Samuel Klein wrote:
[Some banners are so delightful that they are a welcome
improvement to a
page without; and I've occasionally thought we should run some of those,
w/ low probability, continuously year-round.]
Which banners are delightful? The ones I've seen this year take up two
pages of scrolling on mobile. This isn't cute or endearing; as you and
others note, it's alarming to many people.
As I imagine I've said previously, I think it's helpful to call this type
of behavior what it is: spam or advertising. Calling it "fundraising" or
speaking of "banners" makes it a lot easier to brush aside how intrusive
and obnoxious this code is and the damaging impact it has.
Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Isn't it about time that the Wikimedia Foundation
came to terms that
/plenty/ of money is made through sensible fundraising, without every
year embarrassing the whole Wikimedia Community by promoting the
impression that Wikipedia is about to close down if the public don't
give them enough money to keep their servers powered up over
Christmas? Making 10% more money every year is growth for the sake of
it unless we can understand in an accountable and transparent way
where that extra 10% is needed; preferably right there in the
fundraising banner so folks don't get the impression that Wikipedia is
about to vanish.
Yes, absolutely. While there's often talk of "Wikimedia values", it's
always been incredible to me to see the exact confines of those values
from Wikimedia Foundation Inc. staff who are charged with bringing in
money. For years, there have been complaints about this spam being
borderline deceitful; in some cases the spam has been outright misleading
or wrong. How does tricking people into thinking that Wikipedia will stop
surviving if they don't give $5 an acceptable practice?
MZMcBride