--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I can't make any claims to be a representative user, but I personally find these sorts of things *really* annoying. When I'm trying to read an encyclopedia article, I don't want a "give us money!" link at the top, especially one with exclamation marks in it! If it were some sort of big bar thing, that'd be so much the worse, especially since it doesn't go away when I actually *do* give money. Letting me hide them would be nice.
Slashdot allows subscribers to turn off advertisements. Perhaps we could do the same thing except for donation notices? A skyscrapper donation button might work best since it allows the article content to be higher. I still am not gun-ho for such a thing, but I would not oppose it.
I also think if these things become a regular occurance, you're going to see the donations rate get lower each time. People are wiling to donate rapidly for exceptional circumstances (like the k5 fundraiser, or the first Wikimedia fundraiser), but using them as a normal revenue stream doesn't sound that promising, imo, since it makes it sound like we're perpetually doing "emergency" fundraising, which starts to sound like "crying wolf" after a while.
Non-profits very regularly have fund drives and very regularly bring in millions of dollars. The National Public Radio Station in my area brings in over a million dollars from listeners each year and their listenership is much less than our readership. So I don't see any logic in your statement.
This is also *not* emergency funding. We are starting to move away from that and move toward a more regular fund drive cycle (I would like one each quarter in order to more cleanly meet budgetary goals - which will also be tracked by quarter).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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