User:Sj/Memebrand

See also: the Community open letter on renaming

(~) This is a doc that anyone can edit. Suggestions + links welcome.

The Wikimedia Foundation is considering a name change. All current options are to rename the Foundation itself as Wikipedia. The options are "Wikipedia Foundation", "Wikipedia Organization", or "Wikipedia Network Trust".

A Branding Project is developing a proposal for this, via an outside agency and community brainstorming.

The community participants expected a public collaboration around new names, but have been offered staggered, small-group deliberations leading to a set of three very similar options. The use of Wikipedia in the Foundation's name is not popular, with over 90% opposition.

0. Context

The project is starting from the assumption that the brand Wikimedia will go away, and be replaced with Wikipedia, for the Foundation and the movement -- though historical affiliates, groups, and projects may continue to use Wikimedia in their name.

There is long-standing aversion to this in the community, including the desire to maintain a clean separation between the foundation and individual projects, including particularly Wikipedia (and its extensive on-project governance). Pavel Richter expresses that eloquently here: "The right of the WMF to choose its own name - but not Wikipedia". There have also been thoughtful proposals from within the community of how to unite naming schemes around Wikipedia, but the current discussions did not pursue those. Arguments motivating why the rename needs to happen, estimating its benefits, and reporting the current level of support or interest in a rename, have repeatedly misused statistics to make a point, a painful and off-brand faux pas in the wikiverse.

I. Why does this matter?

Why does the WMF need to rebrand? Some of the reasons given, largely from branding project docs and discussions:

1. Leading with Wikipedia
   • The initial idea, developed from 2016-18, was that leading in communications with Wikipedia would help expand reach and awareness, even when talking about other projects -- that places a conversation or idea in context for people in almost all regions and backgrounds.
   • This included exploring how to use this tactic to explicitly support smaller projects; and to reach audiences that knew little about the wikiverse.
   • In August 2019, the Brand Project "recommended dropping the Wikimedia name to center the movement’s brand system on Wikipedia", in a report that made had statistical errors (pointed out in detail, selectively responded to without acknowledging the error).
2. Fundraising ('to guarantee our future')
   • We fundraise off of the sites, where the brand context is clear. Does the WMF name matter for the $30 donors?
   • Our major donors all have lasting relationships and know who we are. Does the name matter for the $5M donors?
   • How would a new foundation name change fundraising messages?
3. Outreach in the developing world ('to serve the [whole] world')
   • How are we reaching the next 2B people? How does naming + branding impact that? How does the Foundation's name affect that?
   • How are we investing in this now, how is that changing?
   • Data^{[citation needed]} from the consultation^{[citation needed]} suggests Wikimedia serves as a barrier^{[citation needed]} to participation rather than an invitation, and creates confusion.^{[citation needed]}
4. Introducing what we do when networking
   • Idea: It takes an extra few sentences to explain one's work, and clarify that WMF is in fact the global foundation supporting Wikipedia.
   • If only revising the Foundation's name: the 'we' is limited to staff.
   • If revising the movement's name: this is already complex and takes a paragraph on introduction..

Ia. What is our brand doing for us?

1. Corporate vs Product brands are often very different.
   • Product brands generally take over the world. Why does the corporate brand here matter?
2. What are we doing for our product brands?
   • Starting a brand refresh with a heavily unpopular
3. Clarity of the network of related projects (the Wikipedia family?) e.g., the icon for “A Wikimedia project” on sibling sites. (NB: could be changed to "part of the Wikipedia family" w/o a WMF name change)

II. How is this happening, operationally?

1. What is the Board's role in this? Publishing a statement, the week of 6/22 Reviewing the updated state of the project at the August Board meeting. Approving any WMF name change, once a final proposal is submitted to them
2. What is the staff's role in this? Setting brand goals, deciding that renaming is important, setting timelines Hiring an external image company and organizing formal consultations and surveys
3. What is the public's and community's role in this? Organizing community discussion, surveys, and RFCs. Publishing an open letter. Reviewing potential impact and implications on their projects + in their regions. What brand approaches are working well now in each community?
4. How are timelines changing? The June survey was planned for June 16-30. It is being extended until July 7. It was intended to run via a site banner, with initial disagreement about what the banner should say and whether the survey was designed to the usual standard for banner-promoted surveys. A revised banner is being worked on by Pharos and Quim.

III. What do people think?

1. Surveys and internal discussions and research have been conducted privately, with anonymized summaries shared. A more explicit catalog of feedback, particularly including people able to advocate for and defend the impact of a rename, would help.
2. What do Affiliates think?
   • 30 have signed the COLOR letter.
   • What do Chapters think? Coordinated, small group. Pro: WMDE seems ok with it, is there enthusiasm? Con: what of the rest?
   • What do other Affiliates think? How many don't care, how much do others care? How many would want WP in their name (which they already can have, but may not realize)?
3. What do core community members think?
   • Very active editors, scripters, cross-wiki editors? Functionaries, stewards?
     • 350 have signed the COLOR letter.
   • New editors, in large + small wikis, on WP and other projects
   • Developers of tools and bots, especially those used in partnerships
4. When did calls for WMF to rename specifically to the "Wikipedia * Foundation" start?
   • By some accounts, for over a year; by others, only in the last weeks, after extended community and legal discussions
5. Related groups and popular initiatives
   • Wikidata, Commons, on Incubator
   • GLAMs, Wikixedians in Residence, Whose Knowledge,
   • Wiki Loves, Art+Feminism, Women in Red

IV. What are the risks?

1. Name changes are important to community cohesion (cf 2017 slides)
   • Wikipedia community members (particularly many of the more active editors) prefer to maintain a distinction between the projects and the supporting organisations.
   • Decohesion may both offset brand benefits and lead to long-standing confusion
2. Renders invisible non-Wikipedia projects.
   • Editors of non-Wikipedia Projects do not want it implied that their projects are less important. Unless we are renaming other projects "Wikipedia foo" a la Eloquence's 2007 proposal, having a global Foundation named after the original project can be disheartening.
   • To argue that Wikipedia is the limit of our ambitions and our only core identity is insulting and dismissive to the thousands of editors who join Wikidata and Commons every day.
3. Many Wikimedia organisations are concerned about being too closely identified with the Wikipedias, for legal reasons.
   • It is regularly useful for them to be able to highlight to governments that they do not 'run' or dictate policy on Wikipedia in any sense. Those
   • organizations would not switch to a "Wikipedia <country>" name, so changing the global Foundation's name would not lead to greater coherence.
4. Poor statistical techniques lead to mistaken impressions of internal and public impact, and a painful effort has no positive effect
5. Short-term backlashes
   • In media: Internal spats lead to local news coverage, not overly positive.
   • Throughout the Projects: the current confusion speaks to a lack of energy and capacity to address the above problems. This will make unrest a primary near-term affect on editors and small regional affiliates.
6. Increased inconsistency
   • Compromises over time have made bits of the core proposal optional. This will result in a confusing mish-mash of different names and inconsistent trademark uses.
   • Among those with a preference for naming everything 'Wikipedia' rather than 'Wikimedia', many have a strong preference not to mix the two (among groups/orgs of the same sort). However most organizations w/ Wikimedia in their name are not keen to change it, for identity, convenience, local recognition, or legal reasons.
7. Fundamental self-own
   • Brad Patrick, first WMF ED, on 🔥: on the fundamental role of the Foundation as protector of the marks and community identity
   • To argue that changing the Wikimedia brand will assist with outreach and new contributors implies the positioning of the Wikimedia brand and the Foundation in the center of our movement in a way that is inaccurate, full of hubris, and damaging to the good will and good faith of the volunteers who spend their nights and weekends making Wikipedia, and our other projects, the household name that they are.
   • Denies our true identity: a community that believes in clear-eyed facts, good communication, consensus-driven decision making, and a willingness to change one's mind in the face of evidence.
   • The community are prolific persuasive writers, whose output about and passion for the projects outstrip any paid brand campaigns. Taking their time away from other work to debate this is a loss.
8. Forcing WP values and WP conservativism onto smaller projects and organizations.
   • "If the Foundation changes its name, with all the asymmetry in power and branding capacity that exists, the rest of the non-WP movement will be forced to eventually follow suit. Simply because they feel they have no choice. This may be 3 or 10 years down the line. But affiliates will change to being 'Wikipedia' organizations. If this brings Wikipedia-values and Wikipedia-conservatism, it may be a great setback for other strategic goals."

9. Past concerns from Lsanabria : brand dilution, confusion of readers, unclear objectives.

V. What are counterpoints + confused claims?

1. Claim: this sort of rename is the central branding question, and needed to advance our public identity. Counter: Our greatest successes recently used other terms and phrases, have been driven by community practice and design, and have been joyfully generative:
   • Wiki Loves Monuments (and Earth (and *))
   • Wikidata
   • Art+Feminism
2. Claim: To be nimble in branding, we have to be able to move quickly in changing names and designs. Counter: The most impactful branding we can do that is nimble is responsive to current events and needs: how we can impact the world; where there is an avalanche of participation and contribution. contests, protest waves; local knowledge; local language.
3. Claim: the branding exercise is helpful and has shown us a way forward. Counter: Snøhetta used Coca-Cola as an example... it is not clear they understand much about communities like ours, or about us in particular.
4. Claim: renaming will give us greater global recognition and movement growth Counter: there is no evidence this is so; details matter. Small regional affiliates are suggesting it doesn't seem helpful to them. The WMF is currently spending almost none of its budget in those parts of the world. Name choice is the least of the challenges here. Counter: "leading with Wikipedia" in communication does not need to involve the Foundation's name, and often does not.
5. Claim: rebranding will reduce confusion. Counter: this process has greatly increased confusion within the movement; having more things named Wikipedia that are not the project itself will add confusion in a few dimensions. Counter: it is necessary to have the community on board for a change like this. The alternative is active, as well as passive, confusion

VI. Surveys and polls

• 2019: Survey conducted by WMF staff (40% opposition / 14% support, out of 144 individual responses; 34% support from affiliates contacted)
  • 2019: mini-RfC begun on the page about the above survey. (89% opposition, out of 28 responses)
  • 2019: Catalan survey about the possibility of a rename to "Wikipedia Foundation" (100% opposition, 42/42)
• 2020: Meta RFC in Feb, solely asking "should WMF rename to WPF". (92% opposition out of 562 responses as of July)
• 2020: June 16-30 survey, conducted by WMF staff. (intended for a CentralNotice; will we get one up now after a week's review?)
  • And accompanying straw poll by the community - (96% opposition of 115 replies, support only for write-in options.)
• 2020 Community Open Letter On Renaming [COLOR]: 52 affiliates + 3 regional non-affiliated orgs + 712 individual signatories as of July 4
  • Including: 4 former WMF board members (phoebe,kat,jb,sj); 1 former WMF ED; pavel richter (past WMDE and OKFN ED), 12 current chapters, 1 former CC CTO, 1 founder of Students for Free Culture, 1 Facebook founder.

Timeline

include public announcements, emails, surveys, videos, and revisions

Timeline of the Brand Project

• Link to the prev timeline
• Nov 2015: first presentation to Board
• 2018: start of this thread in strategy process, finding Snohetta?

  November Board meeting

• 2019: start of in-person community sessions. (workshops) Survey (August, posted KPIs in Sept)

  August Board meeting

• 2020: Feb - confusion; RfC ('too early'?); consultation; prelim decision; survey w/ 3 options?
• 6/19 - this page started
• 6/21 - All-Affiliates Brand Meeting (notes: 6/20, 6/21)
• 6/23 - Community open letter on renaming published, resulting from all-affiliates discussions

Other events

Past problems with statistics + proportionality

• Controversial Content survey (10)
• Risk assessment research (13?)

Responses and discussions

• Eloquence: 2007 proposal; 2019 query
• 2019: [Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_research_and_planning/community_review#Future_of_the_"Wikimedia"_brand%3F Future of the "Wikimedia" brand]

Alignment w/ core goals

• Branding should reduce confusion - seems to be growing internal confusion now
• Branding should protect and improve the reputation of the movement - how will this happen? seems like a public kerfuffle is brewing, which doesn't help anyone
• Branding should benefit the sister projects - how will this happen? projects feel left out and further in the shadow of WP. seems to limit their importance, rather than expanding to new frontiers.
• Branding should mitigate legal and government risks - seems to increase confusion over editorial control. how will it mitigate?
• Branding should grow our Movement - how will this happen? hand-waving or specific?
• Branding should be adopted gradually - starting w/ the WMF name is not gradual. The organic 400-person opposition to that approach was a warning which most community members assumed was internalized in planning next steps, but it seems to have been ignored. The three options proposed in June were quite different from expectations, and released dramatically all at once in a surprise reveal. This suggests future planned steps may be similarly surprising and will also not be gradual.

Misc. Examples

Has this language been used casually in the past?

Rarely, internally or externally.

Every instance of the phrase ever being accidentally in media:

• South Africa: Streetwear collaboration (8/2018)
• Little Wayne: LIL WAYNE AND WIKIPEDIA TEAMED UP TO CREATE THE COOLEST SHIRT EVER (2018)
• Decoding classical music (11/2018)
• random Bitpay article
• Santali project started

Past questions + comments

2020/4/16 video. Concerns: Itzik, Meg, Ad, Houcemeddine

• Name discussions
  • People aren't convinced there is a problem here. If we can't show the problem, should step back and rearticulate. "lack of recognition of WM" isn't obviously a problem: lack for whom, in what context, why can't we use WP already w/ them?
  • Will share possibilities along with options/risks, and then debate and add context.
  • Names are identity, not just tool. Strange that this isn't recognized.

• Scope: Movement (affiliates) + WMF considered "people using the m.name" => misunderstanding of depth+breadth of representation of affiliate representatives beyond the affiliates, how will it bring along "non affiliates" that actually fully belong to the mouvement but are not officially affiliates....
• Connection: focusing on showing how projects/communities/f's work together => make a process that follows that!
• Internal risk: what is feedback here, how much is risk considered? (Essie)
  • how much is the project/the C-team/the board ready to 'let go' community..
  • participation and engagement are very low. To choose a concept based on much less than 2000~ people (which I'm not sure we can say that all of them are the "community") - is not optimal... 47 comments is low.
• Risk assessments per proposal? per community/geography
  • "Yes, we will share these": naming and branding are tools. thinking internally about risks in choosing the options. want to know what risks there are in each community and region. [fundraising, product, tech, legal input so far]
• RFC, consolidated:
  • Want to continue that discussion: to know how people feel w/ specific uses of WP (not just "WPF")
  • Want to share profound advantages: for the next decade of movement growth and health, <insert brink argument here... scrappy... no marketing budget...> in many places, WP represents knowledge. What we want to impart.
• What will happen w/ the Wikimedia name + identity?
  • Has emotional valence for the community.
  • Confusing as a brand (misspelling), including for occasional press + donors. We can reduce confusion.
    • How does taking WP itself reduce confusion b/t the project and the foundation?
  • Proposals won't include WM, but the name will preserve in some places for now. Proposing new ways for "the movement to anchor itself" to a different name.
• Confusion:
  • We exercise big efforts to explain to everyone that Wikimedia organizations are NOT "Wikipedia editorial offices". Renaming "Wikimedia" organizations into "Wikipedia" organization will make it much harder. Don't you think trying to solve one big problem will create other big problem?
• "​Each year we see some donors ask for refunds "I thought I was donating to Wikipedia! Have I been scammed?" - M. Beattie. Q: why can't this be resolved by mentioning WP "(a Wikimedia project)"?
• Proposal: just "WMF", not "Wikimedia"? Plenty of historical parallels in other orgs.

Related, on funds dissemination

• Currently, the FDC was temp suspended at the launch of Strategy (b/c so many members were involved in both)
  • The overlap was a first failing, we should train and have many more engaged participants
• For the past 3 years? chapters have submitted a very simple application
  • All allocations have been frozen (!)
• The existence of the FDC was remarkable; one of our greatest successes. The feedback was practical and actionable, and improved the work and planning of some of the organizations.
  • Discussing how to reform the FDC w/ Winifred: Michal and others discussed how to focus on particular chapters, to work throughout the year (to be even more effective and connected)
• Frustrations developed from nitpicking, and the WMF in particular was frustrated by FDC feedback. But this was the first group that recognized problems facing WM France, and this was important.
• There is a thread of strategy to update the mechanism for funds dissemination

Related groups and discussions that may care

• ElecComm: postponement of this year's community election was delivered without discussion. ElecComm minutes have yet to be published... when should the next election happen?
• The renaming, trustee extension, and board expansion could all use clearer public explanation and discussion.