[WikiEN-l] Fundraising Banner

[Giacomo M-Z]

If that's the case, why donate money in the past to IRC?

Giano

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 10:18 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I would appreciate it if you could copy this message to the relevant
> pages on en.wp.
>
> First: Does Wikimedia have a funding crisis, does it need to ask
> people for money?
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization, and the vast
> majority of its funding comes from fundraising and grants. It operates
> more than 300 servers which keep Wikipedia alive, the associated
> hosting and bandwidth, and the staff needed to support it. Its annual
> expenses for the current fiscal year amount to approximately $6
> million. We have already raised $2 million of that, which leaves us
> with a gap of $4 million which we need to raise through donations
> small and large.
>
> If we fail to meet our budgeted revenue goals during and past this
> fundraiser, we will eventually have to lay off staff and reduce our
> capacity planning for servers and bandwidth, both of which will
> directly affect your experience of Wikipedia. If you feel, for
> example, that developers are often slow to respond to requests, well,
> imagine how much worse it will be if we have to lay off some of them.
> If you feel that editing is often slow, imagine how much worse it will
> be if we cannot pay for additional servers or needed software
> improvements.
>
> As you know, the world is in economic crisis. At this point in time,
> we do not know what the impact of this economic crisis will be on the
> Wikimedia Foundation. We need to meet our targets to continue to
> operate Wikipedia.
>
> I realize that having a banner on the site you read and/or edit every
> day is not convenient. We plan to create a smaller (plaintext) version
> of the banner for signed in users. But we do not plan to reduce the
> banner size of the standard banner, at least not until we have a
> better idea of what the online fundraiser revenue will be for this
> year. We are doing some systematic A/B testing of different banners
> with different messages, and as we learn more, we will iterate the
> banners further.
>
> We do need to raise the funds to operate Wikipedia, so that you can
> continue to use it, both as a reader and a contributor. Rather than
> invite antagonism, I want to invite your collaboration in refining and
> developing the banners. We are open to community suggestions here --
> please feel free to post mock-ups on Meta Wiki at this page:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2008/design_drafts
>
> However, if we feel (or measure) that a banner will significantly
> reduce the number of donations received, we will not use it. So if
> your primary goal is to make the banner smaller or less "obtrusive",
> rather than making it more effective or at least retaining its current
> level of effectiveness, I don't think we'll come up with something
> that can replace the current banners.
>
> Please let's remember that the Wikimedia Foundation exists to support
> this project's continued existence, and the Wikimedia movement
> internationally. This means we need to create awareness for the fact
> that we need to raise money, just like any other charity. This
> fundraising drive will run until January 15. Until then, I ask for
> your patience and cooperation in making it work.
>
> Please feel free to contact me: erik(at)wikimedia(dot)org.
>
> Thanks, Erik Möller 22:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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