WikiFur talk:Trade and service marks

Comments on "Examples of Use"

These examples are restrictive and sometimes inaccurate. Trademarks are to identify a product or service, not to be overzealously hoarded as so-called “intellectual property” like Adobe does. (But it's hard not to be paranoid when your trademark is on the edge of becoming generalized. Photoshop is not a verb, nor is Google.)

In particular, WikiFur is a proper noun, it refers to the furry encyclopedia that is also a wiki ran by the WikiFur editors (“WikiFurries”). So it can be used as a noun and in possessive form when and only when referring to such. Like “WikiFur's article about this comic pokes fun at the artist.” The original item in Adobe's list is more concerned about using a trademark to refer to something different, for example, “This comic has a wikifur” is wrong. Note that IANAL (I'm not a lawyer).

The example about Wikifurries^SM? might be a bit strange because Wikifurries is used internally to refer to the wiki's editors.

Using generic descriptors helps to keep trademarks to be generalized, but I do not think it's necessary because there are many, many popular wikis, thus usage of WikiFur as a generic name for peer-edited website is unlikely. (However one must be wary of the opposite happening, as people are increasingly using the word “wiki” to refer to something else, for example, Wikipedia, or a single page in WikiFur.) When generic descriptors are desired, however, I suggest to suggest the following terms:

Mark or derivative	Generic term
WikiFur®	website, wiki, encyclopedia, service
WikifurriesSM?	users, editors, community

Feel free to edit this table if you have any additions.

Last, there is no info on how to handle others' trademarks in WikiFur articles, for example Anthrocon. This can be clarified.

Recommended links:

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
• Proper Reference to Linden Lab's Brand Names in Text

— 猫夜叉「ネコヤシャ」 20:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay - if you haven't got it, the "Examples" section is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. But unfortunately, humor-impaired people like me can take it quite seriously. Especially when trademark demands can be quite extreme. --猫夜叉「ネコヤシャ」 02:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a joke, right? 200.203.115.89 17:27, 28 August 2012 (EDT)

If you have to ask . . . ;-) --GreenReaper^(talk) 04:58, 29 August 2012 (EDT)

It's impossible to distinguish a parody of something extreme with the real thing, without a wink wink nudge nudge somewhere. This is known as Poe's Law. I should know because I thought this page was totally serious too. --Kakurady (formerly known as 猫夜叉) 20:30, 2 September 2012 (EDT)