Thanks Andrew! Let me repeat here my vote for “Wikidata” as the brand name, too
Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 10, 2019, at 9:05 PM, Andrew Lih <andrew....@gmail.com> wrote: > > I agree with Galder's and Camelia's thoughts and believe we should slow > down to think about this issue as a whole. We cannot, and should not, > consider this purely a "branding" exercise because the internal and > external risks go well beyond this. We need to carefully take them into > consideration. > > At the Berlin Wikimedia Summit, I was asked by Zack McCune and Heather > Walls about the branding issue. We talked about this at length so here is a > summary of what I expressed to them: > > - Outside view: I respect the work the comms/branding team has done, but > let's remember that the recommendations are from an outside consultancy > that focuses on only one dimension of this issue. Their work does not > consider our internal community and movement dynamics as a whole. So the > recommendation should be seen as just one data point. > > - Unproven causality: While it's true that familiarity of the "Wikimedia" > brand is low, the case has not been made that unifying our identity under > "Wikipedia" is a solution for the particular markets in question. There are > many other factors regarding adoption and recognition of any brand, not > just Wikimedia, including the commercial context of mobile/Internet users > and default consumer entry points to the information landscape (ie. search > engine settings, starting home page, financial incentives and > partnerships). Other factors are: first mover advantages (e.g. Korea, with > Naver.com's dominance over Wikipedia), or government regulation (e.g. > China, Turkey censorship) that affect any brand footprint. Remaking our > whole identity for the possibility that we *might* get better recognition > in certain markets needs much more careful study. > > - That was then, this is now: If this was 10 years ago, I would > enthusiastically embrace the idea of putting everything under the Wikipedia > umbrella. In 2003, before the WMF had staff and resources, I was one of the > primary volunteer contacts for almost all press inquiries about Wikipedia. > I know the headaches of having to explain what "Wikimedia" is to > journalists and the public. The book I wrote in 2009 was titled "The > Wikipedia Revolution" for name recognition, even though I knew "Wikimedia" > would be more accurate. But that was then. We are a whole lot more than > Wikipedia today. > > - We stand on three legs (and more): If there was ever a time that > Wikimedia was more than Wikipedia, it is now. The trio of Wikipedia, > Commons and Wikidata is the bedrock of open knowledge sharing in a way that > was not true even 3 years ago. Wikimedia Commons is a community of its own > with users of its content who never touch Wikipedia. See the many news > outlets and publications that use now use CC licensed Commons images to use > as visuals for their stories and products. Wikidata has quickly emerged as > the de facto way for libraries, archives and museums to connect their > metadata to each other. They are adopting it as their global crosswalk > database that has been proven to be more scalable and highly available than > anything in the information landscape. Wikidata is now regularly > incorporated into conferences outside of our own Wikimedia community, and > has the largest museum and library groups (Europeana, AAC, OCLC, IFLA-WLIC, > et al) working with it. > > Many times, I've had librarians and curators tell me the equivalent of: "I > never engaged with Wikipedia, because 'article writing' is not what we do. > But metadata and authority control records on Wikidata coincide with what I > do every day." I just had a phone call with a prominent museum collections > manager who said her goal was to eliminate their own local metadata > vocabulary in favor of using all Wikidata Q numbers instead. We are > reaching a new public with Commons and Wikidata that many Wikipedians, and > WMF employees, may not be aware of. > > - Wikipedia has a systemic bias: The biggest problem with Wikipedia is that > you have to know how to read. This sounds ridiculously obvious but > consider: in developing countries, we're often looking at a maximum 70% > literacy rate. That's a big hurdle for our strategic goal of knowledge > equity. We have yet to tap into video, multimedia, interactive and audio > content as a major mode of knowledge sharing. What of oral histories or > nontraditional/non-academic forms of human knowledge? The Wikipedia > community has been neglectful or outright hostile to the addition and use > of video and multimedia content in these areas. (I know this first-hand, > having headed video initiatives or having students consistently reverted > when adding multimedia.) Like it or not, there is an ingrained culture of > text-heavy articles being the dominant mode for acceptable encyclopedic > content which stands as a blocker for our evolution. > > What does this have to do with the branding exercise? The internal risk is > that by promoting "Wikipedia" as not just the flagship project but the > dominant overarching identity of our work, multimedia initiatives and new > forms of knowledge will be even more suppressed within the movement and > de-prioritized. We know Youtube is the number one how-to site on the > Internet with people learning by watching and listening, without even > needing to know how to read. Indicating that the written mode of knowledge > is the dominant thrust of the movement is antithetical to all we know about > what is going on with mobiles, video content and visual learning. It risks > being the wrong message at the wrong time. > > - Should Wikipedia culture be the movement's culture? Rebranding everything > as "Wikipedia" would effectively do this, so we need to think carefully. > Already there is an underground war regarding Wikidata use in Wikipedia > information boxes, and whether "control" of that data should be ceded from > a language-specific Wikipedia edition to the language-neutral, but emerging > Wikidata project. There is also an underground war about short descriptions > in English Wikipedia versus using the collaboratively edited descriptions > in Wikidata. The risk is that adopting "Wikipedia" as the unified brand > could very well undermine our community spirit of coming together for > solutions by, intentionally or not, blessing an entrenched approach above > all others. > > I don't claim to have the answer, but I'm worried by the lack of thoughtful > consideration that a re-branding would have on our movement internally. > Much of this is because our own community communications channels have > broken down, and we don't have great ways for deliberation. I hope we have > more considered conversation and not rush into any decisions on this. > > -Andrew > > > On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 5:14 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga < > galder...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >> I also think that there are some branding issues, but let me focus just in >> the opposite way: Wikimedia is not a bug, is a feature. When you say you >> represent WikiMedia, then someone asks about why an M ad not a P and gives >> you the opportunity to talk about our free knowledge ecosystem, that is not >> about an Encyclopedia, is much more. So deleting the M from the equation >> would vanish even more our sister projects. >> >> On the other hand, think that maybe in 2022 (for example) we could create >> a new project based entirely on videos with free content from Wikipedia and >> Commons, that could be the best project by 2030... and we call it >> Wikivideo. Would still be a good idea to be called Wikivideo, a project by >> the Wikipedia Foundation, or would we start thinking on calling ourselves >> The Wikivideo Foundation? I think that being Wikimedia gives us better >> opportunities to make better decisions on our products than identifying >> totally with one of the products. >> >> And I think there are branding issues, yes, but this are not on the name, >> but on the product and the logo families. >> ________________________________ >> From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of >> Strainu <strain...@gmail.com> >> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 10:56 AM >> To: Wikimedia Mailing List >> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals >> >> Pe marți, 9 aprilie 2019, Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> a >> scris: >> >>>> At the occasion, we should also reconsider the expressions "chapter" >>>> and "user group". >>>> "Chapter" is more suitable for local divisions of a national >>>> association. And "user group" sounds just like some group. We also >>>> already have "user group" as a technical term in MediaWiki. >>>> >>> >>> You may be aware that the movement strategy process is thinking about >> this >>> issue, albeit at a broader level :) >>> >>> For instance one of the questions the Roles and Responsibilities group is >>> looking at is "What governance and organizational structures do we need >> to >>> support the delivery of the strategic direction?"(1) >> >> >> One would hope that both that group as well as others will be informed and >> will take into account the results of the study, which confirm anecdotic >> data that almost anyone doing outreach knows. >> >> This is not a matter to be left at the foundation's sole discretion >> (although I personally approve the proposals to various degrees). >> >> Strainu >> >>> >>> You will notice that there is no mention of chapters, user groups or >> indeed >>> the WMF in this question. That's because there is no presumption that any >>> of those bodies (or types of bodies) will continue to exist in their >>> current form - the changes from the strategy process may well be much >> more >>> profound than finessing the names of categories of entity that currently >>> exist. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Chris >>> >>> >>> >>> (1) >>> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/2019_ >>> Community_Conversations/Roles_%26_Responsibilities#Scoping_questions >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ >>> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ >>> wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > -- > -Andrew Lih > Author of The Wikipedia Revolution > US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) > Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) > Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM > Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American > University, Columbia University, USC > --- > Email: and...@andrewlih.com > WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado > PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
