Ori Livneh wrote:
On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's values.
I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share the underlying sentiment.
What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad?
(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and
Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not.
(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without fear of reprisal
What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-)
David Gerard wrote:
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that.
It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both.
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. That error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!)
MZMcBride