Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 movement brand project/Archive 3

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Ich habe nicht den Eindruck, das eine Mitarbeit hier sinnvoll ist...

...denn es wird ja sowieso nur das durchgezogen was die kleine Clique von Umbenennern von Anfang an wollte, ohne Abstriche, ohne Input von außen, ohne echte Communitybeteiligung, einfach rücksichtslos durchziehen. Der "Survey" ist mal wieder eine Farce, die vor institutionalisertem Bias nicht mal im Ansatz ernst genommen werden kann, der aber von den interessierten Kreisen vermutlich als echte Umfrage dargestellt werden wird. Die Befragung der Community mittels des normalen Instruments des RfC wird vollständig ignoriert, es guibt da facto gar keine Auswahl bei den drei vorgeblich unterschiedlichen Vorschlägen, und der Status Quo steht nicht mal zur Debatte, obwohl das eine conditio sine qua non zu sein hat.
Was soll diese Farce hier? Wem wollen die paar Umbenennenwoller hier was vormachen? Gibt es tatsächlich wen, der ihnen diese durchsichtigen Manöver abnimmt? Wer hat sie gewählt, dass sie solche Entscheidungen gegen die Community treffen dürfen? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:11, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Vergiss aber nicht das zur naechste Wahlen bringen.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Natürlich nicht. So wie damals die Unterstützung der Megatrolle, die SuperProtect eingeführt hatten, oder derjenigen, die DocJames böswillig rausgeworfen hatten, sich in den Wahlen niederschlug, wird sich auch dieser massive Verrat an der Community in den Wahlen der nächsten KuratorInnen wiederspiegeln. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Die nächsten Wahlen aus dem Kreis der Community für drei der Sitze des Board of Trustees finden bereits in diesem Jahr statt. --AFBorchert (talk) 17:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Nee, sie waren fuer 1 Jahr verschoben.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Und das Board wird vergrößert: Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/Updates from April 28, 2020 und auf [Wikimedia-l]. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, danke für die Hinweise! Dass bedeutet wohl möglicherweise, dass die Wahl erst stattfinden wird, nachdem das Rebranding durchgezogen worden ist. --AFBorchert (talk) 17:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Ja, genau.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Das hat schon etwas, dass das pünktliche Abhalten der Online-Wahlen als unwise and unreasonable betrachtet wird, wohl aber nicht das Durchziehen des Rebrandings pünktlich vor dem 20. Geburtstag der Wikipedia. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

A bit surprised, and mostly just disappointed

I had been under the impression that after the community's dramatic showing of opposition to the idea of flatly replscing Wikimedia with Wikipedia, such proposals were off the table. However, the proposed naming conventions are exactly that, with two variations of "Wikipedia" and one unusuable "Wiki".

Here is a quote from User:ELappen (WMF): I can’t speak for outcomes because I am not a decisionmaker, but I can tell you I would be *extremely* surprised if Wikipedia Foundation/Wikipedia France were proposed to the communities as a solution after all of the discussion and feedback that has happened.

Well, though Wikipedia Network/Organization are the two legitimate proposals, they are functionally indistinguishable from Wikipedia Foundation, and the overwhelming consensus of the RfC was in favor of keeping the word Wikimedia.

It has become painfully evident that the intention of this project is a name swap of Wikimedia for Wikipedia, exactly what the RfC was about, the results of which were discounted by involved Foundation employees as being unaware of the final proposals. Now that we know the proposals, those arguments attempting to void 450 contributors in opposition to a change are inherently no longer legitimate arguments.

As well as that, nearly every community process along the way has resulted in attempts by Wikimedia employees to frame the overwhelming community opposition as support.

There has been the absolutely asinine response KPIs, biased surveys and blog posts, completely unnecessary marketese (interconnection and onwiki replies to opposition), patently inappropriate CentralNotice requests, and otherwise alienating and ignoring the community.

The team working on this project has demonstrated a dramatic lack of understanding of how the Wikimedia community functions, community standards, and community responses. Unlike the consumer market, we're not as susceptible to fabricated and utterly meaningless marketing speak. We notice attempts at completely twisting data to ignore our input. We have and will always respond to attempts to ignore community consensus.

I will not lay out arguments against either of the three proposed naming conventions as there is an entire RfC with five hundred editors who participated (and 90% opposition) exactly on this subject. I will, however, continue to criticize the process by which some WMF employees are spearheading the effort to alienate the community.

Looking forward to responses from involved Foundation employees and community members alike, Vermont (talk) 13:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I also wanted to note; this is not what I wanted to do when I woke up this morning. I don't like turning on my computer to see yet another project being pushed by the WMF aganst consensus, whether it be rebranding, IP masking, the UCoC, paid APIs, etc. I'm sure that the other community members who have participated here feel similarly. We don't want to waste our volunteer time trying to stop WMF teams from ignoring us. I could have spent the last two hours or so responding to COIBot reports, checking deletion discussion sockpuppets, handling small-wiki vandalism, deleting spam, etc., but instead I listened to a long presentation full of marketing-speak with a message that could be summarized in a single PowerPoint slide, read the available documentation, read all of the above (and elsewhere) community member comments, and wrote my comment. If the Foundation is so set on pushing this rebranding through regardless of the dramatic opposition, at the very least don't waste our time trying to create a false sense of community participation, just do it. Vermont (talk) 14:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Spot on. Although it's not the top-line brand, I'll point out that "Wikipedia Foundation" exists in Option 3. If you get a chance, could you add similar feedback to the centralnotice request? While the request is a draft right now, it's still there and pending, so more feedback would be good. (This was written before your last paragraph, so if you don't want to spend more time on this, it's understandable.) TomDotGov (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not really surprised by this outcome (I think we should follow up at the projects by recognizing the possible rebranding decision as illegal), but I am really disappointed to see some WMF people involved who are also community members and who should have known better.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:01, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I also have many great experiences with a lot of WMF employees, and I am fully aware how hard they work, but already 13 years ago I started to notice the troubled relationship between WMF and the rest of the Wikimedia movement. While at the same time many WMF employees do their work fantastic, there have been too many occasions that WMF is working against the community it says to represent. Who is the boss in the Wikimedia movement? In my opinion that must be the community and not WMF. With behaviour where WMF is ignoring the community, something (big) is broken in WMF that needs to be fixed. Romaine (talk) 11:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

ELappen, could I ask for your response to my comment, specifically the listed quote by you and how community feedback has been ignored? I hope you understand that this is a painful experience for myself and many other contributors; I have had incredibly positive experiences with Wikimedia Foundation employees, many of whom I consider friends. In the majority of instances, the Foundation's representatives are understanding and helpful with community consensus and input, though there are a few cases of the opposite being true. It isn't a nice thing to watch the foundation that hosts my favorite volunteer project entirely ignore the volunteers who build it, especially when they specifically asked volunteers for input. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 01:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Vermont: I certainly understand this has been a painful experience. You have covered many points in your comments, and I wanted to make sure I could give a reply the time it deserves (these last days have been nonstop, as I’m sure you can imagine).

Firstly, I want to address the fact that, in response to feedback (from the RfC and elsewhere), the project team did months of work bringing non-Wikipedia naming options for consideration (you can read a bit about it here and here). In the process of legal review, financial evaluation and Board review, a number of things were taken off the table, put back on the table, taken off the table again. These things were always being looked at “in addition” to Wikipedia-centered names, but it was a top priority to work towards variety. Wikipedia was found to be the most pragmatic again and again.

In terms of replacement of Wikimedia with Wikipedia: the RfC alludes to a system in which Wikimedia is replaced with Wikipedia across the board, with no additional changes (Wikipedia Foundation, Wikipedia France). Even though the final feasible options were narrowed down to Wikipedia, they still do not represent a wholesale replacement of one term with another: Wikipedia + location is not an option anywhere, for example, and descriptor terms vary. I know you feel that the differing descriptor terms are indistinguishable, while from a branding perspective they are quite distinct. From a global perspective they are too, as we are seeing with discussions about the translations of these terms. The Wiki hybrid is also a departure, although I see you feel it’s unusable (I’m not sure why, but that is probably another conversation). I was indeed surprised to see Wikipedia Foundation present in any of them, just as you were. I do know that it was brought back after further discussions with different departments within the Foundation.

With regard to my comment that you’ve referenced, I hope this helps to give some context. In my position we constantly have to strike a balance between our desire to share as much information as possible, and our need to not overpromise. In this case, the naming conversations were evolving in a way that I felt confident making that statement, and I wanted to share that information with you. I completely understand that, given the final result, this particular statement could come across as misleading. This was not my intention, at the time these were the thoughts of the project team .

For some more context about community feedback and participation in the project, as well as what in particular is up for discussion and what is not, I’d also direct you toward the executive statement that has just been released.

I appreciate your time on this and I hope the context is helpful. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, really. This more than adequately answers the questions I had about your quote and how the previous situation evolved to now, and the executive statement explains clearly why community input was ignored. Best, Vermont (talk) 21:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Personal opinion - "pulling an owl on a globe"

I strongly disagree with the abandonment of the Wikimedia brand, and also disagree with the migration of Chapter> Network and Foundation> Trust. The "Сhapter" was an unfortunate term for many languages, including Russian, but the proposed change fundamentally distorts the real situation.

"Network" - the term is much worse than "Chapter" for the Russian language (from the point of view of use in the name of a non-profit organization).

"Trust" is a term much worse than "Foundation" because it is associated more with business than with non-profit activities.

"Wikipedia" is a term with a significantly narrower potential reach than "Wikimedia". Using the Wikimedia brand allowed us to fill it with a much broader cultural meaning than the narrow issues of the wiki encyclopedia. The worldwide movement for Free Knowledge not may limited by Wikipedia only.

Killing all other brands for Wikipedia will not give Wikipedia anything and will hurt small language communities that chose not Wikipedia as the locomotive of their growth, but one of the sister projects - Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikiquote ...

Also Commons is NOT Wikipedia, Wikivoyage is NOT Wikipedia, Wiktionary is STRONGLY NOT Wikipedia, etc. There is a saying in Russian about "pulling an owl on a globe" ("Натягивать сову на глобус"). It looks exactly like such an attempt. Pulling an Free Knowlege Owl on a Wikipedia globe. "Pathetic, that's what it is."

As for the local chapter, the replacement of Wikimedia with Wikipedia in its name is expected to lead to strong conflicts with the independent self-governing project's user communities, which are very sensitive of the fact that someone usurps the right to "officially" speak on behalf of their language edition. Until today, regional chapters could successfully separate responsibilities with communities. They tried not to speak on behalf of Wikipedia participants and did not create the illusion that they manage the sites whose participants they support. With new branding, this will become almost impossible.

In my local chapter, I will advocate a complete rejection of new branding and the transition to a name like "Free Knowledge Partnership". --Kaganer (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kaganer: This is really good insight for how the terms translate to Russian. Are the more generic/open terms like “Organization” and “Movement” a better fit in describing the different elements of Wikimedia in Russian? If not, what obstacles do those present?

You may have seen already, but the team did spend a while looking at Free Knowledge-based names from multiple angles. I just wanted to point you to those findings, since you are interested in that type of name.

Glad to hear your thoughts here. I hope you’ll also consider putting them in a survey. You and your chapter should have received an affiliate survey, and you’re also welcome to fill out the individual one. They both have been translated into Russian. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@ELappen (WMF): Dear Elena, my chapter will discuss this shortly to formulate a common position. I'm spoking my own vision here (but I know that many wikimedians share it, to one degree or another).
I have been following this process from the very beginning, and until the last moment I hoped that common sense would find its way. But I did not wait for this. In my opinion, this "re-branding process" is based on a set of incorrect assumptions. Fundamentally incorrect assumptions. --Kaganer (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, “Organization” and “Movement” is a better terms, that "Chapter", "Affiliate", "Network" and "Trust". But this is not very significant. "Wikipedia" vs "Wikimedia" - key opposition, and also a marker of global misunderstanding by the Wikimedia Foundation of its place in the movement. I'm sorry, but this is my impression of the WMF activities in recent years.

1. All that is considered as justification for rebranding (difficulties in trademarks protecting, etc.) are the problems of the Wikimedia Foundation, but not the problems of movement. These are not problems of projects, these are not problems of communities.
2. WMF is a powerful and rich organization, and it was created precisely in order to solve such problems - but not to the detriment of the basic principles of the movement.
3. WMF - an important, and maybe even a key element of the movement. But not the main guiding element. WMF is protects and supports projects, principles and communities, but does not lead them. The voice and opinion of each community is not just an advisory voice or a questioning voice. The voice of each community is just as important as the voice of the Foundation. Maybe no more important voice, but no less important. Well, being a leader of such a movement is difficult. But WMF as powerful and rich organization was needed precisely for this challenge.
4. Commitment to the conservation of diversity is one of the key pillars. Commitment to equality is another basis.
5. We cannot wave the flag of diversity with one hand, and at the same time, destroy the diversity with the other hand, turning everything into a Wikipedia brand. If Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wiktionary, Wikinews etc is considered as weak brands, that you should think about how to develop them and make them powerful, and not how to kill them for Wikipedia.
6. Wikimedia is a weak brand? Well, make it strong - this is your task, and you have the resources to do so. Few organisations have such resources. You want to rebrand? It’s easy. But there is no need to parasitize on the Wikipedia brand - nothing good will come of it. This brand is created by thousand wikipedians, not the Foundation. The WMF is obliged to keep and protect it, but does not have the authority to appropriate it.
7. Yes, it is very possible that Wikimedia is not the best option for an umbrella brand for all projects and the movement in general. In Russian, there are problems with this too. But it seems to me that a better brand name is not may be invented. We will have to continue to live with it.

This is far from all that could be said on this topic.--Kaganer (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Kaganer, like my colleague Elena, I'm also very thankful that you are sharing your well grounded opinions, and I encourage you to reflect them in the survey as well, and I hope the Russian version is useful.

You say that the process is based on incorrect assumptions. Your list of points is very strong. Can it be though that assumptions (and priorities) are different, but not necessarily incorrect, or at least not all of them? I'm not talking about "Foundation vs Community", which I believe is just too simplistic. Our movement is very big and very diverse, and assumptions can differ a lot between volunteers and between affiliates, in many combinations. The desire to create a new brand system is based on the assumptions and priorities related to attracting new members to our projects (all our projects), especially in regions where Wikipedia is not well known yet, and even less the sister projects. Can it be that these assumptions and priorities simply clash with the assumptions and priorities of established long term Wikimedians? That all these assumptions and priorities are different, and yet still correct depending on for whom and for what?

I am not trying to undermine any of your points. In fact I think you make very good points. I just don't think your points are right and others are wrong. I see a possibility that your points are strong and right for some priorities, and other points may be strong and right for other priorities. I personally believe that the survey among affiliates and also the survey among individual contributors might bring a wider diversity of opinions than what we are seeing here, simply because the perspectives and priorities can be very very different within our movement. Here we find a large representation of long term Wikimedians working hard in the maintenance of well established projects and processes. Maybe it is no surprise that the need for change is not seen as important by this constituency as by others in other corners of the movement. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

You say that you hoped that common sense would find its way. May I advise you to keep that hope? Even in the current circumstances I believe that common sense will find its way. It usually does. Thank you again for sharing these thoughts of high quality and insight. Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you kidding us?

We, the community, several times showed clearly (most important there) that we do not accept the adoption of the name "Wikipedia" by the Foundation for calling itself and/or the movement "Wikipedia". But you, the Foundation, still stick to your idea? I do not accept this arrogant behaviour and protest strictly against it! Chaddy (talk) 20:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The fate of the Wikimedia domain and name

Well, the Executive Statement answers a lot of questions we've been asking for months, and at this point it's safe to say that we're all going to be saying goodbye to the name "Wikimedia Foundation" at some point in the near future. Though I understand some of my fellow volunteers would prefer to continue opposing a rebranding altogether, I think it is time to begin directing community discussion towards areas we are actually able to have input in.

That leaves a few issues that need answering. One I have been most concerned with is the fate of the wikimedia.org domain and the dozens of sites attached to it.

In my view, it is beneficial to have a project-neutral and language-neutral domain specifically for coordination sites, like the national/regional affiliates (though they may be called Wikipedia Organizations when this goes through), Meta-Wiki, Commons, Wikispecies, OTRS wiki, CheckUser wiki, Steward wiki, etc.

We want to be inclusive of all projects and languages, and in order to do so a neutral name is required, even if it is only to be used internally. For example, would we refer to Wikimedia Stewards as Wikipedia Stewards? That would imply that their activities encompass only Wikipedia projects. And with Meta-Wiki, moving it to something like meta.wikipedia.org would alienate communities of non-Wikipedia projects who contribute on Meta-Wiki, as global RfC's and other occurrences here often affect non-Wikipedia projects and attract people from all across the movement.

In a nutshell, I encourage the WMF to focus it's rebranding on outward appearances for the reasons they discerned, but for internal management and coordination to keep the name Wikimedia, as is useful in a number of areas in ways that Wikipedia would not be.

I look forward to hearing the comments of others. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 22:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding to the above, since the core community in many languages has grown quite fond of the name Wikimedia, and people refer to themselves as Wikimedians, it seems fitting to preserve related domains for community use. I certainly remember when Meta was meta.wikipedia.org ! but that would be confusing now that there are many other top-level Projects. –SJ talk  01:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

That page you link to is a fun little glimpse into Wikimedia's history, and only 5 editors participated! Vermont (talk) 02:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Brand project executive statement

Hi, please check this executive statement. This should address some of the core questions and concerns. Also, we will go through other comments that haven't been addressed yet. Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

To be honest, it does not. I think we should now go to the projects to decide that the decision is illegitimate, and the fundraising banners for Wikipedia Foundation must be taken down.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:42, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

It is great to confirme the choice was made 5 years ago and our inputs are not needed. Saying it louder before may have saved some time to a lot of contributors. Time to build up another organization with principles aligned with the wiki principles for example. Noé (talk) 20:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: it only addresses them in the sense that it mentions them. It doesn't resolve the concerns, or even accept that they were valid, or even engage with them. The Board should only be making decisions once they have data - logically the survey should have been done and they could then make a decision as to whether to task it to the WMF to implement. @Doc James:, I know you are in favour of the Foundation renaming, but do you think it's reasonable that, given the huge community concern, a status-quo name not even be considered for the survey as a full option? Nosebagbear (talk) 20:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Nosebagbear I see the question as, do different parts of our movement have the right to name themselves / rename themselves as they wish, within reason? We already have 8 affiliates that use the term Wikipedia in their name.[1] In my opinion the WMF should also have this ability if they want it. No one is suggesting that the sister sites should have new names forced on them from outside their community. That is something I would strongly oppose. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doc James: To some extent, yes. However, I don't think it's reasonable that the we allow part of our movement to take the name of another part of the movement, without the second part of the movement's approval. For example, if Wikivoyage wanted to rebrand to "Wikipedia Voyage", then I think that the Wikipedias should be able to consider and reject that, since Wikivoyage doesn't follow the same NPOV standards as Wikipedia. As the WMF is can be an activist organization that also doesn't support NPOV, I believe that the Wikipedia communities should be given a say in if their name is appropriated.

I've long supported the branding project considering a name that is better than Wikimedia and not Wikipedia for the WMF. But Wikipedia should be retained by projects with shared encyclopedic values. TomDotGov (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I've just looked up the 8 affiliates, and they are probably not Wikimedia chapters, but really just Wikipedia user groups, why should they use another brand? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 02:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I second that. It does make sense to use the name "Wikipedia" for an entity whose defined interest and purpose is entirely Wikipedia-centered. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if a Board member needs an explanation whether the Foundation is entirely Wikipedia-centered or not. Or would I rather not be? I can't tell for sure. → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 22:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The gist of that statement is: "We don't give a flying f*** about the community, we do whatever we think is right, bugger the community." The statement is a massive spit in the face of the community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Statistical analogies

• Fact: Best internationally known brands among countries are USA, as for Russia's regions, domestic ethnic groups and their languages — it's Moscow, Jews and German.
• Hypothesis: We might add those to other names to increase their respective recognition and reach.
• Proposals:
  • USA is a good prefix for UN (4 times more popular), other countries and organizations,
  • a little of Moscow in the names of other 84 regions will raise their respective recognition
  • and adding Jews into self-names of Russia's ethnic groups will help them to be more visible.
  • Let's keep switching to German off the table, at least for a while...

Just out of serious concern that using Wikipedia will break so far presumed equality between existing Wikimedia projects & contributing editors, thus will undermine long-term Movement Diversity and thus Sustainability aspects. --Frhdkazan (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia Italia statement and requests on Wikimedia brand project

The concept of "interconnection" cannot exist without a bond of trust between the parties that should be connected. We believe that the results of the "Wikimedia brand project" will be of fundamental importance for the Wikimedia movement, affiliates and chapters and we believe that the WMF Team dedicated to the project should ensure the maximum transparency, disclosure and dialogue with the community. In these early stages of the process, the community and the affiliates raised many critical voices, not only in regard to the contents of the Wikimedia brand project but also on the process adopted, which was never questioned. This could tragically impact on the “bond of trust” mentioned above.
Wikimedia Italia therefore decided to share some requests for the "phase 2" consultation:

• We ask WMF to encourage as much as possible the participation of the chapters and the community in the process, by sharing all the discussions and details about the online and offline presentations related to the Wikimedia brand project on platforms that are already in use by the community, using Meta as the main coordination point.
• We ask WMF to fully disclose the process of evaluation of naming proposals and the metrics that will be used to identify the final result of the project. In order for the final proposal to be significant, we believe WMF should identify a minimum participation rate (for both the community and the chapters) and a quorum, to consider the result as approved by the movement. We also ask for a full publication of the results of all the surveys conducted, in a disaggregated form.
• We ask WMF to fully evaluate and communicate the impacts that the project will have on the movement and the chapters - with particular reference to the legal ones - as well as to clarify the "opt-in" mechanism envisaged for the final phase.

Many of us, both within chapters and in the community, perceive the Wikimedia brand project as an imposition from above whose results have already been largely pre-determined. We therefore ask the Wikimedia Brand Project Team to really involve the community, by giving clear and motivated answers to these requests.
We invite all affiliates and members of the community who agree with these requests to put their signature at the bottom of this declaration. --Francesca Ussani (WMIT) (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2020 (UTC) as Liaison for Wikimedia Italia

• *Applause*. --Yair rand (talk) 19:01, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Francesca Ussani (WMIT):

Thanks for laying out the things you’d like to see in this process going forward. I can confirm we completely agree on the importance of transparency and dialogue in this process. We also agree that the process needs to build trust in the collective outcomes. Part of building that trust is being completely transparent about what has been decided and what has not been decided so far (see the FAQ for that information). I’ll get specific about the rest by addressing your bullets:

• Meta is a main hub for discussion and the place for project documentation. On the Resources subpage, you can find reports on every community feedback opportunity so far. These reports summarize themes of discussion, any outcomes, and how those outcomes will feed into the process. You will also find presentations, videos and external resources, and documents sent to the Affiliate Liaisons. We also share every update and invitation here on the project talk page. Encouraging the most participation possible also involves going where communities are to send updates and invitations. This means we also use email, Facebook, and videoconferencing, and other platforms to maintain contact and answer questions.
• As you’ll see in the explanation of the feedback process, which was also sent via email to the Liaisons, we are committed to publishing the results of the survey, along with a report synthesizing them, so that anyone can review the raw data. We are also committed to sharing our response goals in advance of outreach. Setting these goals in advance will help us determine if we’ve reached enough affiliates and individual contributors to constitute a good sample. From the feedback, we hope to get a strong signal about which proposal(s) can be eliminated, and which should be carried on for further refinement. We are committed to showing how feedback was analyzed and how it guided the outcomes.
• Evaluating and sharing information about legal risks is a fundamental commitment of the project. It was established as one of the 6 qualities of good movement branding generated by the community in 2019, and we remain committed to it. All proposals will come with an initial legal analysis to help support your discussions. The survey will ask you specifically to identify any additional legal concerns for consideration. The identified potential legal risks, as well as possible ways to mitigate them, will be investigated. In terms of the opt-in system, you can find details in the FAQ. Although adoption is technically after the life of this project, the team is already investigating the type of legal and financial support the Foundation could provide to facilitate adoption.

I hope that addresses the bulk of your concerns. Happy to elaborate more if needed. Thanks again for your thoughts on the process. - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Die allererste Äußerung zum Thema überhaupt seit Anfang März diesen Jahres an der wichtigsten Stelle für solche Diskussionen, hier auf Meta, ich nenne das Arbeitsverweigerung. Wirst Du Dich künftig aktiver an dem Prozess beteiligen oder Dich weiter in den Elfenbeinturm zurückziehen? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer @ZMcCune (WMF):. There are a couple more issues we would like to ask/clarify:

• Could you please elaborate more on the metrics you will use to evaluate the following phases? We think that it would be great to have them published at least one week before the presentation of the naming proposals, and also to accept some input and feedback on them from the community: when will the metrics be published? Will the community have the possibility to review them?
• We would like to know something more about how the opt-in process should work for the projects: will there be an opt-in for them as well? For example could it.wikisource or it.wikiquote decide that they do not want to change their names? --Atropine (talk) 08:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC) (I am the other WMI delegate)

Thanks for the follow-up, Atropine. In terms of metrics: the top priority is to ensure as broad a reach as possible with individual contributors, affiliates, and Foundation departments. We are working on metrics that will allow us to evaluate reach and response and are aiming to get those out next week for review. We have also had requests to publish the draft survey questions, and we are working to make that happen next week as well.

No changes are being proposed to the names of the projects, or to the logos or other branding of the projects. See the scope FAQ and the Project Objectives. There will be a “tagline” element for review that can be used across affiliates, projects, campaigns, contests, and more that will communicate how they are “part of the movement.” The team will be presenting those on 16 June.

Please let me know if there’s anything else I can clarify. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

 Support Wikimedia Italia's statement - Romaine (talk) 11:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

 Support Wikimedia Italia's statement --Wuselig (talk) 19:28, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Request for help mediating in contentious edits

Project pages play an important goal increasing clarity, reducing confusion, and supporting discussions in collaboration. The project team understands that especially now emotions are high, and precisely for this reason we think that increasing clarity and reducing confusion about what this project is saying and doing is important. We are concerned about contentious edits by a few volunteers with an explicit position against this project. These volunteers say that it's us who create confusion, and they portray themselves as the ones reducing confusion and increasing clarity. The problem is, we are missing proper mediation (although in exceptional cases someone has stepped in trying to help, and we have felt very thankful when this has happened). This is a request for more help mediating in these disputes, if possible by people able to park their opinions and emotions about movement branding.

I'm not claiming that we as project maintainers are perfect, or that the project pages are perfect. Neither I claim that we know The Truth about how project pages should be maintained in Meta or how Meta:Civility has to be read and applied. As a matter of fact, I would prefer not having to judge and defend what (to me and my colleagues) feels like common sense but apparently can be disputed on the grounds of "not supported by policy" in Meta. I'm talking about specific problems, specific diffs, things like seeing our own explanations as project team being modified or removed because someone opposing this project finds them not acceptable.

As I am writing these lines, new recurrences are just appearing:

• One graphic from the Naming survey main page that had been first modified and then removed was restored. Reverted. See discussion.
• An "Essay" template placed on the FAQ page had been removed. Reverted. See discussion.

If there are more contentious edits, we will keep listing them here, welcoming help mediating wherever corresponds.

In our opinion, there is more to do. The FAQs have deteriorated to a point where they are probably failing their purpose, after several back and forths and disputes. Ideas about how to move forward are welcome. Again, especially now a lot of people are looking for clear answers about this project, and we should be able to rely on FAQs to respond clearly.

Then there is the quasi-taboo topic of the banners pointing to the FAQ, which have been placed in multiple pages. I fear (and I really mean "fear") to touch or even discuss those banners. While the project team has no problem referencing to the RfC wherever it corresponds, and there are several mentions to it in project pages, we find these banners in multiple pages disproportionate. Right now we want to make more visible the link to the Naming survey, which currently is the project's main activity. In a normal place this would be a no brainer: we set banners, problem solved. What would happen if we publicize the Naming survey more visibly than these RfC banners in the project pages? What is the right way to proceed? Ideas welcome.

I hope we can resolve these disputes here for the benefit of everyone. Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I helped by the activation of the translation tools to Heather's speech in order to diffuse the message to the majority of the world, the people that doesn't read English nor wooden language. I am really not eager to help you more in this top-to-bottom process that create confusion. The process is an unnecessary source of confusion. The people implied in it are doing their best, and I am convinced they are good people. I imagine you can ask to the crowd in the closed Facebook group, or in Wikimedia Space. Noé (talk) 14:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

First off, thank you for discussing this rather than us going back and forth with edits.

There are a few think that I think color the way you are presenting this. The first is that you use project team without the qualification of Foundation. This project is a collaboration between three entities - the Movement, the Foundation, and supposedly Snohetta, although I haven't seen the latter even attempt to participate. As such, it's subject to the consensus-building process, the "wiki process" from our founding principles. This project is not a place where the Foundation project team can post without gaining consensus. It's important to realize that someone being employed by the Foundaiton does not give them carte blanche to do what they wish in community spaces.

I think it's probably fair to say that support for the way the Foundation is contributing to this project has dropped over the past year or so. In the research phase, this project had 3:1 opposition, and yet it proceeded. As there was a dispute over these numbers, the Movement started an RfC to clarify things. Right now, this is over 10:1 against, with the support for the Foundation's position having dropped in opposite numbers. I can't actually produce a ratio for the straw poll, as there has been no support for using the Wikipedia name for the foundation.

I support the project, and have - maybe not from the start, but for multiple months now. I believe that Wikimedia is a bad name for the Foundation - it doesn't make a lot of sense, and can be confused with Wikipedia. I believe that "Wikipedia" is a far worse name for the Foundation, as it's identity theft from the project that has defined that name. Unlike the Foundation, I believe the right approach would be for the Movement to suggest alternative names, with the Foundation participating in those discussions, and eventually vetting the name for legal issues. Basically, working bottom-up rather than top-down, the approach that has been successful in all other projects. Insofar as the Foundations approach is setting this project up for failure, I oppose that, and that only.

So, now the question is, what do we do when participants in the project disagree? I think there are several things like this:

• We boldly edit, get reverted, and then discuss things on the talk page. I believe that the Foundation's graphic failed to show how how their proposals appropriate the identity of Wikipedia, so I did the work to re-make the graphic. User:Yair rand reverted me. User:Sänger weighed in on that discussion, and took the graphic out entirely. And then User:Qgil-WMF reinserted it without responding to the community's concerns. One of the problems with the Foundation's approach to this project has been that they've constantly minimized community input, when the movement is an equal partner.
• We can agree to disagree. That's basically the point of the Essay template - we went through several bespoke templates before I tried a standard one. After months of trying, we were unable to agree as to if giving something that is not an encyclopedia a name ending in -pedia is confusing. And there was a problem presented that people were getting confused as to which portions of the FAQ had consensus. I think the Essay tag was an elegant way to dispel that confusion.
• We can discuss things on talk pages, where we all speak as ourselves. That's what we're doing now, and I believe things like the recent "executive statement" should have been a talk page comment, rather than a main space page that has little to no consensus.
• We could delete content. I'm fine with deleting things like the FAQ and the images on the Naming pages, if they cause confusion.
• We can try dispute resolution, which is what is happening at the RfC.

I believe that the RfC is our movement's premier process for resolving disputes. As we're seeing with the problems in the design of the survey that make it unsuitable for publication, it's important to let people evaluate which concerns they find important. In this case, the dispute was rather simple. "Is it acceptable for the Foundation to use the name Wikipedia to refer to itself?"

A neutral banner indicating the RfC is ongoing is common to show that the content of the page is in dispute. It generally doesn't make a lot of sense to keep expanding the process as the dispute as going on, as that leads to a lot of wasted work. At the same time, that's what's been happening. And so as more pages are created that the dispute resolution of the RfC covers, the banner has to be put on them. I believe that the right way to get rid of the RfC banners would be for the Foundation's project team to agree to abide by the RfC's consensus, start participating in the RfC process, and then call for closure.

Finally, I'll just say that there is a sort of process of stare decisis when it comes to things like the initial survey, the RfC, and even the current straw poll. As the movement builds consensus, that consensus becomes stronger. The way the Foundation is trying to present their position while neglecting all the work their partners in this process have put into things feels disrespectful. I look forward to what other members of the Movement think of how this project is being run. TomDotGov (talk) 14:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand what the problem is. We have been repeatedly told that this branding project is being done 'the wiki way', and Meta-Wiki is a wiki. I'm sure we all disagree with edits of others in this project from time-to-time e.g. I find the removal of the straw poll link with the explanation that "The straw poll is not part of the project" a contentious edit. Community-initiated discussions are just as valuable a contribution to the project as WMF-initiated discussions.

If you don't have a problem editing pages like this when you disagree with the content, how can you request others to not do the same? Bold/revert/discuss usually works best. E.g. my take on the two edits you mention above is that the essay tag should be removed (the FAQs are not essays under any normal construal of the term), but that it makes sense to explain that these are the Founation's perspective and that the 'answers' do not have (and sometimes run against) community consensus behind them. I also don't think the graphic should be removed, but again clarifying text added that many outside the WMF disagree that Wikipedia's identity would be left unaffected (as the graphic claims). Advertising RFCs on relevant pages is standard practice and should be encouraged to maximise participation. Acather96 (talk) 16:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

In short, what I want to say is that I really understand if volunteers feel frustrated and disrespected by the work this project is doing... and I really believe that clear content pages and constructive talk pages play a humble and yet significant role bringing this whole situation to a better place.

In more detail, hi Acather96, I didn't made clear in my first comment that this problem is not new. What is new is to have many more people watching, and a realistic opportunity to receive more opinions (like yours, thank you).

The project team has no problem with edits coming from other contributors, just check the history of these pages. But sometimes edits are contentious, we get stuck, and both sides end up more frustrated.

The straw poll is not part of the project, and linking it in the survey navigation bar is likely to create confusion. This was my edit summary. It is fine to organize any activities around this project, but it is better to leave the navigation bars for the project activities. If someone still disagrees, let's talk.

TomDotGov About the idea that "this project is a collaboration between three entities - the Movement, the Foundation, and supposedly Snohetta"... you have mentioned it many times. What I know is that when people are unhappy about this project, their "consensus" is to request an explanation from the Foundation staff directly involved (and rightly so). This is why this team thinks that if someone is going to be mad at us for something published or missing in these pages, at least let them be mad for the right reasons. Supporting, participating is very welcome and needed. However, being a maintainer of a project has additional responsibilities. During many years working in technical spaces (MediaWiki, Phabricator and surroundings) I have been involved in many heated discussions, but I cannot recall a single recurrence where it was questioned who the project team was and whether they were responsible of the project pages. I also struggle imagining similar interventions to committee / affiliate / wikiproject pages in Meta or elsewhere, from editors explicitly opposed to the goals of these groups. But no problem, we don't have to agree on the metaphysical questions as long as we agree on the edits being made to the pages. I hope you find this section useful. Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll just point out that the three entities are listed right there on the front page of the project, plain as day. I believe that if the movement is to be a part of this project, it should be represented well - that makes making its own decisions as to how it collects feedback. Pages and projects don't have owners on wiki, like they do in technical spaces - that's why this is a wiki and not a github repo. That's why things like the RfC and Straw Poll are valid, and the Foundation-planned survey has little movement support. I think that there is quite a bit to be said for making Movement and Foundation contributions more explicit, but you've been reluctant to do that in the past. I'd hope that if the Foundation treats the Movement as equals, and respects movement priorities, then this project will become more cordial. TomDotGov (talk) 22:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: First, I want to appreciate that you are looking for help mediating. I think that is the right move.

I also need to say.. that all the good-faith people that could fill this role are currently entirely consumed by the disconnect that is happening on the other page. Realistically, I don't see myself have any energy for this until at least a week after there is an actual solution for that. Given that this any solution will probably impact all of these issues, it may be best to stick with Tom's recommendation elsewhere on this page, and have everyone stick to a holding pattern.

@TomDotGov: Although it is pleasantly simplifying, please don't collate individuals with an institutional decision or editorial decisions with moral ones. QGil is a great person and certainly of good faith. I can understand his frustration - and expect that he can appreciate that at this point, the resources are just not there. Effeietsanders (talk) 18:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders: I think you're right, and I've removed the last paragraph of my response as unhelpful. TomDotGov (talk) 18:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

YouTube

The commentaries to the Brand Project video on YouTube are deactivated. [2] Was this really necessary? --Gereon K. (talk) 10:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

This was sureley necessary: If commentaries would be activated, negative comments would be seen by people outside the meta bubble. As long as the negative comments are only here, WMF hasn't to be feared of bad reputation and can still sell the renaming process as a very great idea which is also the wish of the whole "movement". Chaddy (talk) 15:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Comments (mainly negative) are actually seen in the video itself.Ymblanter (talk) 15:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Board Update on Branding

The Board Update on Branding has been published. TomDotGov (talk) 01:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Move the page

This page is currently named 2030 movement brand project, but as the community doesn't play any role in this brand project, it would be more then appropriate to move this page (and its sub-pages) to 2030 foundation brand project, they are the only entity, that is allowed to give any real input, it's their private project, and they don't want and don't accept any involvement from dissidents. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

At this point, I think a holding pattern is appropriate. This project is clearly in flux, and there's no reason to boldy edit in a way that might be out of date in hours. TomDotGov (talk) 15:34, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not that bold That's why I suggested it here first, and perhaps the statement by the board brings some change, and they will finally find their way back into the movement. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. The foundation has explicitly stated their intention to ignore input from the community and their separation from the movement; the current bame is misleading. Vermont (talk) 20:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The current name does not convey "ownership" of the project by the movement, only that the project involves the movement. Whatever the decisions made, all the Wikimedia movement will be impacted.

For instance option 3 suggests to rename the "Wikimedia movement" into "Wiki movement" and that Wikimedia Italia would instead be called something like "Wikipedia Foundation Italia - A Wiki Organization". It's slightly complicated to imagine how the various proposals could ever be applied to all the affiliates in all the languages and countries, but as far as I can see none of the proposals currently allows any part of the movement to consider itself untouched. Nemo 17:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, of course they are impacted, but they have no say in it. This is a project by a small group within the WMF alone, without any dissenting input wanted. The communities are expected to follow in goosestep what the small group of heavy invested employees and functionaries gave decided. It is definite a Foundation project, not a movement project, 2030 Foundation brand project for the movement may be OK as well, as it's affected, but the movement is neither the motor, not the owner, it's not even really involved. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Has there ever been a charity which has treated its volunteers with greater contempt?

I was most shocked by this sentence in the executive statement:

"when community discussions began to sway toward attempting to prevent a rebrand, we failed in clearly and consistently responding that a rebrand itself was not up for debate. "

What's gone wrong with the movements relationship with WMF that they write this, when they should have wrote: when community discussions began to sway toward attempting to prevent a rebrand, we realised we'd made a mistake......

The overwhelming near-universal consensus expressed by 500+ Wikimedia volunteers that this is unacceptable is what is not up for debate. This cannot be allowed to go ahead, and we need to think very carefully as a movement about what we want our relationship with the WMF to be. Hint: no volunteer/no project wants a relationship like this.

A serious discussion about removing fundraising banners should be considered, I think, as it seems to be the only source of leverage they allow us to have. Acather96 (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised by the use of bold and the tone of the statement :

"We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided".

The Executive Team and the Board of Trustees are interested in community discussion and survey feedback, but will make this decision based on long term goals.

That means our opinion does not matter?

"The Wikimedia Foundation has the power to change how people who work in and for our projects refer to themselves."

Okey, then we have nothing to say. Why did you ask us? The staff are supposed to support us, not direct us. The trustees we voted for the board are supposed to represent us, not to rule us.--Jalu (talk) 17:45, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Office hours week of 22 June, extending survey response period

Hi everyone, The Brand Project team will be hosting two general office hours this week to answer the remaining questions from last week's presentation, as well as take other questions live. The office hours will be recorded and made available after.

• 23 June at 16:30 UTC - Join via this link
• 26 June at 00:00 UTC - Join via this link

Additionally, in response to a number of requests, the survey will now remain open until 7 July. Looking forward to seeing some of you tomorrow. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey. Just a note to say I listened the second half of the meeting yesterday and I really appreciate it. I want to thanks the team for this effort. They were open to discussion. We missed a drink to cheers but it was not too formal and I appreciate the global tone of the meeting. I invite more people to assist to the next session. It wasn't the perfect timing for me, as my roommate was playing guitar in the next room, so I haven't set my microphone. But I will try to make it next time, with constructive questions. Not the 26th, it will be 2 am for me Noé (talk) 07:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Another possibility: use the Wikipedia name, but emphasize a support role

This discussion is spread out over a whole lot of pages, so I'm not sure if this is the right place, if it's already been proposed, etc. but I would feel remiss if I didn't mention it.

The Foundation has made clear that it would like to use the Wikipedia brand. The community has expressed concerns about that change -- concerns in particular about "Wikipedia Foundation" and the specific proposals thus offered. At the root of many of those concerns regards erosion of distinctions between the community of editors, people involved in the movement in other ways, and the foundation itself, and their various roles in the production or support of Wikipedia. Why not an option that's explicit about the support role of the foundation? The foundation plays an incredibly important role in maintaining the infrastructure, running the servers, and running programs which help to build the movement. It supports Wikipedia and its movement.

So what about:

• Wikipedia Support Foundation
• Wikipedia Infrastructure Foundation
• Wikipedia Hub
• Wikipedia Movement Support
• ...?

You may be asking "Isn't the most basic meaning of 'foundation' a form of 'support'?" Yes, but it also connotes being the most important part. Also, it has come to mean simply a particular type of organization, and thus easily confused with the entity itself. Being explicit by throwing "support" (or the like) in there makes the role clear. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I've long suggested that the Wikimedia brands should be moved to an entity which actually cares about Wikimedia values, be it a reformed Wikimedia Foundation or a new entity.

Wikimedia Foundation currently usurps a number of functions which do not belong to it: for instance it acts as USA local chapter, as English Wikipedia user group and as English Wikipedia service provider. Some such functions can and should be moved to a spin-off, as was already done with the Wiki Education Foundation which has been very successful. If the Wikimedia Foundation thinks that the entire org is currently actually a "Wikipedia Foundation", and if the WMF board still believes in the 2012 "narrowing focus" statement, that would mean that a majority of the org can be spun off to a new "(English) Wikipedia technical services Inc.", much like Firefox is developed by a Mozilla corporation owned by the Mozilla Foundation. The scope of such a spin-off could vary, but for instance it could absorb a part or even most of the engineering and conduct fundraising under the Wikipedia name (as the WMF fundraising has already done for too long) under license from the Wikimedia Foundation. That would clarify why people are donating to a "Wikipedia something" and would increase transparency. People who only want to work for Wikipedia could apply for the Wikipedia something entity and be happy. Nemo 07:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Emphasizing the support role (for the community I suppose) in the new name, while picking that name against the explicit wishes of the community, seems beyond ridiculous to me.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

+1 Chaddy (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

open letter

• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming

--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Why is branding seen as important? And questions about the RfC

More questions, some of them might've already been answered somewhere (where? And I mean really answered not using empty words like it was done in the rfc discussions):

• Why is branding seen as important? How does it benefit the projects like Wikipedia, its authors and readers if the foundation's name is well known? How does my grandmother benefit if she has heard of the foundation but is in no way connected with it or the projects? What kind of tangible positive result do you expect? And why is it impossible to achieve without rebranding?
• Did you already made your decission before this RFC was started?
  • If not: Was already money spent for rebranding, e.g. on external consultants? If so: why? How much?
  • Will you honor the outcome of the aforementioned RFC? If not: How do expect and plan the relationship with the community to develop in the future?

--StYxXx (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@StYxXx: These are good questions, thanks for raising them.

In terms of your questions around the purpose and scope of the Brand Project:

Let me first just clarify that this is not just a project about renaming the Foundation. The scope is broader. The Brand Project is about better communicating who we are as a movement. While Wikipedia is highly recognized, most people aren’t aware of the entire movement of projects, affiliates, and volunteers that surround it. Our movement is making important contributions to the world every day, but many people don’t know about it, and therefore aren’t participating (we’re missing out on millions of readers, editors, donors, partners, etc.) The Brand Project aims to develop a brand that better unites and explains the entire movement/ecosystem. These proposals will apply to not only the Foundation, but also to the movement and affiliates (no changes to the projects are being proposed, but the proposals will have to work well with the project brands). The goal is to develop a unified, compelling brand that communicates the range of projects and communities in our movement, and how those projects and communities are connected. We know there is a need for a rebrand precisely because most people outside the movement have no idea what Wikimedia is or how it relates to Wikipedia, much less to the other projects and communities that support them.

To your questions about the RfC:

There was not a decision made by the Brand Project team about naming conventions prior to the community-initiated RfC, and there has not yet been a decision made about naming so far. Movement-wide feedback on naming convention proposals is the next step in this process. To see precisely what has been decided and what has not, see the FAQ about that. The project team is taking guidance from all the community-provided feedback, including the RFC, in creating proposals (take a look at the RfC report as well as reports on other feedback). The upcoming phase of the project (naming convention proposals) will provide different naming options for review–as well as a write-in option for people to make their own suggestions–taking into account what we heard in the RfC and at other points. So yes, we are listening, we are reviewing, and we are integrating feedback. We are also moving forward with this project, which is in service of our collective 2030 strategy goals. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Die zweite Antwort ist ganz klar falsch. Es gab eine eindeutige Entscheidung seitens einiger weniger, die diese Projekt massiv vorantreiben, alles in Wikipedia umzubenennen, und zwar als das zentrale Anliegen dieses Unterfangens. Die Folien, mit denen diejenigen, die dies massiv betrieben haben, bis zu diesem RfC agiert haben, zeigen deutlich, dass keine andere Lösung vorgesehen war. Erst dieser starke Gegenwind seitens der Community gegen die Funktionäre hat diese zum Umdenken bewegt, und jetzt wird behauptet, es wäre schon immer ergebnisoffen gewesen. Nichts wäre weiter von der Wahrheit entfernt. Erst dieses RfC zwang die Betreiber dieses Umbenennung dazu, endlich auch mal auf die Community zu hören. Ob dads tatsächlich geschehen wird, ob es tatsächlich ein solches Umdenken gegeben hat, wird sich zeigen, wenn die klandestin und im Verborgenen von einigen wenigen Insidern ausgetüftelten Namensvorschläge endlich das Licht der Öffentlichkeit erblicken. Ich hege da noch einige Zweifel an der Ernsthaftigkeit des Willens, ausnahmsweise mal der Community zuzuhören, aber ich lasse mich gerne positiv überraschen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:08, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Again: Why do you lie about the naming conventions? The decision to rename it to Wikipedia was in fact done by the small group of those, who push this here with might, as is absolutely clear with all the presentations that were published up to the first real community consultation with the RfC. Only after the RfC the pushers of the renaming started to remove those presentations from the FAQ etc. and pretended, that it never have happened. And even now they still keep those renaming on the sheet, even have the audacity to include only one proposal, that is a bit in line with the overwhelming RfC-consensus, and stick to their not wanted pre-selection. They simply ignore everything from the community, that doesn't fit their programme, the community is completely irrelevant for any decisions by them. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sänger: You keep accusing the Brand team of lying, even if we have addressed your questions and comments before. We don't tell lies, we don't pretend something didn't happen, we don't ignore the community. The Brand team has answered the questions Is the outcome of this project already predetermined? What precisely has already been decided, what are the open questions, and to what extent can feedback impact the outcome?. In your repetitive comments you keep throwing accusations again and again. In my view all your points have been addressed and yet you keep posting them in every new conversation. If you really want to discuss, collaborate and find solutions, discussing each topic separately until its resolution would be way more effective. Otherwise it feels like obstruction of actual conversation. Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: How come, https://brandingwikipedia.org/ has a p in its URL? After all, the entity to be branded is not the online encyclopedia. ---<(kmk)>- (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@KaiMartin: IIRC, ZMcCune addressed this in a Q&A a while back, admitting that in retrospect the URL was a bad idea. Not sure I'm remembering that correctly, though. --Yair rand (talk) 23:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Obstruction is the way, that I feel with every comment you make. The FAQ you linked is as well a very whitewashed version of the real history of this renaming enterprise. If you look at the histories of several pages here, how those, that massively push a name change towards WikiPedia, and all those early presentations you and your co-marketeers of that name change did, you will se, that in the early presentations the name change was presented by you as a fact, that was already decided, the name will change from WikiMedia to WikiPedia. That was the leitmotif of each and every post here up to the RfC. Only as you finally realised, that your in-group view was not as much accepted as you obviously thought, you gradually began to change your tone, but not your marketing campaign to your wanted outcome. The private blog brandingwikipedia.org, that was a) not open and transparent, b) named in an extreme provocative and predetermined way and c) promoted so-called workshops, that were stuffed with lots of (WMF)-functionaries, paid marketing people and a few community members as a kind of alibi is everything but community participation. That's just a fake to pretend this, nothing more.

Nearly every paragraph of the FAQ reeks of selective reading of the real history to present the small group of renaming enthusiasts in a better light. All the deceptions and false premises are gilded over by some fluffy language and omissions. This one as well. The only reason, that you and your renaming enthusiastic pals changed your story was the RfC, that made clear, the community doesn't want this renaming. And even now you have the gall,. to include proposals, the build around the rejected WikiPedia naming scheme, I really have no idea, how you can think of this is anything even remotely like "listening to the community" or "community participation", if you ignore the community in such a complete manner. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 14:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

If we feel we are obstructing each other, as strange as this might sound we have a point of agreement.  :) I'm serious. The brand problem is complex, and the proof is that for more than a decade we are aware of it and yet before this initiative started nobody went as far. Because this project touched people's identities as individual contributors and as community participants, emotions are strong.

I wonder whether we can agree on the following: there is a problem worth exploring, doing nothing is not good enough, "the community" doesn't have one single opinion, the RfC alone doesn't provide an answer, the survey is a useful next step.

About the rest of your comment, you have brought these points before, and as far as I'm aware we have discussed them. If anyone else is interested in any of these points, please bring them up. This Talk page would welcome more quantity and diversity of people and opinions. Qgil-WMF (talk) 16:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

There were already some "surveys", unfortunately for you they didn't come to the conclusion, that anything is wrong with the current branding, and thus your vigour to misuse the name of one project for the maintenance unit WMF doesn't get any traction outside your small echo chamber. The survey run some time ago had no support for the renaming towards WikiPedia within the community, but the small in-group of renaming enthusiasts nevertheless presented the data in a completely misleading way, that suggested something like approval. Whether this was just stupidity or wilful deception remains unclear, AGF tends towards stupidity. But the renamers tried everything to keep this complete bullshit numbers out there, despite their misleading nature, same was with the propaganda material, that said, the decision towards a renaming was already taken, those misleading spread-sheets were defended with tooth and nail. Finally the RfC had a clear and unambiguous message: Don't use WikiPedia for anything but Wikipedia. And yet you still ignore the community and stick to your long rejected naming conventions with WikiPedia in it, and not only one last proposal to save your face, but obviosly all proposals have somehow WikiPedia in it. That's complete neglect of the community, you just don't care about the 10:1 decision by the community, you want to keep your renaming scheme regardless whatever. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:28, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: I kind of see you as being in the same boat as Sänger, or perhaps even more so, in terms of repeating your position without doing anything to move things forwards. I thought that at the start of your presence on this project, you brought a new perspective. But as time went on, that perspective seems to have calcified. Insofar as new perspectives have come to this project (Yair, Nemo, and Vermont come to mind, as well as the many people that are still participating on the RfC even to this day), you haven't been responding to their feedback, just repeating points about this project working with the community that have not been expressed by anyone outside of the Foundation. If anything, Sänger at least has the backing of a community process - the RfC - to add some credence to his posts. When members of the Foundation repeat their points, it's without even that to back them up.

I'll put in my perspective, which is that the branding as Wikimedia is not great, but it's not a huge problem. We've created top-ten websites using the Wikimedia branding. Rebranding to use Wikipedia is doing something - but that something is something that makes branding worse. It will increase confusion, as it makes sentences like "The Wikipedia Link Foundation isn't responsible for the content of the English Wikipedia." confusing, which violates the first rule of good movement branding. Doing nothing until a name better than the current name is found is a better option than spending significant resources to rebrand to a worse name.

We're going to have a survey. Right now, the survey design is garbage. It's garbage because it doesn't allow people to express the opinion that the current movement branding is better than any of the choices that are being proposed. That's a position that community has been consistent about throughout this process. This is something that would have turned up in comments on the survey design, but of course the survey is fixed in stone because it was sent to translators before it was set to the community. That's apparently working with the communities.

We will likely get new voices, when that survey is placed on all the Wikis, telling you what I've said here - that the survey is designed poorly. Of course, the survey will capture that one of the three options is less bad that the other two. (Spoiler: It will be the one that uses Wikipedia the least.) We will have lost the opportunity to directly ask the community if they think any of the options better than the status quo, or if we should back up and take this project down a different path.

I think what this project needs are new voices from the Foundation that are willing to listen to the community, and are willing to say "that's a good point" Or "that's not a good point, and this is why..." The problem is that we get into a loop where the Foundation makes a point, it's rebutted as incorrect, and that rebuttal then doesn't get a response. Take my point about survey design - what are we supposed to do about it other than posting here, or editing mainspace to correct it? TomDotGov (talk) 17:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

If I think of "survey" in connection with heavily invested (WMF)ers, I always have this disaster in mind, where a survey was held with questions, that were based on wrong assumptions, that was extremely canvassed and biased, to do everything to get a result that supported the wishes of the heavily invested (WMF)er who organised it. As the history of this renaming enterprise includes as well heavily invested (WMF)ers, that seem to bent reality to support their wishes, that organised canvassed workshops and so forth, I'd be quite surprised, if this "survey" would be something really worth taking part. But I'd really like to be surprised in a positive way. The build-in bias, that will maker it less worthy, is of course the neglect of the community in regard of the use of WikiPedia, afaik not a single proposal will respect the clear RfC. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The survey was so far sub-par, that it could not get a banner in CentralNotice. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:37, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

It's just bikeshedding, but important to the design community for authentic reasons which escape me at the moment. We should be focusing on the community wishlist facilitation. EllenCT (talk) 05:38, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Open for signatures - Community open letter on renaming

Dear all,

There is an open letter that requests a pause to renaming activities being pursued by the Wikimedia Foundation 2030 Brand Project.

Individual editors and affiliates can sign with their logged-in account to show support.

• m:Community_open_letter_on_renaming

The letter focuses on concerns about the process, and not about specific naming choices. With more than 50 major chapters and affiliates and 700+ individuals signing the statement, and more than a dozen translations, we are seeing great interest in this issue.

Related to this: the branding team is conducting a survey that runs until July 7. There is concern that the consultation process and options on the survey do not adequately reflect community sentiment, given the effect name changes for the foundation and movement would have. This served as a motivation for the open letter. Useful links are below:

• Brand survey for individuals - Qualtrics survey. If there are options you would like to highlight outside of the three provided, it is possible to write in your own options and views at the end of the survey.

• For more info, there is an English Wikipedia Signpost article about the issue and a Q&A interview with the document writers and collaborators: en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2020-06-28/Interview

There will be a WMF board meeting on July 8 to discuss the branding issue, so it is important to express your views now.

Thanks - Fuzheado (talk) 05:37, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Cart before the horse

The WMF wants to rename itself, and is asking people to vote for the new name they like best. But this is premature, because they have failed to make the case for renaming themselves. Yes, they have produced this "2030 brand report", but it is self-servicing. The board commissioned the report because they wanted the renaming, and ta da! — they got what they wanted. I suppose it's possible that the rename recommendation was unanticipated. If so, why must we wholeheartedly believe this one report and rush to implement it, especially while common sense says that it is unnecessary and so many say it is unadvisable? Calling it the Wikipedia Organization or whatever doesn't enhance the brand, it confuses it. Senator2029 13:56, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

June 26th/27th Changes

There's a second board update on branding, followed up by a wikimedia-l email by Zack McCune that says:

We want to confirm that the Brand Project team has been directed by the Board to develop new branding options and to evaluate those options with communities. We invite your perspectives.

I'm interpreting this to mean that new branding options are going to be developed, and I'm hoping this means those options will be developed in conjunction with the community. Would it be possible to clarify what's planned, especially in terms of shared spaces like this page and the FAQ? TomDotGov (talk) 03:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I am interpreting this as another red herring. --Bahnmoeller (talk) 00:34, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Chapters naming

Despite opinions on the rebranding in general splitted in Wikimedia RU, we still consensually agree that all proposed titles are problematic for Wikimedia RU.

First, two prerequisites:

1. main title of the Russian organization should be in Russian;
2. it's not possible to use "Russia" for most organizations in Russia.

• Wikipedia Network RU - Википедия Нетворк РУ / Сеть Википедия РУ / Сеть Википедии РУ - all three Russian adaptations look bizzare; "network" doesn't work as either translation or transliteration. Also they all sound foreign.
• Wikipedia organization RU - Википедия Организейшн РУ / Организация Википедии РУ / Организация Википедии РУ - the first adaptation sounds obnoxiously foreign, non-Russian. Others two would not accepted by the authorities.
• Wikipedia Foundation RU - Фонд Википедия РУ - this would be acceptable only if Wikimedia RU is converted into foundation. In theory it is possible, but it is not a membership form of NGOs, and it would impose significant burden.

We suppose that organizations in some other countries might have similar problems too. Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) 09:21, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

This is great feedback, thanks for adding it here, Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko). Feedback is being used to eliminate things that don't work and refine, so this type of information is really useful. In starting to review the survey data, it's evident across multiple contexts that Foundation won't work in affiliate naming, even if some groups did like the horizontality of a name that mirrors the Foundation's name. Association has been offered multiple times as more workable, but other ideas are coming out of the survey too. In terms of organization and the translation/transliteration of network into Russian, I've just checked and it looks like the affiliate survey data we have from Russian-speaking groups is also not favorable for network or organization, although without the same context. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

An example of tone deafness

So, here's something from a presentation apparently given here. I'll ignore its overall tone of "Well, forget the community, they don't know what they're talking about and they'll like it sooner or later anyway." (Though that is unacceptable.) But here's an excellent example of the utter tone-deafness that's happened with this project. On page 82, regarding Snohetta, under the heading "Understanding of Wikimedia ethos" it states:

Snohetta sees design as a tool to welcome, invite, and celebrate shared cultural experiences. They respect the “singular in the plural” and cherish how Wikimedia culture is both “anarchistic and democratic.” Looking to make visible Wikimediaʼs global community, they set out a plan to collaborate openly on naming and design in ways that would terrify a conventional branding agency. They want to do branding in a “wiki” way.

Except, folks: Snohetta spams our projects and uses sockpuppets to do so, see here. To be dealing with them at all is insulting, but to say that about them in light of that is a slap in the face. I guess they understand our projects so well that they don't realize we prohibit spamming, block evasion, and the use of sockpuppets? Seraphimblade (talk) 20:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Were the results of the survey ever posted anywhere? Bawolff (talk) 01:19, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

i found https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2020-August/095390.html which suggests no. So i guess i'm wondering why? I assumed the implication of Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/Board Update on Branding: next steps was that survey results would be released after the july 28 meeting (but i suppose it is ambigious). Regardless it seems like the survey closed a while ago so i'm wondering what the hold up is. Bawolff (talk) 02:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hey @Bawolff:, the survey results on naming have not been posted yet. The survey results (with anonymized data) will be published once they have been reviewed as part of the Board meeting. As I mentioned on the Wikimedia-l email (you linked it above), the survey results were not part of the agenda for the July 28 board meeting. The July 28 meeting agenda was to review the project history to provide new Board members context. Survey results, community concerns, and pathways forward + corrections to process are the agenda for the September Board meetings. The survey results will be linked on these project pages. Cheers - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

September Board meetings? According to the Chair of the WMF Board, the Board was supposed to meet yesterday (August 5) and finally decide on whether to continue/pause/stop. Your comment indicates that the Board decided to continue with it. Pinging @NTymkiv (WMF), Pundit, Doc James, ZMcCune (WMF), and Heather (WMF): because I'm afraid that that's yet another miscommunication and it may cause unnecessary stress. Did the Board meet yesterday? What was the decision reached? tufor (talk) 08:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Tufor The August board meeting has been moved to September. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:16, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Doc James Then it should be announced widely, just like the briefing postponment: Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Briefing_postponement. If you wonder why people lose trust in the WMF and the Board, it's because of things like that. It's like it's too much hassle for you to inform the community about what's going on. tufor (talk) 14:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair point. Have posted here[3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

To bring this section back to the original topic - I'm surprised and somewhat saddened to learn that the survey will only be released after the September board meetings. I'm under the impression that the point of having these meetings in September instead of immediately is so "...the Board can have an in-depth discussion about this, before making any kind of decision" [4], and that the timing is because "Time to prepare the materials is needed, and the ongoing conversations need to be summarised" and that they will be held "within the framework of a discussion on strategic goals, tensions and tradeoffs, and potential next steps". Given that the survey material may have a material impact on the tensions within the community, thus changing the landscape in which the board has to make this decision, I would expect the material to be released prior to the board meeting, not after. I don't understand how the board could make an informed decision immediately before material is released which might alter the political landscape - informed decisions happen when all the cards are on the table, and the dominoes have fallen wherever they may. Of course, new things will always come up, and we have to make decisions at some point, we can't just wait until all things are said and done, but intentionally delaying release of information until after the meeting seems counter-productive to its stated goals. Bawolff (talk) 23:30, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

So September has come and gone. Any chance we get to see the results of the survey? ---<(kmk)>- (talk) 22:36, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

August update

This is mentioned above, but I wanted to put this information in its own section for reference. The Board moved the August meeting to instead be a series of meetings at the end of September, so this is when they will make a determination on next steps regarding this project. The project timeline is now updated to reflect that. The raw survey data (from 63 affiliate surveys, 1080 individual surveys and 8 Foundation department surveys) will be anonymized for individuals and published along with the report following the September meetings. --Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 11:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

After, so that the community doesn't have any insight before and can correct any misconceptions, that were quite normal up to now with stuff presented by the renaming group. The board will get only your reading of it and won't be disturbed by any dissent from the community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Why do you keep the results secret until after you presented them to the board? To put it bluntly: I have no trust in the renaming group to be honest and impartial in this regard, they have proven to be very biased in all their statements and treated dissent with comntempt. Why should I suddenly believe, that this already extermely biased survey will not be presented in a completely distorted way, like they did with all other community dissent up to now? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:28, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

If the Foundation's Brand Project Team is serious about restorative practices, one way to do that would be to begin to collaborate with the community. One of the big flaws with the process so far was the 'big bang' approach to announcements - releasing the naming conventions all at once, only to find out that there was no community support; releasing the board meeting slides, only to find out they were misleading. An important restorative practice would be to gain community support for the analysis before the September meetings, rather than having the board make a decision on an analysis that the community realizes afterwards is flawed. TomDotGov (talk) 16:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Warning about misleading slides.

I added a warning about the slides the foundation's Brand Project Team presented to the Board being misleading. A few of the more obvious ways:

• There are no statistics about pageviews or editor retention from after 2015.
• The board comments on Page 37 are cherry-picked.
• The map on Page 57 is misleading, as it highlights counties like Canada, Russian, Brazil, Australia, and China that didn't actually share any feedback.
• Page 82 reads like a Snohetta ad. It's not clear that experience with Architecture translates to branding, and it's pretty clear that now that we've seen what Snohetta did, it's nothing like the "wiki" way.
• Page 91 is really bad:
  • Unlike the RfC where the participants evaluated their own responses, there's no indication what the 705 participants think about branding.
  • 1,300 visits and 1,200 endorsements are meaningless numbers when compared to people.
  • Both of these are repeats of the mistake Heather apologized for, which was confusing participation in a process with endorsement.
  • This is especially true when juxtaposing them with the RfC.

These are just some of the ways in which these slides are misleading. I'm not sure what the right thing to do about this is, other than to warn readers, and potentially present a corrected version next to the version presented to the Board. TomDotGov (talk) 00:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with many of these points (that "1200 endorsements" bit is exceptionally problematic), but I think the warning can't be limited to just saying it's misleading without any further explanation. A link to the talk page would make sense, I think, along with more expansive wording. (Presentations like these are getting more and more common from the WMF in general, and it's clear that many no longer feel any compunctions against creating deliberately biased or disingenuous reports. I'm starting to think that we need a standard system for labelling such WMF statements.) --Yair rand (talk) 01:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

To clarify why the "1200 endorsements" metric is problematic: If a user wished to express opposition to the selected branding concept by pressing endorse for 15 opposing options, that would be considered 15 endorsements. --Yair rand (talk) 06:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I've linked this discussion, and I'd be happy with any wording that makes the problem clear. I just think it's better to get the warning that the slides are misleading up as soon as possible. TomDotGov (talk) 02:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I feel its hard to judge a presentation with just the slides. So much depends on the context that the speaker puts the individual slide into. I too don't think its really an accurate representation of the oppose side. However its kind of unfair to expect anyone to unilaterally come up with a fair assesment of someone they disagree with (perhaps this still is the fault of brand team for accepting the task of unilaterally summarizing the debate instead of somehow collaborating with the opposition to come up with something both sides think is fair). I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt here that brand team at least tried to summarize the opposition, even if they didn't quite "get it". Bawolff (talk) 01:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I'd say that the slides were posted to the wiki without further context, like speakers notes - and so the potential to mislead exists. It's not like it wasn't clear from the time this presentation was first conceived that it would be posted publicly.

I'll use the map on Page 57 as an example - it has the problem that it geographically weights countries, as if a country with more landmass is more important than a smaller country. It also colors countries where some affiliate responded blue, just like countries where no affiliate responded. That image was once all over the place, but it's been taken down for being misleading - but now it's back up.

Page 65. Heather Walls apologized for that on February 17th. It took almost a month (to March 14th) to get that misleading information corrected - and it took me editing the report to get it fixed.

Maybe context changes things, but neither the community the board asked to review these slides nor the members of future boards of directors will have been given that context. TomDotGov (talk) 02:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh i definitely don't disagree there are issues. The not-to-scale graph on page 90 in particular annoys me, all the more so because its so minor, why wouldnt they just make it to scale, especially in the current political context? Comes across all the more tone deaf because of how small it is. I also can't help but feel in the various slides about "mistakes" that they fail to understand why it was a mistake and are mostly sorry they got caught. Bawolff (talk) 02:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

The tuning session slides may also be of interest File:Wikimedia_Foundation_fourth_quarter_2019-2020_tuning_session_-_Communications.pdf. Basically the same as the slides for the board, but there's some interesting nuggets. On the bright side they do acknowledge the possibility of the branding project being halted and note the calls for restorative process from affiliates. On the downside they only express concern about dissent from affiliates and the overall thrust is still "what can we do to get this through?". If you want some dark humour, there's also graphic on slide 21 that I think unintentionally summarises the community's feelings about certain WMF consultations. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:58, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Any answers by those, who made this again substandard presentation? Or do they only wait for it to be archived? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Brand Project to pause until March 2021 - Sharing survey report

We are writing today to share some big updates:

• The Brand Project will pause until March 2021

On 24 of September Zack McCune and Heather Walls attended the Board meeting and recommended that the Brand Project pauses until March 2021. As referenced in the community open letter, many Wikimedia movement activities, events and key collaborations have been put on hold or restructured due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we believe this should also include the Brand Project. The Board resolved to pause the project and stated this publicly on 30 September.

• The project’s process will evolve with guidance from a new ad-hoc Board committee

During the pause, a small ad-hoc Board committee will be formed to liaise with staff, and develop a process of collaboration and decision-making appropriate for the Movement’s brand. This committee will include Trustees James Heilman, Raju Narisetti, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov. There is also the intention to include a small number of community representatives from affiliates, open letter signatories, emerging communities, and Foundation staff to be designated by the Executive Director. We’ll update you with more details on the committee soon.

• The naming survey report is now available. To learn more about what naming elements should be removed, refined and recombined please view the full report. Thank you for all your participation in the Brand Project so far and we look forward to collaborating with you again next year. --Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Naming feedback survey data release timing

I was asked when naming feedback survey results would be released during the Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meetings this weekend so I wanted to document those answers here as well. The project team will release all survey data (anonymized) and a report on the survey results following Board review. This Board review was originally scheduled for August 5, and has since been rescheduled for September 24. The process is to review these materials with the Board of Trustees first, and shifts in Board meeting timing does not shift this review order.

The naming feedback survey data is also not a vote, as the acting Board chair confirmed on June 26, so this report is not going to result in a selected naming approach. Instead, the feedback provides constructive criticism on what naming elements to "remove, refine, and recombine" as explained in the naming phase home page. That's what folks can expect in the report's recommendations. Cheers! And thanks to all who joined the SWAN meeting with questions and ideas. - ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Why should we trust you, that you will present a valid survey result, and not something along the fake numbers you used to promote your renaming in the KPI-fiasco? You give your probably biased results of this completely biased "survey" to the board first, so that the critical eye of the community has no chance to point out any errors. It's very telling, that you disregard the community again and only talk with some functionaries of the WMF instead of the sovereign, the community, first. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:27, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): This is a process that almost everyone considers to be faulty. Given that two of the things going wrong with this process are, "There is a general lack of trust in the Foundation" and "Our 'non typical' process was seen as less legitimate.", the process itself needs to be revisited. There is nothing in the statement from the acting board chair that prevents the Foundation from disclosing the survey contents for community for review before the September meeting.

One of the biggest problems with the way this project has been run so far has been commitment to a process that has been predictably failing. When small groups of people told you the process would fail, it wasn't changed. When the RfC told you it was failing, the process wasn't changed. When an open letter from the community told you the process was failing, the process wasn't changed. It's not like the process can't be changed - it can and has been, on multiple occasions. It's just that none of these changes have addressed the community's concerns, especially with the way that the project has misled the board and the community.

The board was misled at least twice, so far - by a faulty analysis of the survey data, and then by a set of misleading slides. Now you're sticking with a process that will lead to the Brand Project Team having the opportunity to present misleading information to the board again, after which that information will be reviewed by the community. That doesn't improve trust in the Foundation or add legitimacy. The process needs to be changed again. TomDotGov (talk) 00:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@ZMcCune (WMF): the only valid and acceptable answer to "on what naming elements to remove, refine, and recombine" is that the "Wikipedia" element must be removed. I hope that the branding team does not intend to advance any contrary answer. Any contrary answer could only be a result of:

• malice or incompetence in designing the survey to make it difficult-or-impossible to answer the survey in that manner; and/or
• malice or incompetence in summarizing to avoid admitting that result.

Unfortunately, the Foundation has a historical pattern of severely biased surveys&summaries reaching a desired (and fraudulent) result. To cite one example, the Flow Survey claimed that there was almost as much support for Flow as opposition against Flow, and issued a recommendation to continue development and to pursue expanded deployment. In reality opposition to Flow was more like 90%. The ultimate outcome should be noted. In direct response to the fraudulent survey results I organized community consensus to successfully terminate any further development or deployment. (As you can see noted in the information-box at the top of the survey page.)

If the branding team misleads the Board into supporting this fiasco, it will only result in the community (again) firing and replacing the Board and rolling back that decision, as the community did to overrule the Board's malfeasance in the Superprotect incident. Alsee (talk) 06:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

As we know now, the Naming survey feedback report was biased again, as it left out the massive opposition to the survey and ist conduct itself, that was marked as heavily biased before it even started. It's a report, that looks as if it was a valid survey, while the design was extremely tilted towards the outcome, the small group of renamers wanted to accomplish. Nothimng of this inherent bias was reported in the report, business as usual with this group of renamers. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:34, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll defend it. I think that the PDF that was presented to the board made the limitations of the survey quite clear, on slide 6. That didn't make it it to the wiki page, but that was something we fixed quick. The actual presentation both included much of the feedback that usurping Wikipedia was unwanted, and that none of the proposed names had support outside the Foundation. I still think there are flaws in the survey, and an up or down vote on if any name is better than the status quo is something that needs to be part of this process. But it's not like this felt like some sort of cover up of the results. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 12:45, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Timeline Graphic

@Selsharbaty (WMF): I'm wondering what the justification for adding this graphic to this page and the timeline is. As I read the board update, they haven't even put together the committee to determine what will happen in March yet, and so anything in the timeline after March would be completely up in the air. I sort of get that the point of the graphic was to indicate that a pause has been added, but don't think anyone can be certain about what will happen after the pause, which was, among other things, requested to allow board elections to occur.

I was wondering if it could be remade with a simple ? after the pause. Barring that, I think the right approach would be to remove the timeline graphic in its entirety. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 13:47, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Based on the board resolution to “ideally [conclude] this by the end of 2021,” the need for holding naming and design phases continue to persist during the calendar year 2021. We will update the community in case of any change to the project plan. --Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 09:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I hope, the name Wikipedia for the whole Wikiverse won't be on the table any longer and the wishes of the community will finally be heard after all this years of complete neglect. It should be made chrystal clear, that that option is off the table. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:31, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Selsharbaty (WMF): I think two relevant lines are "Trustees, staff, affiliate leaders, and other community members should use the intervening time to work to develop a process for how brand discussions and decisions should proceed once they resume" and "an ad-hoc Board committee is formed to develop the process of collaboration and decision-making". Right now, the graphic is showing the current failing process with a pause in the middle, but given that the committee hasn't even formed yet, it's not clear how this graphic can reflect that development. (And similarly, other timeline sections.) TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 12:26, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Should the Foundation call itself Wikipedia 46 for, 540 against

There was an RFC that resulted from some of the methodology and perceived confusing approach being undertaken in this discussion and process about brand, particularly that the brand of the Foundation would be WIKIPEDIA. There was what could possibly be observed as a straw poll of participants in the discussion that had 46 people support that sort of renaming, with 540 not in favour. There was much discussion, and many impassioned points of view about the proposals and the process. The deferral of the decision-making process was noted, though the level of dissatisfaction about the process continues to exist. It would be fair to conclude that the opinion resonating from the conversation is that there is a level of foregone conclusion in what is proposed and that those running or formulating the process are not truly hearing the negative commentary nor suitably responding to questions being asked. There is a trust deficit in the existing process.  — billinghurst sDrewth 08:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the use of Wikipedia for anything but the Wikipedia was thoroughly rejected by the community. Any recommendation with Wikipedia in it is thus completely off the table, if anyone still tries to keep it there, it's clear they are acting explicitly against the community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:42, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving Forwards

The current Board of Directors has issued an update, and a resolution changing the nature of the work on branding until March 1, 2021. While it suspends discussion of the branding proper until March 1, for now it tasks community members, affiliate leaders, staff, and trustees with developing a new process for how brand discussions should occur when they resume.

I think the most important change that can be made to this project will be to develop the brand in collaboration with the community. The main problem with branding so far has been the way that it has taken place in a series of discrete steps, each months apart, and with the sense that prior feedback has not fed into the branding process. The community has been pretty consistent in telling the Foundation that usurping the Wikipedia name was a non-starter, and rather than accept that feedback early and spend our time researching names that complied with the Movement Branding Guidelines, a lot of effort was spent trying to deny an outcome that was clear before the project began. Let's not do that again, and instead get suggestions for branding from the community, and iterate rapidly on those suggestions.

Specifically, this should mean an end to things like branding events, hour long youtube streams, and so on. I sort of think that the Board's suggestion that this take place at in-person events is a recipe for continued failure, and one of the causes of the current problems - in-person events like that tend to limit the audience to those that can attend, people who might have a very different perspective than the community as a whole. What's more, events increase the time it takes for feedback to be delivered and addressed from hours to months, meaning the project had time to waste effort on unproductive directions, effort that human nature makes it hard to discard.

One of the most interesting things in the process is that our traditional methods of gaining and determining consensus - informal on-wiki discussion, followed by formal discussions like RfCs if necessary, have proven very successful. The problems with the current process were made apparent through these processes, and the warnings that were given that this project was moving in a direction unsupported by community consensus proved accurate. My hope is that we can reverse this mistake in the next iteration of branding - engage the community early and often, and be responsive to concerns. It might seem less efficient, but without community buy-in, we'll have spent a year on branding without results. I'd caution strongly against trying to come up with another bespoke consensus process for branding, as, in the words of the Brand Project Team:

Our “non typical” process was seen as less legitimate. Moving away from RfCs and contests has been viewed unfavorably. We did not properly explain the reasoning behind some of our choices, so by the time we did, they were perceived as against the values of the Wikimedia and wiki way.

I don't think it's a simply a matter of how the process is perceived - it was less legitimate, as it involved denying community consensus rather than working to establish community consensus. I think it's quite possible that the Wikimedia branding should be improved - I don't think the current branding makes sense for anything but commons. At the same time, trying to reuse Wikipedia is a non-starter, as it is the one name that can be confused with 'Wikipedia' more easily than 'Wikimedia' can be. We've had suggestions for brand changes that weren't addressed. A community contest suggested the Wikipedia puzzle globe logo - which evolved into the world class logo we have today. Why not spend the time to find another one? TomDotGov (talk) 01:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I find it quite telling, how active the main drivers of this small group of renamers were in the last time in regard of interaction with the community (and no, Facebook is by no means any valid venue for community interaction):

• ZMcCune (WMF): last interaction with community here on 24. August
• ELappen (WMF): last interaction with community here on 11. August
• Selsharbaty (WMF): last interaction with the community about the branding project 11. August

Even the Board took a week to make this resolution public, and it's mainly a resolution, that tries to circumvent the elephant in the room, that the renaming to Wikipedia will never happen, that it was a complete err9or to invest anything ion this without proper community participation, the mentioning of Covid-19 is just a distraction from the real issues here. The community solidly and completely rejected the brainchild of this small group, and they still don't want to admit it. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

TomDotGov: 100% my thoughts, couldn't put it together better. This entire project was started with a premise that the entire rebranding project belongs to the WMF's Branding Team/Communications Team only. I felt it was like: it's our job to progress this project so leave it all to us. However our boss told us to have some input from you, so please talk to us but only when we ask you. We may not listen to you though since it's our project and we are the ones who are responsible for it. It was like that all the time. I got to know about rebranding plans only in January, after I saw a information about RfC on metawiki's main page, so let me tell you how it looked like for me. January: why starting the RfC? It's too early, there are going to be workshops soon. February: We conducted workshops, so there's no need for your input at this point. March: We still don't need to hear from you about possible names, but you can participate in the Snohetta exercises instead. Let's just wait until we reveal the unified brand concept. April: So here's our unified brand concept. So cool, isn't it?. May: Just wait for it ;^). June: Okay, here are our proposa-... what??? you don't like that? But we asked for your input though. No, there was never a chance to propose anything. This process was the farthest it could be from the „wiki way”. The „wiki way” is: look, here's a problem, let's think of a solution together. No need for workshops, no need for any in-person meetings, no need for virtual meetings, no need for presentations, no need for IRC hours. You just had to create Communications/Wikimedia_brands/brainstorming, tell that you need to change a name, clearly explain why and ask the community to provide feedback to our proposals and, if they don't like them, to come up with proposals themselves. That's all. That's why I absolutely LOVE how currently the MediaWiki logo change proposal is being conducted. That's why I liked this little discussion: that's how it's supposed to be! We come up with ideas, we comment on ideas, we polish the ideas and we got the best result. There's still a chance to do this, but to be honest, at this point the community is really really tired by this rebranding process. After wasting so much of our precious time on this, the spirit is really down and only a handful of people would like this process to even continue. Sorry for my bad English. tufor (talk) 13:33, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Tufor, thank you for the kind words. I'll also drop a link to mw:Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_MediaWiki,_2020, since I hadn't seen it before today, and because it looks like it's going to be an example of a successful branding project. It would be interesting when designing a new procedure to compare the time this project took (it looks like it'll take about 4-5 months from start to finish), and the amount of resources the Foundation had to commit to these two projects. TomDotGov (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree, the community clearly broadly agrees, but the Foundation isn't hearing anything it doesn't want to hear. I think we need concrete action from the community. I'm contemplating some RFC ideas. Alsee (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking for community advisors to Board committee on Brand

Dear all, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has convened an ad hoc committee on the Movement Brand Project. Three trustees were selected to head its work, in close collaboration with the Brand team - Raju Narisetti, James Heilman and myself. Seeking to improve the Brand Project process, we are looking for community advisors to give input from various Wikimedia movement perspectives. The goal is to re-launch the brand discussions with a clear and transparent process in March 2021, and to conclude the conversations with a decision by the end of the fiscal year (July 2021). Though we will be approaching specific groups directly asking for advisors, I am updating the general Brand page with details, so there is clarity & transparency regarding the process.

What will advisors do?

The Brand Committee is charged with developing and proposing changes to the Movement Brand Project process. The committee will produce a proposal that the full Board of Trustees will review and hopefully agree to adopt, if aligned. Advisors will support us in recognizing key stakeholder community perspectives on branding needs, processes and decision-making. They will provide input and comments on proposed changes to process and offer working solutions to challenges the committee encounters. Advisors will be able to share ideas and ask questions to their communities, as needed. The full process will be vetted and endorsed by advisors before the Board of Trustees makes its final decision on adopting these proposed changes to process and decision-making. After the proposed changes to process and decision-making are adopted, the new process will be launched in March.

What kind of commitment is needed?

Advisors can expect 6-9 hours of activity a month, in January and February 2021, though we will be aiming to launch the joint process with a first meeting during the second half of December. There will be opportunities to join committee meetings with Board members & staff, or to watch recordings of the meetings and provide feedback asynchronously. Documents and proposals will be shared among advisors for comment, review and suggestions.

What kind of advisor is the committee seeking?

The Brand Committee is looking for a small set of advisors who are able to engage thoughtfully on the importance of branding to the Wikimedia Movement’s 2030 goals. Advisors will be asked to reflect on more than processes: they will be asked to think about the strategic goals of the brand names and logos within the movement, and how to equitably structure decisions around them. Ideal advisors therefore have experience representing the movement to the public, as well as understand the internal needs of the movement’s work as something multidimensional and open. The number of advisors will be between 7 - 9 people, in an effort to support active participation within the committee, and to keep the process on track, to “un-pause” in March. By then we strive for a clear sense of a process with which the broader community will be able to engage. We have identified 3 main groups we would like advisors from:

• 2 advisors from affiliate leadership (Chairpersons or EDs)
• 2 advisors from the community, specifically, people who participated in authoring the Community Open Letter on Renaming (COLOR)
• 2 additional advisors from the global south / emerging and underrepresented communities*
• 1 advisor from AffCom

Please note:

• As the global south / emerging and underrepresented communities include a variety of different groups, we will be actively approaching Wiki Indaba, ESEAP, IberoCoop, the India lists and the Brazilian community, asking each to nominate one advisor (if I have missed a group you believe to qualify, please let me know privately and I’ll be sure to approach them as well). Out of all applications from these groups, 2 will be chosen to complement the other 5 representatives (2 from affiliates, 2 from COLOR, 1 from AffCom). Our goal would be to choose from groups that are not already represented by other chosen advisors, with a special effort to be as diverse and inclusive as possible.
• The committee might also directly invite up to 2 additional advisors, as it sees fit.

How should advisors be nominated and added to the committee?

The committee is requesting all advisor nominations to be sent no later than January 31st, 2021. The committee will review applications and make its final decision on advisors during February.
Those interested are requested to contact their relevant groups (Affiliates, COLOR, AffCom, emerging communities) and reach a consensus with the group on who the representatives should be before sending their nominations. Nominees are requested to send an email shaniwikimedia.org with your nominations and include the following details: Subject line: Nomination for the Brand Committee Advisors Task Force; Full name; Wiki Username; Affiliation; A short (!) paragraph on why you would like to be part of the process and how you believe you can contribute.

Thank you all for your participation and contribution to this process! Shani Evenstein Sigalov, On Behalf of the Brand Committee, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation. Shani (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

!! Important update -- We have received feedback from different communities and individuals asking us for more time to nominate advisors. The Brand Committee has just met has unanimously agreed to push the nomination deadline to January 31st. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments & Questions

Why start anything with this rather very low priority project until the high priority projects like elections, bylaws, UCoC, Global Council, Movement strategy etc. are done and over. And please state clear and unambiguously that the name Wikipedia for anything but Wikipedia is completely off the agenda. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Sänger ♫. Thank you for your comments, which I personally found to be on point. As of now, we have a Board resolution to "un-pause" brand on March and finalize the work by the end of this fiscal year. However, hearing requests from community for more time, the Committee resolved today to extend the advisors nomination deadline. Note that advisors are meant to help us design a better process and decide on a suitable timeline. I also hear you about priorities (which was also raised by others). The Committee will also be recommending a revised timeline for the Brand project to the full Board in the coming December Board meeting. Additionally, I can share that the Board is working on changes to its Committees work and (among other things) is looking to create new structures that will support a more systematic way of working with the community and prioritizing different needs (both from WMF & community). Finally, a gentle remind that we are all on the same side. This Committee is listening carefully to both the Board, WMF staff and the community, and is doing its best to find solutions that align all needs and best serve our mission and vision. So even if it's challenging at this point, please keep in mind that this Committee has just started its work. Assume good faith and give us a chance. We are hear to listen and serve. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding my second statement, in connection to your "this committee is listening carefully", what about the rejected renaming towards Wikipedia? Is it still an option, or do you really listen to the community? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 06:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Sänger, I did not answer that because I do not hold the answer to that question. That will be determined only after a community-wide consultation, which has not happened yet. The advisors we are looking for now are not meant to help make the decisions about Branding, but rather to design an inclusive and equitable process for the community to participate in. In other words, in the process, which the community will help design and stand behind, we will be consulting the wider community, and the results of that consultation(s) will inform the Board in its final decision. Per your specific question about the Wikipedia name -- so far, we've been hearing different things from different parts of the movement. There seems to be a scale of answers ranging from "This is the worst idea and should be taken off the table right now", to "This is what we've been waiting for, for a long time, so bring it on already". So far, we did not have a truly global & inclusive process. We had an attempted of a process that was criticized for being flawed by the community, and which resulted in people asking for the process to pause / stop. The Board listened and paused. The board, however, is still convinced that this is an important topic to explore, especially considering our 2030 strategic goals, and that the request to explore Branding came from the community in the early stages of the strategic process. So this Ad Hoc Committee was formed to make sure that we create a good process and have a proper consultation with the community, one that is not flawed nor questioned later, and one that is designed with the community, considering different stakeholders' perspectives. This is where we are now. So your question, while interesting and important, is jumping way ahead of where we are in the process right now. All I can say is that all options are on the table for discussion, but what we are concerned with, at this point in time, is making sure that moving forward, we do that with a fair and inclusive process that the community feels good about and wants to engage in. After that consultation, the Board will be in a better position to make informed decisions. I wholeheartedly believe we are just not there yet. I encourage you (and others) to stay engaged. As I promised, I'll keep updating this page about where we are in the process, as we advance, step by step. Shani (WMF) (talk) 00:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Shani (WMF): The community already conducted this consultation, at Requests for comment/Should the Foundation call itself Wikipedia. The Foundation's Brand Project Team produced a summary back in April, which you can read here. The results matched the other times the community had this conversation, such as at the initial review. It's inappropriate for the Board to act like the community's opinions is not known, after it's been clearly reported for more than half a year. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 01:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

TomDotGov, thanks for that. I am aware of this RfC and of the report. From what I understand, there has been criticism of this process claiming that it is not inclusive enough, and represents only parts of our movements. I can promise 2 things in this respect -- 1) I will take it back to the next Committee meeting, which is Jan 20th, and all the evidence of previous engagements around branding will be re-examined and addressed by the Committee, before we engage with community advisors. 2) I will make sure that all past engagements will inform the new design process, which is about more than just the WMF name change. Shani (WMF) (talk) 02:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Shani (WMF): Those people are simply wrong.

The Requests for Comments process is the process we use for settling content and most other disputes (behavioral disputes being the main exception), because it's a process that's self-evidently fair. Everyone who wants to can participate, make their best case. It's the same sort of credibility that comes with elections - when everyone who wants to participate can, there comes a natural legitimacy. People might debate if the election was conducted fairly, but they don't debate that fairly conducted elections are legitimate. In an RfC, people are allowed to argue for their points, provided they remain civil. And then we come to a decision as a community. That's the process the community followed to make this decision, and I think it was a good and correct one. I don't think it's reasonable to say that large portions of the community were unrepresented in the RfC process when it ran for most of a year, and had participants from 49 (or more) home Wikis. So I'd say that such criticisms of the RfC process need to be supported, rather than just asserted.

If there is a better way to make contentious decisions, then it's not clear why we're exploring it here, rather than seeing how we could use that superior process to make decisions about the creation of the content that is our actual mission. I don't think such a process exists, and if one did exist I'd suggest it would be better to explore that in some other context, not in the context of a process that has already concluded. I will say that below, you describe a process that takes place off-wiki as "the Wiki way", and I don't believe that is correct. I think there is a Wiki way, and it involves discussing things on-wiki. While achieving consensus directly is better, RfCs are currently the legitimate and Wiki way to resolve a contentious issue.

I do think that on-wiki discussions like the ones we're having now are valuable, and need to continue, ideally with the rest of the Committee present, so we don't wind up returning to this place at the end of January or March. I don't really believe that this is anything you don't know already, but I think it's still important that this be presented to the Committee and Board. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 04:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

You're right on two things -- 1) it's not new to me. 2) It's important that this perspective is presented to the Committee & Board, which is exactly why I appreciate you taking the time to put it on wiki. But you're wrong in one assumption -- to me, the Wiki way is on-Wiki. I do support using external social media platforms to connect better with people from the community, as I think that the Wiki is lacking in that sense; but it will usually be in order to bring them back to participate on Wiki. So, not sure why you concluded that I "describe a process that takes place off-wiki as "the Wiki way"". But. Even if I lemment you reaching that conclusion (especially after reading me putting so much emphasis on working closely with the community and protecting its interests and values), you're entitled to your opinion. In any case, as promised before, I will take it back to the Committee. I'll update when I have something new to share. Shani Evenstein. 05:28, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

More succinctly - the RfC that we finished during the pause is the conclusion of a legitimate process that was conducted in the longstanding Wiki way. If the Foundation thought there were important perspectives that were missing, the time to have presented them was while the RfC was running. The current plan is for some process to occur off-wiki in February and March. If that process contradicts the on-wiki RfC's conclusion, it's illegitimate. If it's the same, it's unnecessary. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 06:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

TomDotGov, I was not referring to that RfC, which was inclusive and valid, but to things which happened later that year (like the survey), which were considered by community not-valid and resulted in the COLOR letter. As I wrote before, the Committee will include all of the different steps that were already taken around Branding into consideration in its design process. Also noting again that the Brand process is about more than the WMF name change. I will share more after our Jan meeting. Shani (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Shani (WMF): I'll refer you to the Board Update on Branding: next steps: "Staff have confirmed to the Board that responses to the survey will not be calculated as support for a change. The survey was only designed to collect feedback on the possible renaming options, not as a yes/no vote on whether to adopt them." That's because the survey had major methodological problems in its design, leading to a biased outcome. If you take a look at the CentralNotice request, there is a reasonable discussion of the problems of the survey. This is why discussing things in public is important. Mentioning this makes it clear you're looking at a survey the community, staff, and board have all indicated is unsuitable for this purpose, which shows the advantage of the wiki way. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 21:26, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Tom, seems like we are on the same page on that. Whatever happens when we "unpause" the Brand process will be on Wiki. Till we get to that point, the Committee, with its advisors, will work on a process, and when we unpause, will present it to the community. That is the mechanism the board has right now to operate, in collaboration with Staff & community, and it's not a new mechanism in the movement. Shani (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Shani, the problem is that that the problems that the Movement Brand Project had were with process design. You had processes that were designed on-wiki, like the RFC, that yielded legitimate results. And then you had processes designed off-wiki, like the Snohetta junkets, the Facebook group, and the second Survey, all of which were designed off-wiki and yielded results that were illegitimate and incorrect. It's a bit depressing when the Foundation comes back and proposes to make the same mistake it's been making for the last year - non-public process design - and it's impossible to stop the inevitable and expensive failure that will result. The board needs a better mechanism, and fast. And if this board can't find that mechanism, it needs to be replaced with a new board, ASAP - ideally, two months ago.

Speed matters. If we talk on Wiki every few days, then I can assume good faith if you forgot that the Survey was deemed invalid. But if you come back after too months, and tell me that "oh, we based all this work on this survey", it's much harder. I never asked for a pause, didn't sign COLOR. Right now, I wrote three of the seven guidelines for good movement branding, and I think a new logo and a better way of tying Wikipedia to the other projects - without usurping Wikipedia's identity - would be great. I proposed a way to move forward above, which turned out to mirror the successful branding initiatives. I want us to talk more, not less, and either accept the completed process as definitive, or find one acceptable to everyone. But I don't want to go off-wiki and become part of the problem. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 00:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi TomDotGov and Shani. As I really appreciate this conversation and the one just below, I want to stand for Shani this time. I am quite convince the board members are not gods. They have a limited time to dedicate to the board, as they are not paid for that, and plenty topics to discuss. I think all of those persons are of good will and full of skills. However, it is not their responsibility to make themselves the process. They offer here an open room to gather people with time and competences to do so. This comité will not take any decision but design a new process to be approve by the board - and I hope also by the community - before it starts. Gathering view from the community and add more views through an outwiki expertise doesn't seem odd to me. This brand is as much for the editors than for the readers, now and in the future. The RfC was in Meta and in English, that's a bias also. I am convinced no one have the perfect idea for the process or for the result. Better keep talking and building methods to expend our views about this subject. Noé (talk) 08:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Affiliate signers of m:COLOR

@Noé: If the board members aren't able to conduct the process in a legitimate manner, it's better to keep it paused until a new board can. As-is, the board is choosing to change the status-quo by unpausing early, and designing a process off-wiki. That is likely to cause a repeat of the mistakes that the Foundation's Brand Project team made in the past. There isn't any commitment from the board that the process designed off-wiki will be approved by the community before it is starts, and experience with the Brand Project shows that it won't be. The flaws in things like the second survey were clear before it was run, and those flaws were ignored by the Foundation.

The gold standard for large community conversations is the talk pages consulation. It was designed on-wiki by the interaction of a Foundation staff member with the community. Once a fair process was established, more consultations took place on various wikis, in many languages. A good solution was discovered on a, IIRC, Russian wiki, etc. So I think it's possible to have on-wiki processes that work well in multiple languages, provided the process starts with on-wiki discussion. What worries me a lot is that the Foundation and Board are creating bespoke processes off-wiki that claim to increase representation, but instead are engineered to produce a predetermined result. At COLOR, a diverse group of affiliates and community members pointed this out, but now the Foundation seems poised to repeat their mistakes.

There isn't a big cultural divide as to if sentences like "The Wikipedia Network Foundation does not control the content of Wikipedia." are confusing, and hence against the first rule of good movement branding. So acting like we have to create a special procedure to determine this to make sure everyone is represented feels more like a way of inviting bias, rather than reducing it. It's especially bad because these procedures seems to over-represent privileged people, those who can fly out to in-person meetings, in a way that on-wiki discussions do not. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 13:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello. I if get it right (as it was only in English, I am not sure), you wrote that the advisors should be aligned with Wikimedia Movement’s 2030 goals. I am not, and I consider there are Wikimedia Foundation 2030 goals, not Wikimedia Movement's 2030 goals. I am quite worry about this statement. I think picking only people with one selected vision may conduce to a biased result, made by a small homogeneous group and not supported by the whole community. How do you plan to include people with other visions of the future of the Wikimedia Movement in this discussion? Noé (talk) 21:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Noé. First, thank you for this question. I am also not an English native speaker, so I appreciate where you're coming from and believe your question is an important one to clarify. The short answer to your question is that I am not as worried as you, because I believe we are taking necessary steps to make sure we are not biased and actually as inclusive and diverse as possible. First, if you look at the language we used, we wrote that we are looking for people who can "engage thoughtfully on the importance of branding to the Wikimedia Movement’s 2030 goals" (if I'm getting to the sentence you are referring to). That does not mean that we are looking for any specific point of view. Yes, we are in an unprecedented moment in our movement, in which after a very long, and as inclusive as possible process, we have decided on our goals for 2030 as a movement (I'm referring to the Strategy Recommendations document, with 10 main goals). The fact that we were able to produce something that so many people participated in creating and that was endorsed by so many people in the movement, is an achievement in itself. But, it certainly does not mean that every single Wikimedian, from any single Wiki project, personally endorses every single one of the recommendations. It would be impossible to please everyone. But the recommendations are just that -- recommendations. They do not include details on the how and when and they could be interpreted differently by different individuals, which is why we will need to discuss every single one of them, as a movement. Second, different points of views and inclusions have been core values to our movement for along time. In that spirit, the Committee has made an effort to identify different groups of "stakeholders" -- the larger community, affiliates, and emerging / less represented communities. In the first category, we actually approached community members who have been involved in asking for this project to pause, so are natural criticizers of it. We have then asked each group to send us their chosen candidates. Meaning, we are not choosing candidates. Each group will be sending its candidates to us, in order to specifically avoid even an appearance that we might be working only with people we chose, or that have the same perspective as us (there is no one perspective, BTW). This Committee values the different approaches to Branding and believes it is important to include all of them in the conversation that we will have about how the process should look like. Then, there will be a community consultation, which will be designed to be as inclusive as possible. In other words, we are making an effort to avoid bias and include as many voices as possible, including opposing ones, every single step of the way in this process. It is the Wiki way. And the only way to go, as far as this Committee is concerned. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your nice answer. I understand that you are challenging important bias to be as inclusive as possible, and I think it is made quite well. Good. It is still difficult to integrate minorities you never heard about. Gender issues are well known (despite being often loosely challenged), North/South also, but there is other discriminations or difficulties than you can't consider if you don't gather enough people. I am thinking of three examples: there is editors who are not adult, aged under 18 (or another age, depending of the country they are in) with specific needs and forces ; there is still people speaking of sister projects, blind to consider that a lot of people arrived in the wiki projects through another project than Wikipedia and some people may never edit Wikipedia, but are still part of the community (I am thinking of speakers of endangered languages more interested by audio recording, pedagogical material and dictionary-style documentation rather than encyclopedic writing or data collection); there is a lot of people that can't understand English and never heard of Meta or any surveys but happy to edit, they will not be more implicate with a different branding, it is just how non-profit activities works. I am not asking for specific answers for those three, it is just a set of possible "minorities" that could be missed during this process. -- Noé (talk) 13:39, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments about inclusion, Noé, which are completely on point from my perspective. I cannot answer to all of it, but I can share a few things that you might find interesting in that respect -- 1) You might have noticed that the Committee has reserved the option of inviting 2 additional advisors. Those seats will be reserved to include communities / groups in our movement that we feel are not represented by the 7 that will be coming from the community at large; or for external experts that might assist its work (to be determined with the 7 . 2) The Committee members are actually well aware of language barriers, so we represent that point of view in that sense, as well as the point you made on other Sister Projects. We may speak of Wikipedia because that is the most well known project, but are looking at all projects and volunteers. 3) To your point on children under 18, not really related to Brand, but a general note -- this point was raised by me during the Board's discussions on the Universal Code of Conduct and the Board resolution on making our movement more safe and inclusive. Our resolution actually included a request to consult external experts on Designing for Childrens' Rights (as a different things from Human Rights), as part of starting to think more strategically about this group of volunteers. So, again, I'm thinking about these things and at least in that capacity, it will be included in the Committee's work. Finally, it's a good place to remind people that if there are other groups that you feel are not represented, please send me an email (shaniwikimedia.org) and I'll take that into consideration. Shani (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both, I agree it is of value to use the 2030 strategy as a framework for ideas that can be developed further, and hopefully building off of it even broader consultations. I believe it is especially valuable and serves the community especially well when issues that have been treated separately are integrated into the 2030 strategy process in a transparent way, and appreciate this as a positive step in that direction for the branding issue.--Pharos (talk) 19:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

As this date is nearing, and there is still not a single sign, that the WMF wants to listen to the community and ditch the utterly refuted rebranding towards Wikipedia for a restart of this, I see absolutely no sense in any participation in this, as the WMF will further not listen towards any dissent and just do, what a very small group of completely detached from the community people within the WMF desperately wants to do regardless what. Wikipedia is off the table, it's impossible to use it for anything but that project. If you don't acknowledge that simple fact, what use should any "discussion" with those who deny the realty have? Yoi will just continue to not listen to any dissent, like the group has proven beyond any doubt up to now. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC)