[Foundation-l] Donation banner and strongly negative reactions

[Mike Godwin]

Gregory Maxwell writes:

> Hm? Every previous one has had strongly negative reactions from some
> contributors.
>
> (I do not know for sure if this is better or worse but, for example,
> to me it appears appears far less significant at this point compared
> to the reaction at the time of the virgin unite thank-you.)
>
> The general public is already banner-blind. I'm not aware of any
> significant negative response from the general public to any of these
> fundraisers.

My take is the same as Greg's, but let me add a little more. First,  
it's always the case that there's a negative reaction to anything  
instantiated as a banner. That's a given, like the tides. Second, the  
thing to remember about the negative reactions you see is that there's  
no reason to believe that they are representative of *general*  
reaction, since they are statistically nonrandom (not least because  
the impulse to offer criticism is greater than the impulse to offer  
praise, and much greater than the impulse to offer the sentiment "I am  
not bothered by this").  Third, the evidence we have suggests that we  
are doing rather better on fundraising this year than last year.

This doesn't mean criticism should be ignored (and, believe me, it  
isn't). But the sky isn't falling, and in fact things generally seem  
to be going well in comparison to last year.


--Mike