I'm a lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm in charge of trademarks and domain name registrations and I do work related to governance, affiliates, grantmaking, fundraising, copyright, and the Foundation's Board of Trustees.
User Details
- User Since
- Oct 2 2015, 6:50 PM (478 w, 3 d)
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- Available
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- Unknown
- MediaWiki User
- CRoslof (WMF) [ Global Accounts ]
Jun 15 2023
Related to this task: I've registered wikimedia.social, so we are free to use that to host a Mastodon server. I would recommend against using wikimediafoundation.org for this purpose, as volunteers having @wikimediafoundation.org handles could cause confusion about what their relationship with the Foundation is. If there are any other domain names we're considering using, let me know and I'll look into registering them.
Apr 10 2023
Mar 24 2023
@BCornwall No updates at the moment. We have a lot of items in our enforcement queue, so it can take a while. If there is a particular need to have these domain names registered so that they can be put to use, let me know and we can make them a higher priority.
Feb 3 2023
Thanks for flagging these domain names. I'll make sure they're in our queue to review for trademark enforcement. We should be able to use the UDRP process (or similar—ccTLDs sometimes have their own processes) to claim them.
Jul 27 2022
Hi @Walter: We'll be happy to take wikkipedia.be off of your hands. If you can email me at croslof@wikimedia.org, I will connect you with our domain name registrar to complete the transfer of ownership. Thank you!
Dec 7 2020
The change to the nameservers should now be completed. I submitted the nameserver change request on November 16, but it took a while for the .tr registry to approve/implement it.
Nov 16 2020
I have updated the nameservers to the ones requested.
Aug 21 2020
Usually, only chapters are allowed to use wikimedia.[ccTLD] domain names. We may be able to make an exception in this case, however. One question I have first, though, is whether the domain name would be used only by Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey or whether it would also be used for Wikimedians of Turkic Languages User Group. I do not want the use of the domain name to cause tension between the two groups. @HakanIST, I know you are involved in both groups, so hopefully it will not be an issue.
Jan 24 2020
These domain names have now been transferred to the Foundation and I've updated them to use the Foundation's nameservers.
Jan 7 2020
I've registered wikipersonas.org. If it turns out we aren't actually going to use it, though, or if we are going to use a different domain name instead, please let me know.
Jan 3 2020
I've updated the nameservers. Let me know if there are any issues and you would like me to change them back.
Jun 14 2019
Jan 14 2019
Transferring the domain name from WMDE to the Foundation requires that WMDE complete an ownership change form. I emailed with @Abraham and the Foundation's domain name registrar about it a while back, but the paperwork was never completed. Let me know when WMDE is ready to move forward with the transfer.
Dec 13 2018
@Dzahn Yes, we plan to renew all our current .ee domain registrations.
Oct 9 2018
It sounds like adding a delegation for wikimediaeesti would just allow you to change the nameservers, but we can change the nameservers now without adding a delegation. Either way, there would need to be nameservers that you control that we could set as the nameservers for wikimedia.ee.
Sep 14 2018
@tramm We can retain ownership of the domain name but change the nameservers to ones you control. What nameservers should we use?
Feb 1 2018
I've changed the domains we have with Porkbun to use our nameservers. (I didn't change anything about w.wiki.) It might take a little while for them all to update.
Aug 23 2017
It would be fine with me to make the "other" field not required.
Aug 22 2017
The form has worked in the past for requestors selecting one of the "proposed use" options other than "Other".
Mar 7 2017
All good with me.
Feb 21 2017
One- and two-character .org domain names aren't available for general registration. See, for example, this press release from Public Interest Registry (the registry for the .org TLD) when they made 94 of them available for the first time: https://pir.org/org-releases-94-never-before-registered-one-and-two-character-domain-names/
Jan 6 2017
Send me an email and I can help you get the process started:
croslof@wikimedia.org
Nov 30 2016
Update: The Wikimedia Foundation has acquired nlwikipedia.org
Nov 10 2016
So, as I understand it, there is no problem with the current state of affairs that the requested change would fix. Also, I have not seen any argument that the requested change would actually benefit anyone. We shouldn't change our DNS templates if there is no clear reason to do so.
Nov 9 2016
It would be better for office.wikimedia.org to display
Nov 2 2016
Oct 24 2016
Sep 16 2016
I'm not sure I understand this task's specific request. Is it that:
- wikipedia.in be changed to redirect to an IP address rather than a URL,
- wikipedia.in be changed to redirect to wikimedia.in/index.html instead of wikimedia.in/wikipedia.html, or
- both?
Aug 29 2016
We'll look into it and contact the site owners as appropriate.
Jun 7 2016
Apr 20 2016
Thanks for flagging this domain. We have internal tracking documents on the legal team, and I'll make sure nlwikipedia.org is on them. Since it seems that it's currently being used maliciously, it'll be at the top of our list for domain enforcement. If you encounter other domains that are misusing Wikimedia trademarks, please email legal-tm-vio@wikimedia.org.
Apr 5 2016
We're in touch with @Nicolas_Raoul about this app. We're making sure it meets the criteria for becoming an official app, and we're working out a trademark license. Hopefully it won't be too much longer!
Mar 24 2016
WMF-Office-IT directed me here to ask SRE
Mar 23 2016
Feb 17 2016
Those experiences with keeping up content that you believe to be public domain do indeed sound frustrating. Thank you for providing more specific examples.
Feb 16 2016
One often frustrating aspect of U.S. fair use law is that it is very difficult to make categorical conclusions about what is or is not a fair use. The statute lists four factors, but those factors are not necessarily exhaustive, nor do they provide clear guidance in all situations. Courts have subjected each factor to much discussion and further analysis, creating additional tests and sub-factors and so forth. As a result, I can't say with certainty that, for example, a strong argument against fair use based on one factor will never outweigh a strong case for fair use based on the other three.
Feb 11 2016
Thanks for reaching out to WMF-Legal on this!
Oct 2 2015
The Wikimedia Foundation is protected by U.S. law, including fair use. Individual users outside the U.S. do not necessarily have the same protections. So, though it may be legal for WMF to host non-free content on a project, it may not be legal for that project's users to upload or reuse the non-free content.