[WikiEN-l] Fw: [Wikipedia-l] Re: AstroWikipedia

Tue Oct 14 17:05:31 UTC 2003

It appears the below post did not get through
at the time it was posted or maybe it was
posted to the wrong mailing list
(another reason it might be a good idea
to  have Wikipedia-legal-l at wikipedia.org
as a legal issue specific list).

I  might have thought it was more a general
Wikipedia question than a Wikien-l question
and posted it there.

I also generally agree with
Imran's statement of the most recent post
on the English Wikipedia list concerning
this topic (reproduced below) but would
like more information before deciding how
to present it to them. It appears that their
claim to the name is weak and pl.wikipedia.org
has already made inroads in Polish speaking
communities for use of the name as a
distinguishing "mark" associated it
with other Wikimedia projects. Knowing
when they started using the name (hopefully
after the date that the Polish Wikipedia was
started) will help to convince them that they
have little or no claim to the name.

Alex756

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>; "Daniel Ehrenberg"
<littledanehren at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: AstroWikipedia

> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> > This is probably something that Alex can comment on helpfully.
> >
> > We probably do need to setup a wiki-legal.  In any event, althugh
> > Daniel posted this on wikien-l, I'm moving it to Wikipedia-l.
> >
> > Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> >
> > > I just found AstroWikipedia, a small polish-language
> > > wiki of astrology using PhpWiki at astrowikipedia.com.
> > > It seems that they created the name independently of
> > > us. Should we do anything? It would be bad to force
> > > them to change their name, but should we at least get
> > > them to say they're not connected with Wikipedia?
> > > LDan
>
> Would be good to get some more information. Did they
> come up with the name independently? I don't know much
> Polish, but they appear to be a new site. If they didn't know
> about Wikipedia (or the Polish Wikipedia) perhaps someone
> from pl.wikipedia.org should try and contact them and
> find out more information before deciding what to do. The
> information:  Why did they chose that name? Do they know
> there is a Polish language Wikipedia?  When did they
> start using the name?
>
> Once we know the answers to those questions perhaps
> we can make an informed decision about what to do.
>
> Alex756
>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] AstroWikipedia

> I'll defer to Alex's judgement on this, but yes, that's my thinking
> as well.
>
> Imran Ghory wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, cprompt wrote:
> >
> > > Don't see any reason to. They're not claiming to be connected to
> > > Wikipedia, and Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and all our other sites all list
> > > which sites are ours.
> >
> > IANAL. But, my understand is that general use of the term Wikipedia
could
> > generify it, thus preventing the Wikimedia foundation from gaining a
> > trademark on the name at a later date.
> >
> > I think we should either move to stop them using the term, or take other
> > actions that would prevent the name being generified.
> >
> > Imran
> > -- 
> > http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
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