[Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long

[Zack Exley]

OK, so we're going to stop the banner sticking for now -- and to compensate
we're going to show newcomers two banner impressions instead of one and
that should be sufficient to close out the fundraiser. (Let me know if it's
not clear what I mean by that.) If it looks like we're going to fall short,
however, we might have to go back to sticking this year.

Next year, we'll discuss options and do some surveys of logged in and
not-logged-in users and try to make a good decision about what the least
painful way for all will be to raise the money.

I think that we're now in a position to raise the annual budget with very
little user pain starting in 2013 -- perhaps the least pain is that
everyone gets 5 banners per year that are very small and non-stick. Or
maybe it's that everyone gets one slightly larger, sticky banner. It's
subjective, and we need to listen to a real cross section of users about
it.

I am grateful for all the good faith shown over the years to the
fundraising team at WMF as we've experimented in different directions that
have sometimes been painful to get to this point.

Zack


On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> The upshot is, vocal Wikimedians on mailing lists hate banners, and are
> quite willing to sternly lecture about their dire consequences! It's left
> to the Foundation, then, to choose between large numbers of donations from
> happy donors and unamused mailing list participants. Tough call.
>
> My own opinion closely mirrors that of Michael Snow, so I'll quote what he
> said:
>
> "That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all of the decisions that
> went into the current banners as to aesthetics or content. But I also don't
> have the expertise or all of the data that's behind those decisions, which
> is why I tend to reach a similar conclusion as Ziko. I trust that the
> fundraising team will attempt to balance all of these considerations, that
> they do listen to the concerns people have, and that they will make the
> best choices they can in light of the information available. Keeping that
> in mind usually helps me as I reflect on whether my own concerns are merely
> matters of personal taste or something more important."
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-- 
Zack Exley
Chief Revenue Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
415 506 9225