... here are a couple illustrations of some reasons I
believe a ten year extrapolation of Foundation fundraising is completely reasonable: http://imgur.com/a/mV72T
Words tend to be more useful than contextless images.
I meant that the very sharply declining cost of solar (and wind) energy, and the extent to which renewable energy is becoming fungible -- see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&.... -- is likely to have a profoundly positive economic effect in both the developed and developing world, especially over the next ten years; and that the rate at which the most populous areas of the world are growing in terms of income per capita will combine to support a simple extrapolation of the Foundation's fundraising success. The very rapid per capita income growth in Asia and Africa should last for 15 to 20 years at least.
And I don't see any downward pressure on the ability of the Foundation to raise money; especially if transitioning to maintaining existing content is successful. That is why I think this is so important:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Revision_scoring_as_a_service
That is equivalent to a general computer-aided instruction system, with the side effects of both improving the encyclopedia and making counter-vandalism bots more accurate. As an anonymous crowdsourced review system based on consensus voting instead of editorial judgement, it leaves the Foundation immunized with their safe harbor provisions regarding content control intact.
It's also not worth 3 billion dollars (no offence, Aaron!) as evidenced by the fact that it can be established with <20k.
I agree it can be set up with very little money, and I am completely thrilled beyond words that work is proceeding on it.
However, once it is established, it's impossible to say whether volunteers can sustain it at useful levels. I think it's almost impossible that volunteers will keep it up with even half of major edits. However, again, paying people to score revisions (including trial null revisions against existing content, for example, that editors could flag as being out of date, for example) would be like paying them to enrich their own education and improve the encyclopedia and anti-vandalism bots all at the same time. That is a fantastic opportunity for research and development.
... This is not a discussion for research-l
On the contrary, please see e.g. http://www.wikisym.org/os2014-files/proceedings/p609.pdf this Foundation-sponsored IEG effort can serve as a confirmatory replication of that prior work.
... time is better spent doing research with the resources we have now....
I wish someone would please replicate my measurement of the variance in the distribution of fundraising results using the editor-submitted banners from 2008-9, and explain to the fundraising team that distribution implies they can do a whole lot better than sticking with the spiel which degrades Foundation employees by implying they typically spend $3 or £3 on coffee. (Although I wouldn't discount the possibility that some donors feel good about sending Foundation employers to boutique coffee shops.)
We know donor message- and banner-fatigue exists as a strong effect which limits the useful life of fundraising approaches in some cases, so they have to keep trying to keep up. When are they going to test the remainder of the editors' submissions?
On 2 January 2015 at 18:14, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
... This is not a discussion for research-l
On the contrary, please see e.g. http://www.wikisym.org/os2014-files/proceedings/p609.pdf this Foundation-sponsored IEG effort can serve as a confirmatory replication of that prior work.
Let me rephrase, because I evidently wasn't clear: fanciful and unrealistic discussions of what we'd do with a pot of money that wouldn't be available for a decade and only exists in the first place if you assume exponential growth....are not for research-l
... time is better spent doing research with the resources we have now....
I wish someone would please replicate my measurement of the variance in the distribution of fundraising results using the editor-submitted banners from 2008-9, and explain to the fundraising team that distribution implies they can do a whole lot better than sticking with the spiel which degrades Foundation employees by implying they typically spend $3 or £3 on coffee. (Although I wouldn't discount the possibility that some donors feel good about sending Foundation employers to boutique coffee shops.)
We know donor message- and banner-fatigue exists as a strong effect which limits the useful life of fundraising approaches in some cases, so they have to keep trying to keep up. When are they going to test the remainder of the editors' submissions?
Given that you've been asking for that analysis for four years, and it's never been done, and you've been repeatedly told that it's not going to happen, could you....take those hints? And by hints, I mean explicit statements. I appreciate that you're operating in good faith, but there comes a point when http://wondermark.com/1k62/ starts proving that life imitates art. Repeatedly having this same conversation is a colossal, ever-draining waste of everyone's time. Please stop bringing it up.
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