMF still wants (or at least wanted, don't know if this RfC has changed their viewpoint) to go ahead with their plan and use "Wikipedia" in its' future name (as evidenced here: Image from Nov. 2019, FAQ: This brand evolution will include using the Wikipedia name as the center of the movement’s brand system, replacing Wikimedia). As Yair rand said, if it wasn't for this RfC then it could very well be all over. tufor (talk) 20:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

"For all I know, this RfC could be the only reason the WMF hasn't been renamed yet" that is quite absurd. Even if you want to assume bad faith and that the WMF completely ignores the community (which is definitely untrue), this would go against the schedule and timeline, pointed out by TomDotGov below. I see a fundamental issue: there is a clearly defined problem (the outer world does not now or care what Wikimedia is, we get confused with WikiLeaks all the time, etc.). There is a clearly defined pathway - started with community consultations, conducted during meetups. There is also a clearly set community-driven recommendation, stemming from the strategic exercise, to seek solutions, feedback and discuss. And now, when we actually should be doing exactly that (discuss how we can address the problem, while also understanding the needs of our communities (including legitimate concerns about identity, smaller projects, etc.), somebody decides that it is high time to start an RfC to basically torpedo the whole process instead. Had the WMF wanted to change the name without talking to the community, they could have done just that. The whole discussion is going because of the good will and need for a dialogue and seeking ways to win us, as the community. I have no idea whether we should change the name at all, even less what the optimal final name should be. I realize that our external needs are different than internal needs, and it will take time to look for approaches to accommodate this gap. What I don't understand is why we are unable to discuss the arguments for and against, the needs and values, and default to derailing the whole thing. Sure, the WMF could have communicated better, and one of the KPIs - was absurdly badly chosen. We all make mistakes. The WMF comms team had the maturity and integrity to apologize for the mistake, and they are making a really big effort to work it out. I think that what we could actually productively do would be to discuss HOW to solve the problem of Wikimedia brand being confused and unrecognized in a way that is satisfactory to most of us. Pundit (talk) 15:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

"A slide showing the changes taking place in the movement brands," dated 26 November 2019, by Zack McCune for the Wikimedia foundation

This presentation sheet has exactly one statement: Nobody should dare about thinking of anything else but the renaming the WMF as Wikipedia, that's a fact we, the WMF, in our infinite wisdom have already decided this. You, the unwashed masses, may decide what's beneath this name. This is accompanied by a bunch of wrong presentations about KPI, countries decisions and so forth, so could you please show me anything that would give a hint at good-will by those, who seem to be eager to ram this down the throats of the communities?

You selected a company, who's banned on enWP for sockpuppeteering, to work on this and get a lot of the communities money for this. Has it escaped the high-paid C-level staffers what'Äs happening in the core of the Wikiversum here? Oh, I know, they don't know about the Wikiverse, they are no Wikimedians, just mercenaries. Who at the C-Level has mor then 10000 edits in any project (besides Meta)?

Please state in unambiguous words, that absolutely no decision has yet been made on the possible change of the name of the foundation. The foundation is just the service agency for the communities and has to do, that the editing (in the broadest sense of the word) people want. It must not usurp undue leadership, or even dictatorship. You are a trustee of the community, not the boss of the community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

To my best knowledge, absolutely no decision has yet been made on the change of the name of the foundation (I mean, there have been decisions on the need to explore the possibilities, discuss the brand, consult with the communities, etc., but no decision has been made either in regards to what the ultimate final name could be, nor that the change is imminent). Please, assume good faith. The WMF comms team is really trying hard to make a dialogue possible. Pundit (talk) 19:48, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

The WMF comms team is really trying hard to make a dialogue possible. - Interesting that you use a, not the. Yes, we can see that, especially in Comms team making a real effort in their clear statements, frequent responses to questions here (of course, there's always time to interact with Facebook or interviews)... WMF and good faith are really the least suitable companions in a sentence. Lukasz Lukomski (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Regarding trying really hard: Look at the list of User contributions by ZMcCune_(WMF), the head of the branding enterprise. I can't see any real discussion at all here, and this wiki here is the main venue for any valid discussion about anything in regard of the movement as a whole. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 22:17, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the misleading picture, as it's anything but decided that this will be the way. Currently this is overwhelmingly rejected by the highest entity in the Wikiverse, the community, in a RfC. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I have asked that en:User:SnøhettaAS's accused puppeteer or both be unblocked with a probationary period of at least 120 days. EllenCT (talk) 08:36, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the fundamental difference here is that very few people see "the outer world does not (k)now or care what Wikimedia is" as being a clearly-defined problem, one worth solving. While it might be something that is true, it isn't clear why the outside would would need to know about the wikimedia foundation for us to become (I'd argue, continue being) "the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge". Probably more importantly is the mistake of conducting community consultations during meetups. That seems to have given an impression of community consensus that differs from the on-wiki consensus of the **wiki**media community, as expressed both by the RfC and other online means. I do believe that given that the phase of this project involves "generating ... feedback on concepts", the RfC is incredibly timely. A Request for Comments is how feedback is collected - it's right there in the name. Do you have a reason to suspect that a bespoke way of collecting feedback would work better than the one that has been used to develop the projects?

"I have no idea whether we should change the name at all, even less what the optimal final name should be." seems to conflict with the the FAQ, which reads "We do not know what the Wikimedia Foundation’s new name would be, only that it would utilize Wikipedia not Wikimedia." Is the FAQ inaccurate on this topic? From someone who is not party to the Snøhetta contract, it seems like they're being paid to create a branding system around 'Wikipedia' - and if the community is ten-to-one against that, it seems like that stands to waste quite a bit of donor money.

On the FAQ page, there is assertion that a name change is necessary to "reach billions of new people", but no actually discussion of why this is the case, or how the name change will help. With Wikipedia already the tenth most popular website in the world with the current branding, it's not clear how spending resources and inviting confusion to change the name of the foundation to 'Wikipedia' would accomplish this. Since you mention above that you see the outer world not caring about Wikimedia as a problem, could you explain how this has held the movement back? TomDotGov (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

According to Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_movement_brand_project, at the current stage of the process, the community should be generating ideas and feedback on concepts. I think the feedback on renaming the foundation to "Wikipedia" is ten-to-one clear, at least from the on-wiki community that gives these projects their value. And of course, the best the FAQ can do in answering the question "Will it be confusing to use Wikipedia for things that are not an online encyclopedia project?" is "Yes, at first." I'd say that the community is doing it's best to save the Foundation's donor money from being spent in an unproductive manner.

I agree that the consultation with the community is ongoing - if you look at the RfC, three oppose votes have come in in the last day or so. TomDotGov (talk) 00:10, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone on the Board know the status of the Legal department's review of implications for chapters and affiliates, or when it will be concluded? EllenCT (talk) 20:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I find this unbelievable. A branding project aims at changing the main brand of Wikimedia to Wikipedia. This is even said under "Project scope". To quote it: "the project has a clear scope." "Some things will change: Wikimedia => Wikipedia." (to repeat it: "will change"! not "might change"). Most contributors of Wikimedia projects have never been informed, let alone asked what they think about this idea. So one contributor starts an RfC which shows that an overwhelming majority clearly rejects this idea. What is the result? 1) The RfC has been "way to early" according to a board member. How absurd! It rather has been way too late because the project should never have been started with this scope. 2) The people driving this project simply don't care that an overwhelming majority of the content producers flatly opposes the whole idea. All the same they keep telling us: "We want to work with movement participants to work in a similar method to how our wiki's work - iterative and involved with multiple opportunities to provide input and guidance." No, you don't and you even don't want to. The only adequate response to such a tremendous defeat could be: back to beginning. Maybe our initial idea was wrong, let's talk about it. It appears that they intend to push it through no matter what their own productive contributors say! This doesn't leave any space for discussion. Why should anyone engage in discussion if it is clear that this is entirely disregarded? "Assume bad faith" is the adequate answer to such a procedure. Trust must be earned, the brand project has proven that they don't deserve any trust. Mautpreller (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

We can all help to make sure that this month's naming convention consultation doesn't foreclose the status quo or any other reasonable possibilities in time for the April referendum which will likely pick one or two non-status quo possibilities for further development. The Board and Community probably feel different about the best outcome now, but what really matters is Legal's safety review. EllenCT (talk) 23:02, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Do you think it is possible to get an unmistakable statement that the question is open? Up to now, my impression is still that they keep saying, "Wikimedia will change to Wikipedia." My opinion is that the first prerequisite for trust is that they take this back. I don't see a problem if they say, "we still think that is the best solution, for the following reasons." I even see no problem if they say, "we will keep fighting for it." But trust is impossible if they keep implying, "This is a foregone conclusion and can not be reopened." Without a clear statement that this central question is open, any kind of participation or discussion is senseless, in my view.--Mautpreller (talk) 09:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Ich habe zumindest mal kurzentschlossen die FAQ dahingehend geändert, dass dieser falsche Fakt dort nicht mehr steht. Ohne einen eindeutigen Community-Konsens kann und darf es keine Umbenennung geben, in den FAQ war dies bislang als Fait acclompi dargestellt. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

ping Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@Mautpreller: We have clarified this point in the project page and we have explained it in more detail in the FAQ: Is the outcome of this project already predetermined? What precisely has already been decided, what are the open questions, and to what extent can feedback impact the outcome? Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Ein Problem ist natürlich schon, dass bei den bisherigen Hinterzimmerkungeleien mit ausgesuchten Leuten und den Werbefuzzis von Snøhetta diese ganzen Prämissen noch prominent überall standen, und vermutlich etliche TeilnehmerInnen diesen Unsinn für bare Münze genommen haben. Die (WMF)ler haben ja, um es freundlich auszudrücken, eher zurückhaltend auf diesbezügliche Klarstellungen reagiert, und diese Fehlinformation mit Klauen und Zähnen auf den Vorderseiten verteidigt. Alle Ergebnisse, die noch unter dem falschen Eindruck dieser "Prämisse" getätigt wurden, sind also mit Vorsicht zu genießen, und vor diesem Hintergrund besonders zu bewerten. Es gab halt keine tatsächlich offene Debatte, solange dieses Märchen von dem "Wikipedia als Zentrum" aufrecht erhalten und aggressiv propagiert wurde. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Next steps here in Meta

A casually explained plan for the next days, in no particular order because we are working on multiple threads simultaneously and we will publish as we go:

• Report of the RfC including a summary of arguments and questions found there.
• Reports of the workshops in Oslo, Bengaluru and online.
• Opening of the Brand Network channel in Meta, closure of the one in Space.
• Simplification of the main project page to offer a quick and clear intro and current status, and migration of remaining content to existing or new subpages.
• Identify and answer recurrent questions from this Talk page, the RfC and the Wikimedia-l thread, answering in the appropriate location.
• Setting up Miszabot to archive sections of this Talk page that have been inactive for more than 30 days.
• Probably create a sidebar to map and connect the Brand project pages.
• Update the FAQ and other relevant pages as we do all this.

Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Do as you want, though I would rather not have this talk page archived. It's not that big and it's much better to have everything in one place instead of having some sections archived and some not. Cheers, tufor (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • tufor we can discuss the use of a bot to archive inactive topics in this page. Our goal is to improve the quantity and quality of participation in this main project Talk page. In terms of quantity, according to a "Read-o-meter" online, right now the estimated reading time of this page is 92 minutes. The discussion is likely to keep growing on a daily basis in the next months. About quality, we believe that there are some elements not helpful to anyone: multiple tense discussions about topics that we hope to resolve in the next days, some repetition of points across sections, some plain off-topic content, and even some parts that probably should be moderated. Archiving sections inactive for more than a month may be a way to support a smooth transition to a better atmosphere for discussion and collaboration. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Read-o-meter says 107 minutes now.  :) I plan to enable automatic archiving to this page next Monday. Qgil-WMF (talk) 15:25, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

The team has reviewed the discussions on this page, on Wikimedia-l and on the RfC to identify recurring questions. We are working on answers to the following:

• Why is this project moving forward after the RfC resulted in clear opposition to the question "Is it acceptable for the Foundation to use the name Wikipedia to refer to itself?"
• Why does this project continue to build on the idea of Wikipedia as a centerpoint, when the majority of editors participating in the 2030 research and planning community review on Meta voiced concern about it and/or opposition to it?
• Using Wikipedia as a centerpoint has been identified as having risks to communities in certain parts of the world, and to the other projects. How would a change like this result in making our movement more equitable?
• Why does this process utilize off-wiki spaces for discussion and feedback gathering? How can feedback originating from these places be considered legitimate?
• What is the value of brandingwikipedia.org? Why was this integrated into the project?
• Is the outcome of this project already predetermined? What precisely has already been decided, what are the open questions, and to what extent can feedback impact the outcome?
• Who owns the Wikipedia name?
• Why did the process include workshops in person? How were the attendees chosen?
• Did the Board specifically approve the initiative to rebrand to Wikipedia, or did they approve continuing to look at a general rebrand?

Does this list look right? We expect to start addressing these questions in the FAQ next week, and we will be updating the documentation accordingly. Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd say there are a number of questions beyond these that should be answered. Three seem to have a had a lot of currency, going back to discussions on wikimedia-l and meta before the RfC is started. I'm phrasing them here in my words, but if you want me to find the way others have phrased them, I can try to do that.

• How much will this rebranding cost, in terms of money, staff time, and community time? (This is a very popular question that 100% needs to be answered.)
• Why was the decision made to interpret the results of the 2030 research and planning community review in a way different than other community consultations were interpreted? (Notably, counting non-responses in a section on response KPIs.)
• Why is it appropriate to use the name 'wikipedia' for something that is not an encyclopedia?

I'm also a bit worried that some of these questions are phrased in a way that feels incomplete from the perspective of someone who opposes the change. For example, instead of "How would a change like this result in making our movement more equitable?", I think the community would want to know "Why aren't these safety concerns being respected?" For the question "Why does this process utilize off-wiki spaces for discussion and feedback gathering?" I'd add "Given that this is the 'Wikimedia movement, why aren't on-wiki processes being used?"

I'd suggest that the team make it clear when they are speaking for themselves or the foundation as a whole, and should avoid speaking for the movement, the board, or as the 'voice of god'. A statement that "The foundation believes that rebranding will benefit the project..." is easy to let stand, while "In fact, rebranding will benefit the project..." is an invitation for edit button use.

My last question might not have been asked in the RFC, but I want to ask it, since I don't think it's ever been answered fully. And I genuinely want to know what the branding team's perspective on it is.

• "What does the Foundation see as the benefit of rebranding?"

We have slides about "Let's shorten the distance." We have the assertion that "our branding must support these communications tasks in order for our Movement to succeed." Given that the movement appears to be fairly successful with the current branding, how would the change add to that success? If you don't think the movement is successful, why not - and are there better ways to achieve these goals? TomDotGov (talk) 01:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

TomDotGov Your last question is key indeed. Why is this brand project considered so important? If this Why is not clearly understood, then it is very difficult to agree (or even agree to disagree) on the rest. It needs to be clearly explained in the main project page, and we are on it.

Yes, precise attribution of claims contributes to clarity and common understanding.

The phrasing of questions is completely negotiable. Sometimes the different phrasing might actually reflect two different questions. In that case, we can address both.

And we can take more questions than the ones proposed above, yes. How many and how fast depends in part in how much time we have to invest in adding further details, wordsmithing and discussions. Not all questions have the same impact, so we will try to prioritize those that can help moving conversations forward. Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Bisher gibt es gar keine Gründe, wie und warum dieses seltsame Unterfangen, das gesamte Wikiversum nach nur einem einzigen Projekt umzubenennen irgendwelchen "Erfolg" haben sollte, und warum in dieses komische Unterfangen derart viele Ressourcen gehen. Das Wikiversum ist extrem erfolgreich, es besteht also alles andere als irgendein akuter Änderungsbedarf hinsichtlich der Namen.

Wenn diese augenscheinlich von oben verordneten Änderungswünsche dann auch noch mit gefälschten Statistiken "untermauert" werden, dann werden natürlich alle, die dies Unterfangen eher für absurd und kontraproduktiv halten, sehr hellhörig, vor allem auf dem Hintergrund der Vorgänge mit VE, MV, SuperProtect und FramBan. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:58, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: At this point, why don't we wait a week or so and give them time to make their best case, and then discuss that? I think that with the attention on this (from the community, the board, who knows who else), we're seeing more careful work being done right now. There's finally an outright statement that "the majority of editors participating in the 2030 research and planning community review on Meta voiced concern about it and/or opposition to it?", which I appreciate. Now that we seem to be sharing the same facts, let's see what the Foundation has to say. I think everyone knows at this point the community has a de-facto veto on WMF actions, and we don't need to bring it up at every opportunity.

I suspect that we'll wind up with something like "The Wikiverse Foundation", which probably satisfies the WMF's goals better than "The Wikipedia Foundation" would, and unlike "The Wikimedia Foundation", makes sense. It certainly closes the distance to the other projects. Once we're on the same page as to what the goals are, we can find a way to satisfy them. TomDotGov (talk) 16:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

The question about who "owns" the Wikipedia name is confusing... Assuming it's talking about the trademark, I don't think anyone was confused about that. (Unless there's a surprise answer that we actually entrusted the marks to an entirely different organization than the Wikimedia Foundation to hold on the community's behalf...?) --Yair rand (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Yair rand, the point of this question is not only literal but also symbolic. It is about clarifying governance, who can decide about a brand system for the movement, a recurrent underlying point in the RfC and other discussions (as we can see here today). Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:15, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Weil es hier irgendwo "erwähnt", ihm widersprochen, und es jetzt mit einer sehr kurzen Archivierungsfrist umgesetzt wurde, stelle ich diese hier zur Diskussion. Nichts gegen ein Autoarchiv, aber nicht mit einer so kurzen Periode. Ich hatte es auf 90 Tage geändert, was ohne große Begründung revertiert wurde. Die kurze Periode von 30 Tagen stand überhaupt noch nicht zur Diskussion, bisher ging es eher um das überhaupt. Und angesichts dessen ist eine etwas längere Periode deutlich angemessener. Sollte sich anderweiteriger Konsens rausstellen, kann problemlos verkürzt werden, ein Zurückholen aus dem Archiv ist deutlich aufwändiger.
With the help of google: Because it was "mentioned" somewhere here, objected, and has now been implemented with a very short archiving period, I am putting this up for discussion here. Nothing against an auto-archive, but not with such a short period. I changed it to 90 days, which was reverted without much reason. The short period of 30 days was not yet up for discussion, so far it has been about whether to archive at all. And given that, a slightly longer period is much more appropriate. Should other consensus emerge, it can easily be shortened, retrieving something from the archive is significantly more complex.
Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 14:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I have removed the code of the archiving bot because more opinions are welcome indeed. I reverted the 90 days change with the reasoning that right now it would not archive anything (until April 24 if I count correctly), defeating the point of simplifying this page. Estimated reading time is now 2h15. If an old section still deserves to be discussed, anyone can post a ping there. This is why two weeks ago I mentioned the intention to enable the bot for topics older than a month, and a week ago I sent a reminder about enabling it today. Qgil-WMF (talk) 15:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

JedeR kann ein {{erledigt}} (de:Vorlage:Erledigt) an das Ende von Abschnitten packen, die archiviert werden sollen, dass ist die bessere Variante gegenüber einem sinnfreien Ping alle paar Wochen in wichtigen Abschnitten. Ich weiß zwar noch nicht, wie die entsprechende Vorlage hier heißt, aber geben wird es sie in jedem Fall.

Anyone can paste an {{erledigt}} (de:Vorlage:Erledigt) at the end of an obsolete paragraph, that should go to the archive, that's imho the better alternative to senseless pings every few weeks at the end of important paragraphs. I don't know what the template is named here, but it must exist.

Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:00, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S.: {{Template:ArchivingSoon}} should do the task.

{{Template:ArchivingSoon}} requires manual handling and seems to be used by only two pages in Meta. Meanwhile there are hundreds that use one bot or another for automatic archiving. I have looked at the sections that are older than 30 days. I really don't see anything currently relevant that hasn't been addressed or isn't mentioned again in more recent sections. And anyway the link to the archives will be there if anyone is interested in looking at past discussions. I think making this Talk page more manageable and friendly in the wider sense is a reasonable priority, and autoarchiving helps. Since I mentioned this idea more than two weeks ago, two people had reservations and I have addressed their reasoning. The discussion doesn't seem to go much further. I'm bringing back the bot template. Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:34, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: Thank you for your pings in some sections that would have been archived otherwise. I'm looking at what needs to be addressed in these sections. In some cases it is clear and we are answering / will answer them. In some cases it is not so clear. Some sections have points that have been discussed and addressed in other sections or in the project pages. Some sections have discussions with many ramifications and it is not clear what the ping is calling for. Can you clarify the pings in these sections, please?

• #Phase two community involvement checklist
• #Structure: the actual underlying problem
• #Added sentence in the page introduction

Qgil-WMF (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Fast nichts hier auf der Seite ist alt und überholt. Irgendwas in ein dunkles Loch namens Archiv zu verschieben, sprich aus der Öffentlichkeit verschwinden zu lassen, bedarf schon guter Gründe, und auch beantwortete Fragen können denjenigen helfen, die diese Fragen auch haben. Umseitig wird ja jede Änderung die dem POV der WMF entgegensteht vehement beseitigt, also muss ein Teil der Klarstellungen hier bleiben, und zwar in der direkten Öffentlichkeit. Natürlich wäre es besser, die Vorderseite würde dahingehend verbessert, dass sich die Meinung der Hausherren hier, also der Community, besser darstellt, und die der Hausmeister, also der WMF, mehr in den Hintergrund tritt, aber da habe ich die Hoffnung aufgegeben.

Durch das aggressive Archivieren sollten Beiträge in die Versenkung abgeschoben werden, zumindest ist das mein Eindruck. Insbesondere solche, die das bisherige, eher gegen die Community gerichtete, Auftreten der Verteidiger des WMF-POV auf der Vorderseite dokumentieren. Welchen Aufwand es zum Beispiel benötigt hat, um den absolute absurden und widersinnigen KPI-Kram endlich zu korrigieren, wo die WMF-Leute ewig und 3 Tage an diesen längst als völlig unbrauchbar erwiesenen Zahlen festhalten wollten. Das ging nur gegen die (WMF)-Fraktion, die wollte die Märchen unbedingt unkorrigiert stehen lassen.

Oder der absurde Vergleich von Wikimedia mit Google, wo höchstens Wikimedia mit Alphabet vergleichbar gewesen wäre. Auch hier wurde an sich dieser (bewusst?) irreführenden Analogie festgeklammert, trotz erwiesener Unsinnigkeit. Es passte halt besser zu dem gewünschten Narrativ.

Und das grundlegende Problem, das Nemo geschildert hat, wurde auch nicht zufriedenstellend, sondern mit den üblichen ausweichenden Marketingluftblasen beantwortet. Im Prinzip wird alles, was dem Narrativ der wenigen (WMF)er hier in der Diskussion entgegen steht schlicht abgebügelt und ignoriert, und die Dokumentation dieses Abbügelns und Ignorierens soll jetzt möglichst schnell in ein Archiv abgeschoben werden. Um das zu verhindern, habe ich in einigen eher wichtigen Abschnitten ein Ping gesetzt, lieber zu viel als zu wenig. Der umgekehrte Weg der bewussten Archivierung sollte ja aus mir unergründlichen Gründen nicht beschritten werden, dann hättest Du an die Abschnitten,, die Du für unwichtig und/oder abschließend behandelt hältst, ein Template ran gesetzt, und die, die anderer Meinung sind, hätten es ggf. wieder entfernt. Aber bei einer Kurzfristarchivierung braucht mensch sich halt keine Begründung suchen, da kann ein technokratischer Grund vorgeschoben werden. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: When it comes to this discussion about archiving, I believe we agree on the end goal (seriously) but not on the tactics. It is debatable that one single page that takes more than an hour to read where many sections have topics mixed and repeated... is more transparent than one page with recent discussions only where sections are actively moderated to stay on topic complemented by an archive visibly linked for those willing to read more. Our goal here is to bring the attention (and hopefully a wider and more diverse participation) to ongoing discussions with the goal of either agreeing or defining clearly the positions where the parties don't agree.

With this understanding, we keep trying to identify and address all the open points in this Talk page, for the benefit of all active participants and passive readers. Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Es würde schon helfen, wenn auf den Vorderseiten nicht so aggressiv allein der POV der (WMF)ler dargestellt würde, der zum Teil auf absurden Fehleinschätzungen und rein persönlichen Befindlichkeiten beruht. Fast jede Änderung in Richtung NPOV auf den FAQ, hier auf der Umseite oder sonstwo in diesem Umfeld wird nahezu asap wieder revertiert. Als bestes Beispiel ist das immer noch perpetuierte Märchen von "Wikipedia als Zentrum der Namensgebung", was längst in den Mülleimer verfrachtet wurde seitens des Souveräns hier, auf den Vorderseiten allerdings noch immer als etwas zur Debatte stehendes dargestellt wird.

Solange also auf den Vorderseiten de:Neusprech stattfindet, sollte hier möglichst wenig aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn verschoben werden. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

April update - project timeline and upcoming event

FYI, update on the project timeline and invitation to join a unified concept session. We'll be updating the timeline information on the project pages accordingly. ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

First quality of good movement branding.

As I write this, the first quality of of good movement branding reads:

• Branding should reduce confusion about the distinction between community and projects, clearly identifying what roles platform and volunteers and affiliates play in the movement.

The word "community" is out of place here, as the projects are very much communities, with their own governing institutions and so on. I think it's reasonable to say things about the "English Wikipedia community", so this doesn't make a lot of sense. Looking at where this came from, I think that this is a distillation of some of the comments taken from Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/community_review/results#Reducing_confusion. Specifically, there are two comments that seem to sum this up:

• “It’s important to distinguish between the community organizations and the projects. This is a constant problem.” (Wikimedia Norway)
• “‘non-wiki-experienced’ people already think the Foundation and the national chapters have a role in defining/controlling the content of Wikipedia articles... [this change would] further enforce this bias.” (User:Ysogo)

A better term is 'organizations'. That term is present in 'community organizations', the national chapters are organizations, and the Foundation is an organization (but not a community). I'm going to have a go at editing this quality to make it better. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by TomDotGov (talk) 7. Apr. 2020, 05:15:13 (UTC)

@TomDotGov: Thank you, the current wording is clearer indeed. Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Facebook?

Why host this discussion on a platform with security and privacy values completely antithetical to those of the Movement? Is this foreshadowing where the brand project is intended to take the Movement? Jagspecx (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jagspecx. We do agree on that. That's why there are several project pages with discussion pages on meta, there is a discussion group on Wikimedia Space and there is this group on FB. We do believe that Wikimedia projects should be our main hub for this project and that's why most of the project documentation is on meta.

There was a need for the community group working on this project to have a space that is more open to exchanging ideas, photos, even jokes and being a way to get to more people. We have started this group on Facebook and the community used it in addition to other social media platforms to share their thoughts.

We have also used other tools to communicate about the project including the foundation news (AKA the Wikimedia blog), emails, video conference, movement mailing lists, in-person visits to affiliates and community groups, and conferences.

Using any platform to communicate about this project doesn't mean it is the only open channel for you to share your thoughts.

Hope that helps!--Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Everything not on-wiki has far less value, as it's extremely excluding people with a wee bit of consciousness. I would never dare to open an account on something as untrustworthy as Facebook, no, Facebook Blahblah is something to be completely ditched, it has no value at all, it's explicitly anti-wiki to use it for anything about the wikiverse. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

ping Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: There are mentions related to the use of Facebook by the Brand Network in several sections of this page. Let's recap here:

• There is a FAQ mentioning this point: Why does this process utilize off-wiki spaces for discussion and feedback gathering? How can feedback originating from these places be considered legitimate?
• Today https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediabrandnetwork/ (the public page) shows that the group has 615 members, from which 62 joined in the last 30 days.
• Also, for context about the use of Facebook by different projects and groups in the Wikimedia movement, see Facebook pages.

Nobody was or is forced to use the Facebook group. Before, people could use the Space group as an alternative. Since yesterday, there is a Brand Network page in Meta. The Brand team has shared all relevant updates publicly. There hasn't been any decisive discussion there. In fact, the use made by participants of the Facebook group has been eminently social and relaxed.

Now that we have the Brand Network in Meta as well, all the communications initiated by the project team will be cross-posted in both channels. If anyone starts a conversations that we think it is important to cross-post, we will encourage the authors to do so. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:31, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Solange nichts von dem off-wiki Diskussionen hier on-wiki veröffentlicht wird, ist es alles nur sinnfreies Gelaber ohne jeden Wert für dieses Projekt. Ich erwarte von denen, die dieses off-wiki Projekt initiiert haben, die Ergebnisse und wesentlichen Beiträge, so es welche gab (im Discuss space gab es praktisch gar nichts), hier auf einer Unterseite zu veröffentlichen. Das ist eine Mindestanforderung, ohne die sämtliche Links auf dieses off-wiki Forum hier gelöscht werden sollten, denn off-wiki ist prinzipiell schon weniger valide, auf solch völlig indiskutablen Datenkrakenseiten wie Facebook ist es schlicht ein Nichtevent.

Wo wirst Du, lieber Qgil-WMF, also diese Ergebnisse veröffentlichen? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Minutes of the November 9, 2018 Board of Trustees meeting

Please see David Gerard's wikimedia-l message pointing out the proposal with its concordant pre-determined decisions advanced in the foundation:Minutes/2018-11-9,10,11#Branding Board meeting. Is that why no Board meeting minutes have been published for over a year on the eve of a new Board election? EllenCT (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

There is a FAQ about Is the outcome of this project already predetermined? What precisely has already been decided, what are the open questions, and to what extent can feedback impact the outcome? Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Why were the community involvement checklists removed?

@ELappen (WMF): on April 7, you removed the naming convention community involvement checklist with the comment, "simplified section." Why? All of the other community involvement checklists have also been removed. Does the project desire any further community input? EllenCT (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@EllenCT: All of the community involvement steps are still captured, they're just consolidated and better organized now for clarity. You'll notice that the final item pertaining to the concept, for example, (listed before before in Phase 2) was moved up to the Phase 1, since it didn't make sense to divide the concept work into two phases. The steps of developing proposals, sharing with the communities for movement-wide feedback, refining based on feedback are all still there. I removed "participants" bullets because all of these steps will be movement-wide, not limited to any group in particular. As we get closer to each step and know more details, additional links, exercises, opportunities, etc. will be added to the checklist, as is happening now with Phase 1. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): Where did the checklist items under "Community involvement: testing proposals and directing improvements on naming conventions movement-wide" go? Will there still be a "Movement-wide call for comments" to "Develop and share first round of naming conventions"? EllenCT (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@EllenCT: Yes. You will see the section reads "The unified concept is used, along with other concepts and themes identified in feedback throughout the process, to develop naming convention proposals for the movement. The proposals are shared with the communities for feedback. One proposal is selected and refined." The first round of naming conventions will be developed and shared for movement-wide feedback in a matter of weeks. Then refinement will happen. Then it will be shared again as part of the subsequent design phase. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): what part will the community have in the development of the naming convention? Will the naming convention participation by the community involve multiple rounds? EllenCT (talk) 17:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@EllenCT: All of the community involvement in the activities checklist from Phase 1 feed directly into naming. Proposals will be prepared using that work, along with the qualities of good movement branding from the previous consultation. As stated above, the communities will give feedback on naming in two rounds: once with naming alone, and once with naming and design together. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Summary of the Brand Project presentation

Yesterday, the 2030 Brand Movement Project presented the unified concept that will guide the upcoming branding proposals. There is a summary and information about a follow-up office hour next week at Talk:Brand_Network#Unified_concept:_Interconnection. Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

We have published the reports about last week's presentation and today's office hours. Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Why would RebrandingWikimedia.org have been provocative?

@ZMcCune (WMF): You said that the domain "RebrandingWikimedia.org would have been provocative." Frankly that seems absurd to me. Under that name, the project would have been completely uncontroversial. Is there any alternative to the explanation that it would have been provocative only to your management who asked you and your colleagues to misrepresent survey statistics for several weeks until they were forced to personally apologize? My opinion is that your colleagues who already enjoy the benefits of a labor union have a clear ethical obligation to ask their stewards to help organize those of you who do not, so that you may have some kind of recourse from this kind of pressure. EllenCT (talk) 21:10, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Das wäre in der Tat die am wenigsten kontroverse URL gewesen. Nichts, aber auch gar nichts, davon ist irgendwie provokativ. Brandingwikipedia.org hingegen war in allerhöchstem Maße provokativ und anmaßend, es wurde deutlich gemacht, dass sowieso schon alles entschieden ist, und dieses ganze Gewese nur pro forma zur Beruhigung veranstaltet wird. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Importing Brand Network discussions from Space & Facebook to Meta

Thanks. I hope the past discussions can be imported into wikitext here, so that they can reach a broader audience and be preserved for the future. Nemo 12:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Where can the off-wiki stuf from Facebook be read without compromising ones privacy? It should be transferred to some Wikipage to be read by all, not just by Cambridge Analytica and that ilk. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:39, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The Brand team has no plans to import the contents of the Brand Network groups in Facebook and Space. People have shared their posts and comments in a certain time and in a certain context, and we want to respect that. If these participants want to reshare their activity in Meta, they can of course.

There is nothing secret there, nor anything decisive for the Brand project. Anyone with a Facebook account can join the group and see for themselves. The Space group is now closed, but it didn't have much activity beyond the initial phase of presentations and first discussions.

As I just mentioned in #Facebook?, now that we have the Brand Network in Meta as well, all the communications initiated by the project team will be cross-posted in both channels. If anyone starts a conversations that we think it is important to cross-post, we will encourage the authors to do so. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:52, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Und was ist mit den bisherigen Sachen? Sollten die nicht veröffentlicht werden, sind sie unbrauchbar für irgendwelche Entscheidungsfindungen, nur was hier offen und transparent veröffentlicht wird ist als Grundlage für Diskussionen und Entscheidungen brauchbar. Facebook mag für Hinterzimmernebenabsprachen und nettes Gelaber taugen, ist aber weder offen noch transparent. Zählen können nur Sachen, die im Wikiversum veröffentlicht wurden, also allen zugänglich sind.

An welcher Stelle werden also die bisherigen Facebookabsprachen im Wikiversum veröffentlicht? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: "And what about the previous things? If they are not published, they are unusable for any decision making, only what is published here openly and transparently can be used as a basis for discussions and decisions.". Yes, agreed. Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The Facebook group is not currently a public forum, whatever it might look like to those with accounts there. The rest of us do not have access to whatever happened there. --Yair rand (talk) 18:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Yes, true. This point was raised first at the topic above "#Facebook?" and yesterday I posted a reply there. Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:30, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll just point out that when the Foundation staff polices the Brand Network page to eliminate criticism like this, it reduces the credibility of the brand network. This removal of criticism - both by hosting portions on platforms critics find distasteful, and by using admin powers to remove critics - may explain why the brand network achieves results different from those of the open community. TomDotGov (talk) 05:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@TomDotGov: All we aim for is to have at least one page in the entire Meta-Wiki where conversations about actual branding can happen in a friendly and constructive environment. Brand Network is a new page in Meta and there is a chance to start fresh. If not even this is possible, then nobody should be surprised if people interested in simply discussing about branding in a safe and friendly context go elsewhere to find it.

There is no lack of pages in Meta (like this one) where discussions about legitimacy and process have taken the stage, and the project team is active in all of them replying and discussing. We added a disclaimer to Talk:Brand Network inspired by the disclaimers that help organizing Meta:Babel and Wikimedia Forum, where posts are moved from one place to the other routinely to stay on topic. For what is worth, right now Brand Network has "fewer than 30 watchers" while this one has 63, so moving a topic here actually puts it on the spot. Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Das klingt nach einem altbekannten Problem: Die grundlegende Fragestellung, soll nicht diskutiert werden, die ist beschlossen, es darf nur über kosmetische Änderungen geredet werden. Dabei ist es gerade die grundlegende Änderung, die Usurpation eines Einzelprojektes durch die WMF, die hier ständig als Elefant im Raum steht. Wer aber diese grundlegende Frage anspricht, nach der Legitimation der Hausmeister für solche Entscheidungen fragt, und warum die Bosse, sprich ie Onlinecommunity, nur nachrangig eingebunden werden, der gilt asap als Störenfried und Aufwiegler.

Mir kommen die ganzen Leute, die ohne echte Legitimation solche massiven Änderungen durchziehen wollen, die Gegenwind aus der Community mal eben so wegwischen etc. als die wahren Störenfriede und Aufwiegler vor. Das Muster gab es schon im Zusammenhang mit MV/Superprotect, wo die Community aktiv und massiv ignoriert und kujoniert wurde seitens einiger eitler Hausmeister, bei Flow wurde auch einer abgeschotteten Echokammer aus Proselyten jegliche Einwände ignoriert, und was ich von der ersten Einführung von VE gelesen habe, die ich selber nicht aktiv mitbekommen habe, lief es da exakt genau so: Es gab anmassendes, ignorantes Auftreten seitens der (WMF)ler, die einfach nicht zuhören wollten, wenn ihr Wolkenkuckucksheim irgendwie kritisiert wurde, erst recht nicht, wenn es um Grundsätzliches ging.

Hier geht es um die Frage, unter welchem Namen die Community (und als Ableitung davon auch die Service- und Hausmeisterstelle WMF) auftreten möchte. Wenn hier gesagt wird, dass die WMF die Besitzerin der Marke ist, dann mag das aus einer weltfremd-legalistischen Sicht durchaus irgendwie stimmen, sie hat jedoch keinerlei legitimes Besitzrecht gegenüber der Community an deren ureigenem Eigentum, die WMF ist nur Treuhänderin ohne eigene Rechte. Wenn sie sich Rechte anmaßt, dann ist dass Anmaßung. Das ist wie bei Superprotect: Die WMF hatte das legalistische Recht (und primär die faktischen Möglichkeiten) dies gegen die Communities zu tun, legitm war das nicht mal im Ansatz, das war eine Kriegerklärung an die Community. Hier scheint es teilweise eine ähnlich anmaßende Einstellung gegenüber dem eigentlichen Souverän des Wikiversums, der Onlinecommunity, zu geben. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: What I'm trying to point out is that that the Brand Network is being treated a place where legitimacy is being established. On the FAQ talk page we have a Foundation reply, "It is not true that the majority of editors participating in every venue voiced concern/opposition. It has not been true for the over 600 members of the Brand Network...". If the brand network is being run in a way that opposition is off-topic, then it can't be used to validate the legitimacy of its results, when compared to a open page like the RfC. TomDotGov (talk) 15:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@TomDotGov: I want to point out that the comments above were moved here because the topic of Brand Network is discussions about movement branding, and these comments were about project process, not branding per se. All opinions about movement branding are welcome at Brand Network, even better if they are curious and open-minded. Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: I guess part of is is that, insofar as it encouraged the project to go down a path that the community didn't accept, the Brand Network is a failed experiment. Insofar as rules of Wikimedia Space or the private nature of the Facebook group led to different conclusions than the RfC, those were a waste of resources. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive, but I think it's important to make sure that the new on-wiki Brand Network page doesn't turn into another echo chamber. When you say "where conversations about actual branding can happen in a friendly and constructive environment", the deeply skeptical part of me hears "where conversations about shooting ourselves in the foot can happen in a friendly and constructive environment". I don't think it's right to have a place where caliber and angle are on-topic, but if it's a good idea in the first place is not.

I'm not too concerned about migrating old discussions, but I am concerned that when discussion picks up again, the positions of skeptics will once again not be welcome. "We shouldn't rebrand" is simultaneously about process and branding. (It's not really my position anymore, but other people still have it, and it's valid.) TomDotGov (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

"People have shared their posts and comments in a certain time and in a certain context, and we want to respect that." I don't understand this comment. Are there licensing problems? Did the Discourse instance not have clear terms of service? Is there a post-mortem where such problems are summarised, so that in the future people don't repeat the same mistakes? Nemo 10:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm confused by your expectations, Nemo. Do you consider a mistake not to publish in Meta the content of an off-wiki private group when that channel is deprecated? To compare with a similar situation, would you consider a mistake if, say, private mailing lists would be deprecated and their contents wouldn't be published in Meta? Content licensing isn't the only factor to consider when privacy settings are at play. Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Moment...verstehe ich das jetzt richtig? Hast Du gerade alle Absprachen und Diskussionen auf Facebook und Space zu komplett irrelevanten Privatkram erklärt, der hier nicht veröffentlicht werden soll? Warum gibt es denn dann überhaupt Hinweise auf diese, um bei der Argumentation zu bleiben, komplett irrelevanten privaten Chatgruppen?

Entweder, das soll einen Input für das Projekt hier liefern, dann muss es vollständig offen und transparent sein, oder es ist eben unsinniges Gelaber, dann sollten die Links hier aber auch schnell entfernt werden. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Qgil, I'm not sure what private group you're talking about. Anything posted on Facebook is lost forever, flushed down the toilet the moment one writes it; which is why I think it's irresponsible to encourage any kind of usage of Facebook. But I'm talking about our own https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/ . If some of the relevant content is private, you can ask the participants whether they agree to its being migrated here.

And yes, if mailing lists were deprecated I would definitely expect them to be archived. For large private mailing lists that would be unlikely to be feasible on a MediaWiki wiki (although you could for instance archive internal-l on Internal wiki etc.), but for smaller mailing lists it would be feasible to ask each participants. Nemo 13:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to care about that, nothing was really discussed there. And it's still there in read-only mode. I asked several times, why it was a closed-shop instead of a proper open venue, but not even that got an answer. It's plain moot. If the Facebook-venue was as proliferate as the discuss one, Nothing is lost. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:46, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Nachdem jetzt der andere Therad gerade archiviert wurde, und hier nur ausweichend mit leeren Floskeln geantwortet wurd, noch mal die Farge: Wo sich die, meinetwegen ein klein wenig aggregierten, Mirschriften der Diskusionen ausm der privaten Facebookgruppe, damit sie auch von allen Beteiligten beachtet werden können, auch von denen, die keine Lust auf die Ausbeutung ihrer persönlichen Daten durch solche Schurken wie Cambridge Analytica, also die wahren Essenz der Datensammelorganisationen wie Facebook und Google, haben? Diese beioden Organisationen sind von Grund auf böse, nichts, was da besprochen wird, kann einen tatsächlichen Wert für ein offenes Projekt haben. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Removing the banner about the RfC

Is it ok to remove the banner pointing to the RfC? It has accomplished its goal. I have been simplifying and updating the main project page in the past days, edit by edit. Because removing this banner with an edit summary might be too sensitive, I'd rather ask here before.

Requests for comment/Should the Foundation call itself Wikipedia isn't seeing much activity, and it is unclear when the RfC will be closed. As many have pointed out, the result of the RfC is clear. The RfC is featured in several points of the main page, basically at the same level than the own project activities (none of which was featured in a banner). Last week we published a summary of the RfC, which is now linked from the main page as well. For all these reasons, I think we can remove the banner without affecting the RfC. Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd say it probably should stay up until after the announcement on the 16th. Either the announcement will respect the RfC, at which case it probably makes sense to remove the banner, or it won't, in which case I would expect there to be a flurry of activity on the RfC. Either way, I think the slowdown in RfC activity reflects the slowdown in the project schedule. I'll admit that I don't really have a strong feeling about this, though. If it's accurate to say "the proposal doesn't use the name Wikipedia", I'd support removing it now. TomDotGov (talk) 21:58, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

For what is worth, the announcement on the 16th marks the end of phase 1 and the beginning of phase 2 in the project timeline, and it is still about concepts. Proposals for naming conventions (which is what can be compared directly with the RfC) are expected to be defined later, in phase 2, based on the concept presented on the 16th. To give some examples, concepts discussed in the previous exercises like Ocean, Galaxy or Universe cannot be said to respect the RfC or not, because these are concepts and the RfC discusses naming conventions. I hope this clarifies expectations on this presentation vs the RfC. Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, about "If it's accurate to say "the proposal doesn't use the name Wikipedia"". This comment kind of implies that a proposal for a naming convention exists today but it hasn't been unveiled yet. However, and just to be clear, there are no proposals for naming conventions defined yet. Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Ja, das ist eine sehr neue Entwicklung, dass seit ein paar Tagen plötzlich nicht mehr klar und eindeutig ist, dass der Name von Wikimedia zu Wikipedia geändert werden soll. Bis vor ein paar Tagen wurde dies noch mit Händen und Füßen verteidigt seitens der (WMF)er hier, jeglicher Hinweis auf die irreführenden Grafiken und eindeutigen Aussagen in der FAQ wurden weggewischt und eine Verbesserung der FAQ weg von dieser eindeutigen (und noch nie legitimen) Aussage, dass die Umbenennung eine längst entschiedene Sache ist, wurde revertiert.

Seit kurzem wird hier jetzt von Euch erzählt, das wäre noch nicht entschieden, es wird aber nichts offen und transparent gemacht, sondern nur auf irgendwelche Hinterzimmerauswertungen von irgendwelchen Hinterzimmertreffen verwiesen, auf die wir doch bitte warten mögen. Nach all den bisherigen Erfahrungen fehlt mir die Zuversicht, dass die (WMF)er tatsächlich mal der Community die ihr zustehenden Entscheidungsrechte geben und sich nicht als Herren des Systems aufspielen.

Bisher ist das RfC die einzige korrekte Communitybefragung überhaupt. Das hier ist im übrigen das Wiki der Community, nicht das Wiki der WMF oder gar der Brandinggruppe innerhalb der WMF. Wenn diese bislang einzige valide Communitybeteiligung jetzt ihren prominenten Platz verlieren soll, dann würde das viel von dem durch den Rückzieher bezüglich der Umbenennung gerade wieder aufgebauten Vertrauen zerstören. Egal, was die Hinterzimmerdebatten ergeben, eine Umbenennung von Wikimedia nach Wikipedia ist vollkommen ausgeschlossen, soviel ist klar und sollte auch umseitig klar dargestellt werden.

Das RfC gibt irgendwelchen Namenskonverntionen eine glasklare Vorgabe: Es wird keine Umbenennung von Wikimedia zu Wikipedia geben. Diese Option ist vom Tisch, egal was irgendwelche hinter mehr oder minder verschlossenen Türen tagenden Kleingruppen meinen. | Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 22:53, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

"This comment kind of implies that a proposal for a naming convention exists today but it hasn't been unveiled yet." I think I misunderstood what the April 16th presentation was going to be on, and I know I didn't make it clear that all I'm expecting is progress towards a convention. I'm thinking that over the past six months that some progress has been made on issues more substantial than 'concepts'. The RfC report says "The report is being shared with the project design partner as a reflection of important arguments and levels of concern and opposition." If that sharing resulted in clear guidance that names involving Wikipedia aren't worth proposing, then the RfC has accomplished its goal, and I agree that the banner can be taken down. If not, then can you explain what was shared? TomDotGov (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: I've tweaked the wording of the banner to better reflect what the RfC covers. TomDotGov (talk) 01:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is a concern I want to share, that is related to sending users so directly and prominently from this project page to the RfC page, but goes deeper. Most people haven't read our recent discussions here, neither the recent changes to the FAQ or the Timeline, the RfC report, and most likely nor the main project page. The project team has updated all these pages recently (with your help) in order to capture the current status and the current thinking of this project. Meanwhile, in January the RfC launched capturing one perspective that now, almost three months later, clearly doesn't help understanding this project, where it is today, in which direction it is going, and how to participate to influence its outcomes.

Do the RfC participants and anyone who landed in that RfC page without going through this project page know that this project isn't set in a naming convention yet, that while having Wikipedia as a central concept is a requirement using the "Wikipedia" name is not the only option considered, that the plan is to present different proposals for naming conventions to the community for feedback (in May, according to the updated timeline), and that after the feedback round a naming convention will be selected and refined? I don't think this is public knowledge yet, and I think you will agree that it would be useful that people interested in this brand project are aware.

We are updating the project pages and we are communicating this information to the participants of the Brand Network, individuals and affiliates. However, this is not enough, especially not when it comes to reach to the people who commented in the "Oppose" side of the RfC. We welcome your ideas to make aware everyone of the current status of this project, regardless of their opinions for / against an evolved brand system for the movement. Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Ich verstehe dieses ganze Gewiesel hier plötzlich nicht. Bis vor ca. 2-3 Wochen war es klar und eindeutig, dass der Name geändert werden würde, das war beschlossen (von wem auch immer) und stand nicht zur Disposition. Jegliche Änderungen an den Vorderseiten, die diese Prämisse versucht haben zu relativieren, wurde asap revertiert.

Jetzt kommen die gleichen Leute, die bislang vehement auf der längst beschlossenen Namensänderung bestanden haben, daher, und behaupten, all ihre bisherigen Aussagen wären falsch gewesen, es wäre noch gar nichts beschlossen und die bisher immer als Störung revertierten Aussagen seien in Wirklichkeit richtig gewesen.

Ehrlich gesagt: Ich glaube dem nicht so recht. Ich befürchte noch immer reine Beschwichtigung. Die Änderung von Saulus zu Paulus kommt mir nicht ganz koscher vor.

Ich erwarte eine eindeutige und klare Aussage der Art, das eine Umbenennung zu Wikipedia komplett vom Tisch ist und überhaupt nicht mehr, in keiner möglichen Art und Weise, zur Disposition steht. Das ist nun mal die eindeutige Aussage der Community, und die aus der Community generierten Treuhänder können als Derivate der Community nichts anderes beschließen.

Außerdem erwarte ich endlich vollkommen offene und transparente Protokolle sämtlicher bisheriger Absprachen hier auf Meta. Nur was hier veröffentlicht wurde kann und darf Grundlage irgendwelcher Entscheidungen werden, und nur was hier auf Meta diskutiert und konsentiert wurde ist valide. Wenn irgendwas von Facebook nicht veröffentlicht werden kann, dann ist es für die Mülltonne gewesen, es darf nicht verwendet werden.

Dieses RfC war die bisher offenste und transparenteste Aktion bezüglich des Brandings überhaupt, alles andere hat diverse Makel. Wenn die Proponenten der Umbenennung ihr Vorhaben bisher primär in dunklen Hinterzimmern ohne Offenheit und Transparenz betrieben haben, dann ist das nicht die Schuld derer, die offen und ehrlich ein RfC, also das Vorgehen, das für wichtige Entscheidungen im Wikiversum üblicherweise benutzt wird, angestrengt haben. Ein solches hätte am Anfang des gesamten Prozesses stehen müssen, dann wäre es valide gewesen. Wer nicht offen arbeitet, und sich hinterher darüber beklagt, dass die nicht-offen beschlossenen Vorhaben abgelehnt werden, der hat halt völlig falsch angefangen. | Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: I think Sänger's discussion above is a reasonable one, and deserves to be engaged with, and sums up why the trust level is still rather low at the moment. Realize this is a process in which the Foundation has behaved badly for long periods of time, to the point where the movement had to engage the dispute resolution process. The RfC doesn't exist to help us understand the project - it's here for the movement to make decisions about this project. Until it's clear the Foundation is respecting the outcome of that process, I don't think it makes sense to end the process.

The question posed to the RfC is very simple, "Is it acceptable for the Foundation to use the name Wikipedia to refer to itself?". And to that question, the movement said no. The most recent feedback we have (from you) is that names containing 'Wikipedia' have not been eliminated from consideration. (I don't think it's enough to say 'we haven't considered them yet, and won't until May' - we clearly have in the past, and the RfC considers the outcome of the project, not the present.)

Once the Foundation makes it clear that it's respecting the outcome of the RfC, there will be no need for dispute resolution. Until then, there is.

It might make sense to add an update to the RfC's background section, reflecting that it's no longer a foregone conclusion that the Foundation will use the name 'Wikipedia'. But you're pretty pointedly avoiding engaging on if it is considered acceptable for the Foundation to use the name Wikipedia to refer to itself, which is the issue the movement considers to be important. TomDotGov (talk) 15:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

About the banner. The project team thinks that after almost three months it is time to remove it. Reasons:

• Visually, the banner gives the impression that currently the RfC is the main call to action this project is making. This is misleading. This project didn't organize or endorse this RfC and this banner is likely to provide the opposite impression (example).
• The RfC is linked from the News section, where project activities are linked, with a label "Ongoing" in bold font.
• The RfC itself has been pretty silent for weeks now.

TomDotGov says that the banner has to stay until it is proven that this project "respects the RfC". First, this project is respecting the RfC (if you disagree, let's discuss in another section). But most importantly, why? What is the relation? A banner should be a piece of information, not a political position.

You have more concerns. The comments above are charged and dense. After trying several times to write a single reply here, I think it is better to stick to one topic per section as much as possible. Please. The conversation will be more useful (and hopefully engaging) for more people. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:23, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: From my perspective, this is pretty simple. The RfC is ongoing - it hasn't been closed, it's not inactive (according to Requests for comment, "Requests for comment that are inactive for more than 2 years can be marked as closed due to inactivity."), and it's not moot. I think the most likely outcome of the RfC is that it will become moot soon - if the Foundation respects the RfC and communicates to everyone the name Wikipedia won't be used, then this is all over. (If you'd like, we can talk about this more in another section.) Until then, it's inappropriate to remove the banner. I don't see how the banner is political at all, as it's a neutrally-worded link informing people of a movement process.

Fundamentally, I think the question of the banner is linked to the question "Is the RfC moot?" TomDotGov (talk) 16:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Qgil, if this is your idea of a silent RfC, it's easy to increase activity by sending out some notifications. Nemo 13:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Wenn mehr Leute davon Wind bekämen, würde ja noch deutlicher, wie sehr sich diese kleine Pressure-Group, die aus unerfindlichen Gründen dieses sinnfreie Millionengrab betreibt, sich von der Community isoliert hat um ihr Lieblingsprojekt durchzuziehen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:05, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

What community input did the chosen unifying concept receive?

The selected unifying concept, "interconnection," was not one of the 23 concepts on which the community had been asked to comment and "like." What community input was requested and received for the "interconnection" concept? EllenCT (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

We have published the report of the work around the unified concept: interconnection. This describes the multiple types of community feedback that went in to generating the concept. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Gibt es irgendwo, bzw,. wird es irgendwo geben, eine ausführliche Darstellung der kompletten Antworten, oder müssen wir uns drauf verlassen, dass die Auswahl derjenigen, die hier ein ganz spezielles Interesse an diesem Projekt haben, passt? Ich persönlich habe wenig Vertrauen in eine Auswahl, die seitens von Snohetta (die haben explizit monetäre Gründe eine POV-Auswahl zu treffen) oder irgendwelchen Angestellten der WMF (die auch schon oft genug ihren Bias unter beweis gestellt haben) zur Verfügung gestellt haben. Außerdem widerspricht es diametral dem Wikigedanken, hier ein klandestine, intransparente Auswahl zu treffen, alles hat offen und transparent zu erfolgen. Die ganzen sehr werbemäßigen, sprich unglaubwürdigen, Videos etc. sind jedenfalls kein Beleg für irgendwas. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Preparing for feedback on the naming convention proposals

Next week, the Movement Brand Project moves into Phase Two: naming convention proposals. This is the most anticipated phase of this project. It will ask the movement to evaluate which proposal(s) best communicate who we are so that billions of new users can understand us and join us. We invite you to attend the live presentation of naming convention proposals on 7 May at 17:00 UTC (Please note: the time was updated). Please use this link to join. This presentation will kick off the two-week feedback period on the proposals, which will run from 7 May to 21 May.

In preparation for the feedback period, we wanted to share some more information about how the feedback process will work:

• There will be multiple naming convention proposals to review. Some will rely on Wikipedia, some will not.
• There will be a concise survey for affiliates, a concise survey for individual contributors, and a discussion space for each proposal on Meta.
• The survey will ask reviewers to rank each proposal against the qualities of good movement branding, generated in last year’s community review. The survey will provide opportunities for elaboration on rankings.
• Survey data will be published and will be anonymous for individual contributors.
• There will be multilingual support for the proposals and the survey.
• From the feedback collected, the team is looking to get a strong signal from affiliates and from individual contributors about which proposal should be refined and carried into the next phases of the project. The team also hopes to get a strong signal on how to refine that proposal. By the same token, the team aims to get definitive feedback about which proposal(s) can be eliminated.
  • The project team is especially keen to learn from affiliates, who use movement branding in their everyday work, and individual contributors who use the movement brand in events, outreach, and other community-building activities.
• This process seeks as much participation as possible. The project team is currently asking about the most effective ways to distribute the survey, including MassMessage, CentralNotice and mailing lists. We welcome everyone’s help promoting the survey across communities.

The Brand Project team will also be collecting feedback from Wikimedia Foundation staff on naming, which will help measure the risks and opportunities of the proposals for Legal, Product, Tech, Fundraising, and Operation activities. The project team will publish details from this review too. --Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 06:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Wie wird dieser massive Eingriff in das Wikiversum in sämtlichen Projekten des Wikiversums in einer den jeweiligen Projekten angemessenen Sprache, also nicht nur ein englischer Spam ohne jedes Nachdenken und Aufwand, sondern eine angemessene Mitteilung in mindestens 25-30 Sprachen? Verantwortlich dafür sehe ich alleine diejenigen, die dieses Projekt unter Einsatz von massiven Geldmitteln und Personalaufwand hier weiter betreiben. Da dies bislang vor allem ein Top-Down-Projekt war und ist, ist auch Top alleine für die Informationen verantwortlich, auch für die Angemessene Übersetzung dieser Information, und kann dies nicht einfach an die Community auslagern. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 07:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The announcements distributed will be translated. To which languages exactly, we don't know yet. We are aiming for the best coverage. Some translations will be sourced by the team, and then we will request help from the affiliates and from any translators willing to contribute. The texts of the announcements should be ready for translation by next Monday. The survey itself will be translated as well. These translations are being sourced by the team and we will specify the languages when they are confirmed. Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

At least at a high level, this seems reasonable. Some points:

• I'm glad that there are proposals that don't use Wikipedia, as I believe that those are the most likely to satisfy the first criteria for good movement branding and respect the message sent by the RfC.
• I'd suggest that in addition to having a page where each proposal can be discussed, it might make sense to have a page where the set of proposals can be discussed as a whole, as there may be issues that cross-cut the proposals. (For example, someone asking about the criteria.) This could be a new page, this page, or Talk:Brand Network, or even the RfC. If we don't indicate a single page that covers everything, we'll have this scattered in many different places.
• I hope that at least the basic structure of the survey is going to come out before it goes live, so that any problems with the phrasing of the questions can be pointed out. Depending on how the messaging happens, the survey might be the first time many people encounter the branding criteria, and it's probably important to make sure that's communicated well.

• This is especially true if people will be asked to rate specific example usages. "Thank you for supporting the Wikipedia Movement Foundation." isn't confusing, but "The Wikipedia Movement Foundation isn't responsible for the content or policy of the German Wikipedia." likely is. "The Wikipedia Movement Foundation is watching Earth Day Live. Are you?" might bring NPOV into question. We need to make sure the questions asked are representative of how the naming will be used.
• It might make sense to delay the survey by a couple of days, and judge the immediate reaction to the proposals. If the results for some proposals are as one-sided as the RfC was from the start, then it may be a waste of time to present them in the survey. If you have 1,000 people taking 5 minutes each to evaluate a branding proposal, that consumes over 3 days of community time.

• I think a CentralNotice is appropriate, but probably a MassMessage would do more harm than good. Assuming the same pattern we saw from the RfC, you might have an increased absolute number of responses, but after a while most of the responses start saying the same thing. I think the general feeling is that mass messages are a bit intrusive, and cause a negative reaction would bias the results negatively.

TomDotGov (talk) 16:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Wichtig ist vor allem auch, das in gar keinem Fall Englisch die einzige Sprache ist, in der kommuniziert wird. Vor dem Beginn der Umfrage muss diese in mindestens 15-25 verschiedenen Sprachen vorliegen, der übliche Anglozentrismus der WMF darf in keinem Fall auch hier passieren. Auch die Vorschläge für den neuen Namen müssen in vielen verschiedenen Sprachen vorliegen, damit auch jedermensch klar ist, um was es in seiner/ihrer Sprache konkret geht.

Ist diese Mindestanforderung an ein internationales und in keinster Weise allein anglophones Projekt gewährleistet? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Almost is important as this is that the survey results get tabulated by language. If "Wikiverse _____" is the proposed branding, and we get 100 English-speakers and 50 German-speakers supporting it, while the 10 Latverian-speakers oppose it because "verse" is an insult to their parentage, we'd want to make sure that the data is granular enough to tease this out. TomDotGov (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Irgenwie wurde noch immer nicht dargestellt, wo und wie hier in anderen Sprachen als Englisch beigetragen werden kann. Imho könnte auch mal ein explizites Verbot der Benutzung von Englisch helfen, den Monolinguisten ein wenig auf die Füße zu helfen. Und natürlich hat alles mindestens zwei bis drei Wochen vor irgendwelchen Diskussionen übersetzt vorzulegen, damit die verschiedenen Communities überhaupt eine Chance haben, sinnvoll teilzunehmen. Ich lese das hier bislang so, dass zu einem bestimmten Datum irgendwas aus dem Hut gezaubert werden soll, dann anschließend ggf. auch m,al was übersetzt wird, aber davon unbeniommen nur mal gerade zwei kurze Wochen zur Diskussion zur Verfügung stehen. Das ist explizit darauf angelegt, möglichst wenig substanzielle Diskussion zuzulassen, denn dazu bräuchte es einen anständigen Zeitrahmen, und bereits vorbereitete valide Übersetzungen in mindestens 20-50 Sprachen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Rescheduling Naming Convention Proposal community review

Important update on timing: Today, we have decided to reschedule the Naming Convention Proposal live presentation and community review planned for 7 - 21 May. While the team is truly excited to talk about names with you, we also believe the most important commitment we made in this phase was to present you the best possible options based on the conversations we’ve had so far. This is why we are rescheduling.

To give some context, the team has heard a good amount of excitement from communities around a “Wiki” naming direction. It's a suggestion often shared based on its wide use in our Movement today. However, during the course of legal review we learned there are significant practical issues with "Wiki" due to the relevant trademark landscape. Rather than eliminating it as an option, we want to take the time to do more research and risk evaluation with our Legal team and the Board to fully understand the opportunities we have and be able to share that information with you.

We recognize that changing timing may appear to avoid a necessary and promised discussion. Nothing could be further from our intentions. We want to enable a lively discussion around the best possible options, and we are working hard to make that happen. The Brand Project team will meet with the Board of Trustees during their 22 May summit, and will follow up as soon as we can after. We look forward to talking about names with you soon. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

So, depending on how you reckon it, this project has been running for about six months - it was approved in last November. Maybe over a year - research and planning started in February 2019. Maybe less, if you follow the official timeline. And during this time the process hasn't been able to produce a naming convention for the movement that the Foundation considered acceptable to present to the community.

Isn't it time to try a different process here? Instead of a brand that is developed in secret and presented to the movement, find a naming convention that comes from the movement. How this should happen is something we could talk about, though I'd think that starting a second RfC might provide a process that has an inherent legitimacy to it. Make the question something like "Should the Wikimedia movement adopt a new naming convention, and if so, what should it be?"

Contributors could speak in their own voices, affiliates could weigh in, and the Foundation could tell us what it finds important, and what it finds unacceptable for legal or other reasons. Debate could happen, ideas could be challenged, discussed, and refined. Fundamentally, we're the movement that gave the world ^{[citation needed]}, and that rejects the sort of 'experts should be listened to' philosophy that has characterized this project to date. A movement-created brand might not be perfect, but it would be authentic, and my understanding is that counts for a lot. It certainly seems like it could accomplish more than we have, while expending a lot less time and money. TomDotGov (talk) 02:25, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

This is pretty amazing, considering the WMF has literally blogged about how "wiki" is a generic word 2010, 2016. This is an extremely important part of our messaging in firmly differentiating ourselves from Wikileaks, for example - whose name is because "wiki" is a generic word. Given the WMF's own public messaging on this over the past decade, someone needs to ask how the idea of enclosing the word "wiki" ever made it this far - David Gerard (talk) 11:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd also like to register my opposition towards rebranding as "Wiki". Previous communication posed the question as "Wikimedia" vs "Wikipedia" and I was unaware that "Wiki" was an option that was considered until this week's announcements. As David and others have pointed out, "wiki" is a generic word, which predates Wikipedia and is used more widely than the Wikimedia & aligned communities, and rebranding as "Wiki" would undo much of the public education we've been doing over the past decade and a half. Deryck C. 13:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Einer der Gründe, die vorgeschoben wurden, um diese Umbenennung irgendwie zu pushen, war: "Wir werden mit Wikileaks verwechselt." Inwiefern sollte ein Name wie Wiki dahingehend irgendeine Verbesserung bedeuten? Wiki ist nun mal ein generischer Terminus, der von vielen verwendet wird, und eine Usurpation dieses generischen Terminus würde natürlich sämtliche irgendwie mit dem Wortteil Wiki benamten Entitäten in den Bereich der WMF suggerieren. Was wäre daran hilfreich für wen? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:27, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: I think it might be helpful if I share how the thinking around “wiki” unfolded. Community members started surfacing wiki-based solutions early on in the process, in many different conversations, for example here. As one of the people in charge of clarifying, synthesizing and reporting back on these discussions from 2019, I remember how these solutions were seriously questioned at the beginning due to the concerns raised in those blog posts. But the ideas kept coming back, which challenged the team to think about them more openly. To see if a wiki-based solution can work, in addition to an in-depth legal review, we are also doing a bit of market research (the results of which will be public) around perceptions of “wiki” to see if associations have changed since 2010/2016.

To be clear, when the team says “‘Wiki’ naming directions”, that does not mean calling everything across the board just “Wiki”–it means thinking creatively about a Wiki-based proposal that can be presented to you for review. What’s at the heart of this is an attempt to put distinct options out there, representing ideas from different sources, for you to evaluate. This speaks to some of Deryck C’s concerns as well.

To get more specific on Deryck C’s process comment, Wikipedia-based naming solutions will be presented during the review, and the team felt it was important to develop and present non-Wikipedia-based ideas as well. See the announcement about the feedback process, which was notified about on Wikimedia-l. The feedback survey and accompanying discussion will allow you to identify concerns with the solutions you find problematic, and endorse solutions you like. If you feel that whatever wiki-based solution is presented is not sound, you will have the opportunity to rate it and state your concerns accordingly.

To TomDotGov’s point, capturing new community ideas is an important element of the survey as well. In thinking more about this early this week, we decided to add an open field for people to suggest their own names, with a commitment that we will look into names/terms that are frequently suggested. This will be communicated more broadly as we gear up again for the survey --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the way this is phrased as capturing ideas points to why this path forward will just repeat the current problems. If you look at the RfC, you can see that the Wiki Foundation name was discussed, and the problems mentioned here were discovered back in March. Instead of capturing ideas, why not free them in an open discussion? Simply collecting names on a survey form prevents the community from commenting on them, while requesting comments on them - in the form of a Request for Comments - means that we'll get a chance to discuss why names are good and bad, and learn from that to generate better ideas.

More specifically, given that the method of having a Foundation-chosen team propose name ideas has failed, what makes you (plural you, as I'm talking to anyone that supports the bespoke process) think that it will succeed when tried again, especially when compared to the processes that have succeeded throughout the movement's history? Why try everything but what works? TomDotGov (talk) 03:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Warum gibt es überhaupt noch Wikipedia-basierte Vorschläge, wo das doch schon komplett durchgefallen ist bei dem wichtigsten Gremium überhaupt, der Community? Wikipedia-basierte Vorschläge dürften die Chance eines Schneeballs in der Hölle haben hier durchzukommen, das würde höchstens mit den nächsten Bistromatik-Sperenzchen seitens derjenigen, die dies ja schon so fabelhaft bei den ersten KPI gemacht haben, irgendwie pro forma zu begründen sein, wenn diese Gründe auch wieder keinerlei Prüfung standhalten würden. Das ist doch offensichtlich alles hier nur Windowdressing, um eine Communitybeteiligung vorzutäuschen, auf deren Input ist doch eh von denjenigen, die das hier betreiben keiner interessiert. Jedenfalls nicht in solchen, der nicht aus lautem Jubeln besteht. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 14:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

"The Wiki Foundation" has a nice ring to it, and I would love to have it if the WMF and Ward Cunningham don't want it. If either the WMF or Ward decide to use it, I will volunteer my volunteer and CTO skills. EllenCT (talk) 05:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Ellen, we could swap the letters around and have the WikiThings Foundation. Not just for wikipedias but lots of wikithings. I can’t wait for all Foundation staffers to have sig's like E.X.Ample (WTF). Cheers! Pelagic (talk) 18:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Bitte umseitig nicht so tun, als hätte das was mit der Community zu tun

Dieses Umbenennungsprojekt ist etwas, das allein von einer kleinen Gruppe WMFer ausgeht, bei dem sog. Communitybeteiligung bislang aus kleinen handverlesenen Gruppen mit garantiertem massiven Übergewicht der WMF und der Werbefuzzies bestand, die augenscheinlich ein massivens Interesse daran hatten, ihr Privatprojekt zu pushen. Jegliche tatsächliche Communitybeteiligung, wie beispielsweise das RfC, haben deutlich gemacht, dass es in der echten Community, außerhalb der Blase der Umbenennenwoller, kein Interesse daran gibt, im Gegenteil. Es sollte umseitig also klar und deutlich dargestellt werden, dass dies ein reines Top-Down-Projekt ist, bei dem die Maßnehmen der vorgeblichen Communitybeteiligung nur Werbemaßnahmen, Windowdressing und Blendwerk waren, ohne das an dem von einem kleinen Grüppchen von Funktionären verfolgten Ziel jemals grundsätzliche Kritik erlaubt war. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think something like that would gain consensus. My hope is that simply removing the statement is something that will stick, as it doesn't impart motive. TomDotGov (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

The surveys to affiliates and individual contributors will provide an indication of their interest in discussing branding. Qgil-WMF (talk) 13:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the RfC (now past 450 participants) make it clear that the community wanted to discuss branding. The question is if the Foundation is going to conduct this survey in a way that lets them hear the message the community is saying. For example, by offering an explicit option that asks if it is acceptable to use Wikipedia in branding, which is the question the community found important. TomDotGov (talk) 14:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Bei der ganzen Pseudo-Communitybeteiligung, die auf dem Privatblog der Umbenennenwoller stattfanden, wurde offensichtlich immer darauf geachtet, dass diejenigen, die das von den Propagandisten der Umbenennung erwünschte Ergebnis produzieren, bestimmend waren. Es gab keine Veranstaltung, beb der die (WMF)er und Werbefuzzies von Snöhätta nicht derart in der Überzahl waren, dass das Ergebnis dieser Veranstaltung nicht schon von vorne herein klar war, die falsche Prämisse, dass eine Umbenennung überhaupt notwendig oder erwünscht war, wurde nie zur Disposition gestellt. Aber nur, wenn diese Möglichkeit tatsächlich bestanden hätte, hätte von echter Communitybeteiligung an der Entscheidungsfindung gesprochen werden können, so ging es nur um ein wenig Input und Ideen für die längst beschlossene Sache. Ob diese Sache vollkommener Unsinn ist, ob hier nur Freiwilligengelder in Privatsäckel umgeleitet wurden, iob sich hier eine kleine abgehobene Gruppe verselbständigt hat, all diese Fragen konnten und durften nie gestellt werden. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

"works with the communities"

@TomDotGov, Qgil-WMF, and Sänger: Please try to reach some agreement on the sentence rather than reverting back and forth. The current state of affairs is that the WMF expresses its intentions to "work with communities to bridge this gap", and per Qgil's summary "The team has staff members working full time with affiliates and individual contributors through multiple channels and events", while many in the community disagree that it is actually working with the communities given the decisions around the RfC, among other issues. Certainly it shouldn't be too hard to express both of these points simultaneously? --Yair rand (talk) 22:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Das Projekt ist ein Projekt der Foundation, nicht der Community. Alle bisherigen sogenannten Communitybeteiligungen bestanden aus Gruppenarbeiten, bei denen handverlesene TeilnehmerInnen außerhalb des Wikiversums in komischen Hinterzimmern, zusammen mit einer Überzahl an Leuten, die dieses Projekt der WMF vorantreiben wollten und bezahlten Werbefuzzies der norwegischen Werbefirma, nur in die Richtung der von den Projektbetreibern vorgegebenen Umbenennung zu diskutieren hatten,. Das ganze wurde dann in verschlossenen Hinterzimmern von den Werbetreibenden und den Umbenennenwollern undurchsichtig "ausgewertet", damit ja nicht das falsche Ergebnis entsteht. Die einzige echte Communitybeteiligung bisher war das RfC, und das wird versucht von den Projektbetreibern, die eben genau nicht ein Abbild der Community sondern lediglich technische Angestellte sind, zu marginalisieren. Facebook, dieses undurchsichtige Privatblog etc., das ist alles keine echte Communitybeteiligung sondern vorgeschobenes Tun-als-ob. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 22:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: Would you object to mentioning the WMF position if it's specifically stated to be the WMF position, without the page taking any position on its validity? --Yair rand (talk) 23:31, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The sentence reads "The Brand Project works with communities to bridge this gap." and this is accurate. The Brand Network is community. The people participating here are community. The people participating in the RfC is community. The people who will participate in the survey is community. Affiliates are community. The Foundation is community. The Board is community. Samir, Elena, Rupika, Chris, myself... have invested a huge amount of time working with affiliates and individual contributors directly. Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: Look, a lot of that is disputed (notably the definition of "community" to include Affiliates, WMF, Board, etc). How about something along the lines of "The WMF has said that it wants to..."? Or perhaps just mentioning the groups individually, so there's no confusion? --Yair rand (talk) 23:31, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Where is the dispute? I searched, and as far as I can see Meta doesn't have a definition of "community". It has a definition of Wikimedia movement. For what is worth, right now in English Wikipedia w:Wikimedia community redirects to w:Wikimedia movement, which shows that the terms "community" and "movement" are understood as synonyms. But this is distracting. The point is that this program is working on the creation of a brand for the movement, and for this reason it works with multiple players in this movement. The resulting brand system will be offered to affiliates and the Foundation (the content projects' names and logos are not affected by this project) so it makes sense to work with affiliates and the Foundation as part of our movement. Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:55, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: On definitions, we needs words for things, and people within the community tend to use the term "the community" to refer to the unpaid volunteer editors on the various Wikimedia wikis. What do you think of "works with affiliates and the Foundation to..."? --Yair rand (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd sort of question the use of "works with" here. The RfC was open to everyone in the community, from the board of trustees (multiple members participated, as did the group), to affiliates (WMCAT), to individual contributors. The consensus was pretty clear - and now we have the Foundation offering multiple proposals that ignore that consensus. I honestly couldn't think of a way to include that that didn't feel too snarky to be civil, so instead I tried to remove the sentence. TomDotGov (talk) 01:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

While someone may think that this project should work more or differently with communities, the fact is that we are working with communities. Running a survey promoted in all projects and translated to multiple languages is an example of working with communities. About affiliates, they are basically run by "unpaid volunteer editors on the various Wikimedia wikis" so I don't understand why someone would suggest that they don't belong to the community. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

You are working with hand-selected members of the communities, on a private platform in workshops, where you obviously see for a clear majority of (WMF)ers and marketing hired guns, that guarantee the right outcome and no dissent, and as it's all done in shady backrooms, with only filtered outcome, this is no valid community participation, but only a pretense of that to keep the appearance of community participation. And you really have the chutzpah to include anything with WikiPedia in it in the naming proposals, despite it's overwhelming rejection by the community. That's really very telling of your type of "community participation". They may participate, as long as they don't disturb your already made decisions. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^{(Reden) 13:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)}

There was a survey run already. That survey had 14% of community members support the proposal, and 20% of affiliates supporting, with 40% of community members opposing. The RfC clarified that opposition, with 90% of the community opposing. And so this project's way of working with them is to ignore that feedback, and present a survey that does not include an explicit way to oppose Wikipedia-based rebranding. You might think that you're working with communities. But there's no consensus that's the case.

Is the right way forwards to put a disputed tag on that sentence? I'm not sure what the right thing to do while waiting for more feedback is, but right now that sentence is peacock language. TomDotGov (talk) 14:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

(BK) Das Brand Project ist ein Top-Down-Grüppchen von Funktionären, das mit Beteiligung von Alibi-Communitymitgliedern sein Süppchen kocht. Das Privat-Blog brandingwikipedia.org ist eine völlig undurchsichtige und weit außerhalb des Wikiversums liegende Webseite, auf er Communitybeteiligung simuliert wird, auf sämtlichen sogenannten Workshops gab es nur eine Minderheitsbeteiligung von handverlesenen Communitymitgliedern, und die Richtung war auch von dem Grüppchen Funktionäre und den Werbefuzzies vorgegeben, eine tatsächlich ergebnisoffene Diskussion, bei der auch das komplette Unterfangen in den Orkus geworfen hätte werden können, war nicht vorgesehen. Die tatsächliche Community, nicht die handverlesenen Jubelperser der Umbenennenwoller, hat sich mit 10:1 gegen dieses Unterfangen ausgesprochen, in der einzigen tatsächlichen Communitybeteiligung bislang. Und das Grüppchen Umbenennenwoller erdreistet sich tatsächlich, noch immer Vorschläge anbringen zu wollen, die sich um das abgelehnte Wikipedia drehen, besser kann doch eine Missachtung der Community gar nicht ausgedrückt werden. Das ist allesamt nur eine Pseudobeteiligung, die als Schutzbehauptung dienen soll, mehr nicht.

Ich weiß nicht, warum es der WMF immer so schwer fällt, Projekte, die an der Community vorbei gepusht wurden, und die bei der Community mit Pauken und Trompeten durchfallen, dann zu den Akten zu legen, sondern immer mehr und mehr und mehr Geld in solche toten Pferde zu stecken, schon gar nicht in so etwas komplett Nutzloses wie eine Werbefirma. Wir brauchen die Arche B aus Golgafrincham nicht finanzieren.

Ach ja: Natütlich sind die Angestellten der WMF nicht die Community, und die Werbefuzzies aud Norwegen noch viel weniger. Die Community sind die vielen AutorInnen, die den Inhalt der Projekte erstellen, und auch die unbezahlten Programmierer. Wichtig ist: die unbezahlten Kräfte, nicht die Angestellten. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 00:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Naming convention proposal discussions starting 16 June

Following up on the rescheduling of naming:

After additional weeks of legal review and a conversation with the Board of Trustees at their 22 May meeting, we have alignment to present three naming convention proposals for movement-wide review on 16 June.

The Board of Trustees affirmed support for the project and reviewed various naming options. They considered legal and financial implications of different approaches, and evaluated them based on their potential to act as compelling, unifying tools to elevate the work we are currently doing and ensure the future of our movement. Based on these assessments, the movement-wide review will revolve around:

• two naming convention proposals centered on Wikipedia
• one that is a Wiki/Wikipedia hybrid
• an open response area where respondents can share their own naming proposals. We feel confident that the vetting process has led to solid proposals, while we also want to ensure we are open to your ideas. We are committed to reviewing suggestions made in the open response area.

While these weeks of work have reconfirmed that naming structures centered entirely on “Wiki” would not be legally feasible or financially responsible, we were able to find ways in which “Wiki” can be used as part of movement naming. We know there will be questions around this, and look forward to discussing more in detail during the upcoming live presentation.

Join us for the live presentation of the three Naming Convention Proposals on 16 June at 15:00 UTC. We will present the various options that were considered, the risks and rewards of each, and how the process arrived at the three options for review.

As previously planned, the movement-wide review to follow will be multilingual and will rely on surveys for individual contributors, affiliates, and Foundation staff, as well as open discussion on Meta-Wiki, from 16 June to 30 June. The two weeks of feedback will help to remove, refine and recombine elements from the proposals into a single, synthesized proposal.

Looking forward to taking on this phase of the project together. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Is there a justification as to how the first three proposals could satisfy the first principle of good movement branding? In all the time this project has been running, there's never been a proof that it's possible to come up with a naming system that doesn't increase confusion when the name Wikipedia is used for something that is not an encyclopedia. Given that the naming proposals seem to exist at this point, it should be possible to provide an existence proof that a naming scheme exists. Either using one of the names that will be proposed, or a name that was rejected for a reason not related to confusion. TomDotGov (talk) 20:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no "status quo" proposal, so the discussion is a sham. Nemo 20:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

+1 —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:12, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

There will be an explanation as to how the proposals reduce confusion, both in the live presentation and on the documentation for the proposals. Then it will be up to respondents to determine if they agree, and the survey will ask for this (as described). The open response area in the survey will allow those who believe the status quo is the strongest option to put it forward and explain its merits, so yes, the status quo is an option. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Irgendwo wurde mal gesagt, das Ergebnis des RfC würde in die Vorschläge eingearbeitet, das kann ich nicht mal im Ansatz erkennen, augenscheinlich benutzen alle Vorschläge das klar und eindeutig abgelehnte Wikipedia, zwei sogar ausschließlich. Warum gibt es diese komplette Ignoranz gegenüber der Community seitens der Umbenenner? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 06:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll try it once mor in english: The community overwhelmingly rejected any inclusion of WikiPedia in a naming convention, now you obviously completely ignored the community and didn't include even a single proposal without that already discarded word in it. So the small group if rebranding enthusiasts decided to ignore the community completely, why should it bother to engage in this enterprise now, as it seems perfectly clear, that it's just window dressing and the group doesn't care about any community input. How do the renamers justify their complete disdain of the community? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

ELappen (WMF) I am eager to see the three proposals, and I hope to contribute to advancing the process. I am particularly interested in the risk and reward analysis you mentioned. A few years ago there were somewhat parallel events where there was comparable level of community opposition. It was called Superprotect. To make a long story short the issue was resolved when the community made it a Board of Trustees election issue. The community fired and replaced all five elected members of the Board of Trustees who then fired and replaced all four appointed members of the Board of Trustees. The Foundation Deputy Director responsible for Superprotect resigned, the Executive Director was gone not long after, and the Foundation completely reversed course to respect the clearly-established community consensus on the issue. I would be eager to see your risk&reward analysis if the Foundation were to adopt any of the Wikipedia-related proposals and this were to become another election issue, if the community were to again replace all elected and appointed Board members and the new Board were to then completely rollback the branding deployment. What would be the level of cost, disruption, and embarrassment resulting from a rebranding deployment&rollback? I expect such a fiasco would receive significant media coverage. I look forward to examining this more deeply during and/or after the live event. Alsee (talk) 15:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Interesting times. I too would like to see a risk/reward analysis. My guess is that someone will be making a nice profit out of this, and will deliver nothing of lasting value. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

This rebranding project has been running for how long? Six, twelve months? The Board already decided years ago. And we get two weeks for "consultation"? What message does that send about how much the Foundation values our input? Pelagic (talk) 18:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

It says quite a lot. All so-called "community input" up to now, besides the RfC, was in small groups heavily dominated by those, who pressure massive for a change to WikiPedia, and most of it is redacted in some shady back-rooms by the same group with a certain mission. Now there ist some meagre 2 weeks to get real community input vs. the handpicked input up to now, that's just ridiculous. But it's quite telling at the same time. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I will point out CentralNotice/Request/Movement Brand naming proposals, which could probably use more attention. It covers how logged-in users of projects will be messaged about this, and when the survey will take place compared to when the proposals are first announced. TomDotGov (talk) 18:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): Presumably, Legal wrote up an analysis or summary of the issues relating to the use of "Wiki", yeah? When can we expect the document to be posted (assuming there's nothing necessarily confidential there)? --Yair rand (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: Yes, Legal has done an analysis of the challenges around Wiki. The issues will be discussed in the presentation on the 16th, and there will be an FAQ posted about it as well. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was talking about the original document, which (assuming there was one) was presumably made available to some of the WMF staff. When will that be available? (Not that I don't trust your colleagues' communication skills in writing an FAQ about it, but I strongly suspect that many of us would have a clearer understanding of the issues if we could see the text straight from Legal. Also, in general, transparency is good.) --Yair rand (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: I spoke to Legal to get a sense of what will happen beyond the presentation and the FAQs. Legal is currently focused on preparing for 16 June, and is integrating the important points about “wiki” into the presentation to ensure those points reach a large audience. They will also be preparing documentation about “wiki” to be published following the presentation, which I believe is more what you have in mind. While they cannot publish the entire detailed legal analysis as it contains information that is confidential and legally sensitive, they will be publishing what they can. They will also be available to answer follow-up questions on “wiki” on-wiki (sorry couldn’t resist the pun :) ) --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): :)

Understood. Thank you for the information. --Yair rand (talk) 22:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

As part of the people against all names based on Wikipedia, I am eager to be solicited for the only one that is a Wiki/Wikipedia hybrid. I do not feel included when I have a choice between only one option. Well, I won't be mean, the open response area will be nice to have a dispersed list of suggestion what may need a new loop of legal verification and risk analysis. I am still curious to see how this free space will be seriously reviewed when a lot of those options may have already emerged months ago. I fear it will be a messy conversation. Noé (talk) 09:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Why have you completely disregarded the RfC and only used proposals, that were dismissed already by an 10:1 community consensus? You kicked the community smack in the face with this blatant disregard of the RfC. There is obviously not a single proposal,that doesn't misuse WikiPedia for the foundation, not a single proposal, that respects the community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

CentralNotice survey should be delayed a week to allow for proper review

I cannot support the CentralNotice banner request until we are given a chance to review the naming proposals themselves, and the status quo is included as an option. There is also no information about banners in any of the languages. This is not a great way to run surveys for our movement, it is inconsistent with what has always been required of the community by the WMF in the past, and delaying it by a week and allowing for proper review of the survey design would greatly help.--Pharos (talk) 02:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

This is an excellent example of why community review for this type of thing is neeeded: Biased survey introduction.--Pharos (talk) 08:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree. The survey text is biased, suggestive and includes false statements and is therefore, invalid. See for example:

Our free knowledge projects are created by a global movement. Since 2003, we have used the term "Wikimedia" to refer to this movement. However, after 15 years, the name "Wikimedia" remains unknown and confusing to the outside world. This makes it an ineffective tool for explaining who we are, demonstrating the impact of our work, and inviting new people in. By contrast, Wikipedia is globally-recognized, but it is not widely understood as part of a larger ecosystem of projects and communities. The 2030 Movement Brand Project works with communities to bridge this gap. It uses Wikipedia as a central reference point to communicate who we are as an interconnected, global movement.

• The naming proposals that you'd put forward have not yet been disclosed.
• The text insist and invites people to vote for "Wikipedia" even when it is pretty clear that the real community survey shows that there's absolutely zero community support for such a rename.
• The status quo option is not included. A real survey should include it.
• The text mention that you've worked with the communities when such a thing clearly did not happen.

—MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear what the purpose of this "survey" is. If it's a brainstorming session for those who agree with the WMF employees' view on something, that should be expressed clearly. If it's supposed to play some role in the decision on whether to do something, then it's clearly inadequate.

It should be clear that such a survey, whatever the numbers of participants, cannot supersede a proper RfC. Therefore, the existing RfC will continue to be active, and should be given at least equal airtime in the CentralNotice.

I'll note that it's highly unethical to subject thousands of users to Qualtrics, a company which provides no guarantees of privacy and relies on proprietary software. The very use of such a software tends to introduce selection bias, excluding the people who care the most about the traditional Wikimedia values. Nemo 15:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• For the reasons outlined above the banner must not go live.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• This entire proposal does not appear to be proceeding well. I can only speculate that someone at the Foundation has bet his/her career on a specific outcome. -- Llywrch (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• I was notified this discussion via email by Pharos, with whom I have corresponded off-wiki in the past, and possibly briefly IRL at an event or something. I don't expect they have a specific reason to be able to divine my opinion on the matter before hand.

It's...not entirely clear who involved in making this has a background in social science methodology rather than public relations. They're not the same thing. Yes, the opening statement is clearly advocating for one "side". This renders the results meaningless if in favor, and damning if opposed. That's why you don't construct surveys this way. It's not clear why we are evaluating the survey when the survey is incomplete. Assuming this is functioning as some kind of crowd-sourced-quasi-IRB, that's not really how this works. Please come back when you've finished your submission in it's entirety so that we can review it.

Beyond that, it's not clear why this survey, and the time involved in requesting input from volunteer human subjects is justifiable in any scientific sense, when there is already an ongoing RfC with 10 to 1 against renaming at all, and in favor of the status quo. I would like to know who exactly thinks that a fundamentally methodologically flawed and incomplete survey submission somehow overrides the community process that we already have in place to make nearly all of our decision making.

If you're intention is to override a preexisting 10 to 1 consensus because that's what the PR people are telling you do to, then just do it. Don't waste time on a perfunctory and superfluous survey to play lip service to the community. Surveys involving human subjects necessarily entail an opportunity cost, and I see no justification here for that. GMG^talk 14:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• The RfC was largely a binary vote/!vote. While I agree with GMG/Pharos about the methodology of this study being problematic, I can also appreciate that something as tricky as a branding process needs an approach that isn't just plainly presenting two options and having people vote. It's the sort of thing that needs discussion of perspectives, brainstorming possibilities, etc. So I don't blame those involved for not looking at the RfC and saying "well that's it then."
  What the RfC does demonstrate more than anything is that the status quo needs to be on the table. I think a concern being expressed here is that it's not -- that another outcome seems preordained, with the process tailored to match. People aren't going to want to volunteer their time to talk about this if they think their opinions won't matter. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:44, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Up to the RfC there was no alternative at all, they already had decided, that there should be a renaming to WikiPedia, so the vote/!vote was exactly matching the choices at that time. The small group of renamers wanted to move on on their preordained path, with community input was asked for just for some minor niceties. They bent the few former surveys against the real outcome to fit to their private goal of renaming. I fully blame those, who didn't bother to ask the communities in a proper way about the basic assumptions, that this has escalated thus far. I couldn't care less bit about some senseless deadlines set by those, who push this renaming against the communities. If this lasts longer, so what? It's absolutely no problem whatsoever. There is no fixed deadline in the beginning of 2021, that's just wishful thinking by some functionaries. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 14:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Addressing concerns about the Naming survey

Hi. Concerns about the Naming survey have been posted in different places. I’d like to address them here.

As a recap, the 2030 Movement Brand Project has been directed by the Board to deliver a new brand for our movement by Wikipedia’s 20th birthday in January 2021. If approved, the new branding system will be offered to affiliates opt in and it will be used by the Foundation. The wiki project names will not be affected by this project.

This project is about addressing issues that have already been identified with “Wikimedia”. In addition to it being mostly unknown, the term itself does not explain that we are a movement of projects and communities. This has been demonstrated by research, which has also demonstrated that the word “Wikipedia” is globally-known. This project is, and has always been, about developing an alternative to “Wikimedia” to solve this issue, and our direction from the Board is to use “Wikipedia” as a central reference point. The naming survey, therefore, asks respondents to look at several proposals which are the result of a long development process including consultations with various community groups. These proposals have been vetted by the Board and the Legal team.

These proposals are starting points for discussion, not a vote to decide which option wins. This survey is about designing the best alternative possible. . The survey feedback will be used to determine which elements of these proposals should be removed, refined or recombined in order to build one strong proposal. We also offer an option for participants to propose their own alternatives. Because this project is about developing an alternative, keeping the status quo is not presented as an option in the survey. Again, the new brand is opt-in for affiliates, so if Wikimedia works for them, they are free to keep it.

With the understanding of what our parameters are, I’d welcome your suggestions on how we can make our goals clearer, and we will do our best to integrate agreed text modifications as soon as possible. The survey will launch with the Live Presentation on Naming Convention Proposals on Tuesday 16 June at 15:00 UTC. Please keep discussion in Talk pages. When project pages are constantly modified, it creates difficulty for translators and anyone attempting to follow along. The purpose of project pages is to explain the project’s purpose and development; we want to document our work on this community wiki so we can answer FAQs and keep our communities updated without asking them to follow our work on a separate online space for Foundation work.

About the Central Notice banner, we will discuss the details on the request page. This survey is a very important opportunity for everyone to participate in creating the best naming alternative to present to the Board. We count on Central Notice banners to allow as many people to participate as possible, but if the CN admins oppose we will respect their decision and will find alternatives.

- ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 21:49, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The community has already made a decision with 10:1 for explicitly not using the word WikiPedia for anything else but Wikipedia, you are again and again completely ignoring and rejecting any community input that doesn't fit your already made assumptions and (mostly wrong) decision. Why do you pretend to have any interest in community input, while you spit the community in the face with proposals, that include the word WikiPedia? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

BTW: Your lack of any communication with the community speaks as well quite a clear language. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:59, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): This is not a message that responds to the community's many concerns, both with this survey and the branding process.

The community that created the Wikipedia brand's value has made clear that it does not want the value it has added to that name diluted by having it used for the foundation. (And members of the other projects do not want the value they add diminished.) While certain members of the foundation's staff and board have chosen to ignore this, the movement as a whole has made it clear that this is not something that it considers acceptable. Your role should be to make the Movements's stance clear to the Board and Executive Director, so that they can determine what options fit within the parameters set by the Movement.

The Movement has been part of the Branding Project from the start of it - indeed, it's listed before the Foundation on the Branding Project's page, and has been since that list was created. It's up to the Foundation to achieve consensus as to what these shared project pages should say. There are plenty of ways that this project could move forwards, such as holding an open discussion as to what potential names for the Foundation could be, and it's likely that if the Foundation supported those discussions, they'd proceed faster than a survey that does not contain any options that the community has indicated it would find acceptable.

As to editing the project pages, I'll point out that the Movement is as much a part of this project as the Foundation. Perhaps more so, because the community creates the value for these projects, not the Foundation. I wouldn't find it appropriate to request the Foundation staff to limit their editing to Talk pages, and I think it is is inappropriate for you to request the Movement to similarly limit itself. That being said, if the Foundation was to engage the community on talk pages more, as part of the "wiki process" our founding principles ask for, that might help things move forward. TomDotGov (talk) 23:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• @ZMcCune (WMF): Would you be open to volunteers creating a survey, in consultation with your team, in order to collect the relevant information while avoiding some of the problems the community has pointed out? I imagine we could put something together within a week or so. --Yair rand (talk) 23:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with @Yair rand: something like this could be put together promptly to bridge this disconnect. Creating movement-internal confusion + distress is itself a branding issue (for the initiative itself) -- one that is easier to avoid now than after the fact.

And we should be having more open discussions about renaming and its implications for parts of the movement (assuming you are talking about naming the movement and not simply the WMF itself). A movement's brand is less a question of naming than of shared identity, of process, communication, coordination -- all multiparty issues that are not as simple as a Board decision about choice of trademark. Where is the Meta page discussing what it would mean for the movement as a whole to be named for Wikis generally, or for Wikipedia as a similar collaborative framework and spirit beyond a specific encyclopedia project? –SJ talk  01:35, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't care les but about some artificial deadlines next January, if the functionaries don't listen to the communities. The communities define the movement, the functionaries are just mere janitors and not deciders, they have to live with a missed self-set deadline. Nothing really needs to be done in a hurry, January 2021 is completely irrelevant. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 14:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Appreciate the additional thoughts here @Yair rand:@Sj:. Talking with my colleagues now. Will follow up shortly. - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 17:00, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yair rand: @Sj:, thank you again for your suggestion. Some thoughts:

We are prepared to make some changes to the survey based on feedback. We can improve. The primary concerns we have heard are about the survey introduction and the fact that Wikimedia is not included as an option to evaluate. We are going to modify the survey introduction (the landing page), clarifying what this survey is and what is not, eliminating the language that people have negatively reacted to, and also explaining why "Wikimedia" is not presented as one option in this moment of review

We are glad to promote Meta-Wiki as a place to have open discussions about naming, involving whatever volunteers want to bring to the table (other alternatives, Wikimedia, etc.). The feedback shared in these open discussions will be analyzed and incorporated into how we move forward. Using a survey is a powerful tool that allows the project team to across synthesize feedback across several languages and from many types of Wikimedians, which is why it is our primary tool. I do want to mention that, so far, many of our invitations to discuss on Meta-Wiki have been met with attempts to end discussion and shut the process down completely. Can we collaborate providing a safe, welcoming and creative space for everyone willing to participate? We understand that many people oppose change and we are of course open to hearing about that, but we would like to be able to truly collaborate and discuss proposals to improve our movement branding, which is the objective the project has been tasked with.

Yes, let's work together on that. I understand your point; feedback that feels like 'efforts to shut the process down' can stem from feeling that one's initial feedback was not listened to, and that the whole is not in fact a collaboration, but a fixed solution in search of a justification. Slight mismatches over time in how different groups communicate and make decisions can easily lead to cabal theories. –SJ talk  00:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): I would very much welcome initiating more discussion on Meta-Wiki. It was a great shame that EllenCT's own rather flawed RfC was the only open forum here, and it would have been better to counter it sooner with something more consenus-driven. I would be glad to work together to build toward on-meta discussion and a survey that can get consensus support, and I believe that some of the suggestions by SJ below are a great step in that direction.--Pharos (talk) 06:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Having put this survey together, we know that it takes quite literally hundreds of hours. This is due primarily to the review process, the technical elements of configuring a survey, and the translations. We don't want to create the expectation among volunteers that they will be able to quickly shortlist proposals and run a survey with them. We especially do not feel it would be constructive to generate momentum for proposals that are found not legally viable after.

We welcome additional channels or initiatives providing community feedback about new naming conventions. All the better if proposals use Wikipedia as a central point (as requested by the Board), use "interconnection" as a concept (as concluded in the previous phase) and comply with the qualities for good movement branding (identified in last year’s consultation). But even if they don't, we will process this feedback and integrate it with the other feedback received through the survey. It’s a collaboration :) - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It is good to see this restated here (even if noted on a few occasions previously!). Are proposals using Wiki as a central point also welcome? Does legal viability here mean ease of trademarkability? –SJ talk  00:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sj: There is a proposal that uses Wiki that we are excited to share! How much is part of the tensions we ran into in while testing ideas. Foundation legal staff will be part of the discussion tomorrow to also provide more information. - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 02:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sj: Just to deliver back on this, wanted to share all of the Legal and Market research we conducted on "Wiki." - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): Thank you. Two specific ideas:

• Hold a meta RfC for brainstorming potential new Wikimedia brands (e.g., brand ideas other than Wikimedia). This matches some of the discussions or feedback gathered elsewhere, in more private channels, but the discussion would be public and clear for communities watching Meta for such things.

This can be seeded with popular options coming out of the brand project discussions to date (with a note about how and where they originated).

These ideas may find uses in the movement even if not used for core cross-Project branding.

• Help clear up a persistent source of confusion -- how are different groups currently thinking about how to separate and treat with care each of following:

a) updating the name of the movement;

b) updating the name of the global Foundation;

c) updating recommended + available naming schemes for chapters + affiliates;

d) updating names of & language used to describe smaller projects;

d') specifically, how smaller projects will be given more visibility and shared brand weight, and how that will support their growth;

e) communicating the above using concepts, language, and imagery developed around interconnection

This family of potential changes has been hard for me to follow and understand -- and conflating the above may feed some of the uncertainty and tension. Warmly, SJ talk  00:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): The most important suggestion I'd like to make would be to delete the FAQ page. That's a page that I've worked on quite a bit. But I think that since the start, it's really been a source of friction on this project. Since each question in it can only have one answer, we've been going back and forth and back and forth trying to determine what than answer should be. From the start, it felt like it was being used by the Foundation Project Team to manufacture consensus - to put certain topics beyond debate.

I'd suggest reducing this project's mainspace presence down to the bare minimum necessary, and conduct the discussion on talk pages and main space pages that operate on talk page rules. A new RfC, like Sj suggests. I'd throw out much of the prior work, including the "interconnection" concept - it's not clear how it was arrived at, it doesn't add much to the conversation. And much more importantly, if a community member suggest a good name, and the only thing that's wrong with it is that it doesn't involve interconnection, that isn't a good reason to throw out a good name.

While I don't expect this will happen, I'd strongly suggest that the reveal of the names tomorrow, and the survey, be postponed until this discussion occurs. I expect that revealing 3 names that reject the consensus of 400 users will yield many more users that are opposed to this project - just like the rejection of the consensus in the initial survey lead to the RfC in the first place. This presentation was cancelled at the last minute once before - there's no shame in doing it again if it reflects a choice to start working with the community.

I've been dying to formally suggest "Wikiverse Foundation" as a name. It's the name Sänger uses, translated to English. (Or if that's a trademark problem, then maybe Wikiversum? Or just apply some of the money allocated to branding until it's not.) We've been told for months and months and months that it's not time to discuss names, that names will be discussed later. That was stifling the conversation we need to have. Maybe we can finally have it. TomDotGov (talk) 01:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)