Topic on Talk:Amsterdam Hackathon 2013

Hi, today I got the talk to propose a name and a logo for the event. After the discussion about naming of events and some additional thoughts, the proposal is simply:

MediaWiki Hackathon

It is a usual practice in conferences and events to have a name detached from location, year, edition, etc. Now the MediaWiki Hackathon is in Amsterdam, in the future it might be again there or somewhere else, but it will be our beloved MediaWiki Hackathon anyway.

Back to Amsterdam, the web page and other materials could use a standard formula like:

MediaWiki Hackathon

Amsterdam 24–26 May 2013

The logo proposed is also tied to the "MediaWiki Hackathon" and detached from a specific location, year or edition. It can be used in the future as such, unless we want to evolve it. There is also a version without text.

The logo combines the sunflower (a reference to the technologies powering Wikimedia projects) inside the circle made out of 3 segments (representing the Wikimedia community). It follows the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines and you can find the sources at media:MediaWiki Hackathon UNOFFICIAL DRAFT.svg.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

Thanks Quim, I like the idea of having a standardised name, logo and design for all MediaWiki events. As for the logo itself, I prefer the more "techy" style that was for example used in Berlin in 2011 or in Brighton (as long as they follow the visual guidelines). Best,

I'm happy to see that you agree with the naming.

About the logo, I think it is better not to increase the iconic soup we already have at http://wikimedia.org - which is more than enough to confuse anybody out our communities (and many inside). The origin of those logos was the Toolserver logo. That type of logo hasn't been used in past events and I would let it rest unless we really really want to push it forward.

The sunflower has been our identity for tech since basically the beginning, and it is being used from https://mediawiki.org to https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/ . I think using the sunflower is the best that we can do to help strengthening the identity of our tech community at large and also to help keeping the soup of Wikimedia logos under control.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

The WMF hackathon in Bangalore last year was called the Wikipedia DevCamp. It was decided to use the already recognized wikipedia branding and call it 'Dev' because in India thee word 'hack' has a negative connotation .

Wearing a t shirt with 'Wikipedia' increases the value of it so much more than 'mediawiki' :)

Hi Arun! Is there an original SVG version of File:DevCamp Bangalore header.png available?

Erik also thinks that promoting "Wikipedia" for outreach events is better. I don't know if the Amsterdam organizers have any designer around but in any case your logo could be tweaked to satisfy a "Wikipedia Hackathon" or "Wikipedia DevCamp" in Amsterdam as well. Even that orange would fit, if needed.  :)

Erik is proposing to keep relying on media:Hackathon_Logo_Shiny.svg as basic identity for these outreach events. As you can see above, I really think we should limit the amount of visual elements we play with, and the hexagons + puzzle piece imho don't help. This is why I think Arun's design is a better starting point: the hexagons are there but almost gone and "Wikipedia" is spelled out. I would still remove the puzzle piece shape, leaving the "W". As soon as we have an SVG we can play with it.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

How was the Tool server logo developed?

Hi Quim, you're calling this the MediaWiki hackathon, but that's too narrow. In the past it was always the Wikimedia developer meeting. Primary product of course MediaWiki, but not only that.

If you look the last posts here, I'm in fact leaning towards "Wikipedia Something", since it's an out reach activity and that is the brand everybody knows. This naming is not to please you or me or anybody already in the Wikimedia / MediaWiki communities. This is about a name appealing for all the developers out there. In this context "Wikimedia" is even a worse choice than "MediaWiki" because there is even less developers that have heard this before.

From a consistency point of view we could go for "Wikipedia DevCamp" or "Wikipedia Hackathon" and use a logo derived from media:DevCamp Bangalore header.png.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

Can't believe I had not already done it, you can now find the original pdf of the DevCamp and associated events here. Let me know if you need it in svg.

Is it possible to edit graphics in a PDF file? Are they in vector format still? I dont know enough. SVG is pretty standard for this kind of job. If you originally did it in something else please share anyway. The idea is to have the sources so someone else can do the adaptation for the Amsterdam event. Unless you volunteer... ;)

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

I made a svg from that pdf file: File:Bangalore DevCamp registration banner.svg. I hand-edited the code to remove cruft from the conversion and group elements together appropriately, so it should be easy to adapt this for other events.

Can we reach to a conclusion? Please have a say. Or am I worrying too much / too soon about our lack of agreed name and logo? If so let me know as well, I don't want to be annoying.

Summary of the proposal so far:

Wikipedia Hackathon

Logo derived from File:DevCamp_Bangalore_header.png

Reasoning:

• Wikipedia is the brand everybody knows. It is inaccurate but "MediaWiki" and "Wikimedia" are in comparison really weak for outreach, and they are not perfect denominations either. Using this name here helps us also identifying Wikipedia as a software project, contributing to solve an identified problem.

• Hackathon is the term used in Europe for the past years. There would be a value in consolidating a global name: "Wikipedia DevCamp". But being the event so close and having talkedso much about the "Amsterdam Hackathon" a change like this would be confusing.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

Fine with me. :)

My 2 cents:

• Visual identity: +1 for the Puzzle theme and Tech and everything but not the sunflower. The sunflower doesn't seem at all related to technology, especially when pulling it out of the "[[ bracket ]]" context. I'd say either use the MediaWiki logo as part of it, or not at all (but not just the sunflower). Actually, though it may have been a good logo for MediaWiki (though maybe not even that), remember that in MediaWiki the logo is for users, not developers.
• Naming: Using the Wikipedia brand does sound better, though Wikimedia is getting more known in the public and probably good enough for this purpose. I wouldn't recommend calling it "MediaWiki Hackathon" since that's both too narrow and too unknown a term. +1 for Wikimedia as part of the name (be it Wikimedia Hackathon, Wikimedia developer meeting or something else entirely).

Also, if we call it "Wikimedia (something)" we might want to consider not creating a separate logo but putting it in the Wikimedia family (like chapters and various other initiatives).

Hackathon

See my last proposal. There is no sunflower at File:DevCamp Bangalore header.png so we can end that discussion.

I really think that "Wikimedia" name and logo are no match for "Wikipedia" brand as shown at File:DevCamp Bangalore header.png.

"Wikimedia is getting more known in the public"? Well, maybe around our circles but I can check anytime with actual developers out there and do the test: all of them know Wikipedia, almost all of them need a 3 minute explanation to understand what is "Wikimedia".

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

I'm with Krinkle on this one. Wikipedia might be a strong brand, but that doesn't mean we have to use it.

Just thought I would upload this. I worked on this last year and never did anything with it. I've updated it for this year. It's obviously got a bit of focus on how these are done in different cities all over the world - not sure if that's a theme worth emphasizing.

By the way - the MediaWiki logo being used is this one - it could be changed to the official logo of course.

This post was posted by Trevor Parscal (WMF), but signed as Trevor Parscal.

I like em... good solid lines and colors suitable for tshirts. :)

+1 (though of course the use of wikitext in them will rapidly become anachronistic, given the VisualEditor… ;-))

After discussing with Sumana we agreed that this event is more of a Wikimedia-wide gathering than a real outreach event where we put a lot effort bringing newcomers.

Hence this would work:

Wikimedia Hackathon

Please let's keep the city and year out of event name.

Do you agree?

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

[[Amsterdam Hackathon 2013]] = new(Wikimedia Hackathon) ;-) Fine with me.

This is an SVG with outlined text. I've also sent a set of SVGs and PDFs, along with original artwork and the needed font (so this can be edited in Inkscape on Linux) to Rachael (who is handling the printing).

This post was posted by Trevor Parscal (WMF), but signed as Trevor Parscal.

Thank you very much, Trevor!

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.