On 26 November 2014 at 20:33, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banni%C3%A8rePopUpWikipedia2014.png Gah.
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say "(again)" in the subject line. ;-)
There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't uncommon during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold ourselves to a higher standard when begging people for money.
As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's "Wikimedia Forum" by Jules78120, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is pretty clear that the (primary) goal is that banners "be as unobtrusive as possible." I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of the annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage. Sigh.
MZMcBride
You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that talks about "Commercial" not being a "Monster" and "The Bad". (and yes I know, these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).
This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners on green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)
I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things like this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I am losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something like this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).
*sigh*
Delphine
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say "(again)" in the subject line. ;-)
There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't uncommon during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold ourselves to a higher standard when begging people for money.
As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's "Wikimedia Forum" by Jules78120, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is pretty clear that the (primary) goal is that banners "be as unobtrusive as possible." I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of the annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage. Sigh.
MZMcBride
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*TL;DR - If you're going to change something, inform the people who will be affected before you change it!*
Interestingly, I have a different understanding of the text when I read it - I find it to be a positive message and those words that you singled out have different tones depending on their contextualisation. So, I for one am not left with a feeling that it is like an obituary, rather that it is optimistic, but I do agree that it is aggressively worded. But... like you say, that's the power of the 'banner testing' process, different people respond well to different things! :-)
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly threaten advertising next year were not going to happen any more. Remember when we used to get lots of mainstream media reports saying "Wikipedia will soon have ads!" as a result of those campaigns in the past? [This is different from simply saying "we don't have ads and we're proud of it", etc.]
I also reiterate the concern raised by others - that it obscures the *whole *page. A popular request to return to the usual 'banner' style was run on the French WP: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/25_novembre_2014#Mett...
To its credit, the WMF fundraising team has responded on that page: Indicating that the full-screen-blocking banner should only be visible the first time a non-logged in user sees it, and that this particular fundraising campaign will conclude on Friday: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro/25_novembre_2014#R.C3... While I personally disagree with their decision to obscure the whole page in black, I would like to specifically thank the WMF fundraising team for responding to the affected community on the same wiki-page and on the same day that the question was first raised there (the 25th).
This notwithstanding, I think the issue *yet again*, is a lack of communication with the relevant community members when a decision is taken that affects them. In this case, at minimum, the French OTRS team - who are apparently receiving complaints that Wikipedia is affected by a virus!
So can I reiterate my reqeust from the other day: If you're going to change something, tell the affected people before you change it (or as soon as possible afterwards). Please don't wait for the public to raise concerns with volunteers, who then complain to the WMF, before offering an explanation.
And on that note, regarding the fundraising concerns from last week, have the Dutch or Russian communities received responses to their questions yet?
-Liam
On 27 November 2014 at 11:35, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that talks about "Commercial" not being a "Monster" and "The Bad". (and yes I know, these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).
This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners on green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)
I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things like this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I am losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something like this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).
*sigh*
Delphine
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say
"(again)"
in the subject line. ;-)
There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't uncommon during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold
ourselves
to a higher standard when begging people for money.
As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's "Wikimedia Forum" by Jules78120, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is pretty clear that the (primary) goal is that banners "be as unobtrusive as possible." I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of
the
annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage.
Sigh.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- @notafish
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the
old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly threaten advertising next year were not going to happen any more.
The Foundation just reported in its latest financial statements[1] assets including –
· Cash and cash equivalents of $28 million (up 5.7 million), · Investments of $23 million (also up 5.7 million).
Claiming in the fundraising banner that money is needed to "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free" verges on dishonesty, in my opinion.
See also the graphs in the Wikipedia article[2] on the Wikimedia Foundation (this latest financial report is not yet included).
I remember Jimmy Wales proudly telling the public[3] in 2005 how little it cost to run Wikipedia:
*“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that’s essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a life and go to the movies sometimes.”*
While today, the Wikimedia Foundation attracts rather more page views – 21 billion a month, i.e. 15 times as much – even 15 times the $5,000 a month Wales mentioned would only be $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year; and that is without allowing for economies of scale, and the fact that bandwidth costs have decreased since 2005. I am sure this is balanced by various server-side improvements, but still. The Foundation is now regularly taking, and asking for, more than $50 million a year.
I am sure these banners, which have been in testing for months now, "work" in terms of bringing money in. But wouldn't it be nice if the public were told what the money is really for, instead of being left with the impression that lack of money is jeopardising the continued existence of Wikipedia?
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275
Hi All --
A quick note to all of you. Please keep in mind this is one of the A/B test, the design changes daily based on data/performance results. The team will let you know which variations will be available next week, although even those will change daily.
This is not to stifle this discussion (I personally read the comments to see how we can make this better for next year), this is just to give you some insights on the workings of this.
Happy Thanksgiving if you are celebrating!
~~~~Lila
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to the
old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly
threaten
advertising next year were not going to happen any more.
The Foundation just reported in its latest financial statements[1] assets including –
· Cash and cash equivalents of $28 million (up 5.7 million), · Investments of $23 million (also up 5.7 million).
Claiming in the fundraising banner that money is needed to "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free" verges on dishonesty, in my opinion.
See also the graphs in the Wikipedia article[2] on the Wikimedia Foundation (this latest financial report is not yet included).
I remember Jimmy Wales proudly telling the public[3] in 2005 how little it cost to run Wikipedia:
*“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that’s essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a life and go to the movies sometimes.”*
While today, the Wikimedia Foundation attracts rather more page views – 21 billion a month, i.e. 15 times as much – even 15 times the $5,000 a month Wales mentioned would only be $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year; and that is without allowing for economies of scale, and the fact that bandwidth costs have decreased since 2005. I am sure this is balanced by various server-side improvements, but still. The Foundation is now regularly taking, and asking for, more than $50 million a year.
I am sure these banners, which have been in testing for months now, "work" in terms of bringing money in. But wouldn't it be nice if the public were told what the money is really for, instead of being left with the impression that lack of money is jeopardising the continued existence of Wikipedia?
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 7:00 PM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All --
A quick note to all of you. Please keep in mind this is one of the A/B test, the design changes daily based on data/performance results. The team will let you know which variations will be available next week, although even those will change daily.
This is not to stifle this discussion (I personally read the comments to see how we can make this better for next year), this is just to give you some insights on the workings of this.
Happy Thanksgiving if you are celebrating!
I understand the principle of A/B testing, but if the only assessment criterion is which banner brings in the most money in a given time-frame, we will end up biasing ourselves towards the wordings that are most effective at emotional manipulation, rather than wordings that tell prospective donors openly and honestly about the programs the donated funds will be used for, and the tangible benefits the public can expect to receive from those programs.
Andreas
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com
wrote:
I am however negatively-struck by the finishing statement, a return to
the
old motto of "keep us online without advertising for one more year". I thought that we had collectively agreed that banners that directly
threaten
advertising next year were not going to happen any more.
The Foundation just reported in its latest financial statements[1] assets including –
· Cash and cash equivalents of $28 million (up 5.7 million), · Investments of $23 million (also up 5.7 million).
Claiming in the fundraising banner that money is needed to "keep
Wikipedia
online and ad-free" verges on dishonesty, in my opinion.
See also the graphs in the Wikipedia article[2] on the Wikimedia
Foundation
(this latest financial report is not yet included).
I remember Jimmy Wales proudly telling the public[3] in 2005 how little
it
cost to run Wikipedia:
*“So, we’re doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it’s really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers
and
the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and
that’s
essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee … We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could
get a
life and go to the movies sometimes.”*
While today, the Wikimedia Foundation attracts rather more page views –
21
billion a month, i.e. 15 times as much – even 15 times the $5,000 a month Wales mentioned would only be $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year; and
that
is without allowing for economies of scale, and the fact that bandwidth costs have decreased since 2005. I am sure this is balanced by various server-side improvements, but still. The Foundation is now regularly taking, and asking for, more than $50 million a year.
I am sure these banners, which have been in testing for months now,
"work"
in terms of bringing money in. But wouldn't it be nice if the public were told what the money is really for, instead of being left with the impression that lack of money is jeopardising the continued existence of Wikipedia?
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG....
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I'm going to second Liam's comment here, it is disappointing that we're discussing this here but the Foundation is not coming to the party and explaining why they are doing these things. They're creating an information void, and a void *will* be filled somehow; if the WMF is not proactive in filling it with the real story, it'll be filled with rumours and misinformation, the sort of stuff that inhibits the movement from achieving its goals. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a reasonably prompt answer to the sort of questions being posed here in a respectful fashion.
I've copied in Megan Hernandez, the Director of Online Fundraising in the hope of getting a comment, just in case she's not aware of this discussion.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
On 27 November 2014 at 21:44, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
This notwithstanding, I think the issue *yet again*, is a lack of communication with the relevant community members when a decision is taken that affects them. In this case, at minimum, the French OTRS team - who are apparently receiving complaints that Wikipedia is affected by a virus!
So can I reiterate my reqeust from the other day: If you're going to change something, tell the affected people before you change it (or as soon as possible afterwards). Please don't wait for the public to raise concerns with volunteers, who then complain to the WMF, before offering an explanation.
And on that note, regarding the fundraising concerns from last week, have the Dutch or Russian communities received responses to their questions yet?
-Liam
On 27 November 2014 at 11:35, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that
talks
about "Commercial" not being a "Monster" and "The Bad". (and yes I know, these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).
This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners on green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)
I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things like this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I
am
losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something like this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).
*sigh*
Delphine
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say
"(again)"
in the subject line. ;-)
There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog food.
The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't
uncommon
during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold
ourselves
to a higher standard when begging people for money.
As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's "Wikimedia Forum" by Jules78120, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is
pretty
clear that the (primary) goal is that banners "be as unobtrusive as possible." I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside of
the
annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could have a calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage.
Sigh.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- @notafish
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get
lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hi everyone,
Sending an update to let you know that we've heard your concerns and to thank you for your feedback. We're working on some new banners including a version without the overlay to try out based on feedback you've shared. Our banners are always a work in progress, they will continue to evolve and improve.
We'll send an email update on Monday.
Have a good weekend,
Megan
On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 3:01 AM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
I'm going to second Liam's comment here, it is disappointing that we're discussing this here but the Foundation is not coming to the party and explaining why they are doing these things. They're creating an information void, and a void *will* be filled somehow; if the WMF is not proactive in filling it with the real story, it'll be filled with rumours and misinformation, the sort of stuff that inhibits the movement from achieving its goals. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a reasonably prompt answer to the sort of questions being posed here in a respectful fashion.
I've copied in Megan Hernandez, the Director of Online Fundraising in the hope of getting a comment, just in case she's not aware of this discussion.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
On 27 November 2014 at 21:44, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
This notwithstanding, I think the issue *yet again*, is a lack of communication with the relevant community members when a decision is
taken
that affects them. In this case, at minimum, the French OTRS team - who
are
apparently receiving complaints that Wikipedia is affected by a virus!
So can I reiterate my reqeust from the other day: If you're going to change something, tell the affected people before you change it (or as soon as possible afterwards). Please don't wait for the public to raise concerns with volunteers, who then complain to the WMF, before offering an explanation.
And on that note, regarding the fundraising concerns from last week, have the Dutch or Russian communities received responses to their questions
yet?
-Liam
On 27 November 2014 at 11:35, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com
wrote:
You know, I think I'll pass on the actual content of the message that
talks
about "Commercial" not being a "Monster" and "The Bad". (and yes I
know,
these are in a negative sentence but... seriously?).
This banner looks like an obituary I find. Where are the cool banners
on
green leafy foresty background? Those were the days ;)
I know that a lot of thought goes into crafting the best messages for fundraising banners, I also know that the testing is thorough, and decisions are made with real data. But sometimes I find we might be forgetting the number of people we actually scare *away* with things
like
this. Not sure that's data we can acquire, but looking at this banner I
am
losing faith in my fellow French if they really respond to something
like
this more than they do to positive and cheerful looking messages).
*sigh*
Delphine
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:44 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Didn't we have the lightbox argument last year?
Probably. Or the year before. Or the year before that. I did say
"(again)"
in the subject line. ;-)
There are various discussions popping up across Wikimedia about these banners. It didn't help that a bug earlier this week caused logged-in users to be hit with them as well. Talk about eating your own dog
food.
The French Wikipedia held what appears to be a straw poll with overwhelming denouncement of the banner. It's also been repeatedly described as a phishing attempt. Complaints and confusion aren't
uncommon
during any annual fundraiser, but I think we can and should hold
ourselves
to a higher standard when begging people for money.
As pointed out on Meta-Wiki's "Wikimedia Forum" by Jules78120, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Usage_guidelines is
pretty
clear that the (primary) goal is that banners "be as unobtrusive as possible." I wrote this in May 2011, I believe deliberately outside
of
the
annual fundraising that takes place in December so that we could
have a
calm and reasonable discussion about appropriate CentralNotice usage.
Sigh.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- @notafish
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get
lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Megan Hernandez wrote:
Sending an update to let you know that we've heard your concerns and to thank you for your feedback. We're working on some new banners including a version without the overlay to try out based on feedback you've shared. Our banners are always a work in progress, they will continue to evolve and improve.
We'll send an email update on Monday.
Have a good weekend,
Thank you for this note.
Just for general information, Thursday through Sunday is a holiday in a lot of the United States (Thursday for Thanksgiving, Friday to recover from Thanksgiving). This time of year (after Thanksgiving and until Christmas) is usually the busiest time of year for the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising team. This is to say, it's completely expected that responses will be slower around this time of year. :-)
This is also why we try to have conversations about fundraising banner principles in the off season. One principle I'd really like to see set in stone is "don't obscure the page content." If someone reaches our sites to learn about apples or bears or the Spanish Armada, surely our highest obligation is sharing free content. We can simultaneously ask for donations, but we need to do so in a polite and respectful way.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=10657614#Fundraising_banner shows some of the banners that have been recently tested, for the curious.
Many of us lived through "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER" and many other banner horror shows. But collectively Wikimedia is recognizing that these new fundraising banner overlays are a step in the wrong direction. The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's values.
MZMcBride
On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's values.
I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share the underlying sentiment.
I agree that the urgency and alarm of the copy is not commensurate with my (admittedly limited) understanding of our financial situation. Could we run a survey that places the banner copy alongside a concise statement of the Foundation's financials, and which asks the respondent to indicate whether they regard the copy as misleading.
Quantitative assessments of fundraising strategy ought to consider impact on all assets, tangible or not. This includes the Foundation's goodwill and reputation, which are (by common wisdom) easy to squander and hard to repair. It is critical that we be maximally deliberate on this matter.
In addition to the survey suggested above, I want to also propose that we:
(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and (b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without fear of reprisal
All that being said, since this is a tough thread, and since it is Thanksgiving weekend here in the US, it is a good opportunity to express how much I appreciate the work of the fundraising team. Banners are never going to be popular and it must be tough as hell to do this work while fielding rants and grumbles from everybody and their cousin. I consider it a stroke of cosmic luck that I get paid to work on Wikipedia and its sister projects, and I am grateful to you for making that possible.
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
- d.
Ori Livneh wrote:
On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's values.
I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share the underlying sentiment.
What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad?
(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and
Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not.
(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without fear of reprisal
What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-)
David Gerard wrote:
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that.
It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both.
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. That error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!)
MZMcBride
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
~~~~ Lila
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Ori Livneh wrote:
On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's values.
I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share the underlying sentiment.
What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad?
(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and
Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not.
(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without fear of reprisal
What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-)
David Gerard wrote:
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that.
It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both.
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. That error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!)
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks Lila, most enlightening.
And as always when it comes to WMFs fundraising efforts, most impressive work being done! And metrics in the "new" quarterly report will be much appreciated.
Anders
Lila Tretikov skrev den 2014-12-02 07:53:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Ori Livneh wrote: >> On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: >>> The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's >>> values. >> I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share >> the underlying sentiment. > What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the > near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad? > >> (a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and > Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated > banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people > needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not. > >> (b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without >> fear of reprisal > What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has > grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-) > > David Gerard wrote: >> "Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" >> they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down." >> >> https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481 > Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners > as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that. > > It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) > to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even > "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not > been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and > common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both. > >> Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*. >> >> What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the >> brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour. > We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics>. That > error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have > better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several > steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this > should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly > prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!) > > MZMcBride > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and data are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team, who have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Ori Livneh wrote: > >On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > >>The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's > >>values. > > > >I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share > >the underlying sentiment. > > What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the > near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad? > > >(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and > > Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated > banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people > needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not. > > >(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without > >fear of reprisal > > What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has > grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-) > > David Gerard wrote: > >"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" > >they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down." > > > >https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481 > > Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners > as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that. > > It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) > to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even > "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not > been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and > common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both. > > >Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*. > > > >What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the > >brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour. > > We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics>. That > error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have > better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several > steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this > should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly > prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!) > > MZMcBride > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Hi all,
As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on the mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our goals this year to-date.
Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers on English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our end of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is to serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new methods to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
Around the world, banners have been showing to a low level of traffic since the start of the fiscal year in July. We have also run campaigns to 100% of traffic in Japan, South Africa, Malaysia, Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and France. These campaigns have shown good results, and we look forward to sharing more detail in our regular annual fundraising report.
If you spot any errors or have problems donating, your can reach us quickly at: problemsdonating@wikimedia.org
We also anticipate some of you will want to know more about this process and may have questions. If you have questions or comments, please let us know on our Meta talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising
We look forward to answering your questions to the best of our ability, but the team has limited resources and everyone will be working at an increased pace in December, particularly during the launch week (12/2-12/5). Unfortunately, this means we will not be able to respond to questions on Wikimedia-l as they arise -- so instead we have set aside time to review your questions on Meta, and post an update by December 15 and again in January.
Thank you again for all your support now and throughout the year!
Megan
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and data are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team, who have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of
those
in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where
free
speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see
Wikipedia
becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great
too:
people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site
banners.
Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however.
The
Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a
pop-up,
overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will
iterate
daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given
time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the
process
to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Ori Livneh wrote: > >On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride <z@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > >>The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned withWikimedia's
values.
I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I
share
the underlying sentiment.
What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad?
(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy,
and
Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather
not.
(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter,
without
fear of reprisal
What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list
has
grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-)
David Gerard wrote:
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising
banners
as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that.
It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock
(Plus)
to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have
not
been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency
and
common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both.
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics.
That
error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and
this
should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!)
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@...> writes:
As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on the mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our goals this year to-date.
Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers on English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our end of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is to serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new methods to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our banners are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get bigger and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an exception. However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems to be more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because there isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the first person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is rare for him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's ads are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce the number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when people stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to an advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
On Dec 3, 2014 3:46 AM, "Ryan Lane" rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@...> writes:
As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on the mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our
goals
this year to-date.
Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers on English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our
end
of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is to serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new
methods
to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our banners are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get bigger and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the first person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's ads are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce the number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when people stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to an advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every year on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I know how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc. etc. Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have to tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies for taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December for now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser as quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep the yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the appearance and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the reader as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but do we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our content forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority of the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it all for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't go off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline. We're not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to want the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they would be right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much of the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm part of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long run, I think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more than 50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief as possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
--Martijn
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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* Martijn Hoekstra wrote:
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser as quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep the yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Considering the rate at which the Foundation and its Chapters increase and want to increase "revenue", it is unlikely anybody is really trying to optimise how long it takes to collect enough money to keep Wikipedia "online and ad-free" for another year.
Hoi. The chapters are not relevant here. It is only the WMF who raises funds. With more chapters the public is better served. Now THAT is worth the money we are asking for.
Also the fundraising is NOT for Wikipedia. It is for the whole of our movement and for all of our products. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 December 2014 at 11:33, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoermi@gmx.net wrote:
- Martijn Hoekstra wrote:
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser
as
quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep
the
yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Considering the rate at which the Foundation and its Chapters increase and want to increase "revenue", it is unlikely anybody is really trying to optimise how long it takes to collect enough money to keep Wikipedia "online and ad-free" for another year. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de D-10243 Berlin · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de Available for hire in Berlin (early 2015) · http://www.websitedev.de/
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Martijn Hoekstra, 03/12/2014 10:13:
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
Why December? Fundraising banners are up all year long. Due to the banners, there are concerned citizens who literally stop me while I walk in Milan to ask me what's going on, pretty much any time.
Nemo
On Dec 3, 2014 12:00 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Martijn Hoekstra, 03/12/2014 10:13:
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
Why December? Fundraising banners are up all year long. Due to the
banners, there are concerned citizens who literally stop me while I walk in Milan to ask me what's going on, pretty much any time.
Nemo
I could do it monthly, but that would probably become disruption.
I now regret that I didn't think of "disrupting Wikipedia to raise a fund" earlier. Then again, it's probably for the better.
-Martijn
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On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our banners are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get bigger and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the first person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's ads are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce the number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when people stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to
an
advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every year on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I know how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc. etc. Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have to tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies for taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December for now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser as quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep the yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the appearance and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the reader as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but do we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our content forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority of the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it all for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't go off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline. We're not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to want the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they would be right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much of the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm part of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long run, I think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more than 50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief as possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
For reference, there was an article in The Register on this a couple of days ago:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_si...
Slashdot:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/12/02/1528227/a-mismatch-between-wikimedia...
Discussion of the Register article on Jimmy Wales' talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Article_in_the_Register
Best, Andreas
I don't think anyone is surprised when the Reg publishes a negative article about Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Someone there seems to have had an axe to grind for years.
But in this case, we certainly need to stop giving them the ammo.
Regards, Charles
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 10:05 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our
banners
are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get
bigger
and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems
to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was
in
financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the
first
person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a
real
problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is
rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's
ads
are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce
the
number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when
people
stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to
an
advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every
year
on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I
know
how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc.
etc.
Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have to tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies for taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December
for
now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser
as
quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep
the
yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the
appearance
and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the
reader
as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but do we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our
content
forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority of the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it all for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise
to
the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't go off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline.
We're
not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to
want
the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they would
be
right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much of the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm part of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long
run, I
think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more
than
50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief as possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
For reference, there was an article in The Register on this a couple of days ago:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_si...
Slashdot:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/12/02/1528227/a-mismatch-between-wikimedia...
Discussion of the Register article on Jimmy Wales' talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Article_in_the_Register
Best, Andreas _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Note that there is a parallel e-mail campaign, which also seems to have ruffled some feathers.
https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/539861727517868032
As shown in the screenshot of that tweet, the sender is "Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia", and the wording begins:
---o0o---
Dear <name>,
Thank you for helping keep Wikipedia online and ad-free. I'm sure you're busy, so I'll get right to it. We need your help again this year. Please help us forget about fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.
If all our past donors simply gave again today, we wouldn't have to worry about fundraising for the rest of the year.
We are the small non-profit that runs one of the top websites in the world. We only have about 200 staff but serve 500 million users, and have costs like any other top site: servers, power, programs, and ...
---o0o---
The subject line is "<name>, I'll keep it short".
Best, Andreas
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Charles Gregory wmau.lists@chuq.net wrote:
I don't think anyone is surprised when the Reg publishes a negative article about Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Someone there seems to have had an axe to grind for years.
But in this case, we certainly need to stop giving them the ammo.
Regards, Charles
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 10:05 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our
banners
are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get
bigger
and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems
to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was
in
financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the
content
still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him
that
Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the
budget
every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about,
because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the
first
person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a
real
problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is
rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's
ads
are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce
the
number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when
people
stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch
to
an
advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every
year
on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I
know
how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc.
etc.
Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have
to
tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies
for
taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December
for
now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the
fundraiser
as
quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep
the
yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the
appearance
and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the
reader
as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but
do
we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our
content
forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority
of
the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it
all
for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two
people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise
to
the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't
go
off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline.
We're
not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to
want
the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they
would
be
right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much
of
the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm
part
of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long
run, I
think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more
than
50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief
as
possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
For reference, there was an article in The Register on this a couple of days ago:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_si...
Slashdot:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/12/02/1528227/a-mismatch-between-wikimedia...
Discussion of the Register article on Jimmy Wales' talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Article_in_the_Register
Best, Andreas _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Nicely put Martijn. Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email) as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your work. You should continue to take great personal pride in the crucial role you play to make our [puzzle-]globe keep spinning each year! I also appreciate that you're in a sticky position of needing to try new things but also receiving flak when you do.
Perhaps as a practical suggestion, so we can avoid this discussion happening *again *next year, it would be worth all of us collaborating here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles
Perhaps it is worthwhile adding a section to this page which lists the more practical expectations about the fundraising banners which we have developed by consensus over the years. Things like "no animations/sounds", "no obscuring of the content", "no popups" and "no threats/warnings without genuine cause". I'd personally like to add two more things: - "easily dismissible on mobile" (because I've unintentionally clicked the banner with my finger many times when trying to press the impossibly-small "x" icon to dismiss the banner on my phone) and - "Tell the OTRS team and appropriate Chapter (when applicable) when any major change (such as adding/removing a new payment method) happens in that language/country.
These Fundraising principles, according to that Meta page, are from "...an October, 2010 letter https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles and a January, 2012 WMF resolution https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Developing_Scenarios_for_future_of_fundraising#Guidelines_for_Funds_Distribution_Scenarios". The page itself was primarily edited by WMF Board of Trustees Stu and SJ.
I would argue that it is possible that several of these principles are not being followed, at least according to the recent discussions on this list. Including: - "*Transparency*: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful with prospective donor". Instead, the public seems to be questioning if the messages are truthful about our financial stability. - "*Maximal Participation*: ...we should empower individuals and groups world-wide to constructively contribute to direct messaging." Instead, rather than being ambassadors for our mission, wikimedians are feeling increasingly embarrassed when their friends/public ask about the fundraising campaign. -"*Minimal disruption*: ...causing minimal disruption and annoyance for users of the projects" Instead, a desire to finish fundraising quickly is given higher priority. Even though that is *not *one of the stated principles. -"*Internationalism*: ...our fundraising practices must support the easiest possible transfer of money internationally." Instead, we've had the recent discussions about how donating is difficult from the Netherlands and impossible from Russia [did they get a response yet, by the way?] I'd also add that "I'll keep it short" as a subject-line for the fundraising email feels to me like "an Americanism" that would be far too casual to be taken seriously in many other cultures.
-Liam
On 3 December 2014 at 10:13, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 3, 2014 3:46 AM, "Ryan Lane" rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@...> writes:
As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on the mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our
goals
this year to-date.
Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers on English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our
end
of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is to serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new
methods
to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our banners are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get bigger and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was in financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the first person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a real problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's ads are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce the number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when people stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to
an
advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every year on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I know how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc. etc. Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have to tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies for taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December for now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser as quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep the yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the appearance and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the reader as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but do we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our content forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority of the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it all for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise to the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't go off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline. We're not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to want the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they would be right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much of the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm part of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long run, I think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more than 50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief as possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
--Martijn
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
No response yet :(
2014-12-03 16:09 GMT+03:00 Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com:
-"*Internationalism*: ...our fundraising practices must support the easiest possible transfer of money internationally." Instead, we've had the recent discussions about how donating is difficult from the Netherlands and impossible from Russia [did they get a response yet, by the way?] I'd also add that "I'll keep it short" as a subject-line for the fundraising email feels to me like "an Americanism" that would be far too casual to be taken seriously in many other cultures.
-Liam
Good points.
Many people feel sincere gratitude towards Wikipedia, and its volunteer writers.
I would suggest that the fundraising messages could *also* mention that another way people can express their gratitude to Wikipedia would be to become contributors themselves.
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 1:09 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Nicely put Martijn. Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email) as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your work. You should continue to take great personal pride in the crucial role you play to make our [puzzle-]globe keep spinning each year! I also appreciate that you're in a sticky position of needing to try new things but also receiving flak when you do.
Perhaps as a practical suggestion, so we can avoid this discussion happening *again *next year, it would be worth all of us collaborating here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles
Perhaps it is worthwhile adding a section to this page which lists the more practical expectations about the fundraising banners which we have developed by consensus over the years. Things like "no animations/sounds", "no obscuring of the content", "no popups" and "no threats/warnings without genuine cause". I'd personally like to add two more things:
- "easily dismissible on mobile" (because I've unintentionally clicked the
banner with my finger many times when trying to press the impossibly-small "x" icon to dismiss the banner on my phone) and
- "Tell the OTRS team and appropriate Chapter (when applicable) when any
major change (such as adding/removing a new payment method) happens in that language/country.
These Fundraising principles, according to that Meta page, are from "...an October, 2010 letter < https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princi...
and a January, 2012 WMF resolution < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Developing_Scenarios_for_future_o...
".
The page itself was primarily edited by WMF Board of Trustees Stu and SJ.
I would argue that it is possible that several of these principles are not being followed, at least according to the recent discussions on this list. Including:
- "*Transparency*: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful
with prospective donor". Instead, the public seems to be questioning if the messages are truthful about our financial stability.
- "*Maximal Participation*: ...we should empower individuals and groups
world-wide to constructively contribute to direct messaging." Instead, rather than being ambassadors for our mission, wikimedians are feeling increasingly embarrassed when their friends/public ask about the fundraising campaign. -"*Minimal disruption*: ...causing minimal disruption and annoyance for users of the projects" Instead, a desire to finish fundraising quickly is given higher priority. Even though that is *not *one of the stated principles. -"*Internationalism*: ...our fundraising practices must support the easiest possible transfer of money internationally." Instead, we've had the recent discussions about how donating is difficult from the Netherlands and impossible from Russia [did they get a response yet, by the way?] I'd also add that "I'll keep it short" as a subject-line for the fundraising email feels to me like "an Americanism" that would be far too casual to be taken seriously in many other cultures.
-Liam
On 3 December 2014 at 10:13, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 3, 2014 3:46 AM, "Ryan Lane" rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@...> writes:
As Lila’s email said, we launched our end of year English fundraising campaign on Tuesday. I wanted to share a little more background on
the
mechanics of the English Wikipedia campaign, and where we are on our
goals
this year to-date.
Starting today, banners are being shown to 100% of anonymous readers
on
English Wikipedia in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Our
end
of year campaign goal is $20 million. As Lila mentioned, our goal is
to
serve more powerful reminders to be able to limit the total number of banners each reader sees. We are constantly experimenting with new
methods
to reach our readers and optimize the donation experience.
I know I used to write an email internally every year, saying our
banners
are getting out of control, but that's because every year they get
bigger
and more obscuring of the content. This year, as usual, is not an
exception.
However, this year the banners didn't just get bigger, the copy seems
to
be
more fear inducing as well.
Today I had a coworker private message me, worried that Wikipedia was
in
financial trouble. He asked me if the worst happened, would the content still be available so that it could be resurrected? I assured him that Wikimedia is healthy, has reserves, and successfully reaches the budget every year. Basically I said there wasn't much to worry about, because
there
isn't.
The messaging being used is actively scaring people. This isn't the
first
person that's asked me about this. When they find out there's not a
real
problem, their reaction quickly changes. They become angry. They feel manipulated.
My coworker told me that he donates generously every year, which is
rare
for
him because he doesn't often donate to charities. He said this year's
ads
are putting him off. He doesn't feel like he should donate.
I understand that efficient banner ads are good, because they reduce
the
number of times people need to see the ad, but it's not great when
people
stop posting funny banner memes and start asking Wikimedia to switch to
an
advertising model (seriously, do a quick twitter search).
- Ryan Lane
Excuse the cynicism, but maybe automating the message to go out every
year
on the first week of December will save you frustration and effort. I
know
how this will end. It'll end like last year, and the year before, etc.
etc.
Where we conclude, yes, what we did now really cross the line, we have to tone it down a bit, with thank yous to those concerned, and apologies for taking it too far. I have no doubt it's exactly the same next year. So please see the email below I'll automate for the first week of December
for
now on.
Dear fundraising team. Thank you for your efforts to make the fundraiser
as
quick as possible. I understand that effective banners allow us to keep
the
yearly donation drive as short as possible.
Yet the banners I'm seeing this year leave me troubled about the
appearance
and the message presented. For the appearance, it is the size and obnoxiousness that bothers me. They seem to be designed to annoy the
reader
as much as possible. I know they only work when people notice them but do we really *have* to (select one from list: play audio/ obscure our
content
forcing a click through / use animated content / take up the majority of the screen above the fold). It annoys our users, the people we do it all for, to no end. Take a look at Twitter, it's not just one or two people.
Secondly I'm alarmed about the content. That should come to no surprise
to
the fundraising team, because I can't imagine this content hasn't been written to evoke the maximum amount of alarm. But it crosses the line towards dishonesty. Yes the WMF can use the donations, and yes they generally spend it well. But the lights won't go off next week if You don't donate Now. The servers won't go offline.
We're
not on immediate danger. Yet that's what this year's campaign seems to
want
the message to be. But don't take my word for it, take a look at the messages accompanying the donations. People are genuinely worried. They will be angry if they find out they're being manipulated, and they would
be
right. Generally I'm proud of what we do as movement and proud of much of the way we do it. These banners make me ashamed of the movement I'm part of. And frustrated that I seem to be unable to change it in the long
run, I
think I may have send out a similar email to this one last year.
For now, two requests. # could you please stop misleading the reader in our appeal? # could you please make the banners a little less invasive? So that the don't obscure content unless dismissed, and so that they take up more
than
50% of the space above the fold.
I know you work hard for the fundraiser to be successful, and as brief as possible, but please take in consideration the dangers of damaging our reputation for openness and honesty, and the impact on our volunteers.
Kind regards,
--Martijn
I will automate this message for the first Tuesday of December, around 10:00 a.m. UTC. If others could automate their messages to not exactly coincidence with this one, that would help.
--Martijn
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On 3 December 2014 at 14:09, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email) as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your work.
I would suspect that what drives this is indeed the professionalism of the Fundraising team. I don't mean to be overly speculative, but what we are talking about here is an issue that doesn't readily translate into metrics. Creating and gathering metrics for "damage to the Wikipedia brand" would be extremely difficult and expensive. On the other hand, creating and gathering metrics for "the number/amount/... of donations received" is easy and cheap. Relatedly, "damage to the Wikipedia brand" is not something the impact of which you feel directly, while "the number/amount/... of donations received" is something that immediately translates into WMF's budget.
So I assume the Fundraising team is in a somewhat uncomfortable position here. Getting them to change the way they run the campaigns might, in this case, really not work on its own; rather, in my view, any decision on this likely has to come from the very top of the Foundation (those that Fundraising reports to), who, to some degree, have to place their gut feeling over the implications derived from the available/feasible set of hard quantitative metrics.
Cheers, Patrik
Hi all,
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust to changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation. Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased 3rd party to do some of this analysis.
No -- we are not perfect we are constantly working at improving. There are a million opinions on how this should be done, and then there is research and live data. This year we made only minimal changes to the text of the banner. Next year we are going to play with different messaging, and the team will welcome you suggestions.
Finally thank you for supporting the team. They are literally locked-up in a room and working around the clock! Lila
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:44 AM, pajz pajzmail@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 December 2014 at 14:09, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Dear WMF Fundraising team, please do not take this thread (or this email) as an attack on yourselves or the professionalism that you apply to your work.
I would suspect that what drives this is indeed the professionalism of the Fundraising team. I don't mean to be overly speculative, but what we are talking about here is an issue that doesn't readily translate into metrics. Creating and gathering metrics for "damage to the Wikipedia brand" would be extremely difficult and expensive. On the other hand, creating and gathering metrics for "the number/amount/... of donations received" is easy and cheap. Relatedly, "damage to the Wikipedia brand" is not something the impact of which you feel directly, while "the number/amount/... of donations received" is something that immediately translates into WMF's budget.
So I assume the Fundraising team is in a somewhat uncomfortable position here. Getting them to change the way they run the campaigns might, in this case, really not work on its own; rather, in my view, any decision on this likely has to come from the very top of the Foundation (those that Fundraising reports to), who, to some degree, have to place their gut feeling over the implications derived from the available/feasible set of hard quantitative metrics.
Cheers, Patrik _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust to changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation. Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased 3rd party to do some of this analysis.
I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.
Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.
- Ryan
Hi Lila,
Thanks for your response. In the past, fundraising was more of a collaborative effort - maybe it would make sense to rethink the fundraising process after this round, and see how the community can be made co-own the process, so that the work of the team becomes easier, and friction less. I think that would be a way to solve a lot of the hurdles we're encountering right now.
Best, Lodewijk
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:19 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust
to
changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation. Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased
3rd
party to do some of this analysis.
I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.
Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.
- Ryan
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It is already co-owned. It is just that people haven't bothered to try talking to the Fundraising Team.
Is it time to rename Teams to something else, something that suggests that they don't work in a cave on the Moon?
-- svetlana
On Thu, 4 Dec 2014, at 08:32, Lodewijk wrote:
Hi Lila,
Thanks for your response. In the past, fundraising was more of a collaborative effort - maybe it would make sense to rethink the fundraising process after this round, and see how the community can be made co-own the process, so that the work of the team becomes easier, and friction less. I think that would be a way to solve a lot of the hurdles we're encountering right now.
Best, Lodewijk
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:19 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust
to
changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation. Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased
3rd
party to do some of this analysis.
I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.
Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.
- Ryan
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svetlana, 03/12/2014 23:20:
It is already co-owned. It is just that people haven't bothered to try talking to the Fundraising Team.
{{citation needed}} Go look at the number of people who tried on fundraiser@, m:Talk:Fundraising* and fundraising@ (well, this one you can't; it was shut down because it was too lively).
Nemo
P.s.: Besides, "talking to" is not the problem, the problem is "talking with".
Hi,
On Thu, 4 Dec 2014, at 17:35, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
svetlana, 03/12/2014 23:20:
It is already co-owned. It is just that people haven't bothered to try talking to the Fundraising Team.
{{citation needed}} Go look at the number of people who tried on fundraiser@, m:Talk:Fundraising* and fundraising@ (well, this one you can't; it was shut down because it was too lively).
Nemo
P.s.: Besides, "talking to" is not the problem, the problem is "talking with".
I don't deny that the Team might be deaf. It does take some skill however to reach them and make a change rather than banter around how deaf they are.
-- svetlana
I would like to expose this more, maybe after this crunch. Just keep in mind that it takes time to anonymize and process -- a time that is otherwise spent on optimizing or collaborating. One bucket of resources, many demands... and I'd like to keep us as lean as we are :)
Below is a soundbite I got from many notes I get from our donors, this is not unusual about this banner:
*"...banner on wikipedia today motivated me to donate for the first time. I think the increased size properly conveyed the importance of the donations to running the site. Previous banners were a bit too polite or subtle to get me thinking."*
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and adjust
to
changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable equation. Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they also use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see is counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but they work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from the overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased
3rd
party to do some of this analysis.
I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.
Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.
- Ryan
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I have no doubt that the banners work. But in the opinion of a number of commentators here, the banners currently feature a very alarming wording – making it sound as though there is not enough money to keep Wikipedia online for another year without introducing advertising – and yet we know that the Foundation has just reported having its healthiest bank balance ever[1]. The person you quote had no way of knowing that, because the banner doesn't tell people.
It doesn't seem fair.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG....
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 10:42 PM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
I would like to expose this more, maybe after this crunch. Just keep in mind that it takes time to anonymize and process -- a time that is otherwise spent on optimizing or collaborating. One bucket of resources, many demands... and I'd like to keep us as lean as we are :)
Below is a soundbite I got from many notes I get from our donors, this is not unusual about this banner:
*"...banner on wikipedia today motivated me to donate for the first time. I think the increased size properly conveyed the importance of the donations to running the site. Previous banners were a bit too polite or subtle to get me thinking."*
On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
This type of fundraising is -- by its very nature -- obtrusive. We are thinking about other options. But, as with anything, "every action has equal and opposite reaction". Anything we do, we have to consider the consequences and we will find flaws.
Now for the specifics:
Yes -- the fundraising team works incredibly hard to optimize and
adjust
to
changes in our environment and to minimize obtrusiveness (there are multiple ways to measure this: total impressions, % conversions, size, parallelizing campaigns, etc.). It is a complex multi-variable
equation.
Fundraising uses A/B tests to do much of the optimization, but they
also
use surveys, user tests, and sentiment analysis. Some of what you see
is
counter-intuitive (even to me, and I have experience with this), but
they
work. All of this year's tests showed minimal brand impact even from
the
overlay screen. That said, going forward we are considering an unbiased
3rd
party to do some of this analysis.
I was unaware of these other metrics that fundraising collects. Can you share them with us? It would be really great to get information about the methodology used, the raw or anonymized data, and the curated data/visualizations that's being used to show there's no brand damage.
Anecdotal evidence and social media suggests the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm eager to see the evidence that shows nothing's wrong.
- Ryan
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On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 5:42 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
I would like to expose this more, maybe after this crunch. Just keep in mind that it takes time to anonymize and process -- a time that is otherwise spent on optimizing or collaborating. One bucket of resources, many demands... and I'd like to keep us as lean as we are :)
Below is a soundbite I got from many notes I get from our donors, this is not unusual about this banner:
*"...banner on wikipedia today motivated me to donate for the first time. I think the increased size properly conveyed the importance of the donations to running the site. Previous banners were a bit too polite or subtle to get me thinking."*
Lila, the concern is not that the fundraiser is working, which your soundbite confirms, but that it is deceiving people, or at least manipulating them 'too much' to be consistent with our values.
One way to test that would be to organise a survey for donors, informing them of the current financials, the current strategy document and current status on achieving that strategy, a breakdown on where the money is currently going and ask them whether they are happy with the amount and tone of the information they were given before being asked to donote. WMF donors may already being surveyed like this (ideally done by academics in the discipline rather than WMF staff/contractors); if so, hopefully that data can be shared.
In addition to the concern about the tone of the fundraiser damaging the brand, there is a strong correlation between increased WMF revenue (and the growth of chapters) and the loss of edit contributors. Has research been done to rule out causation? i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
-- John Vandenberg
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
I belong to this category (somewhat). I stopped contributing because I felt that my work is not adequately supported. I felt the need to develop some software. I have rather limited free time however, and I've been in the "not highly productive on-wiki" phase for over 3 years now.
Incidentally, one of the entities that doesn't adequately support my work is my local chapter. It had been extremely hostile toward Wikimedia movement and after learning how it works I had no motivation to continue working with Wikimedia projects. How poorly the Wikimedia Foundation itself works wasn't the biggest obstacle (I found it mildly approachable and was (and am!) a tiny bit happy with it).
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
I belong to this category (somewhat). I stopped contributing because I felt that my work is not adequately supported. I felt the need to develop some software. I have rather limited free time however, and I've been in the "not highly productive on-wiki" phase for over 3 years now.
Incidentally, one of the entities that doesn't adequately support my work is my local chapter. It had been extremely hostile toward Wikimedia movement and after learning how it works I had no motivation to continue working with Wikimedia projects. How poorly the Wikimedia Foundation itself works wasn't the biggest obstacle (I found it mildly approachable and was (and am!) a tiny bit happy with it).
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
Hi,
On Thu, 4 Dec 2014, at 12:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
I belong to this category (somewhat). I stopped contributing because I felt that my work is not adequately supported. I felt the need to develop some software. I have rather limited free time however, and I've been in the "not highly productive on-wiki" phase for over 3 years now.
Incidentally, one of the entities that doesn't adequately support my work is my local chapter. It had been extremely hostile toward Wikimedia movement and after learning how it works I had no motivation to continue working with Wikimedia projects. How poorly the Wikimedia Foundation itself works wasn't the biggest obstacle (I found it mildly approachable and was (and am!) a tiny bit happy with it).
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
-- John Vandenberg
Thanks for the suggestion, but there is not a problem with how it is funded. It organizes events which miss the point.
I would be happy to be more specific, but I will do so at a later point, not here and not now; what I was saying was only that *if* we were to do such survey, we would need to *also* ask people how happy they are with their Chapters activities and adequate support from them. The funding banner is for them all, not just WMF, after all.
-- svetlana
On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
...
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter you belong to, right?
Cheers Yaroslav
I recommend those of you who would like to come up with some test wording assuming the current word count do so and after you pick top 3-5 we can pilot with one of our next user groups.
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking
previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
...
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter you belong to, right?
Cheers Yaroslav
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I checked my inbox today to find a note from a friend asking if Wikipedia was okay. My reply was essentially "Wikipedia is fine, if you want to donate, make an edit or two."
I wonder how many Wikimedians are getting the same notes of concern. I'd be quite surprised, for example, if Wikimedia Foundation department heads weren't getting these types of notes right now. It's a bit sad. And I wonder how others reply to sincere concerns about Wikipedia's health. (Again, nobody knows what Wikimedia is, for better or worse.)
Meanwhile, also in my inbox, the author of this piece sent me a link to http://newslines.org/blog/stop-giving-wikipedia-money/, which was silly in parts, but an interesting perspective to read.
Lila Tretikov wrote:
I recommend those of you who would like to come up with some test wording assuming the current word count do so and after you pick top 3-5 we can pilot with one of our next user groups.
Eh, fair play. I've started a page here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_banners/December_2014. I'm busy today, but I'll try to brainstorm some better options. If we must have donation advertising (a necessary evil, for now, we assume), we can probably at least stop shouting at and misleading our readers/donors. :-)
MZMcBride
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 9:26 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I checked my inbox today to find a note from a friend asking if Wikipedia was okay. My reply was essentially "Wikipedia is fine, if you want to donate, make an edit or two."
I wonder how many Wikimedians are getting the same notes of concern. I'd be quite surprised, for example, if Wikimedia Foundation department heads weren't getting these types of notes right now. It's a bit sad. And I wonder how others reply to sincere concerns about Wikipedia's health. (Again, nobody knows what Wikimedia is, for better or worse.)
Meanwhile, also in my inbox, the author of this piece sent me a link to http://newslines.org/blog/stop-giving-wikipedia-money/, which was silly in parts, but an interesting perspective to read.
Lila Tretikov wrote:
I recommend those of you who would like to come up with some test wording assuming the current word count do so and after you pick top 3-5 we can pilot with one of our next user groups.
Eh, fair play. I've started a page here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_banners/December_2014. I'm busy today, but I'll try to brainstorm some better options. If we must have donation advertising (a necessary evil, for now, we assume), we can probably at least stop shouting at and misleading our readers/donors. :-)
MZMcBride
I gave it a go. It's not good, but it's a wiki, so someone go make it good :)
As a positive (non-statistically significant) datapoint, I did some asking around with people who didn't know I was a wikipedian what their general impressions on the banners were (from memory, everybody did indeed see them), and what they thought the financial health of the Foundation was like. They didn't feel that the text implied that the foundation was in financial trouble/crisis or anything like that. When I explained the financial situation of the Foundation, and the distribution of money to development, operations/keeping the lights on and programmatic work (roughly), they were fine with it, and didn't find the copy misleading. One of them told me he donated again after I told him why I was asking those questions, and that we're so concerned we're not being honest enough with our readers/donors.
A couple did however note that they've seen banners earlier this year, and started questioning the honesty of the statement that it was a once a year thing to raise sufficient funds for another year now they were seeing banners again a few months later. That possibility never really occurred to me. Turns out the Quantum Mechanical idea that you can't measure something without affecting its outcome holds for A/B testing in fundraising.
-- Martijn
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Lila, when you say, "pilot with one of our next user groups", when would this pilot happen, and whom/how many people would this pilot "user group" comprise?
Best, Andreas
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
I recommend those of you who would like to come up with some test wording assuming the current word count do so and after you pick top 3-5 we can pilot with one of our next user groups.
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking
previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
...
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter
you
belong to, right?
Cheers Yaroslav
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On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 12:48 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
...
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter you belong to, right?
I was aware that svetlana might be referring to Wikimedia Australia, but didnt know whether she had disclosed her locality (I now see she is using a .au email address..) Contrary to their webpage http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Committee (https://archive.today/5r3TH), and my enwp user page until a few seconds ago, I dont belong to that chapter.
-- John Vandenberg
Just for reference, John is correct - our website has been having technical issues lately, which sometimes results in old revisions being made visible. I can confirm that John is not on the board of WMAU: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#.5BAU.5D_Wikimedia_Austra...
Regards,
Charles Gregory / User:Chuq Wikimedia Australia
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 5:14 AM, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 12:48 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On 04.12.2014 02:30, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 7:46 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au
wrote:
John Mark Vandenberg wrote:
i.e. specifically asking previously highly productive volunteers who have stopped contributing whether they feel the increase in funds has not resulted in their work being adequately supported?
Thanks for your great wording, John.
...
Have you looked into the funding situation of your local chapter? Does it have large cash reserves and large predicable revenue flows?
John, you do realize she is most likely talking about the same chapter
you
belong to, right?
I was aware that svetlana might be referring to Wikimedia Australia, but didnt know whether she had disclosed her locality (I now see she is using a .au email address..) Contrary to their webpage http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Committee (https://archive.today/5r3TH), and my enwp user page until a few seconds ago, I dont belong to that chapter.
-- John Vandenberg
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Lila Tretikov <lila@...> writes:
I would like to expose this more, maybe after this crunch. Just keep in mind that it takes time to anonymize and process -- a time that is otherwise spent on optimizing or collaborating. One bucket of resources, many demands... and I'd like to keep us as lean as we are :)
You have a community that's upset because they believe the fundraising banners are causing long-lasting harm to Wikimedia's brand. The analytics team can probably spend a few hours handling this. They aren't allocated to the fundraiser.
If it's so labor intensive to go through this data, then it's likely not being actively used to make decisions. At minimum the methodology that's being used can be shared.
Below is a soundbite I got from many notes I get from our donors, this is not unusual about this banner:
*"...banner on wikipedia today motivated me to donate for the first time. I think the increased size properly conveyed the importance of the donations to running the site. Previous banners were a bit too polite or subtle to get me thinking."*
Here's the results of a quick twitter search:
"Every year, the Wikipedia begging banners get bigger and bigger, now it's 3/4 of the screen"
"Wikipedia's donation banners are so huge now that they actually startle me when they load."
".@Wikipedia might as well use their obtrusive donation banners as ad space. Or whenever they are running low on funds, enable ads."
"every time wikipedia asks for money the banners get bigger and bigger"
"Holy shit, @wikipedia, just have done with it and put ads up—these donation banners are awful."
"remember when wikipedia donation banners used to take up only 5% of the page"
"I WOULD donate to @Wikipedia but their donation banners are just too damn small. I can never spot the darn things!"
"I hate to say this but @Wikipedia's "Donate !" banners are very annoying. Especially when you've already donated & don't like to feel forced"
"fuck your giant ass banner ads, @wikipedia. i want my previous donations back."
"@sillyredfox Those ads are overly obtrusive. Never giving to @Wikipedia until they're toned down."
"I'd rather let Wikipedia mine bitcoin on my machine than be assaulted with their "these aren't ads" fundraiser ads."
"@codinghorror Considering Wikipedia have 90 mil in cash in the bank, the ads have an oddly desperate tone."
"Dear Wikipedia users: To protect our independence, we'll never run ads...except the huge one begging for cash you'll see on EVERY PAGE."
There's so, so many more and I only included results that were relevant to the size or copy.
There's a theme of this search, too. There's not a single positive thing being said about them. I used to see people joking about the Jimmy banners, encouraging people to donate. The only jokes I see now are at Wikipedia's expense.
- Ryan
Hi all.
I can see clear interest in everyone on this thread wanting to figure out the right way to do it. Let's not jinx it by painting WMF Fundraising as the "guys who break" and community as "the gwho rage". Both these groups are rather capable of working things out (unlike the "...who break" and "...who rage" terms indicate).
Ryan Lane wrote:
You have a community that's upset [...]
Don't even say more. "We" are the supporters of the Wikimedia movement. That includes Lila, that includes the fundraising folks, that includes you and me and many other people. I don't see a reason to isolate any of these people and blame.
I, for one, appreciate Lila for catalyzing this thread into communication with Fundraising Team. Such communication was clearly lacking (and when it is, it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault for accumulating their rage instead of communicating it early).
-- svetlana
I wrote:
it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault for accumulating their rage instead of communicating it early
I unintentionally skipped a couple words. I meant to say:
it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault, *such* *as* for accumulating their rage instead of communicating it early
svetlana <svetlana@...> writes:
I wrote:
it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault for accumulating
their rage instead of
communicating it early
I unintentionally skipped a couple words. I meant to say:
it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault, *such* *as* for
accumulating their rage instead of
communicating it early
I worked for Wikimedia Foundation for a little over four years. Every year I (and many other staff members) have expressed worry about the size and message of the banners. There's been plenty of early communication.
Every year we get promises that they'll work on making the banners better. However, it seems when they say better, they mean more effective from the perspective of generating revenue. The message from the fundraising staff and Lila is more of the same.
This year I've started having people I know worry that Wikipedia is in financial trouble. It makes me feel ashamed when I have to tell them Wikipedia is in fact fine, but that the foundation uses this messaging to more effectively drive donations. It makes them angry to hear it.
I'm not trying to paint this as us vs them. I'm trying to express that planting heads firmly in the sand is not an effective approach to dealing with the brand damage that's readily apparent on social media.
- Ryan
Ryan Lane,
The whole of your post suggests that the fundraising folks are deaf. Your last sentence doesn't make you more to the point. This makes you really unapproachable and puts the fundraising folks into harder position as they have to cry, beg pardon and spend time apologizing -- as if they had killed a kitten -- before they can approach you and ask for help.
On one side, such hostile approach is something you might feel these folks deserve for their awful mistakes. You might feel that you're being more clear about it - but clarity doesn't really have to come at the cost of shaming and not having made a single move toward changing the situation. We are all learning.
We should work out measurable, actionable steps toward solving the problem. Such steps should look pleasant, nice, encouraging, motivating, and informative. When looking at them, everyone reading the thread should smile and feel that they should've come up with these steps long ago (including all of the WMF staff and the fundraising folks), and feel motivated to expand them.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles was mentioned in this thread earlier as a collaboration space. It is probably a good one (although it lacks geometry specs or any kind of time or statistics suggestions or past analysis results). That's a wiki. It is just waiting for you to touch it and put it in better shape.
svetlana wrote:
The whole of your post suggests that the fundraising folks are deaf. Your last sentence doesn't make you more to the point. This makes you really unapproachable and puts the fundraising folks into harder position as they have to cry, beg pardon and spend time apologizing -- as if they had killed a kitten -- before they can approach you and ask for help.
On one side, such hostile approach is something you might feel these folks deserve for their awful mistakes. You might feel that you're being more clear about it - but clarity doesn't really have to come at the cost of shaming and not having made a single move toward changing the situation. We are all learning.
I think you're being unreasonable here. Ryan pointed to specific examples of problems with (i.e., negative comments about) the donation advertisements. This isn't a hostile approach, it's examining and analyzing evidence in order to reach an informed conclusion.
What you should actually be upset about is the lack of transparency regarding fundraising statistics. Ryan very politely asked for these statistics and the response was essentially "we've got higher priorities right now," which of course is complete rubbish. Of course we're keeping detailed logs of incoming donations, there's no extra burden there. And of course people are e-mailing internally and creating internal reports. But this information isn't being shared and we really must address this.
Nobody is suggesting that the fundraising team kills small furry animals and I think everyone involved in this discussion (including and perhaps especially those who are paid or were paid by donations) recognizes the thankless and stressful job that the fundraising team has. But in the face of active damage to Wikimedia's brand and reputation, after repeated and lengthy discussions about the issues with obnoxious, misleading, and obtrusive donation advertising, it's unsurprising that people are annoyed.
MZMcBride
This is a good thread -- it's important to be unified in our message, proud of it, and aware of how broadly it spreads. Every campaign both raises some funds for the project, gives supporters an opportunity to talk about Wiki*edia with their friends, and shifts public perception of who we are, what we do, and why.
Liam, you made a series of good comments about the fundraising principles; I've posted them and some related thoughts at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles
Many people mentioned that we could remind readers they can express gratitude by contributing knowledge. This message bears repeating every year - it is welcoming to the millions of one-time contributors who read it; it is encouraging to those who have never contributed; it offers an option to those who want to be supportive but have no other way to donate.
Sam
PS: The poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm, now blocked from en:wp, which has started spamming WM mailing lists (see the India list) and is squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/ . Please do not feed, and moderate as needed.
Site Admin 1924.hra@gmail.com wrote:
Please inform and educate why anonymous WMF communities are writing false, concocted and fabricated articles about our organisation
Dear Mr. Klein
"PS: The poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm, now blocked from en:wp, which has started spamming WM mailing lists (see the India list) and is squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/ . Please do not feed, and moderate as needed."
As a WMF Trustee, we suggest that you either retract your comments publicly or take consent from WMF legal counsel before making it on a publicly archived WMF mailing list.
Our movement and our members are completely transparent about our real world identities and actions, and we assure you, and this list, that we are neither "deranged" nor "squatters" nor "sock-puppets". As WMF is aware, "HRA1924" is a "role" name used by India Against Corruption, to communicate our concerns to WMF.
The subject issue is actually oversized "in your face" donations banners being thrust on EN:WP visitors - attracted by misleading and libelous WP articles / media which are incestuously promoted to no.1 on Google websearch, because Google's and WMF's affairs are so financially and other-wise inter-twined.
"HRA1924"
On 12/4/14, Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org wrote:
This is a good thread -- it's important to be unified in our message, proud of it, and aware of how broadly it spreads. Every campaign both raises some funds for the project, gives supporters an opportunity to talk about Wiki*edia with their friends, and shifts public perception of who we are, what we do, and why.
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
Some perspective from my role as a trustee: One section of our recent board meeting was spent discussing the fundraising trends that Lila refers to, and thinking about the longer-term future of fundraising on our projects. These trends include: on-site page views are dramatically down over the past two years in the US & Europe, where the majority of our revenue is raised. At the same time, there are challenges with fundraising in many of the places where readership is growing. Additionally, of course we want and need a strong financial basis for the projects over the long-term -- not only to keep the lights on but also to build better infrastructure (ranging from current contributor-supporting projects -- see the recent product survey -- to making the software easier on new editors).
And, of course, fundraising is only one small supporting piece of the overall picture -- so we discussed how shifting patterns in Wikimedia project consumption, ranging from mobile to Google knowledge graph type products, might affect our mission long-term.
Given all this context, in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves (which I personally think is wise, given current trends). We also discussed and deeply appreciate the delicate balance that fundraising has: yes, we can raise more by running more banners, but at what cost? I should note that the board didn't set new targets in this meeting. But we did express our support and thanks for the fundraising team's efforts, which have been remarkable at making sure that our projects are funded by a world-wide group of independent readers.
One side note about the evolution of fundraising in Wikimedia that I think is worth noting is that the overall length of the fundraiser has shrunk dramatically in the last 7-8 years -- from a month at 100% in 2006 to a targeted 2 weeks (or less) today. Individual readers see many fewer banner impressions now than they used to.
Personally, I think readers should worry about Wikipedia. We are a nonprofit that exists because of the labor of volunteers. Our readers who rely on our work and don't think much about how it gets on their screens should recognize that what we do isn't guaranteed in perpetuity -- it all depends on help, support and work from our global community. If that knowledge motivates people to contribute, fantastic. If contributing means donating 3$, great. And if it means becoming an editor: even better. Let's all work towards that.
-- Phoebe
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and data are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team, who have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
I think this discussion and the uproar is only in part because of the wordings used, the size of the banners (which are maybe terrible, and I get exhausted from seeing the banner all year round because I have bad luck to be in so many test groups somehow). A big chunk is about the usual: communication. Somehow we seem to be unable to set up a communication workflow where the community feels that they have been involved in the process. That they have been able to contribute ideas, thoughts, improvements.
Life is not all about A/B testing and success rates. Keeping Wikipedia up is not just about getting enough money as quickly as possible. It is much more about growing the community, and involving it - using its strengths and diversity on as many places as possible. And somehow, in the field of fundraiser and everything surrounding that there seems to be a lot to be improved.
I don't agree things can't get better. After the Wikipedia Forever drama, things did get better. Communication was improved a lot, and both chapters and individuals were actively involved. Unfortunately, it seems that it has gotten worse since. I would appreciate efforts to improve this again.And that has to be more than just asking suggestions for more A/B testing. It may cost more work in the short run, but I sincerely believe that in the long run, it is worth it: better results, more creativity and less frustration.
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:20 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
Some perspective from my role as a trustee: One section of our recent board meeting was spent discussing the fundraising trends that Lila refers to, and thinking about the longer-term future of fundraising on our projects. These trends include: on-site page views are dramatically down over the past two years in the US & Europe, where the majority of our revenue is raised. At the same time, there are challenges with fundraising in many of the places where readership is growing. Additionally, of course we want and need a strong financial basis for the projects over the long-term -- not only to keep the lights on but also to build better infrastructure (ranging from current contributor-supporting projects -- see the recent product survey -- to making the software easier on new editors).
And, of course, fundraising is only one small supporting piece of the overall picture -- so we discussed how shifting patterns in Wikimedia project consumption, ranging from mobile to Google knowledge graph type products, might affect our mission long-term.
Given all this context, in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves (which I personally think is wise, given current trends). We also discussed and deeply appreciate the delicate balance that fundraising has: yes, we can raise more by running more banners, but at what cost? I should note that the board didn't set new targets in this meeting. But we did express our support and thanks for the fundraising team's efforts, which have been remarkable at making sure that our projects are funded by a world-wide group of independent readers.
One side note about the evolution of fundraising in Wikimedia that I think is worth noting is that the overall length of the fundraiser has shrunk dramatically in the last 7-8 years -- from a month at 100% in 2006 to a targeted 2 weeks (or less) today. Individual readers see many fewer banner impressions now than they used to.
Personally, I think readers should worry about Wikipedia. We are a nonprofit that exists because of the labor of volunteers. Our readers who rely on our work and don't think much about how it gets on their screens should recognize that what we do isn't guaranteed in perpetuity -- it all depends on help, support and work from our global community. If that knowledge motivates people to contribute, fantastic. If contributing means donating 3$, great. And if it means becoming an editor: even better. Let's all work towards that.
-- Phoebe
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and data are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team,
who
have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org
wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of
those
in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where
free
speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see
Wikipedia
becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great
too:
people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site
banners.
Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however.
The
Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While
our
launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a
pop-up,
overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will
iterate
daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given
time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the
process
to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.
--
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A slight tangent: I did a quick Google search to try and refresh my memory about the Wikipedia Forever thing, and these were the results: http://imgur.com/7AU8kTp.
I think it's more than worrying that many of the results have the fundraising message as a summary.
Cheers,
Michel
On 4 December 2014 at 23:40, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
I think this discussion and the uproar is only in part because of the wordings used, the size of the banners (which are maybe terrible, and I get exhausted from seeing the banner all year round because I have bad luck to be in so many test groups somehow). A big chunk is about the usual: communication. Somehow we seem to be unable to set up a communication workflow where the community feels that they have been involved in the process. That they have been able to contribute ideas, thoughts, improvements.
Life is not all about A/B testing and success rates. Keeping Wikipedia up is not just about getting enough money as quickly as possible. It is much more about growing the community, and involving it - using its strengths and diversity on as many places as possible. And somehow, in the field of fundraiser and everything surrounding that there seems to be a lot to be improved.
I don't agree things can't get better. After the Wikipedia Forever drama, things did get better. Communication was improved a lot, and both chapters and individuals were actively involved. Unfortunately, it seems that it has gotten worse since. I would appreciate efforts to improve this again.And that has to be more than just asking suggestions for more A/B testing. It may cost more work in the short run, but I sincerely believe that in the long run, it is worth it: better results, more creativity and less frustration.
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:20 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
Some perspective from my role as a trustee: One section of our recent board meeting was spent discussing the fundraising trends that Lila refers to, and thinking about the longer-term future of fundraising on our projects. These trends include: on-site page views are dramatically down over the past two years in the US & Europe, where the majority of our revenue is raised. At the same time, there are challenges with fundraising in many of the places where readership is growing. Additionally, of course we want and need a strong financial basis for the projects over the long-term -- not only to keep the lights on but also to build better infrastructure (ranging from current contributor-supporting projects -- see the recent product survey -- to making the software easier on new editors).
And, of course, fundraising is only one small supporting piece of the overall picture -- so we discussed how shifting patterns in Wikimedia project consumption, ranging from mobile to Google knowledge graph type products, might affect our mission long-term.
Given all this context, in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves (which I personally think is wise, given current trends). We also discussed and deeply appreciate the delicate balance that fundraising has: yes, we can raise more by running more banners, but at what cost? I should note that the board didn't set new targets in this meeting. But we did express our support and thanks for the fundraising team's efforts, which have been remarkable at making sure that our projects are funded by a world-wide group of independent readers.
One side note about the evolution of fundraising in Wikimedia that I think is worth noting is that the overall length of the fundraiser has shrunk dramatically in the last 7-8 years -- from a month at 100% in 2006 to a targeted 2 weeks (or less) today. Individual readers see many fewer banner impressions now than they used to.
Personally, I think readers should worry about Wikipedia. We are a nonprofit that exists because of the labor of volunteers. Our readers who rely on our work and don't think much about how it gets on their screens should recognize that what we do isn't guaranteed in perpetuity -- it all depends on help, support and work from our global community. If that knowledge motivates people to contribute, fantastic. If contributing means donating 3$, great. And if it means becoming an editor: even better. Let's all work towards that.
-- Phoebe
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and
data
are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team,
who
have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org
wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of
those
in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where
free
speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see
Wikipedia
becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great
too:
people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however
can
make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so
we
have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site
banners.
Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high
with
readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns
however.
The
Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While
our
launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a
pop-up,
overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will
iterate
daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given
time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the
process
to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the
coming
month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising
team
for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have
helped
with the campaigns.
--
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On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 12:29 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipedia@zog.org wrote:
I think it's more than worrying that many of the results have the fundraising message as a summary.
Yep, this is very problematic. Even though the content is JavaScript-generated, Google crawls it unless it's explicitly excluded. This came to our attention this morning SF time, and we quickly deployed fixes on our end:
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/177598/ https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/177611/
This should fix the issue, but Google will need to recrawl the affected pages. We've already reached out to our contacts there to see if this can be done more quickly. Further background and analysis here:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T76743
Erik
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs. They raise money incredibly efficiently. So indeed, thank you fundraising team for your work. It's a high pressure job, which I can empathize with.
As one of the people concerned about the projects' public image, I read your words of thanks, but don't feel thanked by the content of your post, since it doesn't address the raised concerns.
Have you seen the data that suggests the public image isn't being damaged? The board members have signed NDAs, so they are allowed access to the raw data. I also have a signed NDA, so technically I should be allowed to see it as well.
Can you answer some direct questions? Do you feel the size of the banners is appropriate to the mission, given that it obscures the content significantly (and in many cases completely)? Do you feel the messaging is accurate to the financial situation of the Foundation?
Some perspective from my role as a trustee: One section of our recent board meeting was spent discussing the fundraising trends that Lila refers to, and thinking about the longer-term future of fundraising on our projects. These trends include: on-site page views are dramatically down over the past two years in the US & Europe, where the majority of our revenue is raised. At the same time, there are challenges with fundraising in many of the places where readership is growing. Additionally, of course we want and need a strong financial basis for the projects over the long-term
gmane seems to be cutting off most of your message in the followup view, which is unfortunate.
Your post mostly discusses the financial situation and the efficacy of the banners. There's no question about the efficacy of the banners. They work extremely well and there's shared data that proves it. There's question about the content and the size of the banners and there's no shared data that shows harm isn't being caused.
It's disappointing that a member of the board sees it as appropriate to scare people as a means of generating funding. The foundation meets its goals every year. As you've pointed out in this post, it does so faster than ever, even while increasing the budget every year. This shows well that the situation isn't dire.
- Ryan
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs. They raise money incredibly efficiently. So indeed, thank you fundraising team for your work. It's a high pressure job, which I can empathize with.
As one of the people concerned about the projects' public image, I read your words of thanks, but don't feel thanked by the content of your post, since it doesn't address the raised concerns.
Have you seen the data that suggests the public image isn't being damaged? The board members have signed NDAs, so they are allowed access to the raw data. I also have a signed NDA, so technically I should be allowed to see it as well.
You're asking me to prove a negative. My inability to do so has nothing to do with NDAs or the lack of them. There's no secret data that shows that "well, the banners make people hate Wikipedia but they have a good donation rate." And if there was, why in the world would anyone who cares about the projects make that choice? We are all on the same side here regarding wanting to preserve the love that people have for our projects.
So no, I don't have data for you about the no doubt diverse set of reactions that exist in the world to the banners. (Beyond anecdotal info that we all have access to: twitter, this mailing list, etc.) What I do have is information about whether the banners are compelling enough to donate -- that's where the a/b testing etc. comes in -- and that is info that Megan et al shares with everyone.
Can you answer some direct questions? Do you feel the size of the banners is appropriate to the mission, given that it obscures the content significantly (and in many cases completely)? Do you feel the messaging is accurate to the financial situation of the Foundation?
Personally speaking: I happen to like this year's banners, more than last year's. The boxes and disclaimers are clearer, the text is to the point. And yes, I think the messaging is accurate. This is the text I'm seeing in the U.S. at the moment:
"This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. Yep, that’s about the price of buying a programmer a coffee. We’re a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to think and learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year.Thank you."
And all of that is certainly true. We do have the costs of a top website, we are a small nonprofit (bigger than many, but smaller than most brand-name NGOs), and we do survive on donations averaging $15 (something like 85% of our revenue comes from these donations, IIRC). Additionally, I think we're all in agreement that we never will and should never run ads.
I am not just saying this because I am a trustee -- I've seen every fundraising campaign that the WMF has ever run, and participated in discussions about most of them, and I genuinely do like this year's. Yes, the banners are in your face, and I'm OK with that, given that it's a quick campaign and as always one click makes them go away (forever, I think). Obviously, opinions on the banner aesthetics can and will vary. But discussions on how much money we should raise (which, of course, is not an either/or choice) -- that's a different conversation.
-- Phoebe
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:49 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Personally speaking: I happen to like this year's banners, more than last year's. The boxes and disclaimers are clearer, the text is to the point. And yes, I think the messaging is accurate. This is the text I'm seeing in the U.S. at the moment:
"This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. Yep, that’s about the price of buying a programmer a coffee. We’re a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to think and learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year.Thank you."
For me, the problem is with the combined impact of the phrase "ask our readers to help us", the word "survive" and the words "keep it online and ad-free for another year".
You already have money to "keep it online and ad-free another year" – not just for another year, but at least another five years. About $50 million in cash and investments, according to the latest financial statement. More than the Foundation has ever had: about $12 million more than this time last year, and $50 million more than in 2009, just five years ago.[1]
Keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free is a small part of your budget today. Funding for the continuation of that basic service is in no way in jeopardy. You are above all collecting money to pay for the recent aggressive expansion of software engineering staff.
(Also, while I am writing to you, will we ever see the results of the 2012 editor survey, especially the gender split? I and others have made numerous inquiries about this over the past four months, on Meta[2] and on Tilman's various user pages, and the response from the Foundation has been absolute silence.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#L...
On 12/5/14, 1:07 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
For me, the problem is with the combined impact of the phrase "ask our readers to help us", the word "survive" and the words "keep it online and ad-free for another year".
Yes, I've found myself in awkward discussions caused by this as well. One person I chatted to earlier this evening set up a recurring donation because he believed that these popover messages were an emergency "call to arms", so to speak. He understood the situation to be that: Wikipedia runs on a shoestring budget, and although it's managed in the past, it is teetering on the edge of being unable to pay for servers/bandwidth/sysadmin resources, to the extent where it may be at risk of having to sell ad-banner space to keep the lights on. He was not very happy when I let him know that the situation was not within several orders of magnitude of being quite so dire...
-Mark
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
You're asking me to prove a negative. My inability to do so has nothing to do with NDAs or the lack of them. There's no secret data that shows that "well, the banners make people hate Wikipedia but they have a good donation rate." And if there was, why in the world would anyone who cares about the projects make that choice? We are all on the same side here regarding wanting to preserve the love that people have for our projects.
So no, I don't have data for you about the no doubt diverse set of reactions that exist in the world to the banners. (Beyond anecdotal info that we all have access to: twitter, this mailing list, etc.) What I do have is information about whether the banners are compelling enough to donate -- that's where the a/b testing etc. comes in -- and that is info that Megan et al shares with everyone.
I'm not asking you to prove a negative. Lila wrote in a previous post that they have data that shows the banners are not causing brand damage. I'm asking if you've seen that data. I trust you if you say you've been given the data and can say it does indeed prove there's no brand damage. Based on your reaction I know the answer to my question. Can you please get access to the data in question and give us your take on it?
I also asked for the foundation to share the methodology they used to obtain and analyze this data. There's nothing private about this and no reason it shouldn't be possible to share it now. It would be excellent to have this, because we'd know if their methodology is appropriate.
Of course, I'm still eager to see the anonymized data, but based on Lila's post it looks like we won't get a chance until after the fundraiser.
The data from social media isn't anecdotal. It's public and is overwhelmingly negative towards the banners. It shows there's a negative reaction to both the message and size of the banners. Something I don't understand is why this isn't at least being acknowledged as being a problem.
Personally speaking: I happen to like this year's banners, more than last year's. The boxes and disclaimers are clearer, the text is to the point. And yes, I think the messaging is accurate. This is the text I'm seeing in the U.S. at the moment:
"This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. Yep, that’s about the price of buying a programmer a coffee. We’re a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to think and learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year.Thank you."
And all of that is certainly true. We do have the costs of a top website, we are a small nonprofit (bigger than many, but smaller than most brand-name NGOs), and we do survive on donations averaging $15 (something like 85% of our revenue comes from these donations, IIRC). Additionally, I think we're all in agreement that we never will and should never run ads.
I am not just saying this because I am a trustee -- I've seen every fundraising campaign that the WMF has ever run, and participated in discussions about most of them, and I genuinely do like this year's. Yes, the banners are in your face, and I'm OK with that, given that it's a quick campaign and as always one click makes them go away (forever, I think). Obviously, opinions on the banner aesthetics can and will vary. But discussions on how much money we should raise (which, of course, is not an either/or choice) -- that's a different conversation.
Thank you.
- Ryan
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
You're asking me to prove a negative. My inability to do so has nothing to do with NDAs or the lack of them. There's no secret data that shows that "well, the banners make people hate Wikipedia but they have a good donation rate." And if there was, why in the world would anyone who cares about the projects make that choice? We are all on the same side here regarding wanting to preserve the love that people have for our projects.
So no, I don't have data for you about the no doubt diverse set of reactions that exist in the world to the banners. (Beyond anecdotal info that we all have access to: twitter, this mailing list, etc.) What I do have is information about whether the banners are compelling enough to donate -- that's where the a/b testing etc. comes in -- and that is info that Megan et al shares with everyone.
I'm not asking you to prove a negative. Lila wrote in a previous post that they have data that shows the banners are not causing brand damage. I'm asking if you've seen that data.
Hello! Sorry, I didn't realize that's what you were referring to. I haven't looked at all the raw fundraising data, no, and I haven't looked at that set that Lila refers to. (The reports we get are summaries, which is much preferable when you've got a lot of information to get through about all sorts of topics).
I *do* however trust our fundraising team's analysis, and I don't think they need my mediocre user testing skills and even more mediocre statistical skills to help them sort it out. I agree with you however that it would be great if the anonymized data/test methods can be made public; I think we would all learn a lot, and the group might be able help refine the tests.
The data from social media isn't anecdotal. It's public and is overwhelmingly negative towards the banners. It shows there's a negative reaction to both the message and size of the banners. Something I don't understand is why this isn't at least being acknowledged as being a problem.
It's anecdotal in the sense that without some statistical analysis it's sort of a case of whatever catches your eye standing out. Your statement surprised me, so I just read through around 1,500 #wikipedia tweets from the last six hours; the vast majority are the canned fundraiser tweet, with a handful of others (stuff about articles) and three, that I saw, that are negative about the fundraising banners. Is that a significant number? Is it a pattern? Is it more meaningful than all those other people donating? Is the absence of positive feedback significant? (though I doubt we've ever gotten "I <3 the Wikipedia banners" as a tweet). I have some instincts around these questions, but I honestly don't know the answers, and I would love to see some proper analysis. I am, as always, a big fan of research :)
best, Phoebe
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
Hello! Sorry, I didn't realize that's what you were referring to. I haven't looked at all the raw fundraising data, no, and I haven't looked at that set that Lila refers to. (The reports we get are summaries, which is much preferable when you've got a lot of information to get through about all sorts of topics).
I *do* however trust our fundraising team's analysis, and I don't think they need my mediocre user testing skills and even more mediocre statistical skills to help them sort it out. I agree with you however that it would be great if the anonymized data/test methods can be made public; I think we would all learn a lot, and the group might be able help refine the tests.
Though I trust their analysis, based on the strong negative reaction that I'm getting from people in person and from social media, I think it's important to verify the data and especially the methodology.
It's anecdotal in the sense that without some statistical analysis it's sort of a case of whatever catches your eye standing out. Your statement surprised me, so I just read through around 1,500 #wikipedia tweets from the last six hours; the vast majority are the canned fundraiser tweet, with a handful of others (stuff about articles) and three, that I saw, that are negative about the fundraising banners. Is that a significant number? Is it a pattern? Is it more meaningful than all those other people donating? Is the absence of positive feedback significant? (though I doubt we've ever gotten "I <3 the Wikipedia banners" as a tweet). I have some instincts around these questions, but I honestly don't know the answers, and I would love to see some proper analysis. I am, as always, a big fan of research :)
Do a twitter search for 'wikipedia banners' or better 'wikipedia ads'. Using a hashtag is going to skew your data towards autogenerated tweets. Using 'wikipedia banners' is also slightly skewed, because it selects a group of people that know what we call them. Most people think of our banners as ads, because whether we consider them ads or not, it's the most common term for them, and it's the word people will associate.
The tweets I selected were from a short period of time (less than 6 hours). The vast majority (>90%) of the tweets were negative about the banners. I excluded any tweets that didn't mention the size or the message.
I'm not asking for the Foundation to stop the banners. I'm not trying to make the fundraising team's life harder. What I want is acknowledgement that there is indeed a problem and that it will be addressed for next fundraiser. I do want more than a promise of that, though. I'd like to see progress on more reasonable banners during the next year before the 100% fundraiser starts, so that we're not having the same discussion yet again.
- Ryan
On 5 December 2014 at 17:35, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not asking for the Foundation to stop the banners. I'm not trying to make the fundraising team's life harder. What I want is acknowledgement that there is indeed a problem and that it will be addressed for next fundraiser. I do want more than a promise of that, though. I'd like to see progress on more reasonable banners during the next year before the 100% fundraiser starts, so that we're not having the same discussion yet again.
Just used a not-logged-in browser for once. Literally the whole page was the ad. It was startlingly obnoxious. I'm sure you can get startling click-through rates with an ad that appears to completely replace the thing you actually went to the page for.
- d.
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season== * develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too] * if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you communicate it to the stakeholders * fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week] * Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content== * don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.] * don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.] * message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect] * comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year] * comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls who get a/b tested * as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size== * pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus] * sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this point] * banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there] * mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image== * current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above content points * harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this] * messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def. worth exploring] * user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?] * what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners? [note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data== * we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians * especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data * social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than past??/how much is there/should we worry about it? * how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
-------
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 7:11 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
- Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content==
- don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
- don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.]
- message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
- comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
- comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
who get a/b tested
- as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size==
- pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
- sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this point]
- banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
- mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image==
- current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
content points
- harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
- messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
worth exploring]
- user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?]
- what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
[note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
Hi Phoebe,
Thanks for re-reading the whole thread, that must have been "fun", and for summarizing the points. From my perspective, you caught pretty much everything. The one thing I still have to add is the subject line of the Jimmy email. That came across as incredibly spammy and misleading to me (Why the hell is Jimmy mailing me telling me he'll keep it short? Oh, it's just a fundraiser email). The subject of the email is not Jimmy keeping it short, but a request to donate. That should be clearer in the subject line. And the sender should IMO be the Wikimedia Fundraising team or the WMF, not Jimmy.
To others I imagine it reads like those spam emails with "Have you seen this article?" in the subject line with spoofed email addresses.
Thank you for keeping working on this, and not getting pulled into emotion.
Cheers,
--Martijn
_______________________________________________
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On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
To others I imagine it reads like those spam emails with "Have you seen this article?" in the subject line with spoofed email addresses.
Thank you for keeping working on this, and not getting pulled into emotion.
Cheers,
--Martijn
+1 I have literally had at least dozens of spam e-mails show up with the subject "I'll keep this short..."
Just seen online:
http://emptylighthouse.com/wikipedia-asks-users-help-keep-it-ad-free-fundrai...
---o0o---
If you've visited *Wikipedia.org* any time today you will have met up with a *plea from the website. In order for the company to stay ad-free they have appealed to their users for donations*.
---o0o---
Note "in order for the company to stay ad-free" ... you can't really blame them for understanding it that way, given what the banner says. And it's also what sparks the responses from readers on Twitter to the effect that ads (which I'd assume few people here want) would be the lesser evil.
Andreas
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 7:16 PM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 7:11 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
- Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content==
- don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
- don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.]
- message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
- comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
- comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
who get a/b tested
- as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size==
- pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
- sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this
point]
- banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
- mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image==
- current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
content points
- harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
- messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
worth exploring]
- user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?]
- what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
[note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
Hi Phoebe,
Thanks for re-reading the whole thread, that must have been "fun", and for summarizing the points. From my perspective, you caught pretty much everything. The one thing I still have to add is the subject line of the Jimmy email. That came across as incredibly spammy and misleading to me (Why the hell is Jimmy mailing me telling me he'll keep it short? Oh, it's just a fundraiser email). The subject of the email is not Jimmy keeping it short, but a request to donate. That should be clearer in the subject line. And the sender should IMO be the Wikimedia Fundraising team or the WMF, not Jimmy.
To others I imagine it reads like those spam emails with "Have you seen this article?" in the subject line with spoofed email addresses.
Thank you for keeping working on this, and not getting pulled into emotion.
Cheers,
--Martijn
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Thanks for this, Phoebe. It's a good summary.
(And if you could be so kind as to nudge Tilman about the 2012 editor survey data - it's been over two years - and let the Gendergap list know what the gender split was in that survey, it would be much appreciated.)
Andreas
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 6:11 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
- Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content==
- don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
- don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.]
- message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
- comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
- comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
who get a/b tested
- as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size==
- pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
- sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this point]
- banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
- mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image==
- current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
content points
- harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
- messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
worth exploring]
- user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?]
- what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
[note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
This is great. Thank you!
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
Also that when concerns arise, the response is defensive, rather than acknowledging that there may be some problem. This would go a long way towards making the threads friendlier.
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
I think it's worthwhile information that we should be tracking year to year. If the amount of negative messaging is increasing, it's bad, if it's decreasing, it's good, for the most part.
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
There was research put in by the fundraising team that showed people donated within a certain number of banners and that the numbers quickly decreased. I think this decreased the number of banners people saw by a very large amount, and was really awesome work :).
Thanks again for listening, acknowledging and summarizing!
- Ryan
Phoebe - that's a great summary.
those unlucky souls who get a/b tested
There's a tradeoff here with not storing any cookies.
[Also, a couple people online say they still see a banner after donating]
current messages are seen as harming image we want all the data, because...
Also: We all need to understand the reason behind our campaigns, since we are all asked about it -- and asked to defend it -- by those who know us. (data helps)
Ryan Lane writes:
when concerns arise, the response is defensive, rather than acknowledging
that there may be some problem. This would go a long way towards making
the threads friendlier.
A fair point. Applicable to all conversations, not just fundraising ones.
Sam
It could be worse. Internet archive is running their banners at moment. Quote:
"Internet Archive is a non-profit. We don’t run ads, but still need to pay for servers and staff. If everyone reading this gave $75, we could end our fundraiser right now. For the cost of buying a book, you can make a book permanently available for the next generation. It’s is a small amount to inform millions. Help us do more. Thank you."
Sorry, $75? :)
They also give a shoutout to WMF for making the fundraising banner open source. Thanks for nothing WMF for making this intrusive begging the future of online fundraising. ;)
Russavia
On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:11 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
- Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content==
- don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
- don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.]
- message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
- comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
- comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
who get a/b tested
- as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size==
- pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
- sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this point]
- banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
- mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image==
- current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
content points
- harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
- messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
worth exploring]
- user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?]
- what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
[note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, I am really pleased that we have continuously enough money to do what needs to be done. I am really pleased that the Dutch can deduct their gifts from the tax man. As far as I know (from the moment this was arranged), it is possible to have a European status for the WMF as well. Now that is an annoyance that this is not realised.
I wholeheartedly want the WMF to spend more money in order to achieve more. We do not realise our vision. We are not yet sharing in the sum of all knowledge. We can share the knowledge that is available to us and THAT is something we can realise more of this year.
Whining about effective fundraising is just that.. Please help us with approaches that bring in the additional money to do even more in stead. Thanks, GerardM
On 6 December 2014 at 10:50, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
It could be worse. Internet archive is running their banners at moment. Quote:
"Internet Archive is a non-profit. We don’t run ads, but still need to pay for servers and staff. If everyone reading this gave $75, we could end our fundraiser right now. For the cost of buying a book, you can make a book permanently available for the next generation. It’s is a small amount to inform millions. Help us do more. Thank you."
Sorry, $75? :)
They also give a shoutout to WMF for making the fundraising banner open source. Thanks for nothing WMF for making this intrusive begging the future of online fundraising. ;)
Russavia
On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 2:11 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
I just re-read this whole thread (!) this morning and here are the themes of points raised that I'm seeing ... I'll add this to the talk of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles too.
Anything else I missed? My editorializing is in brackets [ ].
==communication re: fundraising season==
- develop banner approaches in the off-season [the fundraising team
already does this, but there's desire for community discussion too]
- if you do something new (in a geography etc.) make sure you
communicate it to the stakeholders
- fundraising team seen as sometimes unresponsive [though acknowledged
that this, the en.wp fundraiser, is their biggest crunch week]
- Also many thanks for the acknowledged very efficient, remarkable job
at fundraising to the team; "The fundraising team is amazing at their jobs"
==message content==
- don't mislead about ads: potential implication that if we don't get
the money we'll run ads is not ok [agreed.]
- don't mislead about WMF finances: potential implication that we'll
go off the air immediately if you don't donate is not ok [note, I'm not seeing this in the current message, but I may not be seeing it because every fundraising appeal I've ever gotten is crouched in crisis terms.]
- message sounds like an obituary/doesn't sound like an obituary/is
clear/is too American [the latter is a problem esp. with English Wikipedia messaging, I suspect]
- comments about emails, too [note, previous donors get 1 email a year]
- comment that 1/fundraiser a year is not true for those unlucky souls
who get a/b tested
- as contributors, we want to be proud of Wikimedia, and not
demotivated by the banners. some find the fundraising demotivating because of above points.
==banner size==
- pop-ups are no good [pretty clear consensus]
- sticky banners no good [I'm not sure if there's consensus on this
point]
- banners that obscure content are no good [note, though we agree on
the principle, I am personally skeptical about the claim of this banner interfering with our mission; the content is still right there]
- mobile banners too big, x to dismiss too small
==brand image==
- current messages are seen as harming brand image because of above
content points
- harming brand image is not ok [I think we're all agreed on this]
- messages should encourage people to contribute content as well [def.
worth exploring]
- user sentiment analysis is important [possible action point: maybe
user sentiment re: brand should be more highly weighted in the banner tests?]
- what would happen if donors were shown financials alongside banners?
[note this seems very impractical to me. The majority of donors do not have experience with big nonprofit finances or a scope of comparison. Yes, I look at the 990s of charities I give to, but I suspect I'm unusual in that way].
==data==
- we want all the data, because we are Wikipedians
- especially .. user sentiment methodology & raw data
- social media reaction: it seems very negative/more negative than
past??/how much is there/should we worry about it?
- how many impressions do people see? Is it really less? [note, we've
been trying to optimize for fewer impressions for a long while, hence the shorter fundraiser]
Other questions for me: Nemo asks about minutes. I suspect they'll be out in a couple of weeks, and then there will be a week of delay or so as the board approves them. All delays are on the trustee end, not on the secretary's end. Note though that I already summarized probably the most exciting discussion.
Andreas asks about the editor survey report. I looked through my papers the last time you asked, and I don't think I have it. I'd send it to you if I did.
best, Phoebe
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On 6 December 2014 at 20:47, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Whining about effective fundraising is just that.. Please help us with approaches that bring in the additional money to do even more in stead. Thanks, GerardM
Oh, I don't know, maybe have smaller ads which don't cover up whole screens or over half (like in my case). We have seemed to do alright with smaller [screen wise] ads in previous years, which we could more efftively target rather then pushing people away.
Phoebe, you said, "... in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves (which I personally think is wise, given current trends)."
Phoebe and Samuel, I would be very concerned if your foundation created an endowment fund to ensure its survival in perpetuity. If your foundation were to disappear tomorrow, there would be a moment of chaos, followed by business as usual, with hosting supplied by another (possibly pre-existing), hopefully competent non-profit with a mission to educate.
I'm very optimistic that Lila is turning things around, but all we have to go on at the moment is the past performance of your foundation. Your failure of a foundation that has added nothing to the reliability and value of the world's encyclopedia, while sucking up hundreds of millions of readers' dollars does not deserve immortality, based on its performance up to now. Consider an endowment fund when you have a track record that justifies one.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 9:58 PM, K. Peachey p858snake@gmail.com wrote:
On 6 December 2014 at 20:47, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Whining about effective fundraising is just that.. Please help us with approaches that bring in the additional money to do even more in stead. Thanks, GerardM
Oh, I don't know, maybe have smaller ads which don't cover up whole screens or over half (like in my case). We have seemed to do alright with smaller [screen wise] ads in previous years, which we could more efftively target rather then pushing people away. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi all.
Not doing propaganda is in the core of Wikimedia mission. I am not hurt by how big the banner is. I am hurt by its bias, bias of two types — lack of neutrality, and bias by lack of detail. I believe that the WMF should make the banner more informative and more neutral (including explanations how people may get involved with Chapters, IEG grants, and structured feedback Lila and others recently started asking what people need).
Dear Ms. Ayers
Thanks for informing you are also a WMF trustee like "Sam" and you concede that.these controversial banners are "in your face".
Sam's last email had this remark concerning the poster below:-
"PS: The poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm, now blocked from en:wp, which has started spamming WM mailing lists (see the India list) and is squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/ . Please do not feed, and moderate as needed."
Some direct questions to you as a WMF Trustee:
a} if this is Trustee Sam's personal knowledge that "the poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm", or is it part of some official / transparent record of WMF which we can object to formally ?
b) How Trustee Sam knows that the poster is "squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/" ? Is this also part of some official WMF record ?
c) Do you deny the following official record of WMF concerning highly offensive remarks, including sexually charged remarks, psychiatric remarks, ways to fudge the accounts etc. ?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2011-05-26
extracts:
[10:10am] <Thehelpfulone>: indeed, mindspillage what do you do? [10:10am] <sgardner>: (Pinning her up against the wall, as Ironholds likes :-) [10:10am] <mindspillage>: ... [10:10am] <Ironholds>: ... [10:10am] <sgardner>: LOL :-) [10:10am] <Ironholds>: NOT what I meant [10:10am] <StevenW>: She spills her mind, obviously. ;) [10:11am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: you know the WMF covering psychiatric insurance? [10:11am] <Ironholds>: does it just cover YOURS, or are you going to pay for the trauma I've just suffered? :p [10:11am] <sgardner>: Most definitely :-) .. [10:13am] <mindspillage>: And what can we do to help guide the communities into making good choices and ensuring that success? [10:13am] <tommorris>: a few well-placed indef blocks... [10:13am] <StevenW>: Is movement roles sort of like that mindspillage? The strategic planning I mean. [10:13am] <mindspillage>: sgardner: I think the board could use psychiatric benefits... :-P .. [10:15am] <sgardner>: So for example, one of the issues the board grapples with is (and is currently grappling with) is how much emphasis the Wikimedia Foundation should put on growing its operational reserve fund. [10:15am] <StevenW>: Can you translate operational reserve fund to human speak Sue? ;) 10:16am] <Courcelles>: Thinks that would be "rainy day fund" [10:16am] <Nihiltres>: StevenW: the phrase "rainy day" comes to mind [10:16am] <StevenW>: Yes. [10:16am] <Nihiltres>: ah, damnit, Courcelles :P .. [10:18am] <GerardM->: the question is also what the effect of money spend now will be for advancing our goals 10:18am] <Prodego>: Nihiltres: sure, but the budget has gone up far faster than the site has grown .. [10:22am] <tommorris>: Prodego: I'm leaning towards a few million for a group of elite mercenaries to go around punishing vandals. .. [10:25am] <Fluffernutter>: tommorris: and so I was going to say that Ironholds is -- oops :P .. [10:29am] <quanticle>: Hardware is cheap; people are expensive, etc. .. [10:30am] <sgardner>: Just depends which way you want to slice the numbers. [10:30am] <SarekOfVulcan>: Ah, like it better sliced that way, Sue. :-) [10:30am] <sgardner>: :-)
On 12/4/14, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
I am not just saying this because I am a trustee -- I've seen every fundraising campaign that the WMF has ever run, and participated in discussions about most of them, and I genuinely do like this year's. Yes, the banners are in your face, and I'm OK with that, given that it's a quick campaign and as always one click makes them go away (forever, I think). Obviously, opinions on the banner aesthetics can and will vary. But discussions on how much money we should raise (which, of course, is not an either/or choice) -- that's a different conversation.
-- Phoebe
Mr. Admin,
I fully support both transparency and free speech, and would never suggest that you should be denied the right to ask the questions you're asking. I can, however, object to your use of the mailing list I administer (as a volunteer, in anticipation of your likely response) to ask those questions in such an aggressive and disruptive way.
I have placed you on moderation for as long as you continue this type of behavior. If you'd like an unmoderated soapbox, I know for a fact that Google can point you to several sites which would be more than happy to provide one.
Austin
On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 11:40 AM, Site Admin 1924.hra@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Ms. Ayers
Thanks for informing you are also a WMF trustee like "Sam" and you concede that.these controversial banners are "in your face".
Sam's last email had this remark concerning the poster below:-
"PS: The poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm, now blocked from en:wp, which has started spamming WM mailing lists (see the India list) and is squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/ . Please do not feed, and moderate as needed."
Some direct questions to you as a WMF Trustee:
a} if this is Trustee Sam's personal knowledge that "the poster below is part of a deranged sockfarm", or is it part of some official / transparent record of WMF which we can object to formally ?
b) How Trustee Sam knows that the poster is "squatting the site http://www.wikimedia.xyz/" ? Is this also part of some official WMF record ?
c) Do you deny the following official record of WMF concerning highly offensive remarks, including sexually charged remarks, psychiatric remarks, ways to fudge the accounts etc. ?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2011-05-26
extracts:
[10:10am] <Thehelpfulone>: indeed, mindspillage what do you do? [10:10am] <sgardner>: (Pinning her up against the wall, as Ironholds likes :-) [10:10am] <mindspillage>: ... [10:10am] <Ironholds>: ... [10:10am] <sgardner>: LOL :-) [10:10am] <Ironholds>: NOT what I meant [10:10am] <StevenW>: She spills her mind, obviously. ;) [10:11am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: you know the WMF covering psychiatric insurance? [10:11am] <Ironholds>: does it just cover YOURS, or are you going to pay for the trauma I've just suffered? :p [10:11am] <sgardner>: Most definitely :-) .. [10:13am] <mindspillage>: And what can we do to help guide the communities into making good choices and ensuring that success? [10:13am] <tommorris>: a few well-placed indef blocks... [10:13am] <StevenW>: Is movement roles sort of like that mindspillage? The strategic planning I mean. [10:13am] <mindspillage>: sgardner: I think the board could use psychiatric benefits... :-P .. [10:15am] <sgardner>: So for example, one of the issues the board grapples with is (and is currently grappling with) is how much emphasis the Wikimedia Foundation should put on growing its operational reserve fund. [10:15am] <StevenW>: Can you translate operational reserve fund to human speak Sue? ;) 10:16am] <Courcelles>: Thinks that would be "rainy day fund" [10:16am] <Nihiltres>: StevenW: the phrase "rainy day" comes to mind [10:16am] <StevenW>: Yes. [10:16am] <Nihiltres>: ah, damnit, Courcelles :P .. [10:18am] <GerardM->: the question is also what the effect of money spend now will be for advancing our goals 10:18am] <Prodego>: Nihiltres: sure, but the budget has gone up far faster than the site has grown .. [10:22am] <tommorris>: Prodego: I'm leaning towards a few million for a group of elite mercenaries to go around punishing vandals. .. [10:25am] <Fluffernutter>: tommorris: and so I was going to say that Ironholds is -- oops :P .. [10:29am] <quanticle>: Hardware is cheap; people are expensive, etc. .. [10:30am] <sgardner>: Just depends which way you want to slice the numbers. [10:30am] <SarekOfVulcan>: Ah, like it better sliced that way, Sue. :-) [10:30am] <sgardner>: :-)
On 12/4/14, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes:
With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
I am not just saying this because I am a trustee -- I've seen every fundraising campaign that the WMF has ever run, and participated in discussions about most of them, and I genuinely do like this year's. Yes, the banners are in your face, and I'm OK with that, given that it's a quick campaign and as always one click makes them go away (forever, I think). Obviously, opinions on the banner aesthetics can and will vary. But discussions on how much money we should raise (which, of course, is not an either/or choice) -- that's a different conversation.
-- Phoebe
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phoebe ayers, 04/12/2014 23:20:
Given all this context, in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves
There is so much to say about this "let's milk the cow before it's too old" approach that it's definitely out of scope for this thread. When are minutes going to be published, so that an informed discussion can happen?
Individual readers see many fewer banner impressions now than they used to.
Do you have data? If yes please share, because fundraising team doesn't seem to have it: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012/Report
phoebe ayers, 05/12/2014 00:49:
Yes, the banners are in your face, and I'm OK with that, given that it's a quick campaign and as always one click makes them go away (forever, I think).
One week, actually. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/177278/
Nemo
On 2 December 2014 at 06:53, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
And how exactly would you describe this then?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oversized_donation_notice.png
On 2 December 2014 at 20:27, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 2 December 2014 at 06:53, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
And how exactly would you describe this then?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oversized_donation_notice.png
Pop-ups are generally considered to obscure content and prevent the user/reader from proceeding until some sort of action is taken. I don't know about you, but for me none of the content was obscured (it was just pushed down further on the page, but it was all readable), and I did not need to do anything to see the content or use other functions like edit or search.
So no, I don't think this is a pop-up. It's big, and I still think the message could be improved in a way that doesn't sound as though the funds go to feeding the caffeine addictions of WMF staffers, but this is a lot better than the version we saw just under a week ago.
Risker/Anne
* geni wrote:
On 2 December 2014 at 06:53, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
And how exactly would you describe this then?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oversized_donation_notice.png
I got something like that on my mobile phone yesterday, only it didn't cover 80% of the screen but over 400% of it (over four full screens), and unlike your example, it was not possible to scroll past it (it's a "pop-over" that has to be dismissed by scrolling back to the top and hitting the difficult-to-hit "x").
I also note that the german "banners" claim 20€ average donations while the screenshot above claims 10 GBP (which is currently around 12.50€). Never minding that only a small part of the donations is used as claimed in these "banners" (keeping Wikipedia "online and ad-free" for a year).
Is the Foundation also still running "banners" that spoof web browser security messages?
Just as an aside - tweets about the fundraiser don't appear to be the best source for informed commentary:
https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=wikipedia%20donations&src=ty...
Examples: "Wikipedia is begging for $3 donations? That screams 'Hey, we're in a little trouble over here'." "Silly Wikipedia. A service is no longer free once donations are needed to keep it free."
Perhaps it would be a good idea to reply to some of the comments via official accounts?
Regards,
Charles (User:Chuq)
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 9:21 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down."
https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481
Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*.
What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour.
- d.
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