geni, 31/12/2011 10:22:

...

And they are also used for displaying bilingual messages, which is very useful for areas in which you can't be sure whether people prefer English or the local language, like India.

Except both versions I was getting were in English.

I guess you mean the set of banners about «This is it. Last day to make a tax-deductible contribution to keep Wikipedia free in 2012» (and variations[1]). I'd be interested to know whether Sue was true when she said that donors don't care much about tax deducibility, but here we have to consider also the "last [3] day[s]", "pay the bills" and blinking banner effects.

Nemo

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate&offset=2339&limit=57

On 31 December 2011 12:01, Fae faenwp@gmail.com wrote:

Full agreement with geni here. Blinking banners are against the spirit of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. If this is not clear in the banner guidelines then this needs to be made explicit.

Indeed. Inspiring people to install AdBlock may not be the best of ideas?

- d.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

2011/12/31 geni geniice@gmail.com:

...

We appear to have actual blinking ads. Unfortunate. Still I suppose the occasion should be marked.

They are not blinking in a manner that is even remotely obnoxious. And they are also used for displaying bilingual messages, which is very useful for areas in which you can't be sure whether people prefer English or the local language, like India.

Actually, no. They are obnoxious in any language and area. Also, the most widely viewed banners are in English in India.

We see the same blinks with the same pair of eyes as the rest of the world. Content of the blink-ads, doesn't change what they are.

Regards Theo

Hi Zack

I have a questions. I donated in the past, so I saw some donation request emails also came in. Are there likely to be more emails between now and the end?

I understand the point about efficiency and maximizing the revenue, but a heads-up before the team tries something new might also be helpful.

Regards Theo

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 8:12 PM, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance.

We're always trying to find the least annoying banners that make the most money so that we can run them the shortest possible time.

We reduced the fundraiser from 50 days to 46 this year. Next year we hope to shave more days off again.

The alternating message banners work really well on the last couple days because there are two different very effective messages in those days. But we're always looking for a better way, so maybe next year we won't have to do alternating messages at all.

Zack

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 4:38 AM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

...

2011/12/31 geni geniice@gmail.com:

...

We appear to have actual blinking ads. Unfortunate. Still I suppose the occasion should be marked.

They are not blinking in a manner that is even remotely obnoxious. And they are also used for displaying bilingual messages, which is very useful for areas in which you can't be sure whether people prefer English or the local language, like India.

Actually, no. They are obnoxious in any language and area. Also, the most widely viewed banners are in English in India.

We see the same blinks with the same pair of eyes as the rest of the

world.

...

Content of the blink-ads, doesn't change what they are.

Regards Theo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

-- Zack Exley Chief Community Officer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 31 December 2011 14:42, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance.

This banner isn't just annoying, it is untrue. You can make a tax deductible donation tomorrow just as easily as you can make it today. It will get deducted off next year's taxes, not this year's, but unless you are trying to reduce your tax bill to zero that makes absolutely no difference.

It is also misleading to claim that donations are required to keep Wikipedia free when you've already raised more than enough to cover core spending. There is no way anything that would be considered making Wikipedia "unfree" would be done if there were no further donations. All that would happen is a few non-core programmes would have to be cut or downsized.

I'm pretty sure I raised both these concerns last year when you ran similar banners and they were never addressed other than to say that such banners raise a lot of money (which is the point - they are misleading people into donating a lot of money). Could you explain how you justify misleading your donors in this way?

Thomas Dalton, 31/12/2011 15:58:

On 31 December 2011 14:42, Zack Exleyzexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance.

This banner isn't just annoying, it is untrue. You can make a tax deductible donation tomorrow just as easily as you can make it today. It will get deducted off next year's taxes, not this year's, but unless you are trying to reduce your tax bill to zero that makes absolutely no difference.

I'm not familiar with USA deducibility (the WMF legal department doesn't give advice either ;) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Deductibility_of_donations ), so could you explain this point? Aren't there annual limits to deductible amounts? Thanks, Nemo

Seriously, get over it.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 8:47 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:

On 31 December 2011 15:36, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thomas Dalton, 31/12/2011 15:58:

...

On 31 December 2011 14:42, Zack Exleyzexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in

the

...

...

...

banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all.

It's

...

...

...

hard to find the right balance.

This banner isn't just annoying, it is untrue. You can make a tax deductible donation tomorrow just as easily as you can make it today. It will get deducted off next year's taxes, not this year's, but unless you are trying to reduce your tax bill to zero that makes absolutely no difference.

I'm not familiar with USA deducibility (the WMF legal department doesn't give advice either ;) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Deductibility_of_donations ), so could you explain this point? Aren't there annual limits to deductible amounts?

I'm not particularly familiar with USA tax law either. In the UK, I believe you are simply limited by your taxable income - you end up paying negative tax. If there are other limits that apply in the USA, then my point still stands - unless you are already planning to max out your limit next year, it makes essentially no difference if you deduct your donation from this year's taxes or next year's. Whatever the limits are, I doubt many donors are expecting to be anywhere near them.

---

foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Le 31/12/2011 15:03, Thomas Dalton a écrit :

Being honest when raising funds in incredibly important.

Probably a misunderstanding.

People getting paid to raise money who only care about getting money, that's the kind of professionals we need. Putting them in charge of communication and money relations with the public was the single best move for our big mission since the creation of Wikipedia. It's not that we *need* that much money. The volunteer community is mature enough to get the project going by itself anyway, with only a fraction of the budget. It's just that the being /#5/ in popularity means millions of dollars, and a few dozen of professionals are in position of claiming them. Thanks to the work of hundred of thousands volunteers during ten years, people who believe in money are getting money. That's wonderful! That's the magic of Wikipedia.

It's amusing that disagreeing people initiate dialogs, as if words were conveying values. What the professionals say to obtain the money doesn't matter to them, only the effective result. They're ready to say anything, and they will.

Please just state what you want to hear so they can continue. Would a promess be enough? Can we label this as a misunderstanding, a mistake? Would something completely different and exciting make a good diversion? Do you really need some hard and transparent justification about how the money will be spent? Don't worry, they are professionnals, they can make up some expensive projects too. Besides, asking about their salary is a convenient invasion of privacity. The law is covering them.

By the way, are you a real threat to them or can you just be intimidated to shut up? What about being called paranoid, hateful? Would it be enough to neutralize you?

There are few other options to manage your concern: if you could do them the favor of being disruptive, they could moderate you and then ban you. But the best way is the silent way. Hope that it will be forgotten, like previous years.

You'll have to learn to agree to disagree. You'll see, it's a fabulous feeling. They want money, they have the power to get it. You are a powerless volunteer. They have no plan at all to change their course of action. So feel blissful about it, you should, it's even mandatory. The show must go on.

Fundation-l is not here to discuss truths about power and money. The WMF refuse to enter ethical debates about their actions and motivations.

Unless forced.

But hey... Happy new year! What will you change for 2012?

On 1 January 2012 00:24, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:

And when it was pointed out that a reference to Sue Gardner as "Wikipedia Executive Director" was inaccurate, Zack's initial response was "We're going to test Wikimedia against Wikipedia in the banner right now."  (In other words, "We'll test the truth against a falsehood to see which brings in more money.")

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-December/062932.html

I find this attitude rather disconcerting.

It got worse. They changed it to "Wikimedia Executive Director" and when it was pointed out that it should be "Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director" Philippe (who was running the fundraiser last year) said (on 13 December 2010 on the Fundraising mailing list, which is private so I can't give a link): "So yeah, we're doing everything we can to maximize the income." (I won't quote the entire paragraph, but the context is essentially "Yeah, we know there are problems with these banners but they raise money so we're going to do it anyway.")

It is, as you say, a very disconcerting attitude.

On 1 January 2012 02:23, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

Enough, Thomas.  After a reasonable explanation of the actions taken today, you are now dredging up complaints about *last year's* fundraiser.  The actions you're complaining about above were not repeated this year.  This is called "learning from experience", and it is a talent that is highly prized within the WMF family of projects.  After all, there is not a one of us who has not made an error in action or judgment.

Please stop.

They have not learned. Zack said, further up this thread:

"It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance."

That is wrong. You can both not use annoying banners and have a short fundraiser by simply spending less. I'm not saying that's necessarily what the WMF should do, but it should consider it, which comments like Zack's make it clear they aren't doing.

Whenever you are considering doing something to raise funds that will have negative side effects you need to think about whether whatever you'll be able to do with those funds is worth those side effects. The WMF doesn't seem to get that.

On 1 January 2012 02:38, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

Perhaps, Thomas, you might want to reflect that your point of view is not the only one worthy of consideration.   If you have concerns about the spending priorities of the WMF, I'd suggest you start a separate thread.

Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man and then come back.

On 1 January 2012 02:42, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

I have, Thomas - which is exactly why I commented as I did.  It is you who have raised the issue of spending in this thread, which was initially about how annoyed some people were by a certain fundraising banner.  It seems to me that it is your straw man that has derailed things here.

The whole point I've been trying to make is that fundraising and spending are intimately related and can't be considered separately from each other.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

It got worse. They changed it to "Wikimedia Executive Director"

At the risk of reviving this thread, I find it worth noting that the German chapter apparently used very similar banners this year to these banners you criticized last year:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&...

This is not a criticism of WM-DE: We used that language last year, and I felt much of the criticism of it was unreasonable, especially yours. I find it interesting, though, in the context of the discussion that's happening on Meta right now regarding funds dissemination. It is also worth noting that we didn't use either choice of words this year in the WMF campaign in response to the concerns from last year.

From the standpoint of creating a balanced, community-friendly

campaign that's respectful and responsive, decentralizing decision-making about the shape of the campaign to the geographic level is IMO likely to do the opposite: It will create more pressure (because it's a more competitive environment) between fundraising entities to maximize revenue and push the limits, while reducing visibility of (and associated accountability for) specific choices like the above among the wider Wikimedia community.

Erik

On 11 January 2012 04:48, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 8:06 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

This is not a criticism of WM-DE: We used that language last year, and I felt much of the criticism of it was unreasonable, especially yours. I find it interesting, though, in the context of the discussion that's happening on Meta right now regarding funds dissemination. It is also worth noting that we didn't use either choice of words this year in the WMF campaign in response to the concerns from last year.

...

From the standpoint of creating a balanced, community-friendly campaign that's respectful and responsive, decentralizing decision-making about the shape of the campaign to the geographic level is IMO likely to do the opposite: It will create more pressure (because it's a more competitive environment) between fundraising entities to maximize revenue and push the limits, while reducing visibility of (and associated accountability for) specific choices like the above among the wider Wikimedia community.

Yes, very symptomatic of the organiosational malaise. Folks up on high just not giving up on the idea that they know best, and trying to finagle a way to make their way against a very solid community view.

To be perfectly honest we need to set red lines for the foundation, beyond which the community will not follow,but will fork, with the full force of the intent. Learn to listen, foundation, don't try to sell things. You aren't put into your positions to sell things to the community. You are their servants. Get it?

I'm confused. Erik just pointed out an example (the use of "urgent" in the fundraising banners) where the Foundation changed its actions explicitly based on concerns expressed by the community. So I'm not sure how it follows as "Folks up on high just not giving up on the idea that they know best"

Conversely the fader banners were highly effective and prompted few if any complaints in 2010, so it seemed reasonable to use them again. I'm sure the concerns raised this time around will be taken into consideration for next year.

Pete / the wub

Erik,

I would like to intervene here since I often read that WMDE ran an agressive campaign this year (and that being one of the major reason for its success).

In my opinion that is not true.

Duration of the campaign: we started Nov. 14th and ended Jan. 5th. I think every other chapter and even WMF in certain countries had similar campaign lenghts. WMF even started one week earlier for logged-ins in the US (if I recall correctly). Even if we were one day later than others, I don´t think this deserves the label "agressive".

Urgent appeal and Jimmy: Yes, we did have Jimmy up for quite a long time. But not as long as last year and I would guess that other chapters did rely on Jimmy almost as much as we did (please correct WMUK, WMFR, WMCH). But we also ran Brandon, Ryan, Susan, the German donor Katrin, Pavel and different text banners. But we did not put up the urgent appeal. As you can see with Test 20 (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Local_testing/DE#Test_20:_Ji...), the 5 Euro Banner outperformed the urgent appeal. We ran Test 18 (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Local_testing/DE#Test_18:_Ji...) only to see if the urgent appeal does better. The link you are refering to is a test campaign on Jan. 3rd, during which we ran all appeals we had for one day. After that we put up the thank you banner.

Wikimedia CEO: Yes, we titled Pavel as Wikimedia CEO in the thank you banner - since that would be the translation of his position at Wikimedia Deutschland. As you can see on the refering landingpage his position was written out as CEO, Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. We had to shorten his function on the banner in order to have a short message. I don´t think that this deserves the label "agressive" either. You can call it misleading at some point (but as we all know: most people do not know what Wikimedia is) but since we wrote out the function in the appeal, it is not a false information in order to receive more donations.

We did not run an agressive campaign, we had a very effective one. One of the major reasons for our success was that we tested a lot and changed banners according to the results immediately.

Or are there any other indications why the WMDE campaign deserves the term agressive?

Till

Btw. there were no complaints from the Germany community afaik.

Am 10.01.2012 07:06, schrieb Erik Moeller:

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

...

It got worse. They changed it to "Wikimedia Executive Director"

At the risk of reviving this thread, I find it worth noting that the German chapter apparently used very similar banners this year to these banners you criticized last year:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&... http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&...

This is not a criticism of WM-DE: We used that language last year, and I felt much of the criticism of it was unreasonable, especially yours. I find it interesting, though, in the context of the discussion that's happening on Meta right now regarding funds dissemination. It is also worth noting that we didn't use either choice of words this year in the WMF campaign in response to the concerns from last year.

From the standpoint of creating a balanced, community-friendly campaign that's respectful and responsive, decentralizing decision-making about the shape of the campaign to the geographic level is IMO likely to do the opposite: It will create more pressure (because it's a more competitive environment) between fundraising entities to maximize revenue and push the limits, while reducing visibility of (and associated accountability for) specific choices like the above among the wider Wikimedia community.

Erik

On 31 December 2011 14:42, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance.

Not at all. You can always reduce spending.

We're always trying to find the least annoying banners that make the most money so that we can run them the shortest possible time.

You failed.

The alternating message banners work really well on the last couple days because there are two different very effective messages in those days. But we're always looking for a better way, so maybe next year we won't have to do alternating messages at all.

Or to put it another way you will do whatever you please with the banner no matter how foolish and there is nothing we can do about it. Understood. Please understand that we may chose to view things differently.

On 31 December 2011 19:28, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

Geni - You're being mean.  On New Years Eve!  Happy New Years!

Neither Geni's meanness or the date are relevant to the point he was making. It certainly seems to be the case that the WMF doesn't consider reducing expenditure, rather than more aggressive fundraising, as a solution to not raising as much as you had hoped. What is it that you won't be able to do if you use non-blinking banners and therefore don't raise as much money? Is whatever it is really worth annoying everyone so much?

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

On 31 December 2011 19:28, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Geni - You're being mean.  On New Years Eve!  Happy New Years!

Neither Geni's meanness or the date are relevant to the point he was making. It certainly seems to be the case that the WMF doesn't consider reducing expenditure, rather than more aggressive fundraising, as a solution to not raising as much as you had hoped. What is it that you won't be able to do if you use non-blinking banners and therefore don't raise as much money? Is whatever it is really worth annoying everyone so much?

Thomas, I know you're asking rhetorically about what tactics are worth it to raise money, and I think a back-and-forth about the boundaries of what's acceptable in the drive is quite useful -- though it would be great if everyone could stay polite about it.

I don't love the alternating banners either. But I *am* willing to say what the hell, let's run them for a few hours and see what happens. If they are not substantively more productive in terms of donations, then let's kill them. It's not like running them is a decision that we are stuck with for the rest of time, or even the rest of today. I feel confident saying that, even though I haven't talked to *anyone* at fundraising about it, because I know that the whole team is willing to be incredibly flexible in the service of seeing what works and staying tasteful. I suspect that those banners raise a great deal of money, which means that we will meet a very ambitious goal today and won't continue the fundraiser into January, which is pretty amazing considering that just two years ago in 2009 we ran the fundraiser for *20 days* longer than we are this year[1]. Are more days better than alternating banners? If the answer is "yes", then let's talk about why (would more days of banners really be less annoying to the readers??). But I don't think the *first* answer should be "these banners suck, so let's give up on the budget that we wrote months ago (and a few people's jobs with it)" -- the right conversation is probably "what are the boundaries of keeping the fundraiser in line with Wikimedia culture and taste, while still raising a whole bunch of donations in a short time?"

But to take your question seriously, if we don't raise to the proposed budget for this year, a variety of things will happen -- none of which are directly under the control of the fundraising team. If the shortfall is a small amount, we cover it out of reserves, which are deliberately kept large because the mission and raison d'être of the WMF requires that we must keep the projects online under any circumstances, including a failed fundraiser. (And we look to next year's budget to somehow make up the reserves difference). If there's a larger gap, we start looking for ways to trim -- this is something Sue would lead in consultation with the board. We could do a few things. We could not hire people to work on various initiatives, cutting back on the staffing plan for next year. We could reduce grants going to individuals, groups and chapters around the world. We could drop programs. Over the long term, to recover, we could rethink our funding strategy and more aggressively go after grants, and/or lengthen the annual fundraiser, and/or rethink the strategic plan and what we want to do (can we afford to not try to stem the editor decline, over the long run? Can we afford to not roll out better software and a visual editor? Can we afford to not try to support the community? What are the overall costs of belt-tightening?) [2]

The fundraising team is trying to raise money for the most ambitious Wikimedia budget yet, with a goal that was handed to them -- and they have done what I think is a fantastic job this year, really making it more of a community-focused drive than ever before (banners that aren't just Jimmy!) and doing it in record time.

And, not rhetorically at all, the question of how much to raise is one of the important questions to face us strategically. We are incredibly lucky that we have the ability, through our tremendous readership, to raise a substantial amount of money. We could raise less, certainly, and we could probably raise more (and there are lots of evil tactics to raise more that we won't consider). But every annual planning cycle (it starts up essentially now and goes through the spring) the WMF staff and board has to consider exactly that question -- what should we fund, and is any given new idea worth it, given that it represents donor dollars and fundraiser time? When are we pushing the outer limits of what we can raise? I encourage everyone to think and talk about these questions -- it's not a solved problem, but a complicated and important one.

But all in all -- I hope everyone in our community celebrates the end of the fundraiser and feels the achievement that we should all be feeling. Everyone on this list has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours working on Wikimedia projects, thinking and discussing and editing and doing the work of making the whole thing happen -- everyone here has an ownership stake in the success of Wikimedia and has helped make this movement possible. And, we have succeeded: together we've kept these crazy projects going for ten years, exceeding anyone's fantasies about how wide-ranging wikis and reference works could be, and millions of people use our work and hundreds of thousands of people think it's cool enough to support financially. Against all odds, together we run one of the most popular websites in the world and can fuel it entirely on reader donations -- something that still blows minds when I mention it to outsiders. And we do it with enough finesse and style that we can sit here and have serious discussions about the <blink> tag as one of our most pressing fundraising problems. How cool is that???

Happy New Year, everyone, Phoebe

1. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics 2. There's even an FAQ about this: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2011-2012_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answ...

On 12/31/11 3:21 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:

And, not rhetorically at all, the question of how much to raise is one of the important questions to face us strategically. We are incredibly lucky that we have the ability, through our tremendous readership, to raise a substantial amount of money. We could raise less, certainly, and we could probably raise more (and there are lots of evil tactics to raise more that we won't consider). But every annual planning cycle (it starts up essentially now and goes through the spring) the WMF staff and board has to consider exactly that question -- what should we fund, and is any given new idea worth it, given that it represents donor dollars and fundraiser time? When are we pushing the outer limits of what we can raise? I encourage everyone to think and talk about these questions -- it's not a solved problem, but a complicated and important one.

I do think this is the key issue, and one where I think there many of the stakeholders aren't really on the same page, even in terms of basic starting information. Informally canvassing some of my non-Wikipedian friends and colleagues, the vast majority were under the impression that the purpose of the fundraiser was to raise money to "keep the lights on", more or less: to pay for servers and bandwidth holding the *.wikipedia.org websites, along with some associated stuff like the Wikimedia Commons media repository, and a few programmers and sysadmins to maintain the servers and MediaWiki.

I'd say (nearly?) everyone was pretty surprised when I sort of hemmed and hawed and explained that yes, that's the use of some of the money, but the budget is much larger than just that, and the main purpose of the fundraiser is to raise money for more ambitious projects, like new initiatives, grants to researchers, funding for travel and events, grants to Wikimedia chapters, etc. Some were pretty annoyed, feeling it was a bit of a bait-and-switch: the advertising gave them the impression that their donation was being used to keep wikipedia.org on the air and maintain the servers/software, and they didn't even realize the Wikimedia Foundation did or planned to do any of the other things with their money.

Of course, I'm not the best advocate in such situations, because I'm a bit wary of the direction things are going myself, so tend to give a sort of sheepish shrug in reply, and an explanation that a substantial portion of the money (though perhaps no longer the majority) *does* go to some of the core servers-and-software operations. I do worry things are becoming a bit like a Big Nonprofit, though, even verging onto some NGO ambitions, while not being 100% clear to the outside world that that's the direction we're going--- the outside world still thinks we're struggling to raise money to pay for bandwidth and colo space. I would guess the same is true of many Wikipedians as well; I only recently realized how much the Foundation has grown in the past 3 years, without, as far as I can tell, it ever being an explicit decision to expand scope... just sort of happened. Not entirely comfortable with it, but eh, I guess that's how things go, and it *does* at least still keep the lights on at *.wikipedia.org, which is what I care about.

-Mark

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 5:34 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:

This year pictures at top left, blinking banners, etc - are becoming a norm.

This is simply untrue hyperbole. The fader was used in the same way as last year, at the same time. (In fact, I think last year they used the word "urgent", which I don't believe was used this year.)

So what's your slippery slope argument? That we've had photographs on the left side of the banner this time? While at the same time, 1) we've shortened the fundraiser, 2) we've disabled banners for logged in users more quickly, 3) we've (for the first time) disabled banners for donors once they made a donation, 4) we've reduced reliance on Jimmy dramatically.

Yeah, sure sounds like a slippery slope to dancing monkeys to me.

On 3 January 2012 22:36, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:

WMF started the email campaign last year for the first time I'm assuming, we used it this year as well. We had a period of several months before the fundraiser, that fundraising team conducted tests to replace Jimmy, the fundraiser started and look who showed up back on the first week and all that testing didn't change the biggest revenue draw since the beginning of WMF fundraising. Yes, there were more banners but it really didn't take away from Jimmy, I have the impression that you can probably put server kittens and lol cats on the banners, and you would have the same or better results than the ones that were tried.

The WMF's conclusions about what banners work best are based on extensive testing. What are yours based on?

On Jan 4, 2012 12:44 AM, "Theo10011" de10011@gmail.com wrote:

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

...

The WMF's conclusions about what banners work best are based on extensive testing. What are yours based on?

My guts.

BTW How have those tests worked out? You know the ones that went on for months before the fundraiser to replace Jimmy.

There were numerous non-Jimmy banners used during the fundraiser because they were tested and proved to work well. The Jimmy banners were used extensively too because they still perform very well in the tests, particularly when improved using the lessons learnt from the other banners that were tested.

In future, I suggest you pay more attention rather than asking such ill-informed questions. I wasn't involved in the tests - everything I've said in this email came from the reports the fundraising team published before and during the fundraiser. If you had bothered to read them, you wouldn't have had to ask. They are all on meta - I suggest you go and read them.

Hi Thomas

I really dont

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:

There were numerous non-Jimmy banners used during the fundraiser because they were tested and proved to work well. The Jimmy banners were used extensively too because they still perform very well in the tests, particularly when improved using the lessons learnt from the other banners that were tested.

In future, I suggest you pay more attention rather than asking such ill-informed questions. I wasn't involved in the tests - everything I've said in this email came from the reports the fundraising team published before and during the fundraiser. If you had bothered to read them, you wouldn't have had to ask. They are all on meta - I suggest you go and read them.

I was part of the fundraising team last year, so do allow me the courtesy to know which banners were used and compare to make my own judgements. I'm also a Meta admin, I know that might not count for much, but I monitor recent changes and patrol pages for hours when I can.

You might not agree, but calling my assumptions ill-informed, and telling me to "pay attention" as if I'm some petulant child you need to discipline, is insulting. You are not making a point, but just accusing me of being ill-informed, and rather rudely.

I never suggested non-jimmy banners weren't use, if you would care to look, this year was not the first time they were used. They were used last year, with much less fanfare and the same amount of testing. If you would also care to look Jimmy still outperformed most of the banners, you would also read that the fundraiser started with Jimmy and ended with Blinking Jimmy. The team tried pretty hard to match or beat Jimmy banners last year, this is not something new. You might want to read the fundraising page yourself for effects of green background against jimmy and smiling maryana vs. frowning maryana. Do explain how my comment said in jest, about replacing the middle portion with non-jimmy banners was so out-of-line, this was not far-fetched if you saw the editor submitted banners last year. Regardless, ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011) as Kaldari pointed me to the link. Thank heavens I don't need to search through Meta.

And here is the most important point, Geo-targetting and chapter-ran fundraising, really changed what everyone saw in their banners. Your sweeping assumption that this was the first year that editor appeals were tried and they worked are plain wrong. They were tried last year. You don't even have an idea which country I am or was located in, or what I saw.

On an unrelated point, this is no where near some of the ill-informed questions and points I have seen you raise. But I do extend the courtesy of keeping my personal opinions to myself and rather refer to the content.

Theo

This isn't the kind of compromise that we should be making.

On 12/31/11, Zack Exley zexley@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone -

It's a trade off between doing things that might annoy some people in the banners vs. reducing the number of days we need to run banners at all. It's hard to find the right balance.

We're always trying to find the least annoying banners that make the most money so that we can run them the shortest possible time.

We reduced the fundraiser from 50 days to 46 this year. Next year we hope to shave more days off again.

The alternating message banners work really well on the last couple days because there are two different very effective messages in those days. But we're always looking for a better way, so maybe next year we won't have to do alternating messages at all.

Zack

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 4:38 AM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

...

2011/12/31 geni geniice@gmail.com:

...

We appear to have actual blinking ads. Unfortunate. Still I suppose the occasion should be marked.

They are not blinking in a manner that is even remotely obnoxious. And they are also used for displaying bilingual messages, which is very useful for areas in which you can't be sure whether people prefer English or the local language, like India.

Actually, no. They are obnoxious in any language and area. Also, the most widely viewed banners are in English in India.

We see the same blinks with the same pair of eyes as the rest of the world. Content of the blink-ads, doesn't change what they are.

Regards Theo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

-- Zack Exley Chief Community Officer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:

A fundraising campaign is not a switch-on/switch-off affair. It has an arc. It's that arc that helps it be successful. This is the last day of the campaign, and a final invitation to give to reach our goal. It should communicate a sense of urgency towards closure and resolution, coinciding with people's increased year-end willingness to give (which isn't just about taxes).

Fabricating a sense of urgency that donations are immediately necessary at the end of the campaign to keep the projects operational and freely available (ie, "Please help Wikipedia pay its bills in 2012" [1], "Last day to make a tax-deductible contribution to keep Wikipedia free in 2012" [2], etc) is as unethical now as it was in last year's campaign ("Please donate to keep Wikipedia free" in the banner you linked to [3], etc).

This discussion about blinking banners might seem trivial but it serves as a very obvious reminder, in style now as well as substance, of the disjoint between the fundraising team's work and the norms and ethos of the community and projects.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:

This isn't much of a slippery slope to say that next year we should expect dancing monkeys.

My money's on Jimmy's face Photoshopped onto the dancing baby GIF.

-- [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&... [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&... [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&...

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 14:50, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:

Fabricating a sense of urgency that donations are immediately necessary at the end of the campaign to keep the projects operational and freely available (ie, "Please help Wikipedia pay its bills in 2012" [1], "Last day to make a tax-deductible contribution to keep Wikipedia free in 2012" [2], etc) is as unethical now as it was in last year's campaign ("Please donate to keep Wikipedia free" in the banner you linked to [3], etc).

This discussion about blinking banners might seem trivial but it serves as a very obvious reminder, in style now as well as substance, of the disjoint between the fundraising team's work and the norms and ethos of the community and projects.

Would it be an idea to have some kind of RfC or something like that on Meta where community members could come up with a list of things we roughly agree are the limits for fundraising.

I think the fundraising team have done really well, but there have been a few things we really need to fix for next year, starting with the limits that the community are comfortable with regarding banner length, tone, graphical style etc.

The other thing I think we really need to fix before next year is making clear to OTRS volunteers exactly what the right channels and actions are to handle fundraiser-related emails. And maybe it would be useful if we could go through fundraiser-related emails in OTRS and somehow tag the feedback into categories (perhaps on OTRS Wiki) and then give back to the community some statistics about how many complaints and emails we have had about fundraising and what the nature of those complaints and emails are so the Foundation and community can better tune the banners and fundraising for next year.

On a subjective level, there's lots of things I've seen in e-mail from people: they would like to buy a t-shirt rather than donate (the Foundation really need to sort out merchandise - other similar non-profits like Mozilla Foundation, Creative Commons and so on have really nailed merchandise), they want SMS donations in various European countries, they want it so that if they've donated it removes the banner for the rest of the fundraiser.

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:

Would it be an idea to have some kind of RfC or something like that on Meta where community members could come up with a list of things we roughly agree are the limits for fundraising.

I think the fundraising team have done really well, but there have been a few things we really need to fix for next year, starting with the limits that the community are comfortable with regarding banner length, tone, graphical style etc.

The WMF isn't a wiki, unfortunately, and can't be managed by one or like one.

In fairness to the Foundation, they did have a very public strategic planning process and they do seem to be adhering to the outcome of that process. From what I saw, a pretty fair amount of the strategic planning output and outcomes were driven by employees and contractors, but there was a more than adequate opportunity for public / community input. As a result, there is natural skepticism for any claim that the WMF has or is tending to diverge from community standards with respect to broad trends in spending or fundraising. Moreover, the constituency for the WMF is often viewed as the 500 million or so unique monthly visitors; in this light, even a torrent of complaints on a mailing list can easily be seen as "those few people who will always complain no matter what you do."

In the end, then, the only practical solution is to be vocal about concerns, and to look for (or become) Board candidates with a different approach. Rubber on the road, so to speak, will test whether voters think there has been a divergence. Of course we don't hear much from Board members, at least those of us without internal-l access, so it's hard to judge differences in their perspectives and hard to vote accordingly. But an energetic campaign from an individual or slate of candidates would open the debate in a more real way.