Hello all (cc Yana, Michelle, Geoff, legal, board).
In a formal poll[1] proposed by two admins, the it.wiki community has
decided the following:
«The Italian Wikipedia community considers that, among all the actions
in defense of its name (as in public image and trademark) pertaining to
the Wikimedia Foundation, the maximum priority should be given to
recovering the domain wikipedia.it (and if possible its "sisters") and
therefore asks WMF to follow one or more of the legal paths suggested by
the experts to that purpose, using the funds assigned by the WMF board
for 2013-14.»
<https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sondaggi/Recupero_domini_a_nome_Wikipedia>
The decision has been taken 132:1:4 which seems to be the largest
absolute margin ever reached by a poll on it.wiki; the funds in question
are the "$700K to upgrade the trademark portfolio".[2]
Quick background:
* the domain wikipedia.it has been registered by a commercial hosting
provider in 2003; WMIT members and others have been in contact with him
since 2004 but he never replied;
* since 2006, the domain displays an ad banner "hosted by Yepa" on top
(in 2006-9 it also "trapped" the user in it via a frame), of which the
WMF is aware since 2006-12-14 (and has been reminded several times):
this makes many users[3] who believe it our official domain think that
Wikipedia is a for-profit effort.
WMIT, to serve the community's concerns, has sent an official complaint
to NIC.it in 2009 but the registration is formally correct (via their ad
hoc "Wikipedia Italy Association") so only the trademark owner (WMF) can
proceed with one of the 3 remaining legal tools (including challenging
procedure and arbitrage), as summarised by a document kindly provided to
the WMF by .mau., one of the authors of the NIC.it rules.
The last known concrete action taken by the WMF has been the extension
of the trademark to Italy in 2007, by Florence (thanks Florence!).
Nemo
[1] The last resort decision-making official tool which on it.wiki
overrides any decision past and future until revoked by another poll
with same requirements.
[2]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_2013-14#2013-14_Plan_Finances_and_Staffing>
[3] About 43 visits per minute that we were able to count via a
JavaScript trick by Pietrodn in april 2009.
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