[Foundation-l] Donation banner and strongly negative reactions

[Chad]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here are some areas on the English Wikipedia where the donation drive and
> banner have been discussed:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Bring_Back_Hide_Fundraiser_Notice
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#.22Support_Wikipedia:_a_non-profit_project._Donate_Now_.3E.3E.22<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#.22Support_Wikipedia:_a_non-profit_project._Donate_Now_.3E.3E.22>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Will_the_ugly_banner_go_away.3F>
>
> It has also been discussed a few times on the #wikipedia-en IRC channel.
>
> I don't know if other projects have had similar reactions, but I do know
> that some projects have disabled the banner. It was for a time not
> available
> on the Spanish Wikipedia, and remains unavailable (last I checked) at the
> Russian Wikibooks. A quick survey of interwiki links on the en.wp Barack
> Obama page suggests that most or all Wikipedia projects are displaying the
> banner now.
>
> My observation is that the comments have been almost universally negative,
> and in fact a number of people - including long time administrators and
> previous donors - have said that this year they will not be donating at
> all.
> Reasons have included the banner itself, a sense that the foundation does
> not use its money appropriately, or concerns related to allegations made by
> Danny Wool last spring.
>
> I don't remember this sort of strong negative reaction before - is it
> expected? Are we seeing something a little different this year in terms of
> reaction? Has it translated into any change in the pace of donations?
>
> Nathan
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I don't know about others, but I've been disabling site notices for
a very very long time now. I've yet to ever read one that was ever
useful to me. I think that registered users should most certainly
have the ability to remove the banner entirely (and they can, via
simple additions to their personal stylesheets, or in the case of
enwiki, a gadget that does it for you).

I would even go so far as to say that anon users should be able
to remove it as well. We're about providing free content, not
shoving a donation banner in people's faces when they don't want
to see it. Even allowing anonymous users to hide it won't matter
much.

When a user sees it, one of two things will happen:
A) They will donate, then the message is no longer relevant
B) They aren't donating anyway, in which case they probably
     don't want to see the message.

Just my 0.02USD.

-Chad