Christopher Mahan wrote:
I agree with Fred. I think it's important for
people
to realize right away that they can help the project
financially. It also answers the question I get when
I show the W to aquaintances: "Where's the catch,
they can't be doing this for free."
That is why there is a donations link in the sidebar.
It is prominent yet it isn't obtrusive (the 'support'
message is under the article title and is thus part of
the article - that's obtrusive). We can afford to be
obtrusive only when we are having an official
fundraising drive. Otherwise we, at worst, annoy
people and, at best they start to ignore the message
(try saying the same word over and over and over again
- after a while you can't remember what the word
means).
Fundraising drives are supposed to be a bit annoying
and attention getting, but that's fine because they
are only held a handful of times a year. Last time I
checked we were not in such dire straights to require
a constant fundraising drive. Do you want us to give
the impression that we are desperate for cash?
Another way people can get to the donation page is
through a link to the foundation's homepage under the
logo of every project. It would say "A [Wikimedia]
project". [Wikimedia] would be a link to
http://wikimediafoundation.org (which in turn has
prominent statement asking people to consider donating
and a "Donate Now" link in the sidebar). Then there
would be an indirect link to the donation page at the
top of every sidebar and a direct one at the bottom of
every sidebar.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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