[WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[Brian J Mingus]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 3:38 AM, Oleg Alexandrov
<oleg.alexandrov at gmail.com>wrote:

> I have been a Wikipedian for five years. I am an administrator, I have
> written tens of articles, created hundreds of pictures, and made tens
> of thousands of edits. I love Wikipedia and all that it represents.
>
> I find the current "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER" banner to be creepy. I don't
> have good words to express it, but it does not feel the right way of
> soliciting donations.
>
> I would call upon the Wikipedians responsible for the banner to give
> it a deep thought about what  message they want to convey to the
> millions of visitors to the site. Thank you.
>

I believe the banner will be judged, not based on the almost universally bad
impressions of it that I have seen from Wikipedians, but based on how much
money it makes. I don't think it's surprising that the banner rubs many
Wikipedians the wrong way. It was created by a PR agency with the express
purpose of raking in as much cash as possible. It's supposed to hit all the
right chords of the hundreds of millions of visitors that will see it, of
whom we long time Wikipedians are a miniscule fraction.