phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
Hello! Sorry, I didn't realize that's what you were referring to. I haven't looked at all the raw fundraising data, no, and I haven't looked at that set that Lila refers to. (The reports we get are summaries, which is much preferable when you've got a lot of information to get through about all sorts of topics).
I *do* however trust our fundraising team's analysis, and I don't think they need my mediocre user testing skills and even more mediocre statistical skills to help them sort it out. I agree with you however that it would be great if the anonymized data/test methods can be made public; I think we would all learn a lot, and the group might be able help refine the tests.
Though I trust their analysis, based on the strong negative reaction that I'm getting from people in person and from social media, I think it's important to verify the data and especially the methodology.
It's anecdotal in the sense that without some statistical analysis it's sort of a case of whatever catches your eye standing out. Your statement surprised me, so I just read through around 1,500 #wikipedia tweets from the last six hours; the vast majority are the canned fundraiser tweet, with a handful of others (stuff about articles) and three, that I saw, that are negative about the fundraising banners. Is that a significant number? Is it a pattern? Is it more meaningful than all those other people donating? Is the absence of positive feedback significant? (though I doubt we've ever gotten "I <3 the Wikipedia banners" as a tweet). I have some instincts around these questions, but I honestly don't know the answers, and I would love to see some proper analysis. I am, as always, a big fan of research :)
Do a twitter search for 'wikipedia banners' or better 'wikipedia ads'. Using a hashtag is going to skew your data towards autogenerated tweets. Using 'wikipedia banners' is also slightly skewed, because it selects a group of people that know what we call them. Most people think of our banners as ads, because whether we consider them ads or not, it's the most common term for them, and it's the word people will associate.
The tweets I selected were from a short period of time (less than 6 hours). The vast majority (>90%) of the tweets were negative about the banners. I excluded any tweets that didn't mention the size or the message.
I'm not asking for the Foundation to stop the banners. I'm not trying to make the fundraising team's life harder. What I want is acknowledgement that there is indeed a problem and that it will be addressed for next fundraiser. I do want more than a promise of that, though. I'd like to see progress on more reasonable banners during the next year before the 100% fundraiser starts, so that we're not having the same discussion yet again.
- Ryan