On 3 December 2012 20:11, Pavel Richter pavel.richter@wikimedia.de wrote:
"the thing we are selling to people" As I see it, we are not *selling *anything. Wikimedia provides a free encyclopedia to the public, and it promotes Free Knowledge worldwide. For this, we ask for donations, during a limited time each year, and with very humble messaging and banners. We do not have to be ashamed to do so.
The difference between fundraising and sales is pretty small - both are about convincing people to part with their cash. We have to convince people that donating money to us is a good idea in exactly the same way a company needs to convince people that buying their product is a good idea - you do that by emphasising your key selling points. In our case, being ad-free is one of our key selling points, which is the point Mono was making.