Conservapedia talk:Logo

I think a logo would be a good idea...

Someone asked Wikipedia some questions about Conservapedia, and Wikipedia asked me to handle them because I'm active at both sites. One of these questions was:

Is there any sense at Wikipedia that Conservapedia has violated a copyright? or otherwise stolen intellectual property? The sites are quite similar in their look.

Now, this is actually a non-issue, and my answer was:

I can't speak for Wikimedia Foundation, but off the top the head I'd say "Goodness, no."

Conservapedia looks like Wikipedia because it's running MediaWiki software and has picked the same default "skin" as Wikipedia.

MediaWiki is open source software, freely licensed under the GPL. Anyone can use it and I think WikiMedia _likes_ to have other sites use it. There are many sites using the same software and many of them look almost exactly like Wikipedia. One of them I just found in a Google search is

http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page

Another is

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/

which is an online version of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1911.

But I'm think it would be a good idea to put up a Conservapedia logo, any Conservapedia logo, to allay any notion Conservapedia is trying to look like Wikipedia, or confuse people. I don't know anything about MediaWiki software, but if it's easy to make subtle changes in e.g. that greyish background pattern that might be a good idea, too. Dpbsmith 09:15, 1 March 2007 (EST)

• I agree that we should try to come up with a logo as soon as possible. I think the last one on the page looks excellent. Whatever we do decide to put up, we can always redesign or change it if we decide we don't like it. ~ SharonS 14:31, 1 March 2007 (EST)

• • I like that one myself. Dpbsmith 15:41, 1 March 2007 (EST)