Talk:Wikibooks/Logo/Archive 6

Should We Get Started? Straw Poll

Based on the approved rules, and the suggested logo selection process, do people think that we should move forward with this? Yet to be determined is a firm timeline, something that we can start to put into stone as soon as the process begins. This is a quick straw poll to see if we should move ahead with this.

•  Support -- Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 17:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support -- Urbane (Talk) (Wikibooks) 18:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support - We need to have some idea of the response before we can get a sense of what the timeline should look like anyways. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support - Good enough. Let's go. -withinfocus 23:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support - Let's move forward. I'm happy with the outlined process. --Xixtas 00:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 11:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
•  Support --AdRiley 09:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

•  Oppose I oppose a change of logo. We should keep this current logo, I see nothing wrong with it. I think the logo is fine the way it is. I guess that is all I have to say.

Okay, this was just a short straw poll, and I think it demonstrates a general will to move forward. I say that we get started then! I'll make a few announcements here on meta about the logo selection processes (both for Wikibooks and Wikijunior, Wikijunior is following the same rules and process as the Wikibooks one). We need to start advertising on Commons to attract artists, and we need to start advertising on the various language Wikibooks projects as well, to try and get as many people invovled as possible. People who are multilingual could make the announcements immediately, if possible. Otherwise, we need to contact the translator people and see if we can get some help from them (I know they may be busy with the fundraiser). I'll also archive some of the old discussions on this page, and reformat it to start the discussions. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 15:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I know you mean well, but I disagree that this is enough to demonstrate support, because only a few English Wikibooks contributors participated, compared to the total number of contributors there are to every Wikibooks language, this is hardly show of support. We need to avoid issues with only English Wikibooks making the decision just as much as there was issues before with rest of the wikimedia projects making the decision with no participation by Wikibookians. I think a lot more support from contributors from a diverse number of Wikibooks languages needs to exist before this can be considered agreed to. The idea of having the process of picking a logo translated into many languages is a good idea and one which I think should also be used for this process. --Darklama 17:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It was just a basic straw poll to ensure that the rules and processes were generally free from severe defect. It was not intended to be a show of overwhelming support from a diverse audience. The burden now falls onto people to announce the new process on the various language projects, so that all wikibookians can get involved. This was only intended to be a "quick straw poll", and it served that purpose. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 17:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something or misunderstanding you, calling this the new process and announcing it as such doesn't make sense to me. Going through with announcing this to everyone as the process that will be used, sounds to me like a big slap in the face of everyone whose not a registered member of English Wikibooks and like saying only the opinions and votes of English Wikibookians count.

A single project (and a small fraction at that) can't decide for all the projects what logo Wikibooks will use and what process will be used to determine that a decision has been reached. I think more people from other projects need to be involved in the discussion and show support for this first before people start trying to create logos and discuss them. If this is in fact what you mean to do then, ignore me, because it just doesn't sound to me like what your talking about doing now. --Darklama 20:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the people who have voted in this little straw poll are mostly wikibookians is more a coincidence then anything, I certainly didn't prevent anybody from other projects from participating in this, and since it was on meta and since i've been making announcements about it regularly (on my blog, and on foundation-l, and in other places) if other people aren't involved it's because they choose not to be. I made the proposal above, we discussed it, we modified it, we took a quick vote among all the people who were acting interested (and even more people voted then had been participating until now), and the reaction was one of general support. The last logo selection process failed in part because not enough wikibookians were participating in it. now you are calling foul because only wikibookians appear to be participating in it. Frankly, this "problem" that you seem to be having seems like a good thing to me. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 00:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm calling "foul" because only English Wikibookians appear to be participating and if only English Wikibookians participate than any discussion and decision made won't count for anything and nothing will change. I haven't seen you mention this on textbook-l and I bet you haven't mentioned this on any other language Wikibooks or gotten someone else to do so for you. --Darklama 00:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

First off, translators have been busy with the fundraiser and the steward elections, so there aren't a lot of people around to do translations for smaller language projects. Second, i'm not multilingual, so I can't do it myself. This is a volunteer community, and simply put: nobody is volunteering to translate anything for anybody here (except for mike below, thanks mike!). If you're going to expect me to do all this, from making proposals, to holding straw polls, to making announcements on every mailinglist or forum, then you're going to have to settle for the way that I do things. Of course, if you want to volunteer your services for making announcements to people that I missed, that would certainly be appreciated. But what you can't do is not volunteer to help in it, and then complain about how other volunteers do it. I've contacted the people that i'm capable of contacting, nobody else bothered to contact anybody, so here we are. You also have to allow for the possibility that more people know about this discussion then care to participate in it, which is a very common occurance in the wiki world. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 02:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

As announcements are made, please let me know, and I'll try to translate to French (though I don't promise perfection). Of course, if someone can do a better job, feel free to ask them instead. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it is of any help, I have already made an announcement at pt.wikibooks in 29 October since I have seen the discussion process starting in the english Reading room. But of course I can not speak for the other projects. Personally, I agreed whith the terms, I just did not express my opinion back there. - Jorge Morais 02:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Would anybody mind if I moved this discussion to the talk page? It will still appear in everybody's watchlist, and we can keep talking about it as usual. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 15:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I left a short message at the french wikibooks. That's a start :-) Anthere 23:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Logo colours

I have been one of the advocates of making sure that each project finds its own identity, far enough from the Wikimedia logo for it to have a life of its own and not look like a pallid remake of it. This said, to ban any logo that would use Wikimedia colors is maybe a bit harsh in the interpretation of this need for "imagination" :-) However, one that uses ONLY wikimedia colors (and I insist on the plural colors) probably fails to convey an identity of its own, but if it takes the blue, red or green, why not. Just thought I would make that clear. notafish }<';> 16:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We just want to avoid a mess like last time, where the process to select a logo was basically rerailed because the selected logo did use those colors, and the WMF said that was not permissable. That said, this is really going to be left up to the artists to determine what colors to use in their logo, and if they use WMF-green or WMF-blue in their logo while still maintaining some individuality, that's perfectly fine. If they use red, green, and blue but cannot individualize the logo enough, they certainly run the risk of being disqualified. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 17:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I did a little text tweak :-) I hope it is okay. Anthere 23:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

You're the boss :). --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 15:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Ta! And to think I didn't dare to make that same twist ;-) notafish }<';> 15:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

W

Just a passing note.... "W" maybe the initial character of "Wikibooks" (or equivalents thereof) in English and many other languages, but not all. Examples include Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, Persian and Esperanto. To the users of those languages, W would mean nothing at all. I thought that I'd mention this because both of the new submission feature the letter W prominently in their designs. Imho an ideal logo would not contain characters in them; even if it did, not in an anglocentric way at the least. --朝彦 (Asahiko) 11:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

More specifically, any logo which includes a 'W' because it is the first letter of Wikibooks, would need alternative versions for each language where the first letter is not 'W' (which is a fair number of variations, as far as I understand it). In general this should be avoided. Ditto "WB" or any other abbreviations. I have added this to the instructions. --HappyDog 13:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The added instruction looks good. Thanks! --朝彦 (Asahiko) 14:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be the same for Wikijunior if it is a rule for Wikibooks? Regards -- heuler06 17:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with this new guideline. Actually, I would suggest an opposite guideline that every logo should include "Wikibooks" in some manner, without localization. Many international companies (Sony, GE, and others) use only english for their logos. The Wikimedia Foundation in their logo guidelines clearly state that there is to be no localization of "WIKIMEDIA". The Foundation only holds trademarks on the english language names of its projects. When the name is translated for many languages (like for Wikipedia) it dilutes the brand.

For full disclosures sake, I will point out that I created the "W" logo. I am concerned about it being too anglocentric, but I think it has some visual appeal and would scale really well. If anything, I hope it gets peoples minds thinking about some new directions the logo could take. Certainly there is no reason to disqualify it at this point, and if the anglocentric nature of it is a real problem then don't vote for it.

I am going to remove the new guideline for now, until the community can discuss this further. When we come up with a resolution to this localization issue, the guidelines can be modified. For now, the priority should be to encourage as many ideas as possible, so we can all collaborate on a great new identity for Wikibooks. --Ezra Katz 00:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Upload instructions?

The exact procedure for uploading images to Meta:Wiki needs to be described. My attempts so far have been unsuccessful. In particular, I haven't been able to figure out how to upload to the Image: page. I suspect there are other people with a similar problem ...selden 20:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You can upload logos to Commons instead of here. They have quite a good explanation of how to do so, but if you still have problems, the Commoners can help. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Instead of commons, you can upload an image directly to meta. Go to Special:Upload and fill in the form. When you upload, don't include "Image:" in the image name, it will be added automatically. Make sure you include a note that the image is for the logo contest, so that it doesnt get deleted. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 22:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That worked fine. ...selden 19:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks in Multiple Languages

As seen in the "W" section of this discussion page I raised an objection to the localization of the "Wikibooks" name for every different language project. Translating the name, while adding a personal touch to each project, weakens the overall Wikibooks "brand". I think we should follow the example set by the Wikimedia Foundation's logo guidelines. They state that the "WIKIMEDIA" portion of the logo must remain in English but also allow for localization with a separate line of text at the bottom of the logo. A similar method should be incorporated into the new logo to allow for localization while preserving the Wikibooks identity.

I would suggest a formula for the logos to have Wikibooks followed by the language of the project.

For Example:

• WIKIBOOKS ~ in English
• WIKIBOOKS ~ en Français
• WIKIBOOKS ~ בעברית
• WIKIBOOKS ~ á íslensku

This can be implemented in many ways, and a translation plan should be included as part of the final logo proposal.

I sincerely do not want to offend any non-English speakers by this proposal, but the trademark is "Wikibooks" (not Wikilibros or ויקי ספר). This is a new approach for Wikibooks, as it has followed the trend from Wikipedia to translate the name for every new language project. This change will, however. make for a more unified and all-together stronger image for Wikibooks. --Ezra Katz 01:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons why i advocated the creation of a logo with no text on it whatsoever, to help reduce the desire for people to localize it. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 02:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a decision for the international Wikibooks community, or for the WMF to make. In the case of the former, a full discussion and a suitable voting process are required, and this should be separate from (and prior to) any logo discussions. In the case of the former, I doubt that the foundation will want to make such a decree, but if they do then it would again be better if they made it before this logo vote was held (maybe someone should ask them?). In either case, in the absence of such a decision this vote should assume that things will not change and that the communities will continue to use localised project names, therefore any submissions should aim to work in non-English language versions of Wikibooks. I have re-instated the guideline (and remember that it is only a guideline at this point - though it may become enforced later in the process) as it is an important point for logo designers to consider. --HappyDog 14:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I feel it is inappropriate to reinstate the localization guideline without more discussion. I did a quick count, and of the top 50 Wikibooks projects, only 15 have created a localized version of the logo. Unless there is another discussion of which I am unaware, the international Wikibooks Community has no localization policy for its logo. Therefore to make any statement for or against the use of Roman characters or the English name of the project is unsupported. There are many ways to approach this issue. It may be enough to add a rule requiring logo submissions to include a proposal for localization. That way the logo process will take care of this issue on its own. --Ezra Katz 22:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're right it needs more discussion. Of the top 6, 5 have their own name for the project (though not all of them have a localised logo), however I don't really have an opinion about whether all versions should standardise to Wikibooks, or whether variants should be allowed - that is for the community as a whole to decide.

However, in the absence of a decision, we either we display the guideline (it is only a guideline!) and designers are aware of potential issues that may affect their design, or we don't display the guideline and risk people wasting their time on logos that may be unusable if the decision to allow local project names is made (or if no decision is made, in which case the current situation whereby local names are allowed wins by default). If you want to change the wording to say that this is currently under discussion then that is fine, but I think it is wrong to hide this significant issue from view. --HappyDog 12:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

No vote?

I cam here because the notice on EN Wikibooks said "The new logos for Wikibooks and Wikijunior are being chosen at Meta" yet there appears to be no vote happening. This has dragged on for too long. Why are we even bothering? Just display all the possible logos, have a vote and be done with it. This beaurocracy is astounding. We're actually having discussions about having discussions and discussions about having a vote - just vote! 213.230.130.56 00:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Correction: They aren't being chosen yet. We're calling for proposals to be submitted. --朝彦 (Asahiko) 04:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with the current logo?

Seriously, what? Smokizzy (talk) 02:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikibooks/logo/archive-vote-1#Imperfections_of_the_present_logo --朝彦 (Asahiko) 03:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

In short, if you think there is nothing wrong with it, then you can vote for it. The current logo was the first submission in this discussion, so we all have the chance to "save" it, if we all want it. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 17:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Time to Move On?

We've received over 25 entries so far, which is a pretty good start. Of these, 19 are "unique", and 7 are basically recolorations or slight modifications on other images. I think we need to start deciding when to move on to the next stage, the first voting phase. I personally would like to go on one last advertising blitz (mailing lists, commons, various language projects), and give people one last opportunity to submit before we end this.

Setting a deadline of early april or may would give interested designers plenty of time to create new images, if they are interested. It will also give us plenty of time to advertise this process more before we start the first voting phase. I would like to get other opinions on this before we set any deadlines. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 18:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support :) Although I would say mid of March (14th or 15th) would also be a good moment. -- heuler06 20:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support The discussions about anything and nothing were long enough -- MichaelFrey 18:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support March 15th would be a good deadline (it worked for Julius Caesar). --Ezra Katz 21:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok! March or early April seems good to me. I will give a second call for participation at pt.wikibooks but I am concerned about the Wikijunior's logo choice that should run in parallel with this one. Will us put it aside? - Jorge Morais 03:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support - a final call for submissions is in order, but March would be fine. I assume this goes for Wikijunior as well.  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we agreed before any of this started that the Wikijunior discussion would be happening in parallel with the Wikibooks one. Whatever timeline we pick for WB will also be used for WJ. --71.230.33.251 16:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

There appear to be 6 votes in favor of ending soon, with the majority of those people saying 15 March should be the deadline for submissions. If nobody else has an opinion to the contrary, I think we can declare the matter settled, and say that the submissions phase will end on March 15th. This gives us just under a month to put out a final call, including messages to wikibooks projects in other languages. I would like to see all such calls go out within a week or two, so artists in other languages will have two weeks or so for last-minute submissions. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 02:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Already made an annoucement at pt.wikibooks last February 11. - Jorge Morais 20:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikijunior Logo

The rules say that in the first voting round, all but 10 logos would be eliminated. However, Wikijunior has not yet received more then 10 submissions. I propose that maybe we should change the rules, slightly to say "all but 10 are removed, or half, if fewer then 10 submissions have been received". This prevents us from having a moot first voting round. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 16:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say removing half for Wikijunior would be fine.  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

•  Support --Ramac 10:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

 Support -- heuler06 18:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Three people voted and all were in favor. It's a shame we don't have more votes on this, but we can't wait forever to overcome voter apathy. I think it's generally approved that we do this, and so I'm going to change the language for the wikijunior vote rules. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 02:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Final Timeline

With the submissions phase coming to an end, i think it's about time we started to set down a final timeline for the remainder of the process. Deadlines should be firm, so that the process doesnt get out of control and fail. Here are two suggestions, depending on how aggressive we want to be (tenative, based on what deadline we pick to end the submissions phase, discussed above):

Slow Process	Faster Process
Deadline for submissions: 31 March First Voting Round: 1 April - 25 May Additional time to resolve ties (if any): 26 May - 30 May Discussion Round: 1 June - 15 July Second Voting Round: 16 July - 15 September Additional time to resolve ties (if any): 16 September - 20 September	Deadline for submissions: 15 March First Voting Round: 16 March - 15 April Additional time to resolve ties (if any): 16 April - 20 April Discussion Round: 21 April - 15 May Second Voting Round: 16 May - 15 June Additional time to resolve ties (if any): 16 June - 20 June

The second one, which is probably the fastest we would want to go (leaving at least a month for all important phases) gives us a finite end by mid june. Going at a slower pace would get us more submissions, more participants, etc, but we wouldnt have a decision till mid september. What do people think? --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 16:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I think stretching this out over the summer, when participation levels are low won't be beneficial. Let's try to get it done before then.  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I vote for the faster process, too. In the last time I thought the participants have forgotten that here is a logo discussion. -- heuler06 18:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with a faster process, it is better if it's all finished before summer --Ramac 18:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the faster process would be best with regards to active contributors. As Mike said, many contributors become inactive over the summer. Reece (Talk) (Wikibooks) 18:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Faster process here too. - Jorge Morais 20:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I think with all the votes we've gotten that we can say that the faster process wins the day. Let's take that timeline tenatively, and we can adjust it later if we need to. That means that the deadline for submissions will be on March 15th. I'll put out some more announcements tomorrow to let people know about this date. If we could get people to translate the timeline into other languages, that would be helpful too. I'll post the timeline on the main page tomorrow, and people can translate it there. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 04:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Design considerations

Hi all, do forgive my overall newbieness to the world of the wiki projects, and to logo creations. Firstly (I'm the staff person at WMF in charge of communications, btw) - I have to say I'm quite impressed by the selections here, and for pretty much every other historical wiki project logo contest. It's a fascinating study in the collaborative design process. And I'll say that in general I'd never weigh in on favoring one design over the other - It's more fun to see the community in action. The Foundation person in me also realizes that at some point or another I'll have to take your new logo and put it somewhere beyond the web... But let me add these general considerations for how a logo gets deployed - just food for thought:

• successful logos work beyond the web, inevitably they live their lives in print and other iterations
• great logos tend to use easy to reproduce, solid colours (easy for other designers to work with)
• Text can be difficult to reproduce in smaller scale applications
• It should work in non-color applications
• picture it on a blimp, and picture it on a pencil, not just in Firefox :)

Jaywalsh 19:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

LOGO FAMILY - Consider tyiing in the logos

Hello, I am a designer and considering entering your contest and creating an actual "Family" of logos, SO is the timeline March 31st or the 15th? I am hoping for the 31st . . .

It looks like the deadline will be march 15th at this point (although we really need to finalize that soon). However, if you want to create only one or two logos now, you can make variations on the same themes for the later discussion and voting rounds. Let me know if you have any other questions about this. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 19:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to rewrite the guidelines a little bit to emphasize that the first round should just be about the basic idea of the logo, with details such as alternate versions, colors, typefaces and favicons left to the second round. This would encouragedesigners to submit logo's, since they could just present a basic idea for a logo, rather than a full-fledged family of versions. Especially in the case of WikiJunior, getting the designs is much more important at this point, than getting SVG versions, and full treatments.

In a similar vein, we should also take care to group the logo's by general idea, and vote on that. It would be a shame if three of the ten to pass the first round are just variations on a theme, or if some logo doesn't get voted in, because the votes got spread over three diffeent designs. Risk 19:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It could be an idea, also because there haven't been not so many proposals and it seems that some users had made their proposal after the deadline... --Ramac 12:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Deadline

Just wondering, when's the deadline for submissions? --penubag

The deadline should have been on 15th march, however i think you can post your submission if you have :-) --Ramac 12:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Already have =-D --penubag (talk; w) 20:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)