[Foundation-l] And if I don't understand Dutch?

[Frédéric Schütz]

On 12.11.2010 20:53, Rodan Bury wrote:

> There are several similar problems with other local landing pages. For
> example, As you may see at  this donation page for readers in
> Switzerland<http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=WMFJA1/CH&utm_source=2010_JA1_Banner2&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fridayOpening&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWikipedia%3AWikiProject_Accessibility%2FNavigation_menu>or
> its capture
> at ImageShack<http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/1552/fundraiser2010ch.png>,
> there is no obvious nor visible form or link to donate to the MWF nor
> Wikimedia CH. The link to donate to the WMF is in small, at the bottom of
> the page.
> The only way to donate provided by the Swiss chapter Wikimedia CH is
> the old-fashioned
> bank check<http://www.wikimedia.ch/Donate/en>. There is no online form to
> donate, no Paypal, and so forth.

Bank check ? This is not a bank check. What is suggested is that people 
should make an online donation using ebanking.

Now, for the record, this was a specific request from the Swiss chapter. 
Last year, without accepting credit card, Wikimedia CH got the highest 
per capita donations among all chapters -- and, at the same time, we 
probably paid the lowest fees per donation among all chapters.

So we specifically requested that Swiss people can pay by ebanking (or 
other ways of paying money to our bank account), since this is by far 
the most common way of donating in Switzerland (see for example 
www.bonheur.ch, one of the most well-known charities in the country -- 
what you see on the main page is a red payment slip with the account 
number, before any credit card option).

We added the link to the WMF donation page (as you noticed) so that 
people can still donate by credit card. We could also easily add a form, 
but the point is: we do not want to give priority to an online payment 
gateway when ebanking works so well.

> This is horrible, I would never want to go trough all the troubles to make a
> donation with a bank check. This is Internet, in fall 2010. Not the 90's.

I am sorry if you don't like it. As written above, the page where you 
can make your donation at the WMF is only one click away. However, many 
Swiss donors do not agree with you: you would have no idea how many 
people actually requested that we send them a *printed* payment slip so 
that they can make their donation. We do not want to lose these (often 
large) donations.

Bottom line is: we think this system allows people to donate easily, the 
way they are used to do it, it limits the fees we have to pay, and it 
still keeps options open for those who want to make a credit card 
payment. Looks good to me.

> I suggest three major guidelines:
>
>     1. The chapter landing page must be translated into the official
>     language(s) of the country, plus English. In addition, translation into
>     every major languages spoken in the country would be appreciated.

Wikimedia CH does that: German, French, Italian and English. You're 
welcome !

>     2. There must be an explicit and obvious way to donate online, via a
>     credit card or Paypal.

We will setup a payment gateway, but whatever happens, it won't be the 
donation method that we will suggest in priority. And Paypal is 
expensive and not as trustworthy as we would like (especially when one 
is used to the Swiss banking system :-)

>     3. Let the user choose if he wants to donate to the local chapter, or the
>     WMF. Both should be as obvious, and one option should not be voluntarily set
>     aside.

There is no point doing this. Broadly speaking, people want to donate to 
"Wikipedia" and anything else is confusing (and not worth doing, since 
the chapters share their revenues with the WMF anyway). A concrete 
example of problem: several people made a donation to the WMF last year, 
and then asked Wikimedia CH for a tax receipt that we were not able to 
provide. They were not happy. Allowing them to choose where their 
donation goes with only make things worse.

Frédéric