Let's try kicking this perennial thead again.
This morning (5 Dec 2020) I paused cooling my porridge when looking up how Wikipedia describes 'Latinx' usage on my cellular, I was faced with a *2 page* advert. * The advert meant nothing of the article could be seen, not even the title, without having to pass the two pages of several big blue fundraising notices. * There's some statements in those notices that, frankly, look unencyclopaedic like "People told us we'd regret making Wikipedia a non-profit". That's a literally untrue Trumpian political sentence if ever I saw one. * The 2 pages close with "We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away" followed by a single option of a "MAYBE LATER" link (not a 'go away forever please' link, and yes, it's really in shouty all caps).
I might have passed on thinking, gah, not again, but there is a further sting in this tale. After working out that there was a "No thanks" link back at the start in a font smaller than all the notice text, you are faced with a second big red fundraising notice. This one has a sad weeping emoji in it, because you are going to "look the other way". I guess the idea is to make it feel like you are heartlessly walking past a beggar on the street without having the humanity to look at them, not sure how else this is supposed to read. It closes with the same "humbly" sentence, but this time with two emojis that are begging or praying hands. Personally I find being prayed at slightly offensive, Wikipedia being a haven of logical thought, not a church, but that's probably me being too black hat.
Isn't it about time the $100,000,000+ a year WMF made a design choice to stay classy and avoid multiple full page banners begging the public for money like it was about to go bust? It looks desperate because there's no other honest way to describe it.
Stay safe, wear a mask, Fae
On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 12:58, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Given the large reserves that the WMF carries, and the savings from cancelling events such as Wikimania 2020, I would have thought that the WMF was one organisation that could afford to pause its fundraising for a few months. At least in countries where the economy is in freefall.
In a few months time lots of people will still be in a financial mess. But the large number of people who are currently going to be worried about their financial future will hopefully be divided into those who have kept their jobs. or got new ones and those who were right to be worried. Hopefully some of those who come through this financially OK will be in a position to donate.
WSC
On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 11:25, wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Annoying ads (John Erling Blad)
- Re: Annoying ads (Benjamin Ikuta)
- Re: Annoying ads (Robert Fernandez)
- Re: Annoying ads (Pierre-Yves Beaudouin)
- Re: Annoying ads (Nick Wilson (Quiddity))
- Re: Annoying ads (Samuel Klein)
- Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta)
- Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta)
Cheers Message: 1 Date: Mon, 4 May 2020 16:55:50 +0200 From: John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads Message-ID: <CAJcMX2= 5GgwUNkrfG6EjJsn6sB1rBF1H_FnyPhPd_Wjr5otu0A@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Often I surf Wikipedia without being logged in, and so I did right now. I got the usual banners, but this time they popped up repeatedly in several locations. This quickly gets extremely annoying, and I find it unwise. Create one banner, and stick with that. Several banners are simply way over the top.
/jeblad
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