[HN Gopher] Community open letter on ceasing renaming Wikimedia ...
___________________________________________________________________
Community open letter on ceasing renaming Wikimedia to Wikipedia
Author : bpierre
Score : 29 points
Date : 2020-06-25 22:26 UTC (33 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (meta.wikimedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (meta.wikimedia.org)
| leetrout wrote:
| I didn't know they were doing this but I agree with the sentiment
| of the letter. It's no different than any other social
| technologies... the community builds it then the company co-opts
| it (and usually monetizes it AND the quality degrades).
| romwell wrote:
| Oh, it's one of those "if it ain't broken, ruin it by rebranding"
| moves that we've seen play out so many times, is it?
|
| Great thinking. People know that Wikipedia is a great
| encyclopedia, it's in the name. Let's make it stand for many
| things that are not the encyclopedia.
|
| If there was a Wikipedia article about it... Oh wait, there is
| one:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#Brand_extension_and_bran...
| romwell wrote:
| They are accepting comments at brandproject@wikimedia.org
|
| Here is what I sent them, if anyone wants to follow:
|
| ----------------------------
|
| Hello,
|
| I am writing to you regarding the rebranding proposal to use
| Wikipedia for projects that are not Wikipedia.
|
| In short: please don't. This is a plain example of brand
| dilution.
|
| The brand has a clear meaning: Wikipedia stands for an
| encyclopedia. The trust and widespread acceptance of the brand
| comes from this clear association. Wikipedia doesn't stand for
| the news. Or for the books. Or for pictures. Or for _media_.
|
| Wikipedia stands for an encyclopedia, which is valued as a
| source of knowledge, and is held to standards and format that
| other Wikimedia projects don't have to follow. A "Wikipedia
| article" is an encyclopedia article. It's not a news piece, not
| a book, not a picture, not a data set, not a dictionary
| definition, nor any of the other things that Wikimedia projects
| attain.
|
| By making Wikipedia an umbrella brand for all of those, you
| kill the brand, plain and simple.
|
| Please value the efforts of all people who made these projects
| possible, and keep Wikipedia Wikipedia.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| ---------------------------
|
| Another option is using the talk page [1].
|
| If you also think that Wiki _pedia_ should only stand for the
| encyclo _pedia_ , make your voice heard by either of the means.
|
| [1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedi
| ...
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Can we get a little bit of a title change on this? It seemed at
| first glance like this was people asking to rename Wikimedia into
| Wikipedia. Instead it's a community letter asking to _cease_
| renaming Wikimedia into Wikipedia.
|
| Can the title be changed to something like "Community open letter
| on ceasing renaming Wikimedia to Wikipedia" ?
| bpierre wrote:
| That's better indeed, thanks!
| x32n23nr wrote:
| Having multiple great other projects with little recognition (or
| much less public awareness) than Wikipedia must be challenging,
| and for all of us, readers, unfortunate. Projects like Wikidata
| (basis for all knowledge graphs powering search engines),
| Wikinews (what could potentially be fact checked news in an age
| of misinformation), etc could all benefit from some raised
| awareness for all Wikimedia projects. Even raising money from
| donations, is usually targeted at Wikipedia. I do not how the
| governance structure of Wikimedia influences the distribution of
| donations, or whether renaming is meant to influence this.
| Overall, I see a sincere struggle to get traction around more
| Wikimedia projects - and I find that commendable.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-06-25 23:00 UTC)