Really. Who thought it was a good idea to MAKE THE BANNER FOLLOW YOU DOWN THE PAGE?
There must be an identifiable person who actually said "yes, this is a good decision, I shall make this decision."
- d.
Oh, apparently this happens *after* you've dismissed it - it COMES BACK.
The lucky victim is now asking how to add the fundraiser banner to AdBlock Plus.
Well done, guys.
(I posted this on my FB and I'm getting "HELL YES WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING THIS YEAR" comments from friends. But of course, that's anecdotal and doesn't show up in metrics.)
On 31 December 2014 at 16:33, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Really. Who thought it was a good idea to MAKE THE BANNER FOLLOW YOU DOWN THE PAGE?
There must be an identifiable person who actually said "yes, this is a good decision, I shall make this decision."
- d.
On 31 December 2014 at 11:33, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Really. Who thought it was a good idea to MAKE THE BANNER FOLLOW YOU DOWN THE PAGE?
There must be an identifiable person who actually said "yes, this is a good decision, I shall make this decision."
- d.
It's not doing that for me (Canada, using an old IE browser). However, it IS ignoring my previously set "don't show me this again" cookie.
Risker/Anne
On 31 December 2014 at 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
It's not doing that for me (Canada, using an old IE browser). However, it IS ignoring my previously set "don't show me this again" cookie.
I just tested in Opera as well. First I got the HUGE OBNOXIOUS BANNER. I dismissed this and went to another page ... and it popped up with ANOTHER BANNER!
So, the current code is ignoring people dismissing the banner. Someone has decided this is a good thing to do.
Really - some person has *knowingly* coded this, considering this ethical behaviour to put into code and release into the wild. Who was this person? Who signed off on this decision? What is the process by which this decision was made?
- d.
On 31 December 2014 at 17:18, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 14-12-31 11:45 AM, David Gerard wrote:
Really - some person has*knowingly* coded this, considering this ethical behaviour to put into code and release into the wild.
How have you determined that this is not simply a bug or coding error, exactly?
It is true that I'm assuming bad faith here entirely on the basis of the previous bad-faith behaviour.
- d.
On 14-12-31 12:20 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 31 December 2014 at 17:18, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
How have you determined that this is not simply a bug or coding error, exactly?
It is true that I'm assuming bad faith here entirely on the basis of the previous bad-faith behaviour.
Then - setting aside the propriety of your characterization of the fundraising team's past efforts - the correct thing to do would be to report the obnoxious returning banner as a bug (including enough information to help figure out its source) and at least wait for some indication that it may not have been one before casting aspersions on real peoples' ethics. Treating others like mustache-twirling villains rarely ends up being productive.
Assuming that it *is* a bug, getting it tracked down and fixed as quickly as possible so that it affects fewer people is the important thing; rage over the blunder may be cathartic but is not in fact useful.
-- Marc
The large banner is set to only show up one time, regardless if a reader closes the banner or not. Most readers are not seeing these banners anymore.
The blue banners at the top of the page do show up more than one time. If you close these banners, you won't see anymore banners.
If the description above is not working for you, please let us know at donate@wikimedia.org so we can follow up.
You may be noticing more banners because we have increased the traffic today for a final year-end push. Banners were running at limited traffic the past two weeks. The campaign will end today.
Happy New Year!
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 9:41 AM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 14-12-31 12:20 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 31 December 2014 at 17:18, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
How have you determined that this is not simply a bug or coding error, exactly?
It is true that I'm assuming bad faith here entirely on the basis of the previous bad-faith behaviour.
Then - setting aside the propriety of your characterization of the fundraising team's past efforts - the correct thing to do would be to report the obnoxious returning banner as a bug (including enough information to help figure out its source) and at least wait for some indication that it may not have been one before casting aspersions on real peoples' ethics. Treating others like mustache-twirling villains rarely ends up being productive.
Assuming that it *is* a bug, getting it tracked down and fixed as quickly as possible so that it affects fewer people is the important thing; rage over the blunder may be cathartic but is not in fact useful.
-- Marc
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On 31 December 2014 at 18:56, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
The large banner is set to only show up one time, regardless if a reader closes the banner or not. Most readers are not seeing these banners anymore. The blue banners at the top of the page do show up more than one time. If you close these banners, you won't see anymore banners.
So Marc was wrong and this *is* deliberate behaviour?
If the description above is not working for you, please let us know at donate@wikimedia.org so we can follow up.
It completely fails ethics and makes people want to put our banners into AdBlockPlus, where a substantial proportion of the internet won't see them, so it's not really me, is it.
You may be noticing more banners because we have increased the traffic today for a final year-end push. Banners were running at limited traffic the past two weeks. The campaign will end today.
Blatant stunts like this because it's the last day strikes me as utterly unethical behaviour, for what that's worth.
Who coded this? Who approved this? Who thought this was a good decision to make?
- d.
David don't get your hopes up. Given the WMF's tendency to shove idiotic, untested, and often unwanted software changes down the throats of users this surprises you at all? Just take a look at how either VE or media viewer where pushed out. It took the introduction of the super protect right to ensure that the WMF's edicts are carried out regardless of how it impacts users or their wishes. On Dec 31, 2014 2:08 PM, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 December 2014 at 18:56, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
The large banner is set to only show up one time, regardless if a reader closes the banner or not. Most readers are not seeing these banners anymore. The blue banners at the top of the page do show up more than one time.
If
you close these banners, you won't see anymore banners.
So Marc was wrong and this *is* deliberate behaviour?
If the description above is not working for you, please let us know at donate@wikimedia.org so we can follow up.
It completely fails ethics and makes people want to put our banners into AdBlockPlus, where a substantial proportion of the internet won't see them, so it's not really me, is it.
You may be noticing more banners because we have increased the traffic today for a final year-end push. Banners were running at limited traffic the past two weeks. The campaign will end today.
Blatant stunts like this because it's the last day strikes me as utterly unethical behaviour, for what that's worth.
Who coded this? Who approved this? Who thought this was a good decision to make?
- d.
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On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 6:56 PM, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
The blue banners at the top of the page do show up more than one time. If you close these banners, you won't see anymore banners.
That's not my experience here. I've clicked the blue banner away at least three or four times this month. It keeps coming back.
A.
On 31 December 2014 at 18:43, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 6:56 PM, Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@wikimedia.org
wrote:
The blue banners at the top of the page do show up more than one time.
If
you close these banners, you won't see anymore banners.
That's not my experience here. I've clicked the blue banner away at least three or four times this month. It keeps coming back.
I've had the same experience as Andreas - I have had to inactivate the banners multiple times on every computer I use. In fact, I've had banners almost 90% of the time when I go to Wikipedia without logging in, cookies or no cookies.
Frankly, I am increasingly of the belief that Fundraising has sounded a klaxon alarm without any concern whatsoever about *next year*. The fact that the editorial community doesn't see the banners on a regular basis anymore is the only thing that has kept the voices of the community quiet; we tend not to complain too much about things we don't see. Frankly, I'd rather the fundraiser fell short of its goals (recognizing that there would be other impacts within the organization) than continue the current trajectory; I've had complaints from just about everyone who knows I edit Wikipedia about the banners, including a handful who said they were "former donors" who decided not to give this year because of how obnoxious the banners were. There's little doubt in my mind that more and more people are blocking those banners already - the more annoying they get, the more people block them, and the smaller the potential contribution pool. We're starting to chase our own tails here.
Risker/Anne
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
If the description above is not working for you, please let us know at donate@wikimedia.org so we can follow up.
Wait, I'm confused.
Fundraising /doesn't/ use Phabricator for bug reports, as Marc-Andre suggested is the appropriate approach? Everyone else does; it's transparent and allows for collaborative problem solving. Unless I'm reading it wrong, Fundraising would prefer bug reports by email. That doesn't seem very efficient. I'd imagine it'd be much easier to deal with one bug rather than X emails. Please do correct me if I'm wrong here :)
If not, I highly recommend* Fundraising use Phabricator. It's great software!
*Approximate value of this recommendation is nothing.
*TL;DR summary: I don't want the discussion about fundraising principles to be forgotten for another year until we do the whole thing again in 11 months... We need to finish the discussion about whether it is acceptable for all other values to be made secondary to the goal of maximising fundraising efficiency.*
Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which, according to a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million" (receiving donations from 2.5 million people in 4 weeks) [1], I hope that the fundraising team has had the time to get some well-earned rest and relaxation over the new-year period.
With that "busiest time of year" now over, but with all the discussions still fresh in our mind, I was hoping that the Fundraising team or Executive would have the time to respond to the various concerns that were raised here (and elsewhere) about the theory and practice of WMF fundraising. If responding here isn't appropriate, then at least over on Meta at [[Talk: Fundraising Principles]] where a fair amount of detail has been compiled, particularly by WMF Board of Trustees member SJ [2].
There were some practical/specific questions, including: - why isn't fundraising using the same software to receive bug reports ( phabricator) as everyone else? - why haven't the crowdsourced banner text suggestions been A/B tested? - why were new banners shown to people who had chosen to dismiss previous ones, and why were they allowed take up such a large proportion of the screen/obscure content? - has anyone responded to the Russian community yet to their polite and important question? [This is a non-exhaustive list, of course]
But there were also more fundamental/theoretical questions, including: - what degree of 'urgency' is morally acceptable in a donation request, especially when the financial situation of the WMF has never been healthier/stable? (e.g. threatening phrases like "keep us online and ad-free for another year") - Is the practice of "finishing the fundraiser period as fast as possible by any means" the correct interpretation of the the official fundraising principle of "minimal disruption"? - Is the official fundraising principle of "maximal participation" being adhered to? That principle calls for "empowering individuals to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach..." Does the WMF Board believe this has happened? - Is the current "we don't like asking for money so just give it to us and we'll stop annoying you" approach to fundraising (implied by the final phrase in the final 2014 campaign email "Please help us forget fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.") potentially damaging to the Wikimedia brand value, even if it does raise the money in the short term? Lila said that there has been "sentiment analysis" done about this, what was the result?
-Liam
[1] http://blog.wikimedia .org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keeping-knowledge-free-and-accessible/ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles
I've little to add to this thread than my personal point of view and take on how I would fundraise.
I've been very involved in organisational work with Wikimedia Australia (the comments here are mine and mine alone) so haven't been logging on and editing as much as of late but continue to refer to Wikipedia daily. I found the fundraising banners (I actually first typed out "ads") intrusive, and they do follow you down the screen. I realise WMF needs to fundraise but I preferred the personal appeal from Brandon, GorillaWarfare and other users. It allowed readers to learn about the people that keep Wikipedia going and why they do it. I don't fundraise. But if we are trying to get people to donate to us I don't agree giant banners that nag them into donating or reminder emails that, when you boil it down, read along the lines of "zomg donate to us or we will have no money and have to put up ads"
I've never really spoken out about the Foundation and I don't really plan about continuing to do so. But this fundraiser bothered me and while this likely won't be read, I felt it should be said.
Steven Zhang Sent from my iPhone
On 12 Jan 2015, at 11:25 pm, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
*TL;DR summary: I don't want the discussion about fundraising principles to be forgotten for another year until we do the whole thing again in 11 months... We need to finish the discussion about whether it is acceptable for all other values to be made secondary to the goal of maximising fundraising efficiency.*
Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which, according to a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million" (receiving donations from 2.5 million people in 4 weeks) [1], I hope that the fundraising team has had the time to get some well-earned rest and relaxation over the new-year period.
With that "busiest time of year" now over, but with all the discussions still fresh in our mind, I was hoping that the Fundraising team or Executive would have the time to respond to the various concerns that were raised here (and elsewhere) about the theory and practice of WMF fundraising. If responding here isn't appropriate, then at least over on Meta at [[Talk: Fundraising Principles]] where a fair amount of detail has been compiled, particularly by WMF Board of Trustees member SJ [2].
There were some practical/specific questions, including:
- why isn't fundraising using the same software to receive bug reports (
phabricator) as everyone else?
- why haven't the crowdsourced banner text suggestions been A/B tested?
- why were new banners shown to people who had chosen to dismiss previous
ones, and why were they allowed take up such a large proportion of the screen/obscure content?
- has anyone responded to the Russian community yet to their polite and
important question? [This is a non-exhaustive list, of course]
But there were also more fundamental/theoretical questions, including:
- what degree of 'urgency' is morally acceptable in a donation request,
especially when the financial situation of the WMF has never been healthier/stable? (e.g. threatening phrases like "keep us online and ad-free for another year")
- Is the practice of "finishing the fundraiser period as fast as possible
by any means" the correct interpretation of the the official fundraising principle of "minimal disruption"?
- Is the official fundraising principle of "maximal participation" being
adhered to? That principle calls for "empowering individuals to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach..." Does the WMF Board believe this has happened?
- Is the current "we don't like asking for money so just give it to us and
we'll stop annoying you" approach to fundraising (implied by the final phrase in the final 2014 campaign email "Please help us forget fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.") potentially damaging to the Wikimedia brand value, even if it does raise the money in the short term? Lila said that there has been "sentiment analysis" done about this, what was the result?
-Liam
[1] http://blog.wikimedia .org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keeping-knowledge-free-and-accessible/ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles _______________________________________________ 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 12 Jan 2015, at 11:25 pm, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote: Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which, according
to
a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million"
According to the data provided at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the Foundation seems to have taken $30.6 million over the period from December 2 2014 to December 31 2014.
This is $10.6 million more than the $20 million fundraising goal indicated in the blog post. (At any rate, that's the sum I get; I'd welcome anyone double-checking my math.)
(receiving donations from 2.5 million people in 4 weeks) [1], I hope that
the fundraising team has had the time to get some well-earned rest and relaxation over the new-year period.
But there were also more fundamental/theoretical questions, including:
- what degree of 'urgency' is morally acceptable in a donation request,
especially when the financial situation of the WMF has never been healthier/stable? (e.g. threatening phrases like "keep us online and ad-free for another year")
This is my main concern too.
- Is the practice of "finishing the fundraiser period as fast as possible
by any means" the correct interpretation of the the official fundraising principle of "minimal disruption"?
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for 30 days (December 2 to December 31, 2014). This is longer than last year, and at any rate much longer than 2012, right?
Because according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
Andreas
- Is the official fundraising principle of "maximal participation" being
adhered to? That principle calls for "empowering individuals to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach..." Does
the
WMF Board believe this has happened?
- Is the current "we don't like asking for money so just give it to us
and
we'll stop annoying you" approach to fundraising (implied by the final phrase in the final 2014 campaign email "Please help us forget
fundraising and
get back to improving Wikipedia.") potentially damaging to the Wikimedia brand value, even if it does raise the money in the short term? Lila said that there has been "sentiment analysis" done about this, what was the result?
-Liam
[1] http://blog.wikimedia .org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keeping-knowledge-free-and-accessible/ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles
On 12/01/2015 20:59, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for 30 days (December 2 to December 31, 2014). This is longer than last year, and at any rate much longer than 2012, right?
You need to get the most out of the Goose as it nears the end of its egg laying and you switch to stuffing it for Foie gras.
On 12 January 2015 at 15:59, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 Jan 2015, at 11:25 pm, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote: Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which,
according
to
a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million"
According to the data provided at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the Foundation seems to have taken $30.6 million over the period from December 2 2014 to December 31 2014.
This is $10.6 million more than the $20 million fundraising goal indicated in the blog post. (At any rate, that's the sum I get; I'd welcome anyone double-checking my math.)
There is no scenario I can come up with where this is actually a good result. Sure, an extra $10.6 million might be nice in the bank, but it massively exceeds budget. The fundraiser met its goal, with plenty to spare, on December 17. And yet we put our readers and our users through another two weeks of fundraising. Given that we were already really pushing the goodwill of the broad Wikimedia community (that includes the users of our products)....well, as I say, this is not a good result. People were putting Wikipedia on Adblock because of those banners, and they were doing it long after the goal had been reached.
I'd say I was speechless, but actually I am working extremely hard to hold my tongue here, awaiting an explanation for this. And yes, I think the Wikimedia community deserves to know why this happened.
Risker/Anne
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:59 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 January 2015 at 15:59, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 Jan 2015, at 11:25 pm, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote: Now that the 2014 Fundraising campaign has finished and which,
according
to
a WMF blogpost from a week ago, "surpassed our goal of $20 million"
According to the data provided at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the Foundation seems to have taken $30.6 million over the period from
December
2 2014 to December 31 2014.
This is $10.6 million more than the $20 million fundraising goal
indicated
in the blog post. (At any rate, that's the sum I get; I'd welcome anyone double-checking my math.)
There is no scenario I can come up with where this is actually a good result. Sure, an extra $10.6 million might be nice in the bank, but it massively exceeds budget. The fundraiser met its goal, with plenty to spare, on December 17. And yet we put our readers and our users through another two weeks of fundraising. Given that we were already really pushing the goodwill of the broad Wikimedia community (that includes the users of our products)....well, as I say, this is not a good result. People were putting Wikipedia on Adblock because of those banners, and they were doing it long after the goal had been reached.
According to the yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv spreadsheet at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the daily takings for December 2 through December 16 were:
1,210,953.952,496,366.461,933,765.581,632,523.431,180,293.931,074,943.09 1,163,741.971,226,279.841,425,927.691,437,084.271,464,091.511,145,236.28 1,076,753.101,086,034.231,048,222.37
This makes $20.6 million, meaning the $20 million target mentioned in the blog post was met on December 16.
Moreover, from November 1 through December 1 inclusive, the Foundation took another 8.4 million, based on the numbers in that spreadsheet.
The total for the two-month period from November 1 through December 31 is just north of $39 million.
I'd say I was speechless, but actually I am working extremely hard to hold my tongue here, awaiting an explanation for this. And yes, I think the Wikimedia community deserves to know why this happened.
The automated thank-you note to donors apparently[1] said,
---o0o---
“Over the past year, gifts like yours powered our efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages and to make it more accessible all over the world. We strive most to impact those who would not have access to education otherwise. We bring knowledge to people like Akshaya Iyengar from Solapur, India. Growing up in this small textile-manufacturing town, she used Wikipedia as her primary learning source. For students in these areas, where books are scarce but mobile internet access exists, Wikipedia is instrumental. Akshaya went on to graduate from college in India and now works as a software engineer in the United States. She credits Wikipedia with powering half of her knowledge.
“This story is not unique. Our mission is lofty and presents great challenges. Most people who use Wikipedia are surprised to hear it is run by a nonprofit organization and funded by your donations. *Each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Thank you for making this mission possible.*”
---o0o---
Looking at the numbers, it hardly seems defensible to say that "just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone".
Not when the Foundation
– had tens of millions in reserves in July 2014, – has just taken close to $40 million in two months, and – reported spending only $2.5 million on Internet hosting in the 2013/2014 fiscal year.[2]
And there is one other thing. This is a much more minor issue in comparison, but there is something irksome about the first sentence of that message, about readers' donations powering the Wikimedia Foundation's "efforts to expand the encyclopedia in 287 languages".
A slide at Wikimania 2014, titled "Reality Check",[3] reported that of the (then) 284 language versions of Wikipedia,
12 are "dead" (locked) 53 are "zombies" (open, no editors) 94 are "struggling" (open, < 5 editors) 125 are "in good or excellent health" (5 editors or more)
Note here the classification of all Wikipedias with 5 or more editors as "in good or excellent health". I believe the example of the Croatian Wikipedia, widely reported to have become the fiefdom of fascists a little over a year ago[4], demonstrates that a Wikipedia needs a lot more than 5 editors to be viewed as "healthy" by the public.
And if readers were left with the impression that their money funds crucial efforts by the Wikimedia Foundation to build content in these smaller Wikipedias, or to perform a quality assurance function there, then I believe that impression, too, would be almost completely mistaken.
[1] http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/revealing-rehoboth-miracle-of-wikipedia... [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG.... [3] https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman/status/498102860459302912/photo/1 – archived at https://archive.today/il131 [4] http://www.dailydot.com/politics/croatian-wikipedia-fascist-takeover-controv...
I think it's a matter of common sense that we shouldn't ask for more money unless we can credibly demonstrate with stuff like success metrics and improving trends that we can spend the money we've already been given effectively.
Risker's comments made me wonder, however, about the more specific issue of how the WMF is measuring the cost/benefit of banner displays. The benefit should be fairly easy to figure out as denominated in dollars- roughly speaking, it would probably look something like the total amount raised over a defined period divided by the number of banner displays during that period. But what about those much more subtle and potentially lagging costs? I assume that the WMF is measuring stuff like session lengths and return rates. Is the WMF tracking on anything else for non-logged in users?
In any case, what I would most like to see is a comparison of graphs of such metrics over the course of a full campaign. It seems like we all agree that the banners are annoying, but is there really a measurable "banner fatigue" phenomenon among our readers? For example, can we point out a distinct point of diminishing returns, beyond which the slopes of one or both graphs significantly steepens? If anyone has this data for the current or past campaigns, please forward it to me. I'll try some different visualizations that get past the dollars signs to the true cost of prolonged panhandling.
Alternatively, we could pivot to a street performance model by getting the article on Thomas Jefferson to juggle fire batons and spray painting the article on Popping silver. After Jimmy finishes his extended plastic-bucket drum solo and we've warmed them up with a few mediocre jokes, we could pass around the banner for donations. It would probably only work on the tourists, tho.
,Wil
This is $10.6 million more than the $20 million fundraising goal indicated in the blog post. (At any rate, that's the sum I get; I'd welcome anyone double-checking my math.)
There is no scenario I can come up with where this is actually a good result. Sure, an extra $10.6 million might be nice in the bank, but it massively exceeds budget. The fundraiser met its goal, with plenty to spare, on December 17. And yet we put our readers and our users through another two weeks of fundraising. Given that we were already really pushing the goodwill of the broad Wikimedia community (that includes the users of our products)....well, as I say, this is not a good result. People were putting Wikipedia on Adblock because of those banners, and they were doing it long after the goal had been reached.
I'd say I was speechless, but actually I am working extremely hard to hold my tongue here, awaiting an explanation for this. And yes, I think the Wikimedia community deserves to know why this happened.
Andreas Kolbe wrote:
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for 30 days (December 2 to December 31, 2014). This is longer than last year, and at any rate much longer than 2012, right?
Because according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
I'm not sure about that Meta-Wiki page's claim specifically, but traditionally the annual Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser has lasted from about the end of November to the end of December (roughly Thanksgiving to Christmas), typically with a thank you campaign in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.
I strongly agree with Liam that the donation advertising practices should be clarified. But, as stated on this list already, I believe, the underlying concern is that the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising staff is becoming increasingly aggressive and tactless, while the current Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees seems to be quietly nodding, praising, and encouraging the good work. Because after all, the fundraising team _is_ bringing in a lot of money. The detachment from Wikimedia's values is clearly unacceptable, but there seem to be limited options for recourse aside from convincing the Board of Trustees that money isn't everything.
What's needed, in my opinion, are hard limits (an updated Board resolution) set on the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising team that provide very strict parameters for how obnoxious donation advertising can be. While such a resolution would be unusual, the fundraising team has repeatedly demonstrated that it's incapable of self-regulation or even basic decency toward our readers. As for specific examples, the following are never acceptable: banners that don't respect opting out (clicking the "X"), pop-ups (even in the same browser window), and lying.
MZMcBride
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:09 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Because according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
I'm not sure about that Meta-Wiki page's claim specifically [...]
The claim in question was added to the page on November 7 2013[1] by Megan Hernandez, "Director of Online Giving, Wikimedia Foundation".[2] At the time the edit was made, her title was "Head of the Annual Fundraiser for the Wikimedia Foundation".[3]
The paragraph read in full:
*To briefly recap this year so far, banners have been up at a low level worldwide since the beginning of the current fiscal year on July 1, 2013. This does not mean that readers have been seeing banners all the time since July. We have our banners set to show to each reader just one time. This testing has been valuable to improve our banners while also to reach more readers. In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had. That's great. But we know that there are plenty of people who use Wikipedia and would be happy to donate who didn't happen to visit Wikipedia in those nine days that the banners were running. We started running banners in July to reach more people outside a of campaign that lasts just a few days. This year, we have the goal of raising the budget while showing readers fewer banners than previous years. We think this new schedule of running banners throughout the year will help us reach that goal.*
Given that the statement came from the WMF Head of the Annual Fundraiser, I assume it's accurate (and it matches the 2012 donations pattern in the daily donations spreadsheet).
As for the December 2013 fundraiser, if you look at the December 2013 figures in the spreadsheet, it is quite apparent that the money dropped off on December 17, about the same date that the fundraising target was met this year.
Furthermore, in the July 2014 Wikimedia Metrics Video[4] it was reported that the year-round continuous campaign model had "relieved some of the pressure on the December campaign".
So I do think the 2014 year-end fundraiser was considerably more intense than in previous years – oddly so, given that the money raised ended up being massively in excess of the fundraising target, as described in the recent blog post:[5]
*Thank you for keeping knowledge free and accessible*
*A month ago, the Wikimedia Foundation kicked off its year-end contribution campaign on English Wikipedia. Thanks to the generosity of everyday readers from around the world, we’re very happy to share that we’ve surpassed our goal of $20 million. Your support for this critical campaign helps cover operating expenses of the Wikimedia sites and global outreach programs in order to keep the largest free knowledge resource accessible to the world.*
Again, the wording "keeping knowledge free and accessible" in the title of that blog post does not sit easily with the fact that over 90% of the money is spent on other things than keeping the sites "free and accessible".
Given the Foundation's present financial status, I would like to see a clear repudiation of the "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free" wording for future fundraisers. This wording may have been appropriate in 2005, when Jimmy Wales said,[6]
*“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.”*
This is a lo-o-o-ng way from what the Wikimedia Foundation with its approx. 250 paid staff (more if you count chapter staff) is today.
It's not okay – ethically, morally not okay – to pretend the Wikimedia Foundation is still the same animal as it was ten years ago, just because this "online and ad-free" punchline "works" in terms of getting donors to part with their money.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2013&diff=62916... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MeganHernandez_(WMF) [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:MeganHernandez_(WMF)&o... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=993lpGrittg#t=3364 [5] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keeping-knowledge-free-an... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQR0gx0QBZ4#t=275
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for 30 days (December 2 to December 31, 2014).
That's certainly incorrect. https://frdata.wikimedia.org/campaign-vs-amount.csv shows about 200 campaigns started in 2014, excluding sidebar and other "regular" stuff. A campaign can contain hundreds of banners. Some campaigns lasted few hours, most of them several days or weeks.
Because according tohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
As noted in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012/Report , those numbers are meaningless comparisons. We've been waiting for the number of impressions (at a minimum) for 20 months now.
Nemo
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:47 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for 30
days (December 2 to December 31, 2014).
That's certainly incorrect. https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ campaign-vs-amount.csv shows about 200 campaigns started in 2014, excluding sidebar and other "regular" stuff. A campaign can contain hundreds of banners. Some campaigns lasted few hours, most of them several days or weeks.
I am aware of that. I meant the December fundraiser during which the banners were shown continuously to all Wikipedia readers.
Because according tohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
As noted in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012/Report , those numbers are meaningless comparisons. We've been waiting for the number of impressions (at a minimum) for 20 months now.
It's the same with the editor survey data:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#L...
Literally years have passed, but the answer is always either silence, or "The data is not yet ready."
The Foundation talks the transparency talk, but walking the walk seems a different matter.
Pictures of puppies[1] are no substitute.
The fundraising team is currently wrapping up from the December campaign. Even though the banners are down, donations are still settling and we are reconciling with the finance department. This month, we are doing analysis on fundraising donation data as well as on feedback from readers, donors and members of this list. We will share an update on this analysis when it is complete, which will be a part of future discussions around fundraising practices.
Thank you for providing questions/comments to the meta page and please continue to do so.
Megan
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:47 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
As for the fundraiser's duration, I believe the 2014 fundraiser ran for
30
days (December 2 to December 31, 2014).
That's certainly incorrect. https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ campaign-vs-amount.csv shows about 200 campaigns started in 2014, excluding sidebar and other "regular" stuff. A campaign can contain hundreds of banners. Some campaigns lasted few hours, most of them
several
days or weeks.
I am aware of that. I meant the December fundraiser during which the banners were shown continuously to all Wikipedia readers.
Because according tohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013 –
"In 2012, we were able to shorten the fundraiser down to nine full days, the shortest fundraiser we've had."
As noted in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012/Report , those numbers are meaningless comparisons. We've been waiting for the number of impressions (at a minimum) for 20 months now.
It's the same with the editor survey data:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#L...
Literally years have passed, but the answer is always either silence, or "The data is not yet ready."
The Foundation talks the transparency talk, but walking the walk seems a different matter.
Pictures of puppies[1] are no substitute.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=993lpGrittg#t=3364 _______________________________________________ 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 Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 1:32 AM, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
We will share an update on this analysis when it is complete, which will be a part of future discussions around fundraising practices.
Can we have a date please by which you will share this update?
I am sorry to have to ask you this, but there have been too many cases (two of them linked in this thread) where Foundation staff promised to share something "soon" or "when it is ready", and months or years passed without any such sharing ever happening.
Thank you.
Andreas
We now have at least a partial understanding of the reason the fundraising campaign was extended, which is found in the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting of November 2014.[1]
"Board members asked Lila and Lisa to consider and evaluate ways to raise additional revenue to increase the reserve for future needs of the organization and movement, including the possibility of adjustments in fundraising methods as appropriate. "
Risker/Anne
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-11-21#Executive_Update_fro...
Hi all,
Here's a quick follow up on a couple issues from this thread.
The fundraising team will be posting feedback analysis on March 1.
To clear up some confusion around the duration of the campaign, we ran banners to 100% traffic for the first two weeks of December. We limited the impressions per reader for two weeks before turning the traffic back up to 100% for a final year-end push. This is very similar to the campaign schedule in December 2013. To check out the updates we posted throughout the campaign, take a look at the "latest updates" section of the fundraising meta page for more information:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising#Latest_Updates
If you have a specific technical issue to address, please send it directly to use at donate@wikimedia.org or to phabricator at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/363/ (project is called #wikimedia-fundraising). We receive a lot of feedback from readers and volunteers, so we try to make it easy for different audiences to connect with us. Most of them do not have phabricator accounts, so the email feedback channel is critical. We really appreciate feedback and help testing our setup.
Megan
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
We now have at least a partial understanding of the reason the fundraising campaign was extended, which is found in the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting of November 2014.[1]
"Board members asked Lila and Lisa to consider and evaluate ways to raise additional revenue to increase the reserve for future needs of the organization and movement, including the possibility of adjustments in fundraising methods as appropriate. "
Risker/Anne
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-11-21#Executive_Update_fro... _______________________________________________ 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, 16/01/2015 22:11:
Most of them do not have phabricator accounts, so the email feedback channel is critical.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help#Using_e-mail
Nemo
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:11 PM, Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi all,
Here's a quick follow up on a couple issues from this thread.
The fundraising team will be posting feedback analysis on March 1.
Thanks, Megan. I look forward to your feedback analysis.
To clear up some confusion around the duration of the campaign, we ran banners to 100% traffic for the first two weeks of December. We limited the impressions per reader for two weeks before turning the traffic back up to 100% for a final year-end push. This is very similar to the campaign schedule in December 2013.
Yes, though I would say that the figures for Dec 2 to Dec 31 2013, as given in the yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv spreadsheet at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/, exhibit a somewhat different pattern from those for the same period in 2014.
If you compare the columns for the two years, the relative drop in daily takings from Dec 17 onward was significantly smaller in 2014 than in 2013. This suggests to me that the number of impressions delivered on those days probably remained higher in 2014 than it did in 2013.
The total for Dec 25 (Christmas), for example, was $377,751.86 in 2014, vs. $108,304.01 in 2013.
Summing the first and second halves of the month, starting on Dec 2, takings in 2013 were
$13,675,900.28 in the period Dec 2 to Dec 16 (note Dec 2 was before the campaign and had a low total) $04,864,577.57 in the period Dec 17 to Dec 31
Thus in 2013, takings in the second half of December dropped to 35.6% of the total for the first half.
In 2014, on the other hand, takings were
$20,602,217.70 in the period Dec 2 to Dec 16 (Dec 2 was part of the campaign) $10,005,446.51 in the period Dec 17 to Dec 31
Takings in the second half of December 2014 thus ran at 48.6% of the total for the first half.
Similar indeed, but also different.
To check out the updates we posted throughout the campaign, take a look at the "latest updates" section of the fundraising meta page for more information:
There is no doubt that Wikipedia generates an enormous amount of goodwill, which the Foundation is monetising very effectively. But to balance the enthusiastic quotes from readers provided on the update page, I could also show you quotes from donors who felt betrayed once they saw the 2013/2014 financial statement[1], with its $51 million in cash/cash equivalents and investments.
Andreas
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG....
If you have a specific technical issue to address, please send it directly to use at donate@wikimedia.org or to phabricator at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/363/ (project is called #wikimedia-fundraising). We receive a lot of feedback from readers and volunteers, so we try to make it easy for different audiences to connect with us. Most of them do not have phabricator accounts, so the email feedback channel is critical. We really appreciate feedback and help testing our setup.
Megan
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
We now have at least a partial understanding of the reason the
fundraising
campaign was extended, which is found in the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting of November 2014.[1]
"Board members asked Lila and Lisa to consider and evaluate ways to raise additional revenue to increase the reserve for future needs of the organization and movement, including the possibility of adjustments in fundraising methods as appropriate. "
Risker/Anne
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-11-21#Executive_Update_fro...
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
Director of Online Fundraising Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ 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 Andreas-
Thanks for the questions. There are lots of differences between the 2013 and 2014 campaigns and there are many variables at play here. One big difference is mobile. In 2013, we were just experimenting with mobile. In 2014, we launched a mobile campaign a week after we launched the desktop campaign. We also had a more successful email campaign this year, which we delivered in small batches nearly everyday. Also, the data you are looking at includes foundations and major gifts as well. There is a lot going on there besides just desktop donations this year. We look forward to sharing more on all of this in our upcoming report.
Best, Lisa
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:11 PM, Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi all,
Here's a quick follow up on a couple issues from this thread.
The fundraising team will be posting feedback analysis on March 1.
Thanks, Megan. I look forward to your feedback analysis.
To clear up some confusion around the duration of the campaign, we ran banners to 100% traffic for the first two weeks of December. We limited the impressions per reader for two weeks before turning the traffic back
up
to 100% for a final year-end push. This is very similar to the campaign schedule in December 2013.
Yes, though I would say that the figures for Dec 2 to Dec 31 2013, as given in the yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv spreadsheet at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/, exhibit a somewhat different pattern from those for the same period in 2014.
If you compare the columns for the two years, the relative drop in daily takings from Dec 17 onward was significantly smaller in 2014 than in 2013. This suggests to me that the number of impressions delivered on those days probably remained higher in 2014 than it did in 2013.
The total for Dec 25 (Christmas), for example, was $377,751.86 in 2014, vs. $108,304.01 in 2013.
Summing the first and second halves of the month, starting on Dec 2, takings in 2013 were
$13,675,900.28 in the period Dec 2 to Dec 16 (note Dec 2 was before the campaign and had a low total) $04,864,577.57 in the period Dec 17 to Dec 31
Thus in 2013, takings in the second half of December dropped to 35.6% of the total for the first half.
In 2014, on the other hand, takings were
$20,602,217.70 in the period Dec 2 to Dec 16 (Dec 2 was part of the campaign) $10,005,446.51 in the period Dec 17 to Dec 31
Takings in the second half of December 2014 thus ran at 48.6% of the total for the first half.
Similar indeed, but also different.
To check out the updates we posted throughout the campaign, take a look at the "latest updates" section of the fundraising meta page for more information:
There is no doubt that Wikipedia generates an enormous amount of goodwill, which the Foundation is monetising very effectively. But to balance the enthusiastic quotes from readers provided on the update page, I could also show you quotes from donors who felt betrayed once they saw the 2013/2014 financial statement[1], with its $51 million in cash/cash equivalents and investments.
Andreas
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e3/FINAL_13_14From_KPMG....
If you have a specific technical issue to address, please send it
directly
to use at donate@wikimedia.org or to phabricator at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/363/ (project is called #wikimedia-fundraising). We receive a lot of feedback from readers and volunteers, so we try to make it easy for different audiences to connect with us. Most of them do not have phabricator accounts, so the email feedback channel is critical. We really appreciate feedback and help testing our setup.
Megan
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
We now have at least a partial understanding of the reason the
fundraising
campaign was extended, which is found in the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting of November 2014.[1]
"Board members asked Lila and Lisa to consider and evaluate ways to
raise
additional revenue to increase the reserve for future needs of the organization and movement, including the possibility of adjustments in fundraising methods as appropriate. "
Risker/Anne
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-11-21#Executive_Update_fro...
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
Director of Online Fundraising Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ 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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On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 12:10 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:11 PM, Megan Hernandez <mhernandez@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi all,
Here's a quick follow up on a couple issues from this thread.
The fundraising team will be posting feedback analysis on March 1.
Thanks, Megan. I look forward to your feedback analysis.
Further to this and prior threads discussing the fundraising banners, the Wikimedia Foundation last week released the Wikimedia Survey: Findings on Fundraising Questions.[1]
This was covered in a report in the Signpost last week[2], and there is an op-ed by myself in this week's Signpost.[3]
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Wikimedia_2014_English_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-03-11/Specia...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-03-18/Op-ed
Risker, 16/01/2015 18:44:
We now have at least a partial understanding of the reason the fundraising campaign was extended, which is found in the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting of November 2014.[1]
"Board members asked Lila and Lisa to consider and evaluate ways to raise additional revenue to increase the reserve for future needs of the organization and movement, including the possibility of adjustments in fundraising methods as appropriate. "
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-11-21#Executive_Update_fro...
I still don't understand how "asking" to "consider and evaluate" can override an explicit board resolution which established very different targets. What steps were taken exactly, which legally authorised such increase in income? https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:2014-2015_Annual_Plan https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File%3A2014-15_Wikimedia_F...
Nemo
2015-01-12 13:25 GMT+01:00 Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com:
With that "busiest time of year" now over, but with all the discussions still fresh in our mind, I was hoping that the Fundraising team or Executive would have the time to respond to the various concerns that were raised here (and elsewhere) about the theory and practice of WMF fundraising. If responding here isn't appropriate, then at least over on Meta at [[Talk: Fundraising Principles]] where a fair amount of detail has been compiled, particularly by WMF Board of Trustees member SJ [2].
There were some practical/specific questions, including:
- why isn't fundraising using the same software to receive bug reports (
phabricator) as everyone else?
- why haven't the crowdsourced banner text suggestions been A/B tested?
- why were new banners shown to people who had chosen to dismiss previous
ones, and why were they allowed take up such a large proportion of the screen/obscure content?
- has anyone responded to the Russian community yet to their polite and
important question? [This is a non-exhaustive list, of course]
But there were also more fundamental/theoretical questions, including:
- what degree of 'urgency' is morally acceptable in a donation request,
especially when the financial situation of the WMF has never been healthier/stable? (e.g. threatening phrases like "keep us online and ad-free for another year")
- Is the practice of "finishing the fundraiser period as fast as possible
by any means" the correct interpretation of the the official fundraising principle of "minimal disruption"?
- Is the official fundraising principle of "maximal participation" being
adhered to? That principle calls for "empowering individuals to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach..." Does the WMF Board believe this has happened?
- Is the current "we don't like asking for money so just give it to us and
we'll stop annoying you" approach to fundraising (implied by the final phrase in the final 2014 campaign email "Please help us forget fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.") potentially damaging to the Wikimedia brand value, even if it does raise the money in the short term? Lila said that there has been "sentiment analysis" done about this, what was the result?
I would like to see the answers to these questions myself. I have put them on [[:meta:Talk:Fundraising_principles]] and added a couple of my own. Feel free to add your own questions, my suggestion would be to use that section for questions only and put comments in another section.
C
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles#Questions_to_the...
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org