"Deleting Wikipedia?" was the subject line of the e-mail I received as well. It also, as usual, included the claim that if enough donations were received the campaign would end early. That hasn't been the case in the past when campaign goals are met. On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 6:04 PM Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: is and _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hey Pine, I appreciate and understand your feedback about this subject line. For some time we have been trying to find an alternative subject line to -/This is a little awkward/-. That line works and works very well but we have found it very difficult to effectively translate and adapt into other languages, and despite our best efforts have struggled to find an alternative. We first tested -/Deleting Wikipedia?/- as a subject line a couple of weeks ago and it was the only winning variant in hundreds of tests. We retested in case it was a statistical fluke and continued to see it perform well. The effectiveness of this subject line for the most part does not come from its apparent clickbaiting. The change in the number of people opening the emails was relatively small and unsubscribes remained extremely low. The big driver in terms of its success was from a significant increase in those people who opened AND read our email appeal. We posed a question and donors were motivated to donate when presented with the idea of imagining a world without Wikipedia. Our motivation behind this sort of subject line is the fact that in three countries today it is already as if Wikipedia does not exist. The risk that this could happen in more countries is greater now that it ever has been. Censorship, impediments to free speech and over regulation of copyright are threats that Wikipedia, Wikimedia and its communities face every single day and it is with that context that we want to lead. Any email that included this subject line came with at least some context to flesh out the idea, i.e., “If Wikipedia were deleted, it would be a great loss to the world,”, but going forward it is our full intention to make even clearer that we intend for the donor to imagine a world without Wikipedia and the threats it faces every day, not threaten that it is going away. Our plan is to continue to testing on this theme, exploring censorship and copyright restrictions as well as our increasing role as the backbone of knowledge on the internet, and help donors see that knowledge can and is threatened all the time. We are definitely and eagerly open to any feedback, suggestions and ideas you might have. Best, Seddon On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:04 PM Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: is and -- Seddon *Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hi Seddon, While the fundraising appeal may be successful, the problem that I have with this subject line is that it can mislead readers into thinking that someone with the ability to do so is seriously considering, or making an effort to, delete Wikipedia in entirety. I think that a subject line of "Block Wikipedia?" might be okay, and I am supportive of encouraging people not to take Wikipedia for granted. But regarding "Delete Wikipedia?", as far as I know that generally misrepresents the current situation. I believe that using "Delete Wikipedia?" as a subject line is inconsistent with Wikipedia's goals of providing neutral, verifiable, and reliable information. I am starting to think that if WMF wants to use the Wikipedia brand name for WMF fundraising then WMF should first publicly discuss its proposed uses of the Wikipedia brand name with Wikipedians. On a related issue, I don't know if it's happening this year, but in the past another concern that I've had is the conflation of donating to Wikipedia with donating to WMF. Wikipedia and WMF are related but there is not a 1:1 relationship, and I hope that WMF makes that clear in its fundraising. The use of "Delete Wikipedia?" reminds me of these concerns. I would prefer to avoid diverting the community's limited time into reviewing WMF's choices, but unfortunately the issues are too significant to ignore. I don't know how many community members want to volunteer their time to review fundraising appeals before they go into production, but I think that it would be good for WMF to ask. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hi all, Thank you for sharing your concerns. We hear them and we take them seriously. *As of today, we have pulled this subject line from our testing rotation.* On the Fundraising team, we pride ourselves on making data-driven decisions, and there are many types of data inputs we process outside of dollar amount raised. For example, how many people choose to unsubscribe from our list or submit an abuse complaint when we send an email? Does a certain subject line get very high opens but a low rate of donations per open--indicating that it is more clickbait than effective content? How much and what kind of feedback is our Donor Services team getting? We watched these inputs closely while sending this subject line to donors. Our unsubscribe and abuse rates were low, the donation per open rate was even higher than usual, and while our Donor Services team flagged some negative responses from donors, they determined these comments were not in a significant volume. That said, there is a final input which is harder to measure on a per-test basis: how do we, our colleagues, and volunteers feel about our messaging? This team cares deeply about Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, and about the mission we all work to achieve. We want to represent it faithfully, and do so in a way our readers and donors can engage with and understand. This balance can be really hard to strike and it will always be an ongoing challenge in our work. We are grateful to be presented with this challenge and with the joy of telling millions of people about this movement. Thank you for caring so deeply, for all your contributions, and for keeping this feedback loop alive. Sincerely, Caitlin On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 1:47 PM Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Hey Pine, I appreciate and understand your feedback about this subject line. For some time we have been trying to find an alternative subject line to -/This is a little awkward/-. That line works and works very well but we have found it very difficult to effectively translate and adapt into other languages, and despite our best efforts have struggled to find an alternative. We first tested -/Deleting Wikipedia?/- as a subject line a couple of weeks ago and it was the only winning variant in hundreds of tests. We retested in case it was a statistical fluke and continued to see it perform well. The effectiveness of this subject line for the most part does not come from its apparent clickbaiting. The change in the number of people opening the emails was relatively small and unsubscribes remained extremely low. The big driver in terms of its success was from a significant increase in those people who opened AND read our email appeal. We posed a question and donors were motivated to donate when presented with the idea of imagining a world without Wikipedia. Our motivation behind this sort of subject line is the fact that in three countries today it is already as if Wikipedia does not exist. The risk that this could happen in more countries is greater now that it ever has been. Censorship, impediments to free speech and over regulation of copyright are threats that Wikipedia, Wikimedia and its communities face every single day and it is with that context that we want to lead. Any email that included this subject line came with at least some context to flesh out the idea, i.e., “If Wikipedia were deleted, it would be a great loss to the world,”, but going forward it is our full intention to make even clearer that we intend for the donor to imagine a world without Wikipedia and the threats it faces every day, not threaten that it is going away. Our plan is to continue to testing on this theme, exploring censorship and copyright restrictions as well as our increasing role as the backbone of knowledge on the internet, and help donors see that knowledge can and is threatened all the time. We are definitely and eagerly open to any feedback, suggestions and ideas you might have. Best, Seddon On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:04 PM Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: