Oldak Quill wrote:
On 23/10/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@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.