On 23/10/2007, Florence Devouard
<Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
So, bottom line, we need money to operate the
websites and to do more as
well. Those of you who were already wikipedians 3 years ago (or worse
:-)) will remember a time where the site was slow and sometimes dead.
Hopefully, though we grew enormously, your editing experience is now
good 99% of the time. This does not come from nowhere. There are people
working to make sure that we provide you the best editing and reading
environment.
Most of the people objecting to the banner are not objecting to a
banner in principle (and certainly not objecting to fundraising). The
issue is with the way it looks and was carried out. You seem to be
presenting this issue as binary: scrolling advert or the death of
Wikimedia.
Indeed, I think the form the banner was in originally was a major
problem because it would _reduce_ fundraising. It gave no obvious clues
as to its purpose, looking like just another generic to-be-ignored
advertisement. That's not going to get many click-throughs.