On Wed, 5 Dec 2018 at 11:44, vermont--- via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Entering Wikipedia while not logged in, from both a PC and mobile device, lead to an insane amount of large, bright red banners asking for donations. Statistics may show that this sort of advertising gains the most clicks and donations. That should not be the only metric by which donation requests are decided.
We are losing readers because of this.
Whilst there are certainly anecdotes to this effect, there's no evidence at present that we're losing any more readers than normal. For example, page views to the Simple English Wikipedia https://tools.wmflabs.org/siteviews/?platform=all-access&source=pageviews&agent=user&start=2018-02-01&end=2018-12-05&sites=simple.wikipedia.org (I chose this wiki because you linked to it in your email) are relatively stable. Now, eyeballing page view graphs like I did is not really scientific, but it gives a better indication than relying on isolated comments.
Criticism of the fundraising banners (and there is plenty of it) will be better received by the Fundraising team if we all stick to the facts, and avoid extrapolation and hyperbole.
Dan