Wikimedia Chapters Association/Quest for the Cool Name

In its July voting, the WCA has decided to open up membership for thematic organisations and give user groups a voice. Now we're facing a situation where the name (Wikimedia _Chapters_ Association) is inconsistent with who we actually define as our member base. So we need to change name.

Our first stab was "Association of Organisations". It was not accepted, but hey, I'm not overly sad. I guess, we can do better. But we need your ideas! What's a good name? Put your suggestions here or support a proposed name:

Association of Wikimedia Organisations (AWiO) --Mglaser (talk) 22:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Ziko (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is not much support for this. - Laurentius (talk) 04:04, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Association of Wikimedia Affiliates (AWA) Kirill Lokshin ^[talk] 22:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Society of Wikimedia Groups (SocWM) Nathan^T 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Partnership League (or Union) (WPL or WPU) Nathan^T 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WikiLeague (or WikiUnion) Nathan^T 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
+1 --Mglaser (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

-1. Sounds too much like Wikileaks. Der yck C. 05:28, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

-1. We aren't campaigning against each other! -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 05:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
League as in Holy League or League of Nations, not as in sports, I presume ;) --MF-W 11:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

-1. We should definitely use "Wikimedia"; anyone can call anything "Wiki-" (with Wikileaks being indeed a good/evil example).Ziko (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
International Wikimedia Groups (IntWM) Nathan^T 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Collaborative Union of Wikimedia Affiliates (CUWA) Nathan^T 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
+1 --Mglaser (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
("cool name", right? Alliance of Wikimedia Associates and Key Elements (AWAKE) Rui Gabriel Correia (talk) 08:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Chapters & Associations (WCA) Sophie ♡ 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Chapters & Associations Organisation (WCAO) Sophie ♡ 10:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Cooperative of Wikimedia Chapters & Associations (CWCA) Sophie ♡ 10:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This names would inaccurate, as not all chapters and thematic organizations are association (e.g. Wiki Med Foundation). - Laurentius (talk) 04:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Cooperative (WiCo) Sophie ♡ 10:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Organisations Cooperative (WOC) Sophie ♡ 10:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia United (WU) Sophie ♡ 11:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Collaboration (WiCo) Sophie ♡ 11:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Association (WMA) GastelEtzwane (talk) 12:41, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Ziko (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Pakeha (talk) 13:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

-1. Rather too close to "Wikimedia Foundation".Pharos (talk) 14:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The name is good, but it may be confused with the Wikimedia Foundation. Seen from the outside, "foundation" or "association" is mainly a technical word; i.e., you say "Wikimedia Foundation" and it sounds "Wikimedia Thing", where "Thing" may be "Foundation", "Association", "Inc", "Corporation", it's not perceived as important by the listener. - Laurentius (talk) 04:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Peer Network / Peer Alliance Nathan^T 13:05, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Knowledge Peer Cooperative Nathan^T 13:05, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Interwiki Association - (playing on both international orgs like Interpol, and the cosmopolitan wiki culture of the humble interwiki) Pharos (talk) 16:14, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Global Network (or replace "global" and "network" with similar words, e.g. Wikimedia Worldwide Cooperation). - Laurentius (talk) 03:48, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
+1. To this species of name. Pharos (talk) 04:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

+1. On this direction: Wikimedia Global, Wikimedia Network, WikiMesh, Wikimedia Global Network. All good options. slv (talk) 22:04, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
World Wikimedia Movement Organization --Fhaidel (talk) 13:59, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Federation / Wiki Federation / Federation de Wikimedia / Wikimedia Föderation --ThurnerRupert (talk) 22:37, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia International Federation (WIF in English or German), Fédération Internationale Wikimédia (FIW in French). A possible more precise alternative to the previous. verdy_p (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia International Committee (WIC in English, WIK in German), Comité international Wikimedia (CIW in French). (more or less like the international organization in the Red Cross movement, or Salvation Army moverment, or the Olympic movement).
If this is still not enough precise (or would cause confusion in the charter ruling the WCA, or the WMF with their internal usage of the term Committee), we could use instead the following. verdy_p (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
International Committee of Wikimedia Organisations (ICWO in English, IKWO in German), Comité international des organisations Wikimedia (CIOW in French). We certainly don't need the term affiliate because the WMF does not really want any legal affiliation, but wants full legal independance (though it is opposed to the recent change of the Wikimedia Affiliation Commitee, from the former Wikimedia Chapters Commitee). verdy_p (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The recent addition of an individual appointed by user groups creates a problem: user groups have no legal existence, and for me this member should better be a liaison member than a full member appointed in the Council. In fact user groups should better work by seeking support from one or more established organisations for some projects. As these projects are temporary, this is not compatible with the 2-year mandate in the Council, but the Council can still work in an unestablished online working group where users groups can interact just like they already do in all WM projects with their own hosted subprojects. For this reason I think that the WCA should never need any seat representing user groups. Instead user groups can support publicly some Councl members (which are appointed individually by one or more sponsoring member organisations). Members in the WCA Council are in fact just liaisons.

And even without the current WCA, all chapters can create mutual partnerships for some common programs (e.g. in the EU), or with lingual communities (and organisations like Francophonie). I wonder why we eed the WCA, when the only useful work will be on dedicated common projects working with the WMF grants program. The WCA should have remained just a temporary workshop existing for the time of the Wikimania, and disappearing soon after as the next Wikimania will have a new working agenda. Let's be flexible, and not add too much costly bureaucracy. verdy_p (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WCA will decide on a new name by August 8th, 2013 in Hong Kong.

Some thoughts - do the names all have to have "Wikimedia" in the title? Should they be descriptive names only, or can unique names (i.e. made up or adapted, repurposed words, etc.) be used as well? Do the names all have to be in English, or would a mix of language or a word in a root language be more representative of the international nature of the organization? Nathan^T 13:05, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Personal opinions follow.) There are no fixed requirements: probably a "Wikimedia" in the title would be appropriate, but if you think of a great name without it, it's good too. An English name is simpler, but it is not necessary. A name should give a hint of what is the subject, but it is not (usually) a description. I think that an ideal name should suggest that:

we are Wikimedia;
we are an international organization;
we are an associations of associations.

- Laurentius (talk) 03:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with these principles; also I would add my own perspective, that overdoing the description element with "chapters" or "affiliates" directly in the organization's title, would be too bureaucratic-sounding and boring.--Pharos (talk) 04:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

imo there should be a dedicated basic decision here if it is "wiki" only or "wikimedia": is it beneficial to make an organisation fully dependent on the wikimedia foundation by using a name legally owned by wmf, and beeing "close" in the name? or, it does anyway not mattter, as a rename in case of trouble is easy, and/or there is never trouble. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 22:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right. IMHO the presence of Wikimedia in the name is not a real problem: if in the future it will became problematic, we will be facing also bigger problems :-). I'm for Wikimedia in the name because we are not generically "wiki", but we are "wikimedia", but as said before, it's not necessary. - Laurentius (talk) 03:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]