These objectionable items are all standard advertising practice. No-one should be surprised. They work because they are targeted at an audience that expects this kind of crap and responds to it like Pavlovs dogs. If the fundraising team went to marketing school this is probably how they were programmed. This does not mean that we have to follow suit. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of MZMcBride Sent: 19 December 2014 02:13 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email
Liam Wyatt wrote:
*Effectiveness != Efficiency* One of the official WMF Fundraising principles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles is "*minimal disruption*...aim to raise money from donors *effectively*" [emphasis is original]. I believe that this wording has been interpreted by the fundraising team to mean *"*do the fundraising as quickly as possible". However, I contest that "less disruption" and "more effective" is not the same as "shorter fundraiser". i.e.: Effectiveness != Efficiency.
Thanks for this e-mail. I agree with you that these donation solicitation e-mails are terrible and unbecoming.
In my opinion, the fundraising principles are simply too weak. They seem to have been designed with maximum flexibility, which for guiding principles would typically be fine, but the fundraising team needs much stricter boundaries. Harder rules, backed by a Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees resolution, are required. Repeated and repeated misbehavior on the fundraising team's part makes it clear that the current guidelines aren't enough. New rules would specifically address, for example, how big and obnoxious in-page donation advertising can be, with hard maximums.
The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly unacceptable. Having the first rule be "don't lie" might be the easiest solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down. The fundraising teams, past and present, regularly lie to our readers in an effort to extract donations. Specific examples of lying include calling Sue Gardner the "Wikipedia Executive Director", calling Brandon Harris a "Wikipedia programmer", and repeatedly making manipulative and misleading suggestions that continued donations keep the projects online.
The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_ that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today.
MZMcBride
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