Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Legal/Update to banner and logo policies

Diff post

I have written a post about this initiative on Diff: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/01/24/help-us-collect-examples-of-community-discussions-to-run-banners-or-make-temporary-logo-changes/ --Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 01:15, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Promotion of for-profit services

Will this also cover banners which are not project-wide protests but promote other kinds of activities or resources? What about sidebar or main page links? For example Facebook pages and Microblogging handles list some projects where links to Twitter or Facebook are heavily promoted. Such links may or may not directly advertise an individual political stance but they do support corporations with a political stance and a purpose different from (if not antithetical to) Wikimedia Foundation's. Nemo 11:30, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: No, setting policies about what websites can be linked to from the body of wiki pages is not within the scope of this initiative. --Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you but I didn't ask about content, I asked about banners. Nemo 17:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

+1, random example I stumbled upon today: monwiktionary currently displays a sitenotice to all readers and logged-in users inviting them to a facebook group + announcing a proposal which sounds more like a personal message to a specific user [1] Johannnes89 (talk) 11:49, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Office hour

We have scheduled a time for conversation about this initiative on 4 February, 2025 at 16:00 UTC. You can sign up to attend at Event:Office hour for the banner and logo policy update initiative launch. This office hour is intended for questions and discussion about the initiative generally, as well as the research phase specifically. There will be time for additional conversation later about particular policy changes. --Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you to everyone who attended the office hour conversation on February 4! Below is a summary of the questions that were asked during that time, as well as some comments from attendees.

Question: It is unclear what the rules are for some types of banner promotions. Some examples from the past: asking for submissions of research proposals; advertising open job positions (at affiliates or for Wikipedians-in-residence); promoting newsletters run by affiliates or other community groups; promoting affiliate membership; promoting social media accounts; promoting blog posts; recruiting new editors; thanking major donors. Would these be addressed by policy changes?

Answer: Many of those examples likely would not be within the scope of this initiative, but it is good to know about them. This initiative is focused on banners and logo changes that use Wikipedia’s reputation to take a position on external topics. This initiative is not intending to address every type of potential use of banners, and decide whether they are appropriate or inappropriate.

Question: How will any new policies be enforced?

Answer: The first step is to have policies that are as clear as we can make them. That will enable project communities to ensure themselves that they are following the policies, which is how most policy “enforcement” happens on the projects generally. If there are situations that are escalating into disputes or major issues, we can expect them to come to the Foundation’s attention. If there are more issues arising than can reasonably be handled on an ad hoc basis, we can consider adopting more formal mechanisms for review or enforcement.

Question: Will these new policies affect what logos can be uploaded to Commons?

Answer: The initiative is concerned with changes to the logos that are used to represent the projects and displayed to projects’ readers and users. At this time, there is no reason to expect that we will need to change the general permissive policy of allowing modified logos to be uploaded to Commons (per section 3.1 of the trademark policy).

Comments:

• CentralNotice admins do not always know how to process or respond to requests to run different kinds of campaigns, so this initiative may help.
• One way to provide clarity around what banners are allowed and what the procedure is to approve them would be to definitively say that CentralNotice policies also apply to Sitenotice banners. Some wikis already apply CentralNotice policies to their decisions about Sitenotice banners, but not all wikis do.
• There are additional types of actions that the policies might consider, besides banners and logo changes. One example is changes to the way pages are displayed (by modifying CSS or JavaScript), which could be used to take a political position. Another example is the removal of usernames from article histories.
• Currently, there is no guidance in the instructions for requesting changes to a wiki’s logo on how the modified logo should look.

Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia

For Russian Wikipedia, the things not mentioned are 1) emergency banner due to the impending 2015 en:Block of Wikipedia in Russia, 2) CentralNotice campaign about the same topic in 2022 that was coordinated with the WMF, 3) New Year logo changes that users can opt-out of (see ru:Википедия:Новогодние логотипы русской Википедии). There were attempts to commemorate the victims of Russo-Ukrainian War via a logo change as well, but they were sadly unsuccessful. stjn^[ru] 22:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing these examples, @Stjn. Is this the 2022 CentralNotice campaign that you mentioned? And if you have a link to the discussion about the proposed logo change that was not approved, I would be interested to see it. --Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

That campaign is mentioned on that page but it wasn’t the proposal from that page. CentralNotice banner campaign was coordinated with the WMF T&S and wasn’t through any Meta channels. As far as I can tell, it is at most documented here: ru:Арбитраж:УКР 2022#Решение в связи с потенциальной блокировкой. The link to logo change discussion was added already to the main page after my comment was posted. stjn^[ru] 20:16, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I can confirm we had two sets of banners about that in 2022. The first set was live (as far as I can see) from March 1st-March 11: this was created by WMF. The second set was live 30 March-31st March: this second set were created by one of the stewards. Ciell (talk) 15:54, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Update to timelines, April 2025

Thank you to everyone who has shared examples to add to the list and inform the research phase of this initiative. I would not have been able to find all of the listed discussions without local volunteers bringing them to my attention.

I have shifted the timelines for this initiative, with phase 2 extending into (early) August, and phase 3 delayed accordingly. There are two primary factors contributing to this change:

• First, the Foundation has recently started a process to set common global standards for neutral point of view policies. While that discussion is focused on project content and this initiative is about banners and logos, there is some overlap in thinking about how the Wikimedia movement relates to its principle of neutrality. The NPOV discussions can help to inform and produce better outcomes to the policy changes to be proposed as part of this initiative.
• Second, there will be some significant limitations on the amount of staff time that can be devoted to this initiative over the next few months. That is in part because of other important and/or time-sensitive work that we are doing (including the NPOV discussions), and in part because of some upcoming time off—I will be on an extended leave during May and June.

The updated timeline on the main page is our current best guess, but there may always be more adjustments needed to adapt to changing circumstances. Where we don’t want to compromise is in our commitment to achieving the best policy outcomes we can, and to building in sufficient time for community feedback and discussion (with support for translations and multilingual engagement). --Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

More clarification on target groups needed

@CRoslof (WMF): Thanks for the thoughtful proposal! In general, it reads very helpful for CentralNotice administrators. :) However, please add more clarification on the (banner) target groups.

The new entry under the "Special Kind of Banners" section of the CN usage guidelines only mentions readers: “Banners that qualify as “advocacy on an external topic” include any banner alerting readers to a proposed law or policy change, that may or may not include a request that they take action.”. But banners can also be set up for registered users (only). The proposed new policy “Use of Wikimedia sites for advocacy purposes” remains a bit vague on this part. Let me ask for a few scenarios:

What about CentralNotice banners on external topics like local non-Wikimedia cultural event that are only shown to registered users? What about only asking registered user to contact their government representatives about a proposed change to copyright law? — Would these banner proposal fall within the scope of this policy?

• If yes, please clarify that the policy concerns banners for readers and registered users.
• If no, please clarify that as well, but also take other means of internal banners like Watchlist-summary into concern. — If so, it would also imply looking beyond banner notifications: Would a massmessage sent to registered users (or even temporary accounts) or individual notifications that advocate for external topics also fall within this policy or is your proposal really only about communications to readers?

Thanks for your consideration. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 15:00, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this point, @DerHexer. I have been focused on actions that any reader might see, and hadn't considered whether messages that are only shown or sent to only logged-in users should be treated differently. I don't have a comprehensive answer at the moment, but I will think about how the policies might take that factor into consideration. Opinions and suggestions on the topic are welcome, if you or anyone else has them. – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

WMF review

What criteria will the Foundation use in its "internal review[s]"? What if a community refuses to change language or framing after the WMF's internal review? Will the Foundation veto the advocacy action?

It also seems to me that this new policy is a reaction to ar-wiki's advocacy around Gaza and a captiulation to outside commentators who have been critical of the WMF RE the war. Am I correct?

Finally, some hypos. Would the WMF have denied the action on ar-wiki? Would it have denied those on ru-wiki RE the war in Ukraine? If the answer is different for those two scenarios, why? voorts (talk/contributions) 22:36, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that these proposals seem suspiciously like a reaction to arwiki's activism, but I also take issue with the restriction on blackouts - in all honesty, a 24-hour blackout might not be the most effective, especially compared to a 48-hour one. if that restriction is necessary (which I'm not really convinced is the case), could it be extended slightly? Rexogamer (talk) 20:53, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Rexogamer – Do you know of any past project blackouts that have lasted longer than 24 hours? I don’t think any were contributed to the phase 1 research, but exact durations for past blackouts can be difficult to determine. – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 03:04, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @Voorts, and my apologies – your question made me realize that I missed a bullet point in transferring the draft over to Meta. I have added the point to the page, which reads:

Text in the banner and landing page should make it clear that it’s not all of “Wikipedia” or the “Wikimedia Foundation” which are pursuing the external advocacy initiative, instead it is the contributor community or affiliate proposing the banner (i.e. “The [LANGUAGE] Wikipedia Community asks you to….“).

The focus of the Foundation review of CentralNotice requests for advocacy banners would be the potential issues mentioned in the draft: would the banner misrepresent the Wikipedia brand or the Foundation’s position on the topic. In general, the banners should be written with an appropriate scope. They shouldn’t claim to speak on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, or on behalf of all of Wikipedia, if they are only written and approved by one project in one language. The review may also flag other aspects of a proposed banner that would not comply with applicable policies. The Foundation could, in theory, veto a proposed banner, and would have to in some cases (such as a banner that tells readers to vote for a particular political candidate). If there are concerns about a banner, though, the next step would be a conversation and not a veto.

Aside from flagging potential issues, the Foundation notification and review steps help to create opportunities for connection and collaboration. For example, it may be that there are other actions planned on the same topic, (by the Foundation, by other project communities, or by allied organizations outside the movement) that the Global Advocacy team is aware of but that the banner requestor is not. In reviewing the proposed banners, the Foundation could help to make connections between aligned efforts.

As to your questions about actions taken by the Arabic and Russian (and, presumably, Ukrainian) Wikipedias:

This policy work is not solely a response or reaction to any one (or two) instances of advocacy, and the multi-phase design of this initiative is intended to counteract the tendency to react to and focus on just the most recent actions. Part of what the phase 1 research showed, however, is that the recent actions on the Arabic and Ukrainian Wikipedias are unusual, at least in terms of their duration. The recent actions underscored the need for better, standardized processes and policies around using the projects for advocacy—which is what this initiative is trying to provide. The recent actions could also be indicative of a trend within the Wikimedia movement, where there is a greater desire than there has been in the past for project communities to use Wikipedia as a platform to comment on events in the world. If there is such a trend, we want to be prepared for it with appropriate policies.

I can’t say for sure whether specific past actions would have made it through the processes of the draft policies, but there are definitely elements of the actions on Arabic and Ukrainian Wikipedia that would be different if they were proposed under these draft policies. For example, the banners would have to use CentralNotice, and they would be limited to defined durations (which would require renewed conversations and community consensus to extend). I would be interested to hear from you and others, though, as to what you think the draft policies would say about particular proposed actions. Are there expected outcomes that you think are unacceptable or absurd? – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 03:04, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, @Chuck. I'm generally opposed to the Foundation having the power to veto community actions that have consensus within those communities. I understand that in some circumstances there may be legal consequences (e.g., regarding political advocacy or certain uses of WMF IP), but in my view the circumstances in which the WMF should weigh in should be the exception, rather than the rule. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:32, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I also want to note that, from an international human rights perspective (see wmf:Policy:Wikimedia Human Rights Policy), I think the freedom of expression for individual communities should outweigh the WMF's potential concerns about brand management, reputation, or political capital. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:43, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Logo colors

This mostly talks about "logo changes", but it sounds

If I've understood this correctly, we can replace the official/everyday Wikipedia logo with a variant to reflect some real-world things but not national or religious ones:

Which logos are allowed

Description	Appearance	Result
Official logo		Y Always allowed
Christmas logo		N Not allowed – Christmas is "primarily religious"
New Year's logo		Y Probably allowed – New Year's is primarily secular and apolitical
LGBTQ Pride month logo		Y Allowed for a month – Pride is a month-long heritage event
Ramadan logo		N Not allowed – Ramadan is a month-long religious event

Even if the logo can't be used in the top corner of the page, it sounds like it's always okay to display logo variants in the banners, if:

1. they're not replacing the logo in the corner, and
2. they're set up as CentralNotice banners instead of being posted locally.

For example:

Banners for anything

Description	Appearance	Result
Everyday banner		Y Allowed
Christmas banner		Y Allowed
New Year's banner		Y Allowed
Pride month banner		Y Allowed
Ramadan banner		Y Allowed

Overall, assuming I've understood this, I think that this has the following effects:

• Some viewpoints are supported and others are not. For example, the policy supports month-long celebrations of women and gay people, but no celebrations of religious or national identity.
• We will have discussions about whether certain events are actually national/political. For example, is the modern Santa Claus, with his magic reindeer, actually a religious symbol? Is Thanksgiving a prohibited national celebration, or an acceptable generic harvest festival? What about w:en:Indigenous Peoples' Day (United States)?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary, WAID. My thoughts are similar to yours, except on "the policy supports month-long celebrations of women and gay people, but no celebrations of religious or national identity" – the policy would prohibit logo changes for national/political/religious reasons, but it would still allow banners or blackouts for national/political/religious reasons. For the WMF people: Is this interpretation correct?

I share the concern that these definitions can be blurry. For instance, the table lists four Wikipedias as celebrating various New Years. None of these are entirely non-religious. Would logo changes for these holidays still be allowed? Toadspike (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, there is fuzziness in some of the definitions. I think that is somewhat inevitable in trying to draw distinctions between different types of holidays and commemorations, with the alternative being clearer rules that (likely) disallow more things. If there are alternative proposals for how or where to draw distinctions, or if there is a preference for more clear-cut rules, please let me know.

One of the complications with logo changes is that they lack context. In a banner (or blackout), a logo has accompanying text that explains why the logo is being used and what it means. A logo change on its own, though, could prompt a wider range of interpretations by different viewers. And the same logo could have very different meanings at different times. A logo that incorporates a country's flag, for example, could be a fairly benign celebration if displayed on a national holiday, but in a different context could signal support for a particular political movement.

On the specific question about the New Years logos—I don't think those would be disallowed under the draft policies. – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanations. The context here is really helpful in understanding why the rules were designed this way. I think I support them, especially as it looks like they will be enforced by reasonable people in reasonable ways, e.g. by allowing the New Years logos. I understand that some rules are necessary to protect the projects and WMF from legal risks, but I'd prefer if they were fairly lenient. Toadspike (talk) 22:22, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

September 2025 Office Hours

I would provide a summary here of the office hours held on September 17 and 18, but no one attended them and therefore there is no discussion to summarize. If there is interest in additional live conversation about the proposed policy drafts, let me know and I can schedule another office hour or two for early October. – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 04:00, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

"[R]esponding to country-wide blocks of Wikipedia"

Is this occasion categorized as "external"? We are the subject of being blocked. We should be allowed to protest for a longer length of time, shouldn't we? --魔琴 (talk) 22:19, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Banners about blocks of Wikipedia would not necessarily be considered "external". They have been prominent uses of banners for advocacy purposes, though, so they seemed worthwhile to include in the phase 1 research.

I do want to note that the proposed policies don't prohibit banner campaigns lasting longer than one month. A project community can extend the banner campaign by renewing its approval (i.e., making sure there is still consensus to continue running the banners). This helps to avoid open-ended banner campaigns that have no clear end date or process by which to decide to stop running the banners.

In practice, a block of Wikipedia is a big enough event that I expect there would be significant coordination among the affected project communities, relevant affiliates, and the Foundation's Global Advocacy team regarding the strategy for lifting the block. Whether banners should be used, when and for how long the banners should run, and what the banners should say would all be discussed in those strategic conversations. – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Very little reaction

A few days before the deadline almost no discussion is taking place. That was to be expected as it is a highly technical issue, presented in clinical language. But on the other hand, while it is framed as a clarification of existing policy this paper may be seen as shaping the autonomy of the projects and the community in relation to the foundation.

I see two issues for the foundation, both are mentioned but maybe not understood well by the lay community: trademark dilution and the tax-exempt status of the foundation. Both are important for the projects and the communities so I am mostly fine with the focus of this paper.

Trademarks are curious in their legal construction, for our questions the important aspects is that they need to be used actively by the holder (or licensees) and defended from use by other parties to be kept up. Funny little tinkering with the trademarked wikiglobe might lead to dilution and ultimate loss of the exclusive rights by the projects. As our work depends on being recognized as the Wikipedia, this must be avoided.

Second: As in most jurisdictions any tax-exempt non-profit US may advocate for the purposes listed in their charter, but they are not allowed to engage for political, partisan issues. This differentiates them from for example political parties or PACs.

So the foundation should keep an eye and the lid on blatant political advocacy beyond lobbying for our core causes.

But: Is this paper balancing the power of the foundation well with the interests of the projects and the community? This is what should be discussed here. And it is a pity that is is so quiet here. h-stt !? 09:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Feedback from ViridianPenguin

Given that this update is meant to address brand value and legal restrictions on political activity by 501(c)(3) organizations, I fully understand prohibiting political campaigning and cautioning against political symbols like national flags. While I agree that one month is generally sufficient for banners, as anything beyond that is unlikely to reach new viewers, I disagree that one week for logo changes will be appropriate in such a vast majority of cases so as to justify formalization of this norm. For a smaller wiki, a one month logo change promoting a project milestone may be appropriate and would not be corrosive to its branding.

Second, I do not understand the rationale for instructing Wikipedia projects to generally limit blackouts to one day. While the enwiki SOPA and EU copyright blackouts only lasted for a day, as Chuck has noted above, I do not believe that this limited history has any reason to be formalized, given that this policy update will already limit the content displayed during a blackout to acceptable messaging.

Finally, I want to highlight the community's widespread view that the WMF Board has fallen far short of expectations in removing Bluerasberry and Ravan from the ballot this week without explanation but ostensibly for their difference in views from the Foundation. Given this experience, the instruction to clear advocacy banners and blackouts with the WMF Global Advocacy team must guarantee that the Foundation shall publish a public explanation for rejecting an advocacy banner/blackout within one week of doing so. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 02:50, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your positions. The terms are unnecessarily short, all of them do not really fit with demands of small projects. And I whole hearty support the demand that the Foundation must at least explain their decisions. @Chuck, please consider these statements in the final round. --h-stt !? 19:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @ViridianPenguin and @H-stt—your feedback is noted. One question about blackouts: are you suggesting that the time limit should be longer than 24 hours, or that there should not be a time limit specified in the policy? – Charles M. Roslof (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm neither of those two users, but I'll reply here as this is related to a comment I'd been meaning to make. I think the policy should not specify a time limit for blackouts, because I expect any blackout to be a response to a serious, unexpected situation, and in those situations I trust each affected community to come to consensus on an appropriate local response. If a community concludes that a blackout lasting several days is for some reason going to be far more effective than one lasting 24 hours, or that it is impossible for a project to operate normally until a particular situation is resolved, I would prefer that their hands weren't tied in advance. Of course, I would expect significant communication between the community and the Foundation in the case of an extended blackout.

I think the latest serious discussion about a blackout on the English Wikipedia shows that blackouts are not something the community takes lightly. I'm don't have much experience on other projects, but I agree with voorts's comments above: I'm generally opposed to the Foundation having the power to veto community actions that have consensus within those communities.

If there is going to be a time limit for blackouts in the policy, I would suggest that it be longer than 24 hours. But mostly I expect blackout situations to be so unique - and hopefully rare - that projects should have the autonomy to make those decisions. Opus 113 (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Same. It's not just about blackouts, it's all the term limitations. I'm not happy with having hard limits in this policy but if you deem them necessary for whatever reason, they need to allow for longer times and individual discussion. Not some unilaterally imposed policy. --h-stt !? 09:31, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Everyone in this discussion is from the English or German-language Wikipedia. These are large communities with organized procedures, established methods for voting, and a belief that they are Wikipedia and they are The Community™ – or, at least, the only community that matters.

But: our home wikis are less than 1% of the wikis controlled by this policy. I'd guess that 90% of the wikis are less organized than ours. Most wikis do not have a history of taking public-facing decisions at all, so we have no idea how they would respond. Dozens of Wikipedias and possibly a majority of the non-Wikipedias could be completely taken over in a short time by just two or three people. And then what will you do, if there is no policy in place, and they decide to blackout because they're mad about the Eurovision winner? Or because another Wikipedia has celebrated a cultural holiday, and they have decided to oppose it?

But blackouts are not something the community takes lightly, you say. Yes, I agree: blackouts are not something your community has taken lightly so far. But some other communities have already had some problems serious enough that you ought to think twice about their capacity, like that time an admin decided to run a cryptocurrency mining tool on every page load. Would you trust that community, and its (lack of) internal procedures, the same way you would trust your own?

One of the joys of the Wikimedia movement is that we get to learn so many new things. One thing I learned while editing the English Wikisource is a statement from James Madison in The Federalist Papers: "It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm".

I suggest to you that policies exist for those moments when enlightened leaders are not at the helm. To put it in more modern manager-ese: The reason we need clear policies is because, someday, an idiot will be in charge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Like @Opus 113, I believe that the required coordination with the WMF Global Advocacy team will be a sufficient guardrail against excessive blackouts, given that projects already dislike frivolous blackouts. Accordingly, no time limit should be specified in the policy. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 14:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)