[WikiEN-l] fundraising

[Mark Wagner]

On 10/22/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Okay guys.
>
> There is nothing mysterious in this "spam", this is simply the coming
> fundraiser.
>
> So, to keep you up to date, there were many messages on the wikimedia
> foundation list on this topic in the past few weeks, but I guess you
> were too busy to have a look. That's okay.

I follow the Foundation mailing list off and on.  I was aware that
preparations were being made for the annual fundraising drive.

What I knew:
* The fundraising campaign would start "sometime soon"
* The fundraising campaign would take the form of an announcement at
the top of every Wikipedia page.

What I expected:
* The announcement would be static, just like the rest of the
Wikipedia interface.
* The announcement would be visible only to non-logged-in visitors,
like last year.

What I did not expect:
* A scrolling abomination from 1995, more suited to being featured on
The Daily WTF than on the front page of a top-ten website.
* No obvious way to hide the banner.

You can see why I initially thought someone had hacked into the
interface -- the original version of the notice bore a strong
resemblance to the worst of banner ads.

-- 
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]