[Foundation-l] Fundraising banner ad

[Erik Moeller]

On 10/23/07, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
> Also, what is silly about threatening a fork? Is that not
> one of the key arguments (in theory at least) for free
> content, and thus the whole point of the Wikimedia
> projects' existence? Or does the Foundation no longer care
> about that either?

I understand your frustration, but it is misplaced. This is not about
"the Foundation vs. the community", it is about a community trying to
find the best ways to sustain itself.

Who are the people who are making this fundraiser happen? They include
Cary Bass, our Volunteer Coordinator, whose longtime experience on the
projects and on OTRS was the primary reason he was hired. And Sabine
Cretella, who is contracted to help with the fundraising coordination;
a longtime respected Wikimedian who has throughout her participation
volunteered immense amounts of her time in many different areas,
especially the coordination of translations.

And of course our Communications Manager Sandy Ordonez ("Wiki Blue"),
who, while not "from the community", has quickly fallen in love with
our mission and has been passionately learning as much as she can
about our strange culture in the last few months.

Under the coordination of Sue Gardner, Sabine, Sandy and Cary have
invested significant time trying to rally volunteers to work on many
areas of the fundraiser, from translations to buttons and banners.
They have posted on many village pumps and mailing lists. The
fundraising banner itself was reviewed and discussed on the
communications committee mailing list (which isn't some secret club,
but just a group of trusted volunteers who have shown long term
engagement regarding to communications issues).

Surely I agree with you that running a marquee wasn't a particularly
good idea. :-) I think in a few weeks/months we'll all laugh about it.
But understand also why it was done: to drive eyeballs & thereby
increase the likelihood of donations. Not so money can flow in
someone's personal pockets, but so the site can actually stay up, and
so we can do exactly the things Jimmy talks about in his videos.
Getting attention is always going to be a balancing act between
success & irritation.

A constant crawler is over the top -- so it was quickly removed. Maybe
there's still some compromise to be found between totally static
messages and the marquee of death.

This fundraiser will run for a couple of months, and there's still
plenty of time to improve upon all aspects of it. Rather than spend
time arguing on the list about it, why not actually help the project
with constructive work on a prettier banner, or feedback on the video,
or a hundred other things?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007 has a lot of useful
links to get started, and an en.wp page for the fundraising banner
specifically has been created here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_redesign

We're in this together, Matthew. Please help where you can. Thanks. :-)

-- 
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.