Talk:Logo selection procedure

Purpose of page; pending logo selection

The Wikimedia Foundation has been considering ways to optimize logo selection by the community, but were not expecting to be called upon to develop one so quickly. In light of the recent discovery that the current Wikivoyage logo is too similar to an existing logo (see Foundation statement Wikivoyage/Logo announcement), we are bringing this before you with less time than we had hoped to discuss and improve the plan. I apologize for this short notice, but it's necessary to develop a working process and to select a new logo for Wikivoyage within two months. Accordingly, I hope that we can iron out any issues with this proposed process (based heavily on past contests and on the "Picture of the Year" contest on Commons) with a brief consultation to allow plenty of time for the important work of creating and selecting a usable logo for Wikivoyage. The proposed timeline for that is, of course, on the main page.

Your thoughts are needed and very much welcome - the purpose here is to try to encourage community creativity and input from as broad a range of community members as possible, while also allowing necessary time for legal review to prevent issues of the sort we are encountering now from occurring again. This process is based heavily on past logo contests and the "Picture of the Year" contest on Commons.

With all that in mind, please share your questions, comments and suggestions. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Ugh, again we don't get to choose our own procedure? Our project, at least the English version, doesn't allow voting, because it discourages people from making persuasive, thoughtful arguments when they can affect the decisions by saying "support" or "oppose." Moreover, we wanted to have a bit more local control over the selection, because we felt overwhelmed by Wikimedians with minimal familiarity with our background, culture, processes, and mission. --Peter ^Talk 16:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the discussion during the submission period a good place to make persuasive, thoughtful arguments (before the voting is open), and then again, after the three finalists are selected and discussed? –Bence (talk) 17:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the impending vote will discourage thoughtful discussion prior to the vote. The discussion process will become a fight, not an attempt to move towards consensus. --Peter ^Talk 17:09, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Pt: doesn't allow voting either, and I concur with Peter's comments. Though there are lots of good creative people out there, I think we would like active Wikivoyagers to have a little more weight in the decision than the random people who may have barely even visited and who may not understand what we are all about. And as an aside, I wonder why we would need to wait 10 more days to open submission - why not just start now and make the submission period longer? Texugo (talk) 17:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

This is not intended to be the "Wikivoyage logo contest procedure", but simply the "logo contest procedure" - a standardized way of reaching community logos for any and every project of the Wikimedia community. :) It just happens that Wikivoyage would be first to use it, due to the legal issues with the existing logo. It is intended to be as inclusive as possible simply because that's our ideal. There's nothing at all to prevent opening submissions sooner, no matter the process we wind up with, as long as it is understood that the submission rules are set by the legal department so they must apply regardless of the rest of the procedure. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I would love to change the name of this too, for the same reasons of wanting this to be about working together, not competing. How about selection procedure, not contest procedure? --Peter ^Talk 17:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. This does seem a rather long-winded process and voting isn't really the WV way. Consensus and specific criticisms and recommendations would be, in my view a simpler, quicker and generally preferable system. A good example of this is the contrast between new Main Page discussions on en:WV en:WP. Whilst admittedly a much bigger wiki, WP has had many year-long failed attempts to create a new Main Page, whilst we took a couple of months to form a design between us; working together.--Nick ^talk 21:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The process was built to allow lots of time for legal review and plenty of time for community consultation. In terms of voting, it's the same language used in the last process. :) However, again, this isn't a process created specifically and solely for Wikivoyage. We hoped to arrive at a process for all logo selections that would permit participation by as many Wikimedians as possible, since in many cases there will be wide interest in identifying marks. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if that came across as a little brusk - I absolutely understand that we want to make sure this logo lasts more than a few months! :) We do want to be open with this, but then again, I agree with the others that we don't want this to be dominated by people who have never set foot in WV before. Thanks for all your work with this! :) --Nick ^talk 21:50, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand. :) It makes total sense to me that you want to make sure that the people who work on and care about Wikivoyage wind up with a logo that reflects and represents their work properly. My current plan with whatever process we wind up with is to make sure that this is well-broadcast on Wikivoyage. I've already spoken to James Alexander about a targeted central notice on all of the Wikivoyage projects whenever the process does officially start, to help make sure that awareness there is high. Nobody wants a logo that makes the WV editors unhappy. And hopefully if there are potential legal issues, we will catch them in advance this time - that's a major goal of the process. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

That would be great, thanks very much! :) --Nick ^talk 22:40, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

We need to be very careful to separate this document, which is an attempt to set up a standardized logo-contest procedure, from the upcoming effort to select a new logo for Wikivoyage. The two are connected, I believe, only insofar as the upcoming Wikivoyage change is the first opportunity to use the new procedure. I would be surprised if the WMF required us to follow the procedure outlined here if we decided we wanted to do it differently. I would suggest that we discuss specifics for Wikivoyage's process in some other location (perhaps Talk:Wikivoyage/Logo announcement, and leave this page for discussing the generic process and refinements thereto. LtPowers (talk) 17:36, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

We would actually rather that you follow this process, LtPowers. There are a number of reasons for it: first, a great deal of energy has gone into designing a process that is legally compliant and ensures that all the various markers (legal, trademark, merch, etc) are hit. Second, it's like most open-source projects... when you run off to do your own thing, then the upstream original doesn't get the benefits of your refinements. We'd far prefer that you discuss any proposed changes here, so that the standardized process can get the value of your refinements as well. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Well then maybe WMF should identify which parts of the process are inviolable. Is it possible for us to set up a process without voting? That is, to make the standard process voting-optional? LtPowers (talk) 01:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's important to have clarity on any process prior to its implementation. I guess my question would be what if we get submission participation like we had here? How would that be manageable? I think it's worth opening up that conversation. How would the submission period and refinement be segregated from consensus choice between options? (The current proposal was intended in part to avoid the issues that were discussed here.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk)

I concur with the other Wikivoyagers here. I'm sorry, but the last "contest" was a disaster that was far biased towards Wikimedians due to its publicity there. Wikivoyagers were hardly represented due to the migration mess our community was in at the time and the fact we don't have as many contributors. I could not, under any circumstances, accept "votes" from users who did not have a certain number of edits on Wikivoyage and have edited there for a certain amount of time. As others have said, voting is also prohibited at Wikivoyage. If we were to only allow Wikivoyagers to provide input, a consensus discussion would probably take less time and less effort due to the tight-knit nature of our community. The Wikimedia Foundation has no right to force such a process upon us; their role is to facilitate, not to overrule community processes. I understand there are legal concerns, and that's fine for the WMF legal department to have time to rule out some logos. But this needs to be a Wikivoyage process. JamesA (talk) 01:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Again, this is not a "Wikivoyage" process under discussion, but a process for all logo selection. Wikivoyage would just be the first to utilize the process, given the unfortunate issue with its logo that requires its quick replacement. Personally, I think inclusiveness is one of the Wikimedia movement's core values and one of its greatest strengths - while it makes sense to me to limit voting to those with registered accounts before the process to avoid gaming the system, I'm afraid I don't understand why you think that a contributor to, say, Commons - perhaps one who is submitting a design for the logo - might not have good input about design aesthetics? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 02:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

If we're talking about providing input, then everyone should be able to voice their opinion. But if voting is really going to be forced down our throat, only Wikivoyagers should be allowed to participate in such a vote, basing their vote on the general comments provided by all of the Wikimedia movement. JamesA (talk) 06:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Contest v. Process

Per feedback above, I've moved this form "Logo contest procedure" to "Logo selection procedure." I've modified the language internally accordingly. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Simplified header

I moved the fearlang in the header to logo (which is linked from it), and balanced it with some lovelang reminding people why we desire shared identity and purpose in the first place. –SJ talk  02:04, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Requests for comment → 30 days

Hi. It's standard practice for something like this to have (at least) thirty days of discussion. This is typical of any request for comments (RFC) here on Meta-Wiki or on other wikis, as far as I know. I don't see any reason to deviate from this here. The June 10 deadline seems arbitrary and movable. As I see it, there are two options:

1. push back the timeline of selecting a Wikivoyage logo; or
2. not use this procedure for the selection of a new Wikivoyage logo.

We absolutely should not feel rushed into accepting a procedure that the community has not explicitly endorsed. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:06, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Is there any attribution for this document? The page history is useless.

Is there something wrong with the page history? It looks fine to me. :/

The deadline for the new logo is a legal imposition, I'm afraid. It would be great if we had more time, but we don't. We do, of course, have the old process, begun here, which featured a submission period followed by voting, refinement and further voting, like the proposal here. The biggest difference here, of course, is the legal review that might help avoid this issue occurring again. (Also some of the specific points about how refinement and voting occur.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 03:20, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, if the deadline for selecting a new Wikivoyage logo can't be moved, I don't see how this procedure can be used. Ten days is not enough time to decide something of this nature, particularly with festering concerns about how to appropriately balance the weight of Wikimedian contributors vs. the weight of people directly involved in a project (in this case, Wikivoyage contributors).

Regarding attribution, did you write this entire page in a single edit? My reading of the page history is that this page was created in a single edit (followed by two edits by you to mark it for translation). If you wrote this entire page in a single edit, it's both incredibly impressive and wildly uncharacteristic of your editing style. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:30, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Maggie, no two logo contests have been held the same way :) So I recommend simply proposing a specific process for this contest, similar to the selection procedure discussed in this RfC. No need to have an RfC for that - just get some of the core WV community members to help organize or sign off on this contest, including those who organized the last contest and those who have recently been thinking about logos. The RfC about how to do this in the future can proceed in parallel. –SJ talk  03:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

@MzMcBride: No, of course not. :) I mentioned in the note in which I announced it that we had been working on it with the idea of launching it later. It's a collaborative document - some of it is mine, some of it was written by other people. Attribution doesn't require incremental edits or individual edits, of course. A work of joint authorship can be licensed by any of its contributors. :) (From what the laywers tell me, the logo must be replaced by the end of July.)

@SJ, we are proposing this process be used for this logo contest as well as others. :) It includes the elements of the last contest, as I mentioned above - submission and discussion, voting, redesign & voting - but also allows for legal review and provides clarity as to what submission means and how the process works. Certainly, the particulars are open for discussion, but the fact remains that we have to have some process in place quickly for selecting a Wikivoyage logo - we don't have the 30 days MzMcBride would like to figure that out, unless we have a very narrow window for selection :/ Philippe has explained above why LCA believes that a standardized approach is a good idea. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 03:57, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Attribution certainly doesn't require individual edits, no. But when the community is evaluating a document like this, it can be helpful to know its origins. Given the copyright work you do, I would think you would understand better than most what value a trail of edits can have when evaluating a work. (I'm not suggesting that there's any copyright issue here, of course. Just noting that we all value descriptive page histories.)

If the deadline must be the end of July (which seems terribly arbitrary, but all right...), then this would just be the "Wikivoyage logo selection procedure", then. Easy enough to move the page around and solicit feedback from the affected communities. Presenting a document like this (from a black box) and giving the community ten days to decide whether to implement this as global policy doesn't seem like it's going to work. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:59, 1 June 2013 (UTC)