Policy talk:Trademark policy/Archive 2

From Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki

What's new?

For easy overview of the changes proposed in the new draft, we have prepared a table comparing the new draft to the current trademark policy (2009 policy). Please note that this table doesn't necessarily reflect our current practice, which is sometimes more liberal that the language of the 2009 policy to facilitate community uses of the trademarks. But we need to update the language of the 2009 policy to match our practice and better reflect community values. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


Discussion about section 1 (What does this policy apply to?)

  • 1.4.2 refers to Affiliate organizations as 'movement organizations'. Could I suggest to stick with existing terminology: 'movement affiliates'? Effeietsanders (talk) 16:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • We greatly appreciate your suggestion and desire to keep terminology consistent. The term “movement organizations” is used because it describes all community member initiated entities within the Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia movement also recognizes user groups and thematic organizations, in addition to geographically-linked chapters to allow community members to contribute to the movement in different ways. The term "affiliates” within Wikimedia, however, is overbroad in that it also includes organizations that actively support the Wikimedia movement’s work, but are not wholly dedicated to the Wikimedia movement. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      So you're basically saying that this doesn't apply to Movement Partners, the only group of affiliates that isn't literally mentioned in this sum. I'm unclear though which part of 1.4.2 would be incorrect for movement partners. They are also independent, they are also entering into an agreement, they also get certain trademark usage (but at a lower level I expect - but I assume they will be allowed to mention they are a movement partner with a logo next to it :) ), and they could (I assume) also request further permissions? I see nothing here that collides with the movement partners and would stop us from using the term affiliates already in use. The only reason not to include them I can think of, is that we still haven't recognized any. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The fact that we don’t yet have any real movement partners complicates matters, but basically their trademark permission will depend on what they want to do. If they want to hold community-focused events, do outreach work for the Wikimedia projects, or otherwise write about the projects, they can do it under Section 3 of the Trademark Policy. They can also get a Wikilicense for GLAM initiatives and photo contests. If they want to do other things, they will have to request a license under Section 4. In that sense, they are more akin to other organizations and individuals in Section 1.4.3. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
  • 1.4.2 specifies a movement affiliate doesn't have to use the WMF trademarks. I'm not 100% sure this is true for all chapters currently (they have to call themselves Wikimedia XYZ iirc). Just checking. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Movement organizations are actually not required to use the “Wikimedia” wordmark within their title. Chapters are free to use their own chapter-specific logos in lieu of Wikimedia marks if they wish. However, a majority of chapters do use “Wikimedia” in their title so I understand why you may have thought it was a requirement :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Hello. I'm happy to confirm that Effeietsanders is right, offering WMIT as example. Check your papers and contracts better. ;-) --Nemo 21:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
        Yup, it used to be in the Chapters Agreement - I'm just unsure if they offered new agreements to all affiliates or not, and what the current version says. Anyway, it's not a huge issue of course, it is just an inaccuracy in this policy :) Effeietsanders (talk) 21:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
We don’t include this provision in our latest agreements with movement organizations and the new trademark policy will accurately reflect that practice. But we don’t plan to update current agreements that already include that provision, unless a chapter wants to update its agreement. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about section 2 (How to use the Wikimedia marks)

  • I find the language of 2.1 a bit confusing. The second paragraph starts with an absolute rule "You may only use Wikimedia wordmarks in their full form and properly capitalized..". But in the next sentence already, an exception is made, and the rest of the text jumps from permissible uses on the W sites to non permissible uses outside the W sites. imho, the section would be easier to read if it were rephrased, such as:

"Outside the Wikimedia sites, you may only use Wikimedia wordmarks in their full form and properly capitalized (eg "Wikibooks"). you may not abbreviate them or combine them with other words (eg not "Wiki" or "MyWikibooks"). Likewise, the logos should not be modified without separate permission from the Wikimedia Foundation. We need to make sure that our wordmarks and logos remain unique and distinctive from other marks.

That said, on the Wikimedia sites themselves, you can use the marks in any form. You may create remixes of the wordmarks and logos, abbreviate them or add to them." User:Anthoniag

Hi Anthoniag, That’s a great point. I’ve rephrased Section 2.1. based on your suggestion. Thanks for your input! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I think 2.4 "What do you mean by “outside the Wikimedia sites”?" should specifically mention Wikimedia Labs projects as being inside or outside "the sites". Mutante (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • It is unclear to me from this section whether someone *must* follow the guidelines. Right now, it reads as a strong advice, but not a rule. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Users must follow the guidelines, but not by virtue of the trademark policy. The Visual Identity Guidelines are a separate set of rules from the trademark policy that ensure the Wikimedia marks maintain their beautiful form when they are reused :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      I know lots of examples where the guidelines were ignored (i.e. with backgrounds), and which resulted in nice designs overall. My point is that guidelines suggests that they are no firm rules, and the please follow enforces that feeling. So if you want to make it obligatory in this context, you may want to choose a bit stronger wordings. Personally I'm all fine with no obligations but rather strong recommendations here (as is suggested with the current wording) - there are plenty of exceptions imaginable. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      @Effeietsanders: Yes, the wording under the Trademark Policy is intentional. Please note, if you use the marks pursuant to a license (such as a Wikilicense or Chapter Agreement), the visual identity guidelines are required. Following the visual identity guidelines is always encouraged, to ensure that our identity is consistent and recognizable. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about section 3 (When you may use the Wikimedia marks without asking us)

  • Hi all, as I anticipated, the requirements for using the Community Logo in this section are just a preliminary suggestion. They are based on the voting rights requirements and are adjusted to include members of chapters, user groups, and thematic organizations. But please feel free to suggest revisions or completely different requirements. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • For Section 3.4, is it really necessary to add most of the "or"s? People working for Wikimedia and developers probably have over 300 edit total, with at least 20 in the last year, so is it really necessary to add exceptions for them? Buffbills7701 (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • In 3.4, shouldn't "been blocked" be changed to "are currently blocked"? I've been blocked on En.WP over a misunderstanding, and on Wikidata by myself to enforce a wikibreak... Can't say I'm particularly proud of either moment, but I'd think that shouldn't be grounds to prohibit me from using the community mark. I assume this wording is inadvertant? — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 00:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I think these rules are ridiculously arbitrary. There are plenty of users who are blocked on one wiki who are constructive on another, and using editcount only helps if you care about quantity instead of quality. PiRSquared17 (talk) 01:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • @PiRSquared17:: It is important to have objective, predictable requirements, because they allow potential trademark licensees (and the people running the system as well) to know easily which category they fall into. If there are subjective criteria ("a lot of edits" or "really productive in some places despite being banned others") then the system quickly breaks down - they have to ask for a determination every time (was it enough edits? what is productive enough to overcome being banned elsewhere?). That just doesn't scale.
This requirement does make it pretty hard to avoid a certain amount of arbitrariness. That's unfortunate but definitely the best option for rules like these. If you have suggestions for better objective rules, that can be easily and consistently applied, we're all ears. -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Also, worth noting that (as it says at the bottom of the section) these are based on the Foundation voting criteria. Maybe we should make that stronger/more clear? -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Playing devil's advocate - and speaking as an advisor to the election committee - I would say that the goals there are different.  :) Those criteria are objectively pretty good (not great, not terrible) for deciding who should vote in an election. The suffrage requirements don't necessarily make good trademark rules. Or maybe they do. I don't have a strong opinion. But I want to point out that they're made for a different purpose. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 04:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Definitely not identical, by any stretch, so we're open to discussion. But it might be useful to explain that there are some parallels between the two: we're trying to identify people who are committed to the movement and therefore can be trusted to make solid judgments about an important matter. The parallel is certainly not perfect (maybe voting should be broader? narrower?), so we're happy to discuss any adjustments. But that's the intuition we were starting from, I think. -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I guess these rules make sense, but I'm wondering whether "editors" includes anonymous users. Some of them are very constructive community members (although it does seem unlikely that they would need to use the logos). Of course, there's no way to know whether edits by an IP were made by the same person, so it might make sense to exclude them. I'm not sure. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
"Editors" probably can't include anonymous users - we're trying to establish (as I said above) a certain level of experience and familiarity with community values and norms. That said, if an anonymous user wants to use the mark, and has a good reason, they can always (under the draft policy) contact us and try to get a standard license. We just can't/shouldn't give them a license intended for trusted, known people. -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
If you wish to exclude anons, you cannot use 'editor' as the legalese-terminology. That is abuse of English, and besides, bad for wikipedia. Editor means one thing only: somebody who, at some point in their lives, clicked edit, changed something, and clicked save. Nothing more -- nothing less. If you want to restrict trademark-policy to "registered username-holders with more than 20 mainspace edits which were not yet reverted and who have never been blocked even by mistake on any wiki" then you have to make up your own terminology. I suggest "brahmin-caste" is close to what you're after. p.s. You in fact cannot *give* somebody a license, you are correct, for what is their self-evident inherent natural right. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Call_for_comments_on_draft_trademark_policy. Hope this helps. I want the mark; I have good reason; I am, and will remain, an anon. I should require no 'license' from WMF. Please check your premises. 74.192.84.101 14:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I apologize for being imprecise in the discussion by using only "editors". In the license itself, we say specifically "registered editors", for the reasons I discussed above. Hopefully that avoids confusion.
For things which people have by right, we don't ask for or require a license: that is why we have a lot of explanation of fair use, so that people can understand (and use!) their rights. However, there are other things which are not a right, and for those things, we must require a license in order to avoid losing our right to police the mark. This is explained in more detail in the "Purpose" section of the document. Please let us know if you have more questions after reading that.-LVilla (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
[1] PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but I still don't get this. And member of our community should be able to use File:Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg, whether they are registered or not. I understand why you wouldn't want them to advertise events with it, but this is taking it too far. The community logo used to be free... PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi PiRSquared17! We really appreciate your input on this. I just wanted to emphasize again that the standards in this provision are meant to be based on community input and don’t need to be limited to the voting requirements. We are completely open to alternative standards that the community considers more appropriate for this use. Let’s continue brainstorming about how we can make this work.  :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
How about just letting anyone use it (non-commercially)? I don't see the problem. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Our intent with the new trademark policy is to be as inclusive and permissive as possible without jeopardizing our ability to enforce the Wikimedia trademarks against bad actors who want to damage the Wikimedia movement. If we allowed anyone to use the marks non-commercially, we wouldn’t be able to do anything against outsiders who misrepresent themselves as community members and tarnish the reputation of the projects. It could be as simple as someone using the marks in a way inconsistent with community values, or it could be someone using them for phishing or other kinds of fraud. AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
This argument has been rebutted several times. Using an argument which has been refuted elsewhere is a bit disingenuous. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 21:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Keep your faith, sir (@PiRSquared17); the logo is not registered as a trademark in the European Union, so all is not lost yet. odder (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Definition of a community member

I have a problem with the definition of a community member, especially when it comes to Wikimedia editors. The definition is, and I quote:

Wikimedia community members may use the Wikimedia Community logo to show that they are a member of the Wikimedia movement if:

They are Wikimedia editors and:

  • Made at least 20 edits on the Wikimedia sites during the year prior to using the logo;
  • Made a total of 300 edits across the Wikimedia sites; and
  • Not be blocked on more than one project.

While I understand the necessity of a number of edits, the "not blocked on more than one project" part is problematic to me.

Imagine X. X is an admin on de.wp, en.wp and commons. He is appreciated by all the others contributors, who all think highly of his work chasing copyvios. He has 200 000+ contribs across the Wikimedia sites, and is an old member of the community. One day, X deletes an image uploaded by Y, because it is a copyvio. Y takes it personnally, insults X on commons and is blocked for personnal attacks.

But Y is admin on two small wikis, say fur.wp and lme.wp and blocks X on those two projects.

Now what ? X is no longer a member of the community according to the rules. He cannot use the logos or the names (oh, and he cannot vote).

Is this a good thing ? I don't think so. Please work on those definitions (and on the voting part). Pleclown (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pleclown, I agree that we don't want to stop X from using the logo in a situation like this. I would just want to flag that he wouldn't be completely precluded from using it. He would just need to send in a request under Section 4 of the Trademark Policy instead.
Having said that, we could change that portion of the standard in Section 3.4. We could, for example, say that the editor must not be blocked by more than one (or two) other users. I think that may address your concern.
As Philippe noted above, the voting requirement is really intended for a very different purpose, so we may not want to discuss those two standards together. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Probably not an important point, but "editor" is Wikipedia-centric terminology. The TOU says "editor, author, or contributor" to include projects (like Commons) where relatively little editing is done. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Whatamidoing. We changed the usage of "editor" to "contributor" where appropriate because we think "contributor" encompasses what we think of as "editors", "authors", and "contributors". Thanks for the suggestion! Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 22:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
The "not be blocked on more than one project" part is totally ridiculous. It should be removed entirely in my opinion, because I don't see how it serves any useful purpose. Permission to use trademarks should not depend on the possibly arbitrary decisions of random community members who happen to have been elected as administrators somewhere on the several hundred Wikimedia projects. What I could reasonably support is to count, in the other requirements, only edits on projects where the person isn't currently blocked. darkweasel94 (talk) 09:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
In light of your feedback and others', we have substituted a version of the above definition into the draft policy while deleting the no-blocking requirement. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:14, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The definition of a community member should be under perpetual regulation and management of the Wikimedia community. I am not sure how the community should define itself but there is a community, its members recognize each other, and while its membership is inclusive, there are excluded entities. I am a stakeholder in this discussion but at this time I have nothing significant to contribute to it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:14, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this discussion is now somewhat moot given that we are recommending to the board that we withdraw protection and registration of the community logo. I will ask Anna to archive this thread. Take care, Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The text under discussion was removed with the recent changes to Section 3.4. If you have feedback on the new language in the policy, please comment under Revised Section 3.4. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Definition of Wikipedia community member - WMF staff not included

I do not like that this policy equates anyone who is employed by the Wikimedia Foundation as a member of the Wikimedia community. I assert that staff may be community advocates, but may not be community members, and that other institutions have a history of delineating a distinction between these groups. I foresee problems for the Wikimedia community if these two groups are equated and do not want these groups equated either here or in other policies. If the purpose of the policy is to grant the right to use marks to all these groups, then I support that, but I oppose that this granting of rights be done on the basis of all of these groups being members of the "Wikimedia community" and getting these privileges so that they can represent the community. I do not want anyone who is not a member of the Wikimedia community to represent themselves as a member of the community.

This policy makes a definition of who is a Wikimedia community member. It currently says,

Wikimedia community members may use the Wikimedia Community logo to show that they are a member of the Wikimedia movement if:

They are Wikimedia editors and:

  • Made at least 20 edits on the Wikimedia sites during the year prior to using the logo;
  • Made a total of 300 edits across the Wikimedia sites; and
  • Not be blocked on more than one project.

or

  • They are Wikimedia developers and:
    • Are Wikimedia server administrators with shell access; or
    • Have commit access and have made at least one merged commit in git during the year prior to using the logo.

or

  • They are Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors that have been employed by the Foundation during the year prior to using the logo.

or

  • They are current and former members of the Board of Trustees or the Advisory Board.

or

  • They are members of a Wikimedia chapter, user group, or thematic organization that have been members during the year prior to using the logo.

These requirements are based on the Wikimedia voting rights.

The inclusion criteria for being a community member based on editorship has some precedent elsewhere and it seems reasonable. I support that definition.

All other inclusion criteria in this list are dubious. I would like to see some exclusion criteria here, perhaps which state that "Any person employed by the Wikimedia Foundation is a community advocate and not a community member, and gets privileges for that position but not community member privileges." WMF staff should be able to use some of the marks, but this right should be granted in some other channel and not tagged on to community privileges.

By the precedent of other organizations, staff of the organization are not members of the community. I advocate against employees of the Wikimedia Foundation being named as members of the Wikimedia community. Persons paid by the Wikimedia Foundation have a conflict of interest in acting on behalf of the Wikimedia Community. It is not to be presumed that the best interests of the WMF are the same as the best interest interests of the Wikimedia community. The Wikimedia community need only advance the Wikimedia movement, but all people at the WMF can only advance the Wikimedia movement so long as it preserves and strengthens the position of the WMF. The WMF would be disinclined to do anything to empower the community if it compromises the WMF's own position, and likewise, employees of the WMF will always have a conflict of interest in granting the Wikimedia community anything which does not empower their own employment. This has nothing to do with anyone's character or moral virtues; this is just the nature of conflict of interest. I am not targeting the WMF specifically on this; I am following the precedent of - for example - the pharmaceutical research industry which employs people called "patient advocates" or "research participant advocates". These advocates are employed to act on behalf of people who consume medical products but they are not the same as the community they serve. There are organizations which could offer consulting on the implications of this and many books on medical ethics in relationships between doctors and patients, and if anyone has any doubts about the distinction between the staff of an advocacy organization and the community it serves then those precedents could be checked. I think the medical analogy is suitable, but if not, public relations, law, lobbying, and other fields could be used as models for defining the role that WMF employees have as compared to the Wikimedia community.

Persons who are employed by the WMF are community advocates doing paid advocacy for the WMF and they are not community members. The Wikimedia movement should not be treated as something new and strange which allows uncommon community integration between people paid by the organization and those who are not. Advocates at the Wikimedia Foundation are in a similar position to advocates at any other organization and there is a line between them and the community. I am saying this because I want to keep the public space in Wikimedia projects truly public and for everyone and because mixing paid advocates with community affairs tends to encroach upon the community's space. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I hear the good intent you are bringing to this idea, Blueraspberry, and I recognize that the "staff vs community" distinction can be a bigger and more contentious discussion than we should probably go into here, but I can't help but toss in my 2 cents in on this thought (note: this is not official WMF perspective here, this is just me personally thinking out loud): I'm not sure that in Wikimedia's case the lines can be as clearly drawn between the 2 groups as you are suggesting, and I worry that making a blanket distinction to say that staff are definitely not community could ultimately cause more friction or confusion rather than less. What, for example, should we do in this model with long-time community members when WMF hires them? Are they considered ousted from the community at large, the moment they get hired to work in any given area? We have a number of staffers who continue to be involved in various volunteer efforts that are outside of their job description, after joining WMF. Should a WMF engineer no longer be able to use a community mark if they volunteer to organize a local GLAM event? Or, from the reverse use-case, I didn't come to WMF from the community originally, but I occasionally edit or volunteer my time on issues of interest to me; when I host a WikiWomen's party on my volunteer time (which is outside of my job, it's a personal interest to get more women editing Wikipedia), will I be automatically excluded from using the mark because I am also paid to make grants at WMF? Siko (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that in contrast to the above assertion that "Any person employed by the Wikimedia Foundation is ... not a community member", the overwhelming majority of active editors (who hold an opinion about this question) think that WMF staff are part of the community, at least per the responses given in the last editor survey.
Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 19 November 2013 (UTC) (personally not affected by this discussion - currently satisfying the criteria both as WMF employee and as volunteer editor)
I don't know that you (and I) would be unaffected. It sounds like Blueraspberry wants us to be considered non-community regardless of whether we satisfy the edit requirements. Anomie (talk) 14:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I do not have strong feelings on this point, but one thing to consider is there is an inherent conflict of interest between being a staff member (and thus, in effect, working for the community) and being solely a member of the community. This section of the policy effectively gives the WMF the power to determine who is a community member, and who is not; which raises the possibile accusation that a staff member's use of marks is approved when another person's is not based on their adjudicated community membership. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 17:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I'll also note that "they're community members" is a statement with varying intents and meanings depending on the person and context. There are historical reasons for the election requirements, which may be still correct or (as several said in the last election) not. There are some who say "community member" as opposed to "evil aliens invading us" (which they definitely are not IMHO). There are some who say "community member" as opposed to "a separate legislative body with veto power" (I'm quoting a recent village pump discussion on some Wikipedia from my memory).
So, not only pretty graphs from generic surveys are of little help in this discussion, but it's surely not useful to have a discussion about the general definition of "community member" as part of a trademark policy discussion. If we want to give some "privileges" to some persons as they are part of the m:Wikimedia movement, let's focus on that rather than on philosophical discussions about overly broad definitions. For instance, one might just say "editors" and polish this requirement a bit, done. Or invent some other requirement. But don't engage in "defining the community". --Nemo 23:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I like what User:Nemo says about not defining the community and I like what Siko says about this being "a bigger and more contentious discussion than we should probably go into here". Yes, Siko, I am saying that long-term community members when hired by the WMF lose community status immediately, following precedents in the fields of medicine, law, lobbying, advertising, and other fields. Being hired by the WMF immediately creates a conflict of interest such that persons receiving money from the WMF will be paid advocacy contributors who will be mindful of their income in all situations in which there is a conflict between the WMF and the community. The restriction of the use of the m:community logo was not a grassroots initiative; that came entirely from the WMF and is an example of how organizations tend to protect themselves without considering how their self-preservation might harm the community they intend to serve. I feel like User:Tbayer (WMF) has supporting evidence for a point of view contrary to the one I presented (I emailed you to schedule a phone or Skype call a few days ago - reply at your leisure) and I have supporting evidence for another. User:Anomie is right in interpreting that I want the community definition to have exclusion criteria for WMF staff. User:Amgine is correct in recognizing that I feel that the community and not the WMF staff should have power over saying what is done in the name of the community. I propose either of the following resolutions to this instance of this discussion.
  • Take out the text which equates WMF staff with community and otherwise drop this issue, leaving the community status of WMF ambiguous for now. There is no reason for this trademark policy to force this.
  • If the text is not to be removed, then the validation of this trademark policy seems like a cause expanding the discussion about why community policy needs to be defined.
Thanks. If anyone wants to discuss this with me then voice and video are best - email me for an appointment. I live in New York and am often free EST office hours. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:54, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this discussion is now somewhat moot given that we are recommending to the board that we withdraw protection and registration of the community logo. I will ask Anna to archive this thread. Take care, Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The text under discussion was removed with the recent changes to Section 3.4. If you have feedback on the new language in the policy, please comment under Revised Section 3.4. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Hackathons

  • Hackathon vs Editathon: why are they being treated differently? Isn't MediaWiki considered a Wikimedia project as well? So if a MediaWiki hackathon is attended predominantly by MediaWiki developers, why couldn't it be treated equally compared to an editathon about the French Revolution? Effeietsanders (talk) 16:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • You are absolutely right, MediaWiki is a Wikimedia project. We treat hackathons differently from an edit-a-thon because participants are not constrained to stay within Wikimedia projects and may decide to work on projects outside of Wikimedia sites. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      And how exactly is that different? :) After all, every attendee is a volunteer in their own free time - so they can work on whatever they want. Quite often I catch people checking their email or updating Facebook ;-). In all seriousness, shouldn't it be more relevant what exactly the intended scope of the event is, rather than what shape the organizers choose to accomplish that? In that context a discussion meeting without any editing output, but with the intended scope of Wikipedia policies seems to me in scope, while an editathon where dbpedia is edited implementing data from wikipedia is more of a borderscenario. Focusing on the shape of the event risks that the policy more quickly gets outdated as new shapes are being developed. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


Proposed alternative for Section 3.4

Having followed the discussion about the standard for the use of the Community logo, we would like to suggest the following revision to Section 3.4:

3.4 Community logo use

Active Wikimedians may use the Wikimedia Community logo if:

  • They have made a total of 300 edits across the Wikimedia sites;
  • They are not currently blocked on more than one Wikimedia site; and
  • Their use is consistent with the Wikimedia mission.

This would specifically not be intended as a definition of “active Wikimedian” or “community member.” It would only be a standard to use the Community logo without a license (and others would still be able to get permission to use this logo under Section 4). This standard should avoid the issues outlined by Blue Rasberry, Amgine, PiRSquared17, PinkAmpers&, Buffbills7701, Pleclown, 74.192.84.101, and others. What do you think about this language?

Again, this is just a suggestion. So feel free to suggest revisions or a different standard altogether. We need to come up with a standard to be able to use this logo as a collective membership mark, but we have a lot of flexibility in developing that standard. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) & YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Support. This would satisfy my concern. What happens if WMF staff use the community logo but do not meet these requirements (300 edits, for example)? Would they be subject to community sanctions equivalent to those upon anyone else using the logo improperly? Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:36, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, continued support. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Bluerasberry! I've replaced Section 3.4 in the draft with this version. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
  • sorry, but no. Your proposal doesn't answer my concerns. At all. This block thing is a real problem. Pleclown (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Definitely not. As per Pleclown, the block language especially. As you may know, AWB and many other automated processes make edit counts less than useful as a measure of 'activity'. "Use consistent with..." is an entirely subjective measure, and of course can be used against any use/person you personally don't happen to support/agree with/like. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 14:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Hello @Amgine: Do you think it is improved without the restriction on blocked users (per Pleclown, above)? I understand your concern about using edit counts, but the goal here is not necessarily to define "active Wikimedians", but just to set a measurable standard that we can present to the Trademark Office. If you can think of a better standard, we are open to suggestions and revising this further. The final criteria ("consistent with the Wikimedia mission") should be interpreted broadly, and could not be used to stop someone because we disagree with them. Free expression is one of our core values, and so this criteria would need to be interpreted in that light. It's difficult to avoid some degree of subjectivity, but we will defer to a community determination of when the community logo is inconsistent with the Wikimedia mission. What do you think about adding "as determined by the Wikimedia community" to the final criteria? Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure I can say it is improved; let's say it's one-third less bad. Unless the wording of the policy says "consistent with the Wikimedia mission, interpreted broadly", then it certainly can be interpreted narrowly, and will be subjective in any case as you admit. The entire thing is circular (as others have noted) and I believe it still makes the WMF the arbiter of who is or is not a community member using non-objective criteria - a severe conflict of interest and precisely the crux of the opposition to the Foundation's power grab. - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 01:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
        • Well, one-third is a start! Do you have any ideas how we can improve the other criteria, to leave the determination in the hands of the community? Just to clarify, we also changed the wording from defining a "Wikimedia community member" to "Active Wikimedians." Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
If "the community" is going to make any determinations, then you will have to define who is included in the community. Given that the purpose here is to define who is in the community (i.e., who is sufficiently part of the community that he or she can use the community logo), this feels unfortunately circular.
On a related point, your definition grants people a lifetime membership in the community, even if they haven't edited for decades. Is that intentional? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, WhatamIdoing. I can see how this may appear circular, but it would not be a problem in practice. The purpose of Section 3.4 is not necessarily to define who is in the Wikimedia Community, and it certainly would not affect who may participate in the community’s usual decision making processes (such as an RFC or less formal processes). This section in the trademark policy solely covers a community member's use of the community logo outside of the Wikimedia projects. Per Amgine’s concern above, we are striving for language to enable use of the community logo to the greatest extent possible, unless the community indicates that a use is inconsistent with our mission. We intentionally did not add an end date here, but feel free to suggest alternative criteria. Thanks! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

This shorter version is naturally easier to understand. It is good that you kept the word "active" there, even though it's not defined. I'm assuming that "mission" means wmf:Mission statement - should that be clarified with a link? I think this version is good. //Shell 14:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point. I added a link to the Mission statement and replaced Section 3.4 in the draft policy with the shorter version. Thanks for your input! YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, do they have to be registered? Better to clarify. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:51, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

We can clarify this in the provision, but we would need to get some input here on how people would like to address this. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I gave my support to the text above and I continue to give it, however, I wanted to clarify the spirit of my support. I want that this text to support all use which is "consistent with the Wikimedia mission", and I do not care at all for any other qualifications. If it were possible to remove all qualifiers other than that statement, then I wish that this restriction would reflect that. There are lots of circumstances in which a person could be advancing the Wikimedia community mission and have need to use the logo but not have edited 300 times. I want such people (or entities) to be able to use the logo in those circumstances. The 300 edits is a proxy qualification which purports to include all who are advancing the Wikimedia mission and exclude the majority of entities who are not advancing it, but this kind of check should not be permanent, should be updated by the community regularly, and is not perfect for granting and disallowing the kinds of uses it is designed to manage. This text is fine as a start but it should be under community control to change and regulate. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this discussion is now somewhat moot given that we are recommending to the board that we withdraw protection and registration of the community logo. I will ask Anna to archive this thread. Take care, Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The text under discussion was removed with the recent changes to Section 3.4. If you have feedback on the new language in the policy, please comment under Revised Section 3.4. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Revised Section 3.4

Hi all, I have revised Section 3.4 based on a consultation regarding the Community logo that was closed on December 7. Please let me know if you have any thoughts about the new language. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh my. I would dearly love to keep this text, but assuming the board of trustees agrees with your recommendation, would the Foundation have the authority to say you may not? - Amgine/meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news 03:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your question, Amgine. A member of the legal team will be getting back to you shortly. Kind regards, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
If the WMF is foregoing trademark protection for the community logo then I too am confused about its standing to proscribe anyone from filing trademark applications incorporating it. It might be good to add a note (without getting technical) in the FAQ about why such applications would be impermissible or unsustainable. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that suggestion, Ningauble. I'll make sure that Yana sees it. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
If the Board supports our recommendation, we will withdraw registration and protection of the logo. But the trademark policy can still state that people should not be registering the logo. The last sentence in that provision clarifies why it shouldn't be registered (i.e. "The Wikimedia community wants to ensure that the logo remains available for all to use."). This is simply a request and it may be difficult to enforce. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
I was afraid that might be the case. It seems that those who championed "reclaiming the logo" might actually achieve the opposite: throwing it away so anyone else can make a claim on it. I appreciate the desire to keep it free, but without some form of protection that freedom may be insecure. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Is the cake a lie?

About point 3.7, which says it's ok if we bake cakes or print t-shirts. Does this also apply to anybody else creating lots of cakes or t-shirts on our behalf (bake shop/t-shirt seller), for example for a party/meetup? This part apparently puzzles several people. Also, how do you make sure that the VIG are strictly followed? For a cake, it looks pretty difficult to get exactly the shade of color you'd need... --151.42.238.124 11:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC) (Elitre)

You can order a cake with a Wikimedia mark for yourself or friends at a bakery under Section 3.7. You only need to seek a licence under Section 4.6 if you’re making a business out of selling things with the marks, in which case we want to make sure that people wouldn’t be confused about whether those sales are supporting the Wikimedia projects. If you order lots of cakes for a meetup or another event for community members, that would be covered by Section 3.2, which allows marks to be used for community-focused events without a license. And we would of course not require you to strictly follow the Visual Identity Guidelines when it’s not possible on cakes. For example, all these cakes are fine. These are excellent questions and we’ll write an FAQ to make this clearer. And please feel free to share my response where this topic is being discussed on Facebook so that we can nip this rumor in the bud. :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
PANTS ON FIRE! <grin> Err, uhmm, lemme rephrase that. Attorney & law prof Michael Atkins strongly disagrees! You (the hypothetical average everyday wikipedian) can ask the baker to make you a cake which infringes on WMF trademarks, sure. But the baker is the one violating the trademark, if they charge you any money for the cake.[2] The only way to have a cake that says wikipedia from the bakery, is to pay the baker to make it, and decorate most of it, plus finally sell you the tube of icing, so you can take it home and scrawl "WikipediA" on it all by yourself, gratis. See also[3] where fair-use is broadly construed by Linus Torvalds. But this is very risky[4] territory. 74.192.84.101 12:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Linus is right :) YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
So I'm calm now, I just ate a cake, decorated by myself. <bounce> <bounce> <bounce> Ummm... lot of sugar in those things. Anyways, can we modify this intro-sentence, and the corresponding-legalese? "Place marks on t-shirts, cakes, and other things without selling them." I want to be able to sell t-shirts / cakes / pamphlets, that have the wikipedia-wordmark and/or the stylized WikipediA-wordmark. For a profit. Produced commercially. Wikipedia should be a household name; people should be able to express their individuality.[5] Under what circumstances should such things be allowed?
  Linux-wordmark is allowed to be used sans license thataway -- selling shirt/cake/keychain/etc merchandise for a profit included -- in all circumstances by LMI, except for actual websites-n-software-stuff. Methinks wikipedia should use a bit more parsimony... to avoid e.g. shirts that look like the WMF logos and therefore wikipedia.org are somehow "sponsored by" GoogMsftApple (or even w:Wiki-PR or other advertising-n-marketing firms). By contrast, there *is* actually an w:Oracle Enterprise Linux t-shirt; I don't think we want there to be an w:Oracle Enterprise Wikipedia t-shirt, however.
some possible restrictions
  1. We could stipulate that the shirt should have no other visible logos or wording, except the WMF-owned ones, for instance. Of course, there is the possibility that this would be mis-used, e.g. maybe Mr Kroc will have all McDonalds employees wear such a shirt, with a McDonalds hat plus a McDonalds jacket. They might even use a yellow-foreground-wikipedia on a red-t-shirt! But they can do that already, as long as they employees make the shirts themselves. And hey, I'd be in favor of it... who doesn't like eating french fries, while browsing wikipedia? (Well, ignoring smears on the touchscreen and salt in the keyboard.)
  2. We could stipulate that only the WMF trade-dress color-scheme was allowed, perhaps? That would stifle creativity, but also "unify the brand" ... if we care. See also the 4.6 req to follow the Visual Identity Guidelines; but were those written with hand-decorated cakes or hand-drawn t-shirt-designs in mind?
  3. We could stipulate a max quantity per year... or a max profit in USD per year... but either of these is very tricky to enforce, see w:shell company and w:holding company and other such dodges.
  4. We could stipulate the rules in 4.6 apply (except for the must-request-license-by-email-rule), such as the requirement that customers always be informed the exact percent of the proceeds going to the WMF. That would be easy to put by the purchase-price in the online store (or brick-n-mortar shop or yard-sale-stand or whatever), but we could also stipulate it be on the receipt, or even on the shirt/cake/etc.
  5. We could also specifically enumerate the permitted types of merchandise: cakes, shirts... but not keychain-dongles and fridge-magnets, if those are too tacky? Brochures/pamphlets of less than ten A4-size pages, but not books/billboards/posters, if those are out of bounds? I'm hesitant to get into this type of slippery-slope-region. But perhaps we can specify, somewhat following LMI, than any electronic gadget and any software/website/similarTechnology requires an explicit license.
Is there a balance that can be achieved, which helps wikipedia, without restricting the freedom-to-sell-wikipedia-related-promotional-stuff? We always have the revocation-clause 6.2 that we can fall back upon, if need be. 74.192.84.101 02:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, 74! Lots of inter-related issues to grapple with here. Let me try to take them one at a time:
Does the Baker Need a License?: The citation you gave about bakers and trademarks doesn't address the situation where someone who requests the cake has a valid license to use the mark themselves. And, for section 3.7, that's the case we're talking about. In that case, the baker does not need to call us up for a separate license. It is, of course, different if the baker wants to do an entire line of cakes for commercial gain — then a license is needed, which the baker can get under section 4.6.
Commercial Use: If I understand you correctly (and maybe I don't) I have some sympathy with your basic argument: that it is good for the visibility and success of the movement if a thousand cakes and t-shirts bloom. But I don't think the license is the major problem there. Let's say a baker wants to make a line of high-quality puzzle logo cakes and sell them to the public: they're going to have to learn how to make the puzzle logo on a cake; they're going to have to figure out how to sell them to the public (put them on their website? in a catalog?); etc. Complying with the three very minimal requirements in section 4.6 is a fairly small blocker, assuming you're trying to make reasonably high-quality products in any significant numbers. (If you're not trying to make them in significant numbers, other portions of the policy are likely to apply; if you're not trying to make high-quality products, then the benefits go away.)
Complexity and Premature Policy-Making: Assume for purposes of discussion that I'm wrong in the previous point, and we really should offer broad commercial licenses to many butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. Even then, I still think it's better, in this revision of the policy, to channel anyone who wants to make serious numbers of cakes to us, so that we can better understand what people are trying to do with the policy. After a few years of that, we'll be able to make much better judgments about what restrictions do/don't make sense. Right now I don't think we can make a good judgment about which of your proposed restrictions (or others) make the most sense, because we don't know what commercial vendors might want. Contrast this with Linux, where the current LPI policy was written only after so much use that there were two significant legal challenges to the status of the mark, so there was plenty of understanding of what the real risks and benefits were.
Hope that helps clarify; thanks for engaging with us seriously and in good faith on this issue. -GLaDOS, aka LVilla (WMF) (talk) 23:25, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
You understand exactly, appreciate the excellent reply. My argument still stands, methinks. That's my WP:NICE way of saying you are *so* totally wrongo.  :-)   Okay, you are *not* totally wrong, but I do disagree in specific ways on all fronts. Explaining why takes some verbosity, apologies for the wall-o-text, which I've chunked into sections. Thanks for improving wikipedia; your efforts here are much appreciated. 74.192.84.101 02:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors
  Most bakers will not themselves be editors; there are only 80k active editors (30k on enWiki) and every little town in most first-world countries has a commercial baker. Section 3.7 requires a coincidence of wants (if I am a wikipedian and want a cake that says wikipedia either I must be a baker myself... or I must find a commercial baker who is also a wikipedian). This is *exactly* the subtly crippling restriction that cause money to replace w:barter. 99% of the time, the baker will officially need a license, by the letter of the trademark policy. I'm not happy with violations of the letter, because I think that trademark-protection of the puzzle-globe is the only thing standing between wikipedia and doom, not to put too fine a point on it. So the counterargument here is that 99% of bakers aren't wikipedians and thus WILL technically need a license to make wiki-cakes for their wikipedian-customers. In a nutshell, I'm against using trademark law to enforce a wikipedian-bakery-only monopoly on the convenient commercial sale of wiki-cakes. 74.192.84.101 02:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe that's how it works. Let's pretend that you work for Disney (which is notoriously protective of its trademarks). Let's say that you want, as part of your job, to get a cake for your department that features Mickey Mouse.
You go to the baker. You say, "Hello, I'm the administrative assistant for the CEO of Disney–here's proof—and my boss wants a cake at the a department meeting next week that has classic Mickey Mouse on the top. Please bake one, and here's my corporate credit card to pay for it."
In this situation, would you expect the baker to say:
  1. "Well, you are obviously authorized to have a cake like this, but I am not, so unless you're going to come squirt frosting on the cake yourself, then I need to spend the next several weeks doing paperwork to get approval for my involvement in making the cake that you are already authorized to have", or,
  2. "Sure, no problem"?
If you go back to the link about what bakers ought to do, you'll notice that the customer asking for a birthday cake with a cartoon character on it never has a license for the cartoon character. This is a critical difference compared to both the Wikipedian and the Disney employee, both of whom do have a legal license to use the trademarks in this way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Hello WhatamIdoing, I've seen you before, but never got the change to complement you on your awesome username; consider yourself kudo'd. Quite frankly, the serious answer to your question is, I'd expect the Disney drone to retroactively coerce that hapless baker into signing a one-sided contract, screaming about outlandish-yet-credible legal threats.  :-)   But your point is well-taken, if it is legally-speaking a work for hire, then a wikipedian can use a commercial baker/tailor/keychainManufacturer/whatever to produce their mugs. So I was mistaken when I gave the example, of needing to scrawl your own decorations, since the baker would refuse to do it for you. Theoretically speaking.
  Or was I? How does the "critical difference" that I am a wikipedian, not just some random cake-customer without a mickey-mouse-trademark-license, play out in the real world? How does the baker know I'm a wikipedian? How does the baker know I submitted an email request for an official WMF-approved WTEL? How does the baker know it was accepted? What if I didn't print out the license-grant-contract? What if I signed it "General Of The Army Dwight Eisenhower" rather than in my own full legal name? Or used purple ink instead of blue or black? What if I don't convey the Visual Identity Guidelines to the baker? What if the baker is not sure they can comply with said legally-enforceable "guidelines", including exactly matching the trade-dress? What if I don't work for Jimbo? What if I don't have the WMF-branded corporate credit card? What if I don't even have a wikipedia-logo on my shirt, because just like the baker, the tailor I went to said get-outta-my-store-bub-I-gots-real-work-to-do-awright...? Only if the *baker* is a wikipedian, and only if the *baker* has submitted the WTEL-paperwork themselves, are they following best-practice CYA procedures, to protect their bakery from being sued into the ground. In theory there is a difference, in practice I'm just another annoying customer, who could get the baker's boss (the bakery owner) in deep legal doo-doo.
  You, on the other hand, could prolly pull it off; you work for the WMF, you have plenty of tangible proofs thereof, it would *be* for an Official WMF event, and so on. If that's the main goal of the cake-mark-policy, just say so. But the larger point is this: I want bakers that are not wikipedians, to be able to make a cake that says WikipediA™ in black letters on a white background, and sell that cake to anybody at all. I don't want this to be an onerous process of "becoming" a member of the wider WMF-recognized community, registering for an account, figuring out how to request the WTEL, printing out the paperwork, signing in blue or black ink, scanning or faxing it back... every single time another customer orders a variation-on-the-theme wiki-cake. This is not a commercially-viable model.
  Here is a viable model: given certain quantity limitations, and certain stylistic limitations, the baker ought to be able to make and sell wiki-cakes *without* requesting an explicit license in advance. That means, to pick some off-the-cuff criteria, that as long as they produce less than 99 cakes per year per zipcode, and they only include WMF-marks in WMF-colors on the cakes (plus optionally the phrase "happy birthday" and/or "dictator-for-life Jimbo Wales presiding"), none of that bureacratic stuff is needed. Based on section 6.2 the WMF can still unilaterally *revoke* the implicitly-granted-permission if necessary. If they exceed the quantity-limitations, or want to combine other content with the WMF marks, then the explicit license is required.
  That said, see below, LVilla pretty strongly believes this commercially-viable approach risks loss of the marks in court (aka that legally-viable and commercially-viable are directly in conflict). Anyhoo, does the goal I'm aiming at make sense now, even if it turns out to be legally-speaking too perilous? 74.192.84.101 15:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I've got almost no tangible proof that I work for the WMF (as a part-time, temporary independent contractor whose work has absolutely nothing to do with this policy, so I'm here for the same purpose as you: to protect Wikipedia as a volunteer). I can login to office.wiki (but who would know that this is mostly restricted to staff?), I can send e-mail from a staff account (but that's moderately easy to forge), and I've got a scanned copy of contract (but you know how trivial it is to photoshop something like that). I don't even have a paystub that says I work for them, much less business cards. So we're in the same boat when it comes to proving a relationship, and I'm still quite confident that I could get this kind of a cake baked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
w:WP:BURDEN
  Visibility. Publicity. Real-life WikiLove. Yes. Those are the goals. There is also the philosophical principle... "Users may freely view, use, distribute, modify, and exploit all Meta content, in any form, and for any purpose (including commercial exploitation) without limitation (except attribution)." Which methinks is even more crucial, in the long run. But we can stick to pragmatic reasons and still make the Case For The WikiCakes well enough, prolly. Cakes, shirts, tote-bags, hats, keychains, car-decals, fridge-magnets, and so on. Manufacturing those wiki-things costs money; they are not like an article, of digital text and digital imagery, which can be copied (free-as-in-freedom) for a tenth of a calorie of human effort and a fraction of a pfennig in electricity. Capitalism is the most efficient economic mechanism for merchandizing the wikipedia brands, and the licensing of the marks should not be onerous for small quantities.
  Your point about the license-acquisition being a relatively small potatoe is flat out incorrect, *commercially* speaking. Sure, it takes months or years to become an expert at decorating cakes, it takes days or weeks to design/create/operate online stores and design/publish/distrib sales catalogs. Getting the explicit trademark license is nothing, right? Wrong: it is an up-front and endlessly-repeating *operating* expense, with at least in theory severe legal consequences for failure to correctly do it. See w:regulatory compliance. Learning to be a baker, and creating a business that sells cakes, are w:sunk_costs, money already spent! You simply cannot compare the two. Counterargument #2A ... explicit licensing compliance is an ongoing operating expense, not a sunk cost.
  However, it is worth noting that the relative burden of explicit-trademark-license-compliance is highly dependent on the quantity-of-identical-copies being manufactured. If you are producing one cake, the license is nuts. If you are producing ten unique cakes, the license is really nuts. If you are producing 100 identical wiki-cakes, the license is probably break-even. If you are producing 1000 identical wiki-cakes per year, the license is a small potatoe. However, if you are producing 1000 custom-designed personalized wiki-cakes per year, the license will kill you. Thus, we have to modify my statement above... the licensing of the marks should not be onerous for small quantities of any given design. Cakes and shirts are the merchandising-wiki-products which most exemplify the could-be-custom-every-time phenomena... keychains tend to be mass-produced in lots of ten thousand, and are a different category. We cannot apply wiki-keychain thinking to the wiki-cakes and wiki-shirts; however, arguably the reversed-applicability is possible. If we come up with a good wiki-cake policy, it will automatically also apply to wiki-keychains, and so on. 74.192.84.101 02:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)


w:WP:NOTNOW
  Skipping the quality-merchandise-thing for the moment, and going to your point about premature-policy-making, and trademark-license-complexity... these are generic arguments, but *very* telling ones. My vague proposal for easy-wiki-cake-licensing is going to be difficult to hammer into a trademark-policy-language. It might even be impossible, because there might be unintended loopholes which we find no way to get around. Of course, the worst case scenario is that we produce unintended loopholes that we do not notice and then some hyperconglomerate exploits those loopholes, using their crack legal team to win in the courts, and takes down all trademark protection.
  Assuming for purposes of discussion that I'm 100% right, that licensing is a serious burden, that wiki-merchandise will wither without it, and therefore that the wiki-brand will not spread as widely as it could, and the quantity of wikiLove in the world will be slightly smaller, and our general wikipedian philosophical stance will be incorrect when it comes to trademark law... tough. The risks are catastrophic if we screw up; wikipedia would no longer be wikipedia, if everybody and their dog could build websites that looked like us, acted like us, had the same content as us, but were locked down tight as a drum under proprietary copyright and proprietary software and tivoized hardware. We do *not* want to risk http://wikipedia.hypercorp.com coming into existence; everybody and their dog is not the problem, but if the dogs can do it, then the wolves can also do it. I'd rather see fewer wiki-cakes in the world, if we cannot keep the trademarks safe otherwise.
  That said, basically what you are saying here is wait-n-see. How can we make a wiki-cake policy, until we see how burdensome the explicit-license-every-time-you-make-a-cake-and-sell-it policy functions? But this is not fair. There has never been a policy which permitted folks to make cakes, and sell them. The *existing* trademark policy prevents that. How many wiki-cakes have you eaten? How many wiki-cakes have you seen on sale at the local bakery? How many public functions, which were not wikipedia-specific, have you been to where random people were wearing wiki-shirts, wiki-hats, wiki-belts? Did they have wiki-keychains, and wiki-car-magnets? When you visit a residence or a school or a business, how many desks did you see with wiki-mousepads, wiki-puzzle-globe statues, wiki-posters, wiki-kitsch?
  Maybe some of us are so wrapped up in the wikipedia world, that the lack of everyday branding does not seem amiss. But consider other consumer products -- and wikipedia *is* for the readership in the end... though of course unlike many other consumer products we want, nay, we demand, that our readership always have the freedom to hack on wikipedia itself, by becoming editors. Look at the prevalence of Apple Computer branding; they started off in the education market, pushing their brand in schools. Look at the prevalence of Nike branding; they too are in the education market, pushing their brand in school sports. Look at the prevalence of Wikipedia branding, in high schools, in universities, in bookstores, in public speaking forums... we should be the #1 brand in education and we are not. We are the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and that is a Good Thing, and therefore people around the world should have access to our content, but more than that, people who support our ideals should be able to buy a wiki-cake or buy a wiki-shirt or buy a cutesy kitschy crappily-manufactured wiki-keychain, and trademark policy as written in 2009 prevents that from happening, and the update in 2013 will continue to prevent that from happening.
  Point being, perhaps you are correct. Maybe, if some folks who are *already* wikipedians, and who are *also* already bakers, start producing and selling wiki-cakes in high quality and large quantities at a premium monopoly-enforced-price, they will create a new market. Other bakers will want to get in on the action, and will become wikipedians, registering an account, making a few edits, and then emailing for the paperwork, printing it out, signing their full legal name, scanning it back into the computer, uploading it to the WMF... every damn time they make a new cake-design. Or maybe that's lunacy, and they'll instead just sell Linux-cakes, which are almost as popular among wikipedians. Of course, they'll make more cash if they undergo the onerus licensing required by Disney, so they'll prolly do that instead. Gag.
  If you think I'm wrong, or if you think the risks of hypercorp-loophole-exploitation are too high, then I suggest a compromise: pick one of the marks, not the "wikipedia" mark which is our domain-name but one of the high-profile high-visibility marks like the puzzle-globe, and write a looser almost-but-not-quite-naked broad-automatic-in-most-circumstances-commercial-license for that mark only. This mitigates the risk somewhat (we might lose one trademark... but only one) and also gives us a real-world test for how much the bakers, hatters, shirters, keychainers, mousepadders, plastic-deconstructible-puzzle-globe-makers, and other commercial manufacturers will gravitate one way or the other. It's not quite a *fair* test since the wikipedia-mark is the primary one, but the puzzle-globe is number two, and quite famous by itself, so it is fair enough by my standards. 74.192.84.101 02:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)


"HIGH QUALITY"
  Finally, you bring up the question of High Quality. This angers me, frankly, somewhat deeply... though on reflection maybe less than at first glance, since the review-by-other-wikipedians point is not an unreasonable goof (see postscript). But is *is* most definitely a major goof. I will quote you directly so I don't mis-state / mis-characterize what you said, *too* much anyhoo.  :-)

[the burden of explicit license compliance is] a fairly small blocker, assuming you're trying to make reasonably high-quality products ...(... if you're not trying to make high-quality products, then the benefits go away.)

  You also had some caveats in there about policy-loopholes for small-quantity-production, elided above, which I incidently disagree with. The policy has no such loopholes, and I don't want the "unwritten rule" to be that WMF won't sue you for trademark violation unless you are one o' them evil big biz types, but small businesses run by good people are let off the hook. That's bad morality, and also of course, bad in the strictly legal sense that failure to at least *attempt* to enforce the trademark policy strictly and uniformly could hurt us in the courtroom someday.
  Be that as it may, my main disagreement here is that wikipedia, and the WMF marks, demand this vague "high quality" that you speak of. Apple is a place that demands 'high quality' merchandise. Nike is a place that kinda-sorta demands 'high quality' merchandise. Wikipedia has proven to be a popular website, that hundreds of millions of people use every month, because anyone can edit, and explicitly NOT because every article was 'high quality' before it hit mainspace.
  The assertion that the puzzle-globe, and the community-RGB-globe, and the other WMF-marks, can *only* be reproduced on 'high quality' keychains, on 'high quality' shirts, and on 'high quality' cakes, sounds eerily similar to something most folks have forgotten that we used to call w:Nupedia around here. I will say no more, save to note that the success of wikipedia has absolutely nothing to do with pre-emptively demanding high quality. We set the quality-bar low, and that in itself is why we succeeded in producing something of quality. We made the barrier-to-participation low, and that in itself is why wikipedia is a top-ten-website-in-the-known-universe. Trademarks are brands. We should set the quality-bar low, and we should set the barrier-to-participation low. That will make us one of the top ten brands in the known universe. That is how free-as-in-freedom wikipedia works; that is how the WMF ought to work. "High quality" is how proprietary-lock-in iStuff works; we are not Apple Corporation.
  p.s. Yes, the point did not escape me that in mainspace, when one person produces an edit of low quality in some respect, other wikipedians can correct that, and improve the quality. You might argue that forcibly demanding that an Official WMF Representative pre-emptively get to 'look over' every cake-design, shirt-design, keychain-manufacturing-biz-plan, and so on, to keep out the low-quality-crap-kitsch-merchandise, is just the same thing. But it is redacted redacted NOT the same thing, because it is not the cake-design-anyone-can-edit, it is the if-you-dare-design-a-cake-you-must-first-beg-for-official-approval. We have a system in mainspace, called beboldo, that says anyone can edit. We have a system in reality, called the free market, that says anyone can compete.
  If you see somebody producing low-quality cakes, you can drive them out of the market by out-competing them, not by refusing to approve them. And hey, why not have our cake and eat it too, as the saying goes? If you can make the case (on a cake by cake basis) to the community that the low-quality-cake-maker is mis-using the marks, then under section 6.2 you can stop them in their tracks. Pre-emptive approval is neither needed, nor philosophically in line with WMF principles, and if there is any way to satisfy the pragmatic limitations (namely trademark-case-law-precedents), then we should do our dern'd-est to make the thousand points of wiki-cake candle-lights bloom. Thanks much for reading; hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 02:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I can't possibly respond to all while still taking care of the rest of my job :/ But let me respond to two points briefly:
  • "if there is any way to satisfy the pragmatic limitations (namely trademark-case-law-precedents) ...". I have spent quite a lot of time looking at this question. I do not think the case law is as strong as some trademark lawyers would have you believe, but the number of cases that grant the scope of permissions you're asking about and actually keep the mark when challenged is essentially two. (Both involving universities (U. Wisconsin and Penn State) who had allowed people to make t-shirts with their logos.) The number of cases in the other direction is large; large enough that a former boss once told me that if I advised a client to rely on the Wisconsin/Penn State cases I should "probably be disbarred". I still don't think that rules this route out completely, but the overwhelming weight of legal consensus is against it.
  • You're telling me, on the one hand, that we need to spread the brand very widely and become a "top ten brand"; on the other hand, you're telling me that low-quality things with the brand are OK. Those two things are, I think, quite contradictory: "top global brands" get that way because they are high quality, not by flooding the market with just anything. We hold our content to fairly high standards (and we're probably a top global brand already because of it, given the reach of our website). I'm not seeing a persuasive argument here that we shouldn't do the same for content created for profit/by non-community members. -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely no prob, w:WP:REQUIRED applies. Please keep your job.  :-)   Anyways, you responded to the key points -- thanks much. There is no contradiction; low-quality things *are* okay, if there is a mechanism for quality-improvement, plus a quantity-restriction to halt spam. That is the way wikipedia turns low-quality individual sentences into the top encyclopedia of all time. That is also how the wiki-brand can become one of the top brands of all time, methinks. More on this idea, at the end. In any case, as I grok it your position is, at this time aka 2013, we prolly cannot do what the Linux-trademark folks do, let alone what the two universities do, because it is too risky. ( Back when I was in that top law school with my esteemed classmate EssJay, that was called being chicken! ) Seriously though, I will defer to your legal expertise... but I do ask that you keep thinking about ways to make it happen, in 2015 or whenever the next round of trademark-policy-revisions happen. There are three places that *have* done it, right? We ought to be able to do it, too. If it will help.
  And *that* is the key disagreement here, methinks. Will having hand-decorated shoddy-looking wiki-cakes help? Or should we insist on photo-realistic top-of-the-line quality-cakes, to show the "true meaning" of the wikipedia brand? What about home-designed garish wiki-shirts, printed with cheap ink on the lowest-cost materials, will they help our mission? Or should we insist on 600-thread-count boutique-ink designer clothing, personally quality-reviewed by the WMF committee on art history? Is having thousands of cheap keychains, with some anonymous editor's naked two-year-old on one side, and an off-centre off-colour puzzle-globe on the other side, good for the encyclopedia? Or is it better to insist on high quality merchandise, and accept that very-high-cost and very-limited-quantity is a necessary consequence? Why would we allow some seventh grader to make their *own* crappy two-dollar poster, mis-using the wikipedia marks in a low-quality way, when instead we could use our legal monopoly to insist they purchase a twenty-dollar bland mass-produced poster designed by a professional graphic designer on the WMF payroll?
  In case it was not abundantly clear by now, I'm on the side of hand-decorating, home-designed, kitsch-encumbered, sophomoric-quality branding freedom. I'm against artist-mandated, professionals-mandated, finest-craftsmanship-mandated, high-quality-only branding rules. The mission of the WMF is not to produce boutique merchandise in small limited-edition quantities with the resulting high cost; that was the mission of Nupedia, which failed. The mission is to "empower and engage people around the world". That very starkly means we have to accept low-quality, or we have to disempower people, there is no middle ground. Along the way, the goal is to create "educational content under a free license or in the public domain" ... and while the WMF marks are not 'educational content' themselves, they *symbolize* that educational content, and as long as the users of those marks are not violating the mission (see 6.2 revocation fallback), it behooves us to license the *marks* in a free-as-in-freedom fashion, as best we can. Finally, and most tellingly, the true goal is to "disseminate it effectively and globally". What is more effective than w:capitalism? What is more global than w:globalization?
  The license of our content permits anybody to produce a textbook, and sell it, as long as the content remains under the same free-as-in-freedom license. We do not permit use of the WMF marks on the cover, because we do not want people to be misled ... the content inside may have been modified prior to publication by neo-nazis, republicans, democrats, or some other distasteful political group. <grin> Same things goes for websites. But cakes? The WMF will not allow WikipediA™ cakes, because the ingredients might not be "high quality" and thus reflect badly on the WMF? Shirts? Keychains? The rules for websites and books, are categorically different and qualitatively distinct from more generic sorts of merchandise. We should not restrict freedom to make and sell a cake, over worry about neo-nazi textbooks.
  But the key argument here is about quality. In our content, we achieve quality by accepting *any* good-faith contributions, and then *challenging* that which is too low-quality, with citation needed tags, or reversion, or in the ideal case by collaboratively improving things. The same methodology should apply to cakes/shirts/keychains/etc. We should accept any good-faith contribution, subject only to the legal requirements of case-law that keep the marks in the hands of the WMF, including ugly cakes, garish shirts, kitschy keychains, et cetera. We can revert using clause 6.2, and we can competitively *or* collaboratively improve, by creating higher-value and/or higher-quality products. As for adding snark-tags, I would *love* to be able to buy a package of stickers saying {{citation needed}}™ that can be stuck on cake-packaging, shirts, foreheads, keychains, textbooks, and other objects in real life. *Please* hurry up and wordmark that phrase, plus of course, loosen up the WTEL.
  TLDR: restrictive control of the marks is *not* the wikipedia philosophy. We must encourage low-quality good-faith wiki-cake and wiki-shirt designs, just as we live by w:WP:BOLD for text and images in mainspace. Our key is the improvement mechanism, and the community that makes those improvements, not The RULZ. Wikipedia *means* something different than those "other brands" ... and with any luck, it always will.  :-)   Thanks for reading, hope this helps, and much thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 17:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi 74. Thanks for all of your questions and comments (and the TLDR). :) The legal team will be responding to comments soon; the next sprint scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I'll make sure that they get back to you. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
You mean these stickers? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again for engaging seriously (in content, if not in tone ;), 74. I hear what you're saying about wiki philosophy, central control, and rapid improvement, and I agree there is tension there. But I want to disagree/clarify in a few ways.
First, I want to remind/highlight that, overall, this policy is very aggressively biased towards decentralizing control, avoiding heavy-handed RULZ ;), and giving Wikimedians a lot of flexibility and self-control over what they do with the mark. So what you and I are discussing is interesting, and there is tension between trademark and wiki way, but I want to make clear to anyone reading this that overall the policy pushes very aggressively in favor of the wiki way, within the bounds of what we feel we can do legally.
Second, you're right to say that wiki is in large part about low-quality inputs. But I think you're maybe underestimating the importance of our extremely high-quality process for turning those low-quality inputs into a solid-quality eventual product. (The policy refers to this when it talks about our "rigorous and transparent editing".) It's not just that we don't have that sort of process to deal with low-quality uses of the trademark; it is that for most products we simply can't have that process - I can't be bold to your cake :) At best I could suggest a better recipe for the next batch, but even then, there is no mechanism for us to collaboratively improve the recipe, much less your bakery. Without that post-creation process, I think we do have to be much more concerned about pre-creation quality than we normally are.
Third, and relatedly, I think the impact of low-quality things is very different in trademark-space than in wiki-space. When our process works, a low-quality article either (1) isn't seen by many people or (2) is pretty quickly improved. Either way, the impact is pretty limited. As I already mentioned, we don't really have our standard mechanisms for improvement, so #2 is somewhat out the window. And if the theory behind widespread, unlicensed use is that it'll raise awareness of our brand, then #1 is out the window too. So large numbers of permanent low-quality goods has a very different, more negative, and more permanent impact than smaller numbers of transient low-quality articles. (And that's putting aside the risk of losing the mark that I discussed earlier.)
Finally, or maybe just to put it another way: you say "Wikipedia means something different than those other brands". I agree completely. For me, what I think the Wikimedia family of marks should mean, in the best case, is "a community has worked together, in a collaborative wiki way to produce this thing". And that isn't true of the cakes; can't be true of the cakes. So perhaps it is best to think of the trademark policy as a stand-in: when "did our community make it in our wiki" isn't available, what other guidelines can we use? The policy is our best answer to that question.
One other note: I don't think that w:WP:REQUIRED applies here- this is, in fact, my job, and so it is required. :) But I appreciate your patience/understanding that we're all juggling many things right now! -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Free as in beer for a piece of cake

If I wanted to make and sell a cake that had a bunch of art on it (e.g., browser wars or something), and include a small WMF logo that was not the main focus of the cake's decorations, then I would like to have the free-as-in-beer right to do so. As I read it, I think such a use is prohibited. (I apologize if this has been addressed elsewhere; I searched the page and didn't find anything that discussed this possible use) For § 3.17, 3.19-.24, I would like to see something similar to the license for "icon" or "graphics" collections one finds around the net:
One is permitted to use whatever logo in any product for sale as long as:
  1. The logo is not the largest graphic element in the work,
  2. The logo/WMF is not the subject of the work,
  3. The logo is not the only graphic element in the work,
  4. The work must not promote or endorse illegal or patently offensive acts (as defined by __insert legal jargon here__),
  5. The work must not imply endorsement or affiliation with WMF in any way, and
  6. (optional) The work includes the words "_____ logo courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation" or their translation
Summed up: you can't sell WMF stuff unless it is a small part of your stuff; don't use our stuff on stuff that will make us look bad; don't lie and tell anyone we're best friends; kindly give credit where credit is due.
— Safety Cap (talk) 18:36, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
@Safety Cap: We don't explicitly talk about this sort of use case, but like other commercial uses, someone trying to do this could reach out to us under Sec. 4.6 and get a license. There are a few reasons we don't think it is a good idea to include an explicit section covering this sort of thing:
  • none of us can remember ever seeing any requests for anything like this;
  • if we included six-point tests for every speculative use, the policy would quickly grow very, very long, which has a real cost to people trying to understand the policy;
  • in practice some of these uses will be permitted under other aspects of the policy, like nominative use; and
  • if someone wants to do this in a serious way, and are significantly concerned, there is a pretty low barrier to getting a license under 4.6.
Like I said to 74 above, if we do start seeing a lot of requests of this sort, we can clarify or update the policy as necessary, but until then, it seems premature. —LVilla (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Use of marks in conjunction with QR codes

The draft policy mentions QRpedia, but only in the FAQ and then not very clearly. Following the acquisition of the QRpedia IP by WMUK last month, for free use by the community, we expect QR Codes to become much more widely used on signs and printed materials to provide a quick and easy way for a user with a smartphone to go straight to a Wikipedia encyclopedia article in the appropriate language. In order to encourage wide usage of QRpedia codes, it's important that organizations such as local government bodies, GLAMs or local history societies who want to provide local signs can do so without having to ask specific permission or have to negotiate an individual trademark licence with the Foundation. Many such local bodies or societies are not able to afford lawyers and will shy away from anything that looks even remotely problematic. It's therefore of some practical importance that policy covers this area clearly and with explicit examples.

There are two specific use cases that we hope could be covered: (a) Where the Puzzle Globe or the 'W" mark is embedded within a Wikipedia-directed QR Code (ie is printed or displayed in the centre of such a code); and (b) where the Puzzle Globe or the 'W" mark is printed or displayed immediately adjacent such a code. Such indications of use are needed to reassure users that when they scan the code they will not be taken to a commercial or an advertising site.

May I suggest the addition of a new example, as section 3.6.4 along the following lines:

3.6.4 Machine-readable codes that direct to Wikimedia websites

You can use the Wikimedia marks to indicate that a machine readable code such as a QRpedia QR Code or the like serves the sole purpose of directing a scanning device that reads the code straight to a Wikimedia website. You may indicate the purpose of the code by embedding a Wikimedia mark within the code, for example by displaying it in the center of the code, or you may display the Wikimedia mark immediately adjacent the code (but not elsewhere).

--MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC) (WMUK Chair)

Hi MichaelMaggs! Thanks for your comment. We are discussing this issue in the legal team and will respond here shortly. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
@MichaelMaggs:, thanks for seeking to clarify the policy! The current draft permits free use of unstylized marks with QR codes, without the need to request permission. But a license under Section 4 is needed to use the stylized marks. To further promote the open use of Wikimedia marks by the community, we could modify the current GLAM Quick license to allow community members to use the stylized “W” mark with QR codes and clarify this in Section 4.1.2 of the policy. What do you think about that? YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 05:17, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi @YWelinder (WMF): thanks for looking into this. It's an issue that is becoming increasingly important for GLAMs. You mentioned the the stylized “W” mark, but it's actually the globe logo that the partners of WMUK (and probably others as well) really want to use. That is much better recognised as the indicator of origin for Wikipedia, and I would hope that any policy changes could include that mark as well.
A noticeboard using the globe mark
I can understand your legal preference for the Quick license approach as that both allows you to set out specific terms in more detail and also provides you with feedback on where the marks are being used. That seems a good approach in the common current situation where a GLAM or a local government authority wants to put up notices such as the one in the image which include both a QRpedia code and also the globe logo. There are many ways the code and the logo could be positioned, and you might well want to restrict what can be done to avoid for example the mark being mixed up with a lot of extraneous advertising material. That was the reason I had suggested above that the mark should be "immediately adjacent the code (but not elsewhere)". Whatever you decide, I think that would work pretty well.
I need to push back, though, on the other opinion, of the globe or 'W' mark being displayed/printed in the centre of a QRpedia code. That seems to me to be a different situation where you could allow limited free use without requiring users to sign a licence. As I mentioned, many local government bodies, GLAMs or local history societies are really fearful of anything that looks overtly 'legal' (read "OMG, we are going to have to pay a lawyer, get insurance and risk being sued"). By requiring what is effectively a binding signature by an authorised officer on a legal contract you will be in practice be significantly restricting the extent to which QRpedia codes will actually be used. An official signature is fine for a large, well run and staffed GLAM, but is really scarey for a local history society that is run entirely by volunteers.
As I see it, the main purpose of your TM licences are (1) to protect the marks against misuse and (2) to provide you with feedback on where your marks are being used. Where the mark is printed in the centre of a QRpedia code, you can be guaranteed that it is not being misused provided you require that such a code must always send the scanner straight to a Wikimedia page and not to some external landing page. That can be achieved by some wording such as I suggested. And your need for feedback could be achieved in ways other than asking for a signature on a licence. For example, if WMUK were to undertake to modify the QRpedia software, it should not be difficult to automatically tag all scans that have been made of codes that have one of your marks printed in the centre. That would actually get you better feedback than a simple licence signature as it would provide you with near real-time actual usage data.
So, what I would hope is that we could have a new Quick license for the 'associated with QRpedia code' uses, and a new section 3.6.4 for the 'embedded' uses. Suggested new wording:
3.6.4 Embedding Wikimedia marks within machine-readable codes that direct straight to Wikimedia websites
To indicate that a machine readable code such as a QRpedia QR Code or the like serves the sole purpose of directing a scanning device that reads the code straight to a Wikimedia website, you may embed a Wikimedia mark within the code, for example by displaying or printing it in the center of the code. Other uses may be possible by signing a GLAM Quick license.
--MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC) (WMUK Chair)
I just want to say that Michael's points have matched my experience when working with GLAMs too: smaller ones are unlikely to sign any agreement that looks vaguely legalistic - and smaller GLAMs are the ones who really need our support. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 11:52, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
I appreciate the concern that small GLAMs are unable to sign complicated legal documents. Unfortunately, licenses are not just there to prevent misuses and provide us with feedback. Failure to license can sometimes result in the loss of a trademark. Given that the uses of marks with QR codes would mostly be appearing in a non-community environment, they need to be subject to a license, whether they are embedded in the QR code or not. Having said that, we want to facilitate work that is important to the community. That is why we are designing simplified Quick licenses that are written in plain language, are much shorter than standard trademark licenses, and include an explanatory key on the left side of the document. Hopefully, this format will make it easier for GLAMs to use the marks with QR codes. And when they absolutely want to avoid any document, they will still be able to use the unstylized wordmark.
While we generally need to avoid broad outward-facing uses of the puzzle globe without a standard trademark license (such as for QR codes), I think that we can reconsider that position if it’s something that is important to the community.
Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi MichaelMaggs and Chase me!
I wanted to make sure that your comments were addressed given that this consultation is scheduled to close on January 19. To reflect our discussion here, we have deleted FAQ Section 4.4, which stated that the Quick license could not be used for QR codes.
There is currently only a sample Quick license and we will prepare more Quick licenses before the final policy is launched on Foundation wiki. When we do that, we will prepare a separate GLAM Quick license for QR codes as we discussed here.
Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I am rather concerned we were not able to complete our discussions before the nominal closure of the consultation, and I hope it will be possible to finalize this with a short chat. This is indeed important to our community of volunteers, but perhaps most important to the Chapters that are trying to work with small GLAMs for whom a scary signed legal agreement is out of the question. WMUK is particularly concerned to get this right, as we have had many queries about using QRpedia codes since we took ownership of the QRpedia IP. I'd like to discuss if we could the well known legal principle that 'failure to license can result in the loss of a trademark', as it appears you may be restricting that dictum to signed licences, whereas a licence offered to the world (eg a new section 3.6.4) requiring no signature is just as much a licence as one that has to be signed. Such a licence can perfectly well be used to control use of the marks to avoid unpoliced misuses and hence loss of rights. It's not the signature but the policing that is critical. I will email you tomorrow with a suggestion for a telephone call. We should be able to speak at a detailed legal level as I am by profession a patent attorney. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 23:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC) (WMUK Chair).
Hi MichaelMaggs, that sounds good. I'm happy set up a call to discuss this. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

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Links to Wikimedia sites

3.6 Links to Wikimedia sites
You may use the marks on your own website as a hyperlink to the Wikimedia sites. The use of logos in hyperlinks should follow the Visual Identity Guidelines. For example, the marks may be resized, but not modified in any other way. YMMD. Syrcro (talk) 10:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Replied to the same point in German here. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 01:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Before closing 3.6, please see the section Use of marks in conjunction with QR codes below. Thanks. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 23:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

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Discussion about section 4 (Special uses that require permission)

  • See question above[6] about whether there is a loophole in 3.7 make-your-own-cake-shirt-pamphlet-etc, which allows bypassing the clear language of 4.7 sans-license-you-cannot-sell-cake-shirt-pamphlet-etc. 74.192.84.101 12:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I believe this shall be replaced by an obligation to announce the use to WMF and an automatic licensing when WMF does not make objections within some period. The GLAM, Outreach and other activities are very important - and on the other hand, they are very demanding. Every volunteer shall be supported to the maximum extent, and he/she should not be asked to discuss anything with WMF if it is not really an issue. I agree it is good for WMF to know about all these activities, so I suggest the obligation to announce such use, but I think the need to ask for the license is another obstacle which can be the last straw to stop the volunteer preparing such an demanding activity. With the announcement obligation, the WMF receives all the information it needs and if it does find someething to object against, the Foundation shall itself make steps to avoid granting the license. --Okino (talk) 16:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Hard to argue with an auto-grant-system, when talking about something like printing a batch of a hundred t-shirts for some wiki-bash, which has to be planned long in advance, no matter what. But a bake-sale? That can be "planned" in advance, by deciding to purchase an extra few cake-mixes while at the grocery store, on the spur of the moment. If there is a "thirty day cooling-off period" before I can hold the bake-sale... prolly there will be no wikipedia cakes at the sale, right?
  We already have the revocation-clause in 6.2, which can be used preventatively methinks. If the auto-grant-system is a zero-day-waiting period, with an auto-reply-bot that immediately grants all requests by default, then I can definitely sell my wikipedia-themed cakes at my first bake-sale. However, if I get the WMF a lot of bad press, by using sorbitol instead of good old-fashioned WMF-approved sweeteners, they can change the auto-reply-bot to deny my future requests. Maybe it can even be humans answering, piggybacking on OTRS or somesuch. Does this rationale make sense? 74.192.84.101 02:48, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Hello 74, in this hypothetical, if the cakes are sold commercially, then permission (and perhaps a little advance planning) is necessary. It is important to ensure that we can maintain trademark protection that is earned by the Wikimedia community of volunteers. Just as a cross reference, Luis responded to a similar question in a little more detail above -- as he explained, this is a point that can be refined after we have a little more information about how people wish to use the marks. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
  • A couple of comments re: Section 4.4: the phrase "... in a publication in a way that is not fair or nominative use ..." is a bit clunky, in part because it's a definition of a negative. How about " ... in a publication that will be sold for profit," or something similar that is clear & unambiguous. (Of course you'll still want to address fair use). Also, in the collapsed section in which you list the information that must be supplied, ask for the price of the publication as well. This will make it clear whether or not the publication will be sold commercially. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.206.120 (talk • contribs) 17:59, 5 December 2013‎
Hello 68, fair and nominative use, under trademark law in the U.S., depends on how the logos are used, not necessarily whether the publication itself is commercial. It's a complicated topic to include in the policy, but hopefully we can make it easier to understand. Do you think this is clearer?

You need a trademark license if you want to use a Wikimedia mark in a publication, unless your use qualifies as fair or nominative use under U.S. trademark law or other applicable foreign laws.

Thanks for the suggestion! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
I incorporated this change in the policy. Thanks again! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
  • In section 4.5 you start with the following sentence: "You need a trademark license to use the Wikipedia logo in a movie, TV show episode, or online production." which indicates that a license is required per one TV episode. However in consecutive sentences and paragraphs you discuss obtaining the license for a TV show or series. Is the license per episode or for the TV series once and for all? I think this section needs to be rephrased. Thanks for your concern! Asaifm (talk) 21:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, Asaifm. A member of the legal team will respond soon. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
@Asaifm: Good point. We will clarify section 4.5. A license covers only the episode described in the request. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

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Discussion about section 5 (Prohibited uses)

  • Could someone please clarify "look and feel"? By default, MediaWiki comes with the vector and monobook themes, which most (if not all) WM sites use. Should the downloadable version not have these themes, and are these themes copyrighted non-free? --wL<speak·check> 21:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I can't speak for her, but my guess is that Yana was talking about a case like "MediaWiki setup + Wiktionary logo" more than "MediaWiki setup + MediaWiki logo". (For completeness, I should note that while the default install does include the MediaWiki logo, the version that's loaded by default has been clearly identified as a placeholder for some time.) She and I talked a fair bit of the specifics of the MediaWiki logo already, including its public domain status which will definitely be maintained. Thanks for collecting these examples, though; I had promised Yana to send her a bunch of example uses of the MediaWiki logo & mark, and this is a great start. I find none of these concerning in any way, FWIW.--Eloquence (talk) 06:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
G'day Eloquence, WikiLeon isnt asking about a "MediaWiki setup + Wiktionary logo" setup. They are talking about the packaged default MediaWiki, which includes "look and feel", and trademarked logos. I will also add that some of the new UI redesigns (which are extensions or skin-mods IIRC) use the WMF colours - I havent looked to see if those colours are in the default code - something to check, because if the WMF colours are being redistributed in MediaWiki / MediaWiki extensions written by the WMF, then WMF is promoting the WMF colours=mediawiki site, which means it is harder to win a passing off battle.
It is great to know that you think the use I listed are fine, but where is the section of the trademark policy which states that, even broadly? Apologies if I have missed it.
I mention derivatives of the Community Logo in a section below, but the problem applies to all of the logos, as I'm pretty sure that derivatives of every logo have been created and used offwiki. But the MediaWiki and Community logos are the two most important ones to maximise freedoms for, as they are PD, and represent something which exists beyond the servers owned by the WMF.
Is it ok to use the placeholder (a derivative of a trademarked Wikimedia logo) on a mediawiki powered site? Unlike the 'powered by' logos, the placeholder doesnt link to MediaWiki, so it cant use that exception.
Which section of this policy allows for the derivatives that I have mentioned above. If they need to be registered with WMF before they are used outside the WMF servers, it needs to be clearly said, and we need a request form for people to fill in and send to WMF for approval. John Vandenberg (talk) 16:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
If the derivatives are not confusing, they don't fall within the trademark protection of a mark. That is why you can, as I mentioned below, use them off wiki without any permission. We'll prepare an FAQ section to clarify this point so that people know that they don’t need to fill out the request form.
I would think that most people understand that a “placeholder” is only in place to show users where to add their own image. But perhaps we can work on making that clearer in the FAQs too.
The uses that you listed are broadly covered by Sections 3.5 and 3.6. As Erik mentioned, we are thinking about how our trademark practice can best serve open source development, so the examples that you listed are indeed very helpful. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Section 3.5 and 3.6 use the term 'wordmark'; does that apply to the trademarked logos as well - many of the registered trademarks dont include words at all? John Vandenberg (talk) 02:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
The use of the term “wordmark” was intentional in Section 3.5 because those sections refer specifically to how people may use wordmarks in their writing or everyday speech. Accordingly, there is no concern individuals will infringe marks that do not include words at all, because merely describing the logo through words is okay. However, we realize that the organization of Section 3.6 is a little confusing and we revised it to make it clear when we are referring to wordmarks and when we are referring to all marks. Thank you so much @John Vandenberg: for helping us clarify this section :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 01:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Manprit, thanks for confirming that the WMF used wordmark intentionally. In light of that could you and the team return to the question "Which section of this policy allows for the derivatives that I have mentioned above." If it is section 3.5 and 3.6 as Yana asserted, could the team please clarify which part of 3.5 and 3.6 allows for using a derivative of the MediaWiki logo as the logo of a commercial product which relates to MediaWiki? John Vandenberg (talk) 07:54, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Sure! Section 3.6 allows for the derivatives of the MediaWiki logo in the examples you mentioned. Nominative use is a doctrine created and defined by US court decisions, which is reflected in Section 3.6. Instead of simply stating “people have a right to use the marks nominatively under US law,” we thought it would be more useful to identify clear examples of nominative use currently permitted by courts. However, the use permitted under the doctrine requires that you use only as much of the mark as necessary to identify the trademark owner’s product or service associated with the mark. The use of a derivative of the MediaWiki logo as the logo of a commercial product may go beyond the minimal use of a logo permitted by current US law (because you could simply state on your site, “Powered by MediaWiki” rather than including the logo). But, we interpret Section 3.6 broadly to allow people to create MediaWiki logo derivatives when that advances the open source movement because we don’t feel users will be confused about whether Wikimedia sponsors your commercial product. We did not frame the language of this provision to explicitly allow this because, 1) it is unique to the MediaWiki logo and 2) would go beyond current US law and pose additional legal risks to maintaining the Wikimedia marks. I hope this addresses your question. Please feel free to post if it doesn’t and we can try to clarify :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi MBrar (WMF) and thank you for your explanation so far. It is nice to know that WMF is feels logos and even logo derivatives are nominative use. I would like to see that approach apply to all of logos, as such nominative use of the other logos would also advance our mission and WMF interpreting the nominative use doctrine in different ways depending on which asset is at stake seems to open a can of worms (as you say: pose additional legal risks), but I'll leave that for another discussion.. ;-) I can see that the WMF's broader interpretation of nominative use could cover many of the instances I linked to above (such as these two derivatives in commercial software), however this derivative appears to fail every test for nominative use as they are using a derivative of the MediaWiki logo as their own logo. Could you explain how that use falls within the policy? If not under 3.6, perhaps that specific derivative logo is permitted under 3.7 as it is used in a non-commercial setting (i.e. open source). Thank you. John Vandenberg (talk) 00:52, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Great question! You are right that their use of a derivative of the MediaWiki logo as their own logo is not a typical nominative use. However, their use does fall under 3.6.3, which allows for non-commercial use of Wikimedia logos because their logo describes how their software builds on MediaWiki software, and lets you work outside of it. Furthermore, they are promoting the open-source movement by improving on the MediaWiki software and not charging for their services (just the type of initiative we like to support!). MBrar (WMF) (talk) 00:47, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I have a question inspired a little bit by FAQ 3.14, point 3. Let's say that I want to create a fork of Wikipedia in my language. I am a "community member" as defined in "3.4 Community logo use to show membership". Let's also say that I have good reasons (IMO) to make this move (eg. I am blocked on Wikipedia in my mother tongue for 3 years for some incoherent reasons like trying to politely persuade admins to change "Bradley" to "Chelsea" and use feminine pronouns in "Bradley Manning" article). Questions:

  • Can I use the Wikipedia logo as a logo of my forked version of Wikipedia?
  • Can I use the community logo as a logo of my forked version of Wikipedia?

Thanks in advance for an answer. BartłomiejB (talk) 23:04, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your questions, BartłomiejB. The legal team will be responding to them shortly. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi there, BartłomiejB! You can always create forks of Wikipedia, so long as you re-use of the content in adherence to the creative commons license terms. But the Wikipedia logo should only be used on the original Wikipedia. Otherwise, people would be confused that the fork is Wikipedia. Likewise, the Community logo should not be used as a logo on the fork because that will make it look like Meta.
I hope this helps! Just let me know if there is anything more I can elaborate on for you. And thanks for your inquiry! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

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Section 5 prohibitions trump everything else

Section 5 prohibits certain uses of the marks, while sections 3 and 4 allow certain uses. For greater practical and legal certainty it would be sensible to make it clear that all of the s3 and s4 permissions are subject to the restrictions of s5. That's clearly intended but does not appear to be explicitly stated. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll clarify this in Sections 3 and 4. Thanks, YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:57, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

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Discussion about section 6 (Trademark Abuse)

  • First, strongly suggest that "abuse" is the wrong word. It's not abusive when I put WMF wordmarks onto a baseball bat, along with my malware URL, and sell the baseball bat. It is abusive when I use the bat to beat the living daylights out of editors that fail to understand their is a difference between they're and there. Hardly think WMF lawyers will be pursuing me with trademark lawsuit in hand, eh? Besides, I have an iron-clad defense, I was defending the English language against abuse.  :-)   Strongly suggest rewording this to be "misuse of" ... or even the maximally-weasely-worded "inappropriate use of" ... because we want to be able to keep folks from misusing the marks, or merely using the marks inappropriately, without calling them abusers (let alone proving the are abusers in court). E.g. it is inappropriate to put the WMF marks on a murder-weapon, even when one does so without abusing the English language. 74.192.84.101 13:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi 74! I believe you mean that they “fail to understand ‘there’ is a difference.” Don’t beat yourself up over it! ;) Your point that “abuse” is the wrong word for referring to third parties’ acts of abusing our trademarks is well-taken. We are changing the word “abuse” to “misuse” throughout, per your recommendation! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Danke. Mis-use may not permit a wider *legal* latitude in pursuing folks that should not be using the trademarks is some fashion via the courts, but methinks it will help by being less *colloquially* confusing to readers of the policy. p.s. Yes, grammer has always bin my strong suite, thanks for noticing. <preens> And I would never misuse a bat to smack myself with; I love echo-location! 74.192.84.101 02:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again, 74! I really think that your recommendation is a material improvement to the policy that will make it read more clearly and more accurately. Your input is much appreciated! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Second, what specifically does 6.2 mean when it says "if we [WMF] determine that" ... what specifically is the procedure for such determinations? Assuming there is no such thing already, I'd like to propose an *alternative* procedure, where the wikipedia community members can prevent inappropriate uses of the marks. Maybe I should be more specific on *which* wikipedia community I mean... defined as the 500m+ readers ... or the 25m at-least-one-edit-folks ... or the 80k currently active 5+edits/mo folks ... or the ~~7k holders-of-the-trademark-userright-criteria "community-members" defined elsewhere in this trademark policy document.
  If there is an ArbCom vote that using WMF marks to promote some hypothetical cult, which we will call The Church Of The Great Jimbo aka TCOTGJ for the purpose of this discussion (with apologies to User:Jimbo_Wales), even though all the WMF members are committed bishops in said church, and all the WMF lawyers are high priests, I want the ArbCom decision to trump the WMF lawyers. This is *only* about preventing inappropriate uses, please note. I do not want the readers / editors / activeEditors / tmPermbitHolders / activeAdmins / arbCom to be able to vote in favor of permission to use any mark, when WMF lawyers are against it. But I do want at least some of those groups to be able to override the WMF lawyers, and be able to revoke permission, which WMF lawyers have inappropriately granted to TCOTGJ.
  Furthermore, I don't think this proposed override-process for community-revocation of the WMF-legal-team decision needs to be in the formal trademark-policy legalese. The vague language of the trademark policy is fine, for courtroom use, against Really Bad Eggs. But I'd like the non-legally-binding FAQ to document the finer details of the procedural-innards for non-courtroom-dramah, which would then become morally-binding on future WMF trustees/employees/etc. 74.192.84.101 13:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I appreciate the colorful hypothetical, 74! Are there any real life instances of an organization granting trademark use to an unscrupulous entity in contravention of the organization’s mission or philosophy that come to mind? Not to trivialize your concern, but I am sure you recognize that the Foundation’s legal department has a compelling interest in not permitting an entity to use the Foundation marks against the protests of the community, or any of the groups you have named. Would you agree that the morally-binding dicta that you seek is largely covered by the Foundation’s Statement of Purpose? DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
My mention of the church of the great jimbo was not hypothetical; I'm a member, and we are evangelical, so I hereby extend an invitation to you — join us!  :-)   But using TCOTGJ has the advantage that I don't have to bring up any old or not-so-old real-world examples. I'm in particular thinking of situations where commercial entities with close ties to the Great Jimbo may-he-live-ten-thousand-years, or to some other WMF individual perhaps, are given lucrative contracts. I'm also thinking of local chapters, which are not necessarily operated in a fashion that "the (wider) community" approves of. I'm envisioning scenarios where some hypercorp, or some government, or some other external entity becomes a "partner" with approval of the WMF folks ... but without the approval of the wider community. In other words, I want a safety-override-switch, for use in emergencies, when the majority of the WMF folks are "drinking the kool-aid" and have made a mistake of some kind.
  Of course, there are less controversial worries; maybe two similar-sounding groups apply for permission to hold a bake-sale, and the WMF staffer mixes up the names, and tells one group yes, and the other group no, when the answers should have been flipped. I'd like there to be an existing, well-documented process for "the community" to open some kind of WTEL-for-deletion thingamabob, and upon getting a hundred !votes for revoke to have the WMF-granted permission be contractually withdrawn. Anybody who has seen AN/I lynch-mobs knows that such things can be achieved in a matter of hours or minutes, around the clock 24/7/365... whereas it might be a few days before WMF staff notices the revocation-alerts in their work-queue, depending on holiday schedules and workload and so on. The only way that is going to be possible, obviously, is if the WMF-granted permission-letter actually *says* that such a community revocation process exists, at the time. This need not be hardcoded in the WMF-response, but instead could be a link to some kind of trademark-grant-terms-and-conditions-that-the-WMF-can-modify-at-any-time, but it does seem wise to get this hammered out in advance.
  Anyways, does this explanation give you the flavor of my concerns? There are *plenty* of real-world examples of the upper management doing things that are against the will of the shareholders. Rather than give a detailed and explicit enumeration of such potential conflicts, though, I'd prefer to stick with TCOTGJ, and their goal to convert the world to their new religion. Can we "the community" override the WMF-license-grant, and thereby yank TCOTGJ's permission to use the marks? If not, why not? If so, how exactly does it work? Thanks. 74.192.84.101 04:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Currently, there is no community override process for WMF-license-grants. The Legal Team is responsible for granting trademark licenses. Legally speaking, WMF is the “owner” of the marks, and must take on the responsibility of protecting those marks by exerting quality control over the licensing process in order to maintain protection over the marks. That being said, the Legal Team's goal is to license trademarks in ways that advance the Wikimedia mission. So, if the community ever felt that a licensee was not advancing our mission, or worse, harming it, we would immediately reevaluate the grant of the license. We do not grant perpetual licenses to individuals and if for some reason we were unable to revoke a license the community was unhappy with, we would simply select not to renew it at the end of its term. I understand your concern that WMF may ignore the wishes of the community, but WMF functions to serve the worldwide community and we would not license trademarks “against the will” of the collective community. This can be evidenced by our recent decision to suggest to the WMF Board to revoke the registration of the Community Logo in response to a community vote. I hope this quells some of your concerns. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
  • While we are on this subject, I'm curious about the WMF-specific revocation process; although I'm against the WMF-based revocation-process being actually in the legalese, and certainly don't insist the override-process proposed above be in the legalese, I'd definitely like there to *be* fully documented process-mechanisms, I'd like there to *be* a commitment to be transparent about how WMF-revocation-decisions are made, and to log the minutes-of-the-WMF-revocation-meetings, and such things. What is the definition (for purposes of pragmatic usage as opposed to purposes of adjusting the legalese) of the words "inconsistent with our mission" and also "could harm the community/movement/WMF"? Who defines the mission? Who defines the community? 74.192.84.101 13:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Transparency is one of our core values. To help increase the transparency of who is granted a trademark license, we have amended the trademark licenses to indicate we may publish a list of all trademark licensees to make this information public. The decision to revoke a trademark license will likely come after community members contact WMF to report the misuse of Wikimedia trademarks in a way that disparages the Wikimedia name. As to the definition of the “mission” it was crafted in accordance with how the community felt the Wikimedia sites should be run. The mission is “to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.” Accordingly, it is “inconsistent with our mission” to reproduce content from Wikimedia sites with a copyright notice, as this will restrict others from using and adapting that content. This “could harm the community/movement/WMF,” because it hinders the reputation of Wikimedia projects as free, open-source collections of educational content. The Wikimedia movement relies on this reputation to encourage greater volunteer contribution and develop partnerships all over the world to increase access to and expand the amount of free knowledge available online. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
That is fine, and I appreciate the links in particular, some I hadn't seen. I would caution that the publication of the trademark-licensees should be careful to respect their privacy; if they explicitly agree (by checking an optional box or somesuch) have their real-world legal name published, that is one this, but *publication* of that real-world legal identity should be entirely optional (and as a fallback the WMF can report that a trademark license was given out to User:PiRSquared17 or to User_talk:74.192.84.101 or whatever their on-wiki "identity" might be).
  But actually, what I'm asking about the specifics. The transparency-core-value says that, barring a good reason, internal organizational policies/procedures/practices should be well-documented, and available on-wiki. So: here is an example scenario. I notice BadGuy mis-using the marks! <ohnohz> Quickly, I visit the trademark policy homepage, and alert the WMF! Presumably via email to trademark@wikimedia or somesuch, as opposed to the Bat Signal. Then... well, then what exactly? One person reviews my alert, that works on the WMF legal staff? My alert is wiki-logged somehow? All global sysops can see my alert? All autoconfirmed wikipedians can watchlist the alert-log? Who decides when action will occur? Who can veto that decision to act? And so on. The actual *action* of stopping BadGuy is not my interest; I'm asking about the process of how the decision is made, that #1) an alert is valid and #2) a response is gonna happen. How is "mis-use" defined, and by whom? Thanks.
  p.s. Along the same lines, I'd like to know the details of the license-approval-process. Many of them are explained above, such as the requirement that one has to download a PDF, print it out, and then either snail-mail it to the WMF, or scan it and then email-as-an-attachment to the WMF. But what happens after that? Who does the approval? Are they actually the same folks which are responsible for handling BadGuy-alerts? That's good in the sense that fewer bodies are needed, but not good in the sense that naturally folks who just *approved* the mark are going to be resistant to turning around and revoking that permission. Again, my goal here is not to modify the language of the trademark policy, though it might be worth adding "how does the process work in detail" as a FAQ subsection. 74.192.84.101 04:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I completely agree that we would need to respect the privacy of trademark licensees. The license will in fact provide an area for the licensee to indicate how they would like to be identified, either by their personal name, username, or by their organization name that they are licensing the trademark on behalf of. I apologize for misinterpreting your questions earlier. Trademark enforcement is currently handled by the WMF Legal Team to ensure consistency and compliance with trademark law. When receiving a complaint, we first send a confirmation to the person submitting the complaint. Potential infringements are then logged into our system when we receive a complaint from our community and triaged. The Legal Team then combs through each of those complaints to investigate the alleged infringement. We visit the site personally to make sure the complaint has merit. Then we apply US trademark law in assessing whether there is actual “misuse” and it is a valid infringement of the trademark. In general, the standard of “misuse” in US law is whether the use of the trademark is “confusingly similar” to WMF’s use of the trademark. In other words, will the potential infringers use of the trademark confuse users into thinking their site is sponsored by or hosted by WMF? We always contact the potential infringer first to see if they will voluntarily stop using our marks or work with us to make their use less confusing. If we are unable to work things out informally, and they refuse to comply with a cease and desist letter, the decision to move forward with litigation to stop their infringement is made by the Legal Counsel. Similarly, the license approval process is also done by a member of the Legal Team, which sometimes is the same person who handles the violations. We can certainly add an FAQ addressing these questions to bring greater transparency to the trademark enforcement and licensing process. I hope this better answers your questions, and if I missed something please let me know! Thank you again for all your insightful comments. :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 00:55, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

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Discussion about section 7 (Revision and Translation of the trademark policy)

Discussion about the Quick License (formally "Wikilicense")

  • Would it be possible to find a better name for this? Right now, I find it rather confusing for several reasons: 1) it is confusing with the CC BY-SA license which is externally also sometimes refered to as 'the wikilicense'. Specifying that it is about trademark usage might be wise. 2) wiki suggests it might be editable. I guess that is not the case. Wikimedia might be more appropriate here.
All in all, I don't think we need a very short name for this anyway, because it is mainly a term used in this context only, and not for publishing purposes. We can afford to be thorough here :) Effeietsanders (talk) 16:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm open to suggestions here if there is strong community support for another term. What would you or others suggest? We used "wiki" because, in one context, it means "quick" or "speedy," but I am open to other views as well. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Glad to hear you're open to suggestions. I could suggest Pre-approved Trademark License or Trademark License for Community use. Naming things isn't my strong point though - I'm sure other people (native speakers) can come up with more descriptive names that are also easy to translate. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
(p.s. please capitalize Wiki Loves Monuments ;-) )
Wiki Loves Monuments is now capitalized. :) Thanks, Effeietsanders. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Effeietsanders that WikiLicense is too vague. Suggest instead "WikiTrademarkExplicitLicense" which can even be shortened further to w:WP:WTEL (although I'm against that acronym-form being 'official' as it is potentially-confusing). Most of the time, when people are engaging in fair-use stuff, they will be utilizing the "WikiTrademarkImplicitLicense" aka w:WP:WTIL. Suggest that the same policy-page also explain the various WikiContentRedistributionLicenses to include CCBYSA and GFDL, with pointers to their existing copyright-policy-pages. 74.192.84.101 13:59, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion, 74. We'll take this under consideration, but we are curious about what other community members think about your suggestions. We are also open to other suggestions from community members. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I would also recommend finding a new name - perhaps one that is not new. My concern is that the text introduces a new concept, the "wikilicence" which is meant to be an easy and quick way to get a trademark permission. The main concerns are that as the term is new, one actually needs to spend time on understanding what it is, losing some of the quickness and easiness; and secondly, the licence still needs to be e-mailed so it is not wiki after all.
Considering the overall clarity of language used in the whole policy, it would be more consistent to use a description as suggested above ("pre-approved licence") instead of a name that needs to be expanded and explained. –Bence (talk) 13:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Bence, you make an important semantic point here. I'll make sure that the legal team answers you soon. Best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Otherwise, I think the wikilicence idea is great!
I am certain the usability of it will require some work though. If it requires a real-world signature before e-mailing than using a PDF form to fill in might be more convenient than editing a wiki page and then printing and scanning; if one is meant to e-mail the wiki page, I would expect some weird breakage of the design upon copy-pasting which might be confusing and annoying to the user. Also, with translations, one needs to consider whether to accept the form in any language, or require translated versions to come with the English version attached... I expect this is all in development, but the most usable final form might not be on a wiki, so this might also be a consideration to use a name that doesn't imply one specific technology or an understanding of the origin of the word "wiki". –Bence (talk) 13:41, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

You raise a good point, Bence. We will provide a PDF to facilitate printing and scanning and are considering other ways to make it easier to use. We'd love to hear more suggestions on this point. As for the translations, they are intended to facilitate broad discussion during the community consultation phase. We intend to provide translations of the final version to make it more accessible. However, if there are any differences between the translations and the original English language version, you should follow the English language version. We do this because the license is governed and interpreted in accordance to United States law. AVoinigescu (WMF) (talk) 01:54, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Ughh. The WTEL-aka-wikiLicense has to be signed, in blue or black ink only, full legal name? Or am I just confused. Also, I do like the side-suggestion by Bence... why *not* make the request of an explicit pre-approved trademark-use-license actually be wiki-style? There could be a trademark-noticeboard here on meta... or better, avoid extra bureacracy-creation, and just merge the requests into some existing noticeboard[19][20][21] which already deals with somewhat-similar stuff, or maybe even is just in the metaphorical ballpark.[22][23][24][25] Who knew it also stood for 'request for cake'?
  p.s. If a signature is mandatory, suggest that uploading a pic the person took with their phone (of their handwritten signature on an otherwise-blank piece of paper) that is then attached to a boilerplate wiki-noticeboard-request with a clickwrap that says "I swear this is my sig and hereby attach it to this text" would be preferable to pdf-print-sign-scan... we want to support tablet/smartphone editors, not just folks working in an office that has an all-in-one-printer-scanner-copier unit. This is important not just because it broadens the ability to get the license from various devices, but also because if people *forgot* to request the license, or did not *realize* they had to get the license, we want them to be able to request it at the last minute, from the checkout-line at the t-shirt-printing-shop, or the bakery, or whatever. 74.192.84.101 03:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Uploading signatures as images might not be the best idea in the long run (except for the Wikipedia article infoboxes). The Adobe software for Android at least allows one to sign a PDF using the screen and their fingers and it then embeds that image. Not sure if its legal as a signature, but it does make it convenient on a phone or tablet. -Bence (talk) 17:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
@Bdamokos: For now, we will be able to accept Wikilicenses via physical mail or a scanned signed copy via email. In the future, we hope to build an electronic form, where users can submit a license entirely online (but that is still a work in progress). Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
That makes sense about the format (still doesn't look too complicated, especially once people have some time to test and optimize the whole process), though I would still recommend caution with using "wiki" in the name. --Bence (talk) 18:43, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Bence, again, the point you're making here is appreciated. The legal team will respond soon. Best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
 @Bdamokos: After considering the name, we changed "Wikilicense" to "Quick License" to avoid misunderstanding about whether the license is editable. Thanks for the feedback! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about the FAQ

  • I think the those blue "FAQ boxes" within in the policy are quite small and not very visible at the right side, especially for people like me who use a widescreen monitor. Maybe we should change their position or appearance? Maybe the boxes should not just say "FAQ"? --Gnom (talk) 13:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out! We could try placing the box on the left to make it more visible on widescreen monitors. Do you have any suggestions on what the boxes could say instead of “FAQ”? MBrar (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Maybe just "Frequently asked questions" or "Read FAQ" or anything that's longer and hence more visible ;-) --Gnom (talk) 08:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your input @Gnom:! We will move the FAQ box to the left to make it more visible for users. However, in the interest of reducing the text on the screen, we think it will be more helpful for readers to keep the text in the box short. We greatly appreciate your feedback :) MBrar (WMF) (talk) 23:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about the trademark "request a license" form

  • Proposed uses currently list "Online (website, email) Book, periodical, Print TV, Movie, or Broadcast, Other". I see elsewhere that community events are allowed without request, but I think that this form should emphasize that the use of marks during community events is permitted since that is such an unorthodox allowance. To this list of proposed uses, add "advertising for Wikimedia event", "conference presentation", "starting a Wikimedia community group (unofficial)" and other common uses rather than these very uncommon uses, and perhaps if someone checks any of those boxes, send them to a page which tells them that they may freely use the mark. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to have them register their use anyway just as another communication channel to identify community organizers. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I like the idea of emphasizing community uses to save people the trouble of applying for a license when they don't need one. We have done this on the Wikilicense, which has a warning that ask people to double check whether they need a license at all and links to the provisions that describe license free uses. But perhaps it would be helpful to call out some of those uses specifically here. Enabling a communication channel for community organizers also sounds like an excellent idea. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Thank you. I have trouble articulating what I want. I am sure that I want community organizers to be empowered to advance the Wikimedia movement. I am not sure what else I could say now or how I should feel or respond. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The form currently says to name, "Wikimedia chapter, thematic organization, or user group & title (if any)*" Are not chapters already empowered to use marks as they like without further notice to anyone? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Movement organizations can do a lot things under their respective agreements, but there are certain uses that may not be covered. (The trademark policy discusses the relationship between these agreements and the policy in Section 1.4.2.) For example, if someone with a chapter were to write an unrelated book and wanted to use the puzzle globe logo on the cover, they would need to get an ordinary trademark license. But the fact that this is a chapter person would be relevant to know because a trademark holder is sometimes allowed to relax the trademark quality control requirement when it has a relationship with the trademark licensee. We want the application form to cover edge cases like this to make it really effective and avoid unnecessary back and forth emails. I'd love to hear if there is anything that we have forgotten. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this discussion has concluded and, unless you remove this template, will be archiving this topic soon. If you disagree, please edit this section and remove {{ArchivingSoon}}. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about the violation reporting form

  • Who is going to respond to violations? I have been interested in inappropriate use of all kinds of Wikipedia content. Can this form also go into a queue for sending spankings to people who violate other policy, like inappropriate reuse of community uploaded text and images? Who is administering the spankings? I would favor this process from the beginning being something both for the community for their protection as well as for the WMF for their mark protection. I do not favor this being a queue only for protecting the WMF and not the community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Good question, Blue Rasberry. The WMF Legal team will monitor any reports of potential trademark violations that come to us via this form and respond as appropriate. This is just one more avenue by which the community may report potential abuse - in the past, the Legal team has reviewed cases that have come in via the email address legal-tm-vio@wikimedia.org (listed here). We will continue to closely monitor both, so please choose whichever option is more convenient for you.
In cases of inappropriate reuse (such as violations of the CC-by-SA license), the community should send an email to legal@wikimedia.org and the Legal team will determine whether to send a letter regarding proper compliance with license provisions. Furthermore, since such reports come largely from within the community, the reporters themselves are certainly welcome to report potential reuse violations on-wiki in whatever manner the community would find easiest to track. As the owner of the copyrights, members of the community are always free to reach out to (and, if the violators are community members, perhaps sanction) reusers who are not following the rules.Rkwon (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Maybe we can also do this the other way around: publish a list of allowed usages (not necessarily exhaustive) so that community members can check against that list that indeed (for example) Orange has a deal with the WMF to use the trademark in certain situations. No need to be very detailed, but right now it's a lot in the dark. That would limit the reports in the longer run. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Hello @Effeietsanders: In practice, we verify that someone is not a licensee before we contact them about misuse of the trademark. (We also must evaluate whether it is parody, nominative use, or another type of acceptable use, so checking against our licenses is another easy step in our process.) We could post an incomplete list of licensees if that is helpful for the community, but it would be too difficult to maintain a comprehensive list, and I am hesitant to do anything that would make the trademark process slower. I think the process works best if the community reports all uses that they feel are inappropriate. Thanks for the feedback, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF). I think an incomplete list is totally fair and nobody would want to delay the process over this. The problem I've seen a few times, is that a community member is unsure about how legit a certain use of the trademark is somewhere by a company, and then they start a discussion in the village pump equivalent. That goes on forever, and speculation arises on whether or not they have a license. They feel held back to waste your time, are uncomfortable with the language or simply have something against the WMF. Such a list could probably remove doubts about many cases, and might increase the number of reports of real abuse sent (now they might just assume it's a licensee). Of course I assume you do have a comprehensive list somewhere in the office for the final check before writing them an angry letter ;-). Effeietsanders (talk) 15:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
    This sounds reasonable -- we will investigate building a public list. We are sensitive to potential privacy questions, so I would like to give licensees advance notice that their use may be listed publicly. I added a line to the license request form, and we may need to clarify this point elsewhere. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for everything said here. I have no further comments at this time except to say that I am happy enough with the response and hope that the conversation continues. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:18, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Other discussion

  • Unclear right at the top: do you mean this? "YES please! / You have a fair use right to use the Wikimedia marks when: / Truthfully describing a Wikimedia site. / Doing accurate news reporting and or artistic, literary, and or political work. / Using a wordmark when its meaning is unrelated to Wikimedia. / Linking to Wikimedia sites.

    "Doing" is pretty ungainly (do drugs?), but I can't think of anything better at the moment. Non-anglophones will bump on the "and" after "reporting" and after "literary", since English is unusual in treating "and", not "or", as the default mortar between listed items; but here, "or" would be better even for natives.

    Approaching that opening text in ignorance, I'm befuddled by the third bullet. Is is clear enough to the many people who won't bother to read the fine print? Tony (talk) 08:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Tony! This is great input. We brainstormed the question, and we have replaced the present summary language with the following:

"You have a fair use right to use the Wikimedia marks to:

· Truthfully describe a Wikimedia site;

· Accurately report news;

· Create artistic, literary, or political works; or

· Link to Wikimedia sites."

Do you feel that this edit resolves your concerns with the wording? DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice indeed! Tony (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again for the recommendation, Tony! DRenaud (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Satire

... it may be helpful to mark your work as "satire" or "parody." If only! Rich Farmbrough 19:43 19 November 2013 (GMT).

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