Erik Moeller wrote:
Now, one might make an argument that unobtrusive ads are preferable over frequent obtrusive donation campaigns. Right now I have no strong opinion either way, but based on the data available to me, I believe that a high- profile fundraising campaign could be over fairly quickly with high returns.
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.
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.
-Mark