Hi all, For the benefit of community members that are not on this list and given some earlier email problems, we have posted our email directly on the consultation talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation#September_26th_Wikimedia-l_email_from_Geoff_and_Yana
Please join this community consultation here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation. Many thanks for your input, Geoff & Yana --- Original email: Hi all, We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has constructively participated in the ongoing trademark practices consultation that we started several months ago. Please feel free to continue your participation there, since all issues continue to remain open for discussion.[1] We would also like to invite community members to join the ongoing discussion regarding the trademark protection of the Community logo that we posted on Monday: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation. Our goal is to obtain clear direction from the community on how we should proceed with respect to the registration of the Community logo and whether we should pursue a collective membership mark for the community. Our current consultation is part of an ongoing discussion regarding this logo. We joined this discussion on the talk page for the Community logo and Wikimedia thematic organizations.[2] We then initiated a broader discussion on trademarks in June, where the discussion on the Community logo continued.[1] That trademark practice discussion remains open and active, and we have been responding to a wide array of important issues thanks to community comments. We were first notified this weekend of a potential opposition to the trademark registration,[3] an issue not raised earlier in the community consultation on trademark practices even though the deadline for the opposition was not until December 22. We accordingly initiated a community consultation on Monday about how you would like us to handle this.[4] Indeed, this is consistent with the legal team’s ongoing efforts over the last two years to include the community in important legal decisions and policy proposals. We have put a strong emphasis on a close working relationship with the community, such as in our discussions on the Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy, the Conflict of Interest Guidelines, the Legal Fees Assistance Program, the Political Affiliation Policy, and now the Trademark Policy.[5] In our ongoing consultation regarding the Community logo, we have asked the community to let us know whether to seek a collective membership mark (which will help maintain protection against misuse by others, while allowing free use by community members) or to abandon the registration of the trademark and its protection by WMF.[4] Collective membership mark is an idea that we started researching a couple of months ago in light of community comments in the trademarks discussion and had planned to present it after finishing the research. To be clear, we have no emotional investment in the outcome. This consultation is the community's opportunity to let us know how the mark should or should not be protected. As we stated before, we are fine abandoning the trademark registration to put our limited resources against other priorities, but this decision belongs to you and the Board [6]. To ensure full community participation, we have invited users from all across the world to take part in this and continue to encourage that.[4] Our actions will be based on the community consultation underway and the Board, not on an extra-community legal action. We understand that an opposition against the Community logo trademark has been filed, and we will handle it as we do all litigation. The litigation deadlines are a non-issue to us because we will do what the community and Board tell us. Our goal is to determine the broader community intent through a community consultation that is open to everyone. If the community and Board tell us that we should abandon registration, we will do so; if you want it protected, let us know. Please join in at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation and tell us what you would like us to do. Also please feel free to participate in the more comprehensive discussion with the community on trademark practices here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trademark_practices_discussion Thanks for your thoughts on this, Geoff & Yana [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trademark_practices_discussion(trademark statement) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trademark_practices_discussion(trademark discussion) [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Logo and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_thematic_organizations#Is_it_correct_that_this_is_a_community_logo.3F [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ACommunity_Logo%2FReclaim_the_Logo&diff=5823947&oldid=5823876 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Logo/Request_for_consultation [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_interest, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Legal_Fees_Assistance_Program, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Association_Guideline [6] Board approval is probably necessary since we registered the logo in light of a Board resolution. After the Community logo was adopted as the official Meta logo, it was added to the list of Wikimedia logos in September 2008. In April 2009, the Board of Trustees adopted a resolution directing WMF staff “to register and protect the Wikimedia marks” ( https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Trademark_statement ). The Board can provide clarification that we should or should not register the Community mark based on the results of the community consultation. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
