Hi Toby,
I asked several questions about this year's Annual Plan, only some of which received responses even after multiple pings from me, so I regret to say that I get the impression that community questions and input on the annual plan may be brushed aside. I wish that the situation was different. It seems to me that responding to good-faith community inquiries and comments about the Annual Plan should be a high priority throughout WMF. I would be grateful to receive answers to my questions that are still awaiting replies.
Pine On Oct 10, 2015 12:43 PM, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Folks --
I would suggest that if you are unhappy with the banners you apply your energy to the annual planning process[1]. As long as the budget goes up 20% year over year and page views fall, the Fundraising team will need to crank up the banners.
It's worth pointing out that Fundraising is one of the strongest voices for fiscal restraint at the Foundation.
-Toby
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
I want to be clear about my previous message -- I am not questioning any individual person's integrity in the process, and I know from firsthand experience that a tremendous amount of good work goes into this stuff.
But
I think the process that has evolved around developing the campaign is broken.
In Megan's message, I see a great deal of emphasis on the specific points that are attributable to community suggestions/requests. But there is a bigger point that gets lost: It's not about where the ideas come from,
it's
about whether the final result "gets it right."
If the WMF produced mission-compatible banners without any community consultation at all, I'd be happy, and I think most others would be too. Running an open process is not the right way to measure success here. An open process is one of many ways to surface problems, and maybe to
generate
ideas; but it's not the be-all end-all.
The fund-raising department is clearly held accountable on its easily-measured performance. It needs to also be held accountable to the mission. How to do that is a difficult design and management problem,
and I
don't pretend to have the perfect answer. But it's something that needs
to
be done.
Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
I agree, that banner does not reflect the values of this movement. Pure and simple; it's not a grey area, and not worth my time to discuss for
the
97th time.
Personally, I long ago gave up participating in these discussions, for
the
most part -- because the same valid points get made over and over
again,
and the same *AWFUL* errors are made year after year in the
fund-raising
campaign.
Leila's post here is heartening, and I'm glad that somebody has the
energy
to articulate the concerns so well. I, myself, do not; I have simply
lost
faith in the integrity of the Wikimedia Foundation's fund-raising operation. I am, honestly, ashamed to tell people that I used to work
in
the fund-raising department there (though I believe the work we did was valuable).
I recently heard from a high-ranking executive at a software company.
She
told me that she had given money to the Wikimedia Foundation, and then looked into the WMF's budget, and the messages in the campaign she had responded to. The word she used to describe her feeling was
"mortified."
She had considered asking for her money back, but had decided against
it.
Fortunately, she was sophisticated enough not apply her negative
feelings
to Wikipedia, but rather to the Wikimedia Foundation. But can the WMF afford to assume that will always be the case?
Apparently, the thinking thus far is, "yes."
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Megan,
Thank you for the update and all the hard work the team has done
during
Q1. My comments below.
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Megan Hernandez <
mhernandez@wikimedia.org
wrote:
The team has used this first quarter to test a wide variety of brand
new
banners. From images, to banners highlighting photos from Commons,
and
different messages, we’ve found a few new ways to share the
fundraising
message with Wikipedia readers. With updated designs, we’ve ended
the
quarter with a banner that performs roughly 20% better than the
best-
performing banner from last quarter.
I saw that banner and I want to do all I can to help you not use it
even
if it performs 20% better. I put my story in p.s. so it's easier to skip
for
whoever chooses to skip. This is a true story. :-\
Better performing banners are required to raise a higher budget with declining traffic. We’ll continue
testing
new
banners into the next quarter and sharing highlights as we go.
I've said this couple of times in the past through different channels (sorry to those of you who have heard this before) but I think it's
key
to
repeat it here just so we are all clear about what we know and what we don't know.
We know that our pageviews are not growing globally (depending on how
you
look at the trend and predictions, they are going down with a slow
slope
or are almost flat, neither case is good.).
We also know that a higher budget means more work for Furndraising to
meet
the budget.
We do not know the relation between the decline in pageviews and our ability to raise money, we do not have research evidence for the above statement given the data we have, so I highly encourage all of us not
to
repeat this statement (even though it sounds very intuitive) until we
show
such evidence because the more we say it, the more we believe it.
Ellery
explains what we know and don't know about this specific topic when I
ask
him a question about this in Metrics Meeting in April 2015. That discussion is recorded starting minute 37, second 38 here <
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/WMF_Monthly_Metrics_Meet...
.
Best, Leila
p.s. Here is the story: I open my laptop at 5:30am to check few definitions on Wikipedia for
an
upcoming early morning meeting. The room is dark and the only source
of
light is my laptop, I go to Wikipedia and I see that banner <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising#/media/File:Sept2015BannerEx.png
.
I'm still sleepy, and probably my mind is not functioning the way it normally does, nevertheless, here is what comes to my mind: I have a sudden feeling of fear. I see a very black background, and I think someone
very
important has died. I look a bit more, and I see some red colors,
then I
think something in the order of SOPA has happened. I'm getting quite nervous. I look at the text, but it's too long for me to parse it at
that
moment with the thoughts I have in the background. I look more at the background, I see some orange colors, some yellow colors, and a little human circled, I first think that whole color combination is a flame
(red,
orange, yellow, and the semi shape of a flame), then I think someone
is
jailed/executed. My eyes finally manage to see the right-hand-side of
the
page, and I see there are dollar signs and numbers. I sigh in relief,
and
then I get really upset (though I manage to pass that stage soon).
Now,
if
I was not involved in the movement, I'm not sure if I would pay or not (maybe I would) seeing that banner, but because I'm in the Movement, I
got
really sad seeing myself going through that experience because I know more. I also acknowledge that different people have different backgrounds
and
experiences in life. What I see as a sign of death and war, may not
be a
signal for many other people (though the color black is almost
universally
used for signalling death), and I acknowledge that you cannot
accommodate
everyone. But please be aware, some people get really scared seeing
this
kind of banner.
I said the story above, but I also want to say that I understand the pressure on you. I've said it here <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas#Banner...
(and btw, huge thanks for being open to suggestions :-), and I'm
saying
it
here as well: I'm happy to help us to fix such an experience for our users. Please let me know if you're open to test new designs. I'm more than
happy
to help you for some time for us to bring in more designers and
community
members into this conversation. I'm sure we can do this.
--
Megan Hernandez
Director of Online Fundraising Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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