[Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

Thanks for the encouragement!  We're really sorry that this decision came
so close to the fundraiser. But I think it's necessary and is going to make
things so much better. I'm hoping that we can get the fundraiser down to
something like 30 days this year (from 46 last year) -- meaning that we'll
take banners down for a week or two in the middle. I'm not sure whether
we'll achieve that. But we're going try to shorten it even further than
that if possible.

The reasons in favor of doing this just piled up so high that we felt we
had to, even though it was a last-minute decision. The only reason not to
do it was simple reason-less aversion to change.

Zack


On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 11:34 PM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 26 November 2012 02:10, Zack Exley <zexley at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > We have some information on the fundraiser launch to share.  We are still
> > planning on launching Monday, November 26, but we're going to make a
> change
> > this year in the timing of campaigns around the world.
> >
> >
> > <snip>
>
>
> > Our volunteer translators have already done a ton of work translating our
> > current best messages -- and we are very thankful! We're using all of
> those
> > translations now, in our testing and they will be the basis of the April
> > campaign. We will be engaging the community of volunteers, donors and
> > readers even more in the coming months to optimize the translations of
> the
> > new messages and ramp up testing in various languages.  Moreover, there
> are
> > technical updates to the translation system that we'll be able to use
> > during the April campaign that are not released yet.
> >
> > We are looking forward to more of our readers receiving better messages
> and
> > donation experiences in countries around the world.
> >
> >
>
> After thinking about the implications of this for a bit, a few thoughts
> have struck me:
>
> *Anything that shortens a campaign for any area of the world is a good
> thing.  Having the chance to use better, well tested messaging, and giving
> our wonderful volunteer translators the time they need to do a great job in
> localizing these messages, will mean shorter campaigns everywhere.
> *We've all seen on previous campaigns that sometimes there comes a banner,
> mid-campaign, that just takes off.  But when that banner is found, it means
> everyone going like mad to try and spread it around.  Now there's time to
> do it well and benefit more areas.
> *This also spreads the workload on both volunteers and staff a lot better.
> This should be particularly beneficial for our non-English colleagues, as
> there will be more opportunity to focus on any issues that they encounter
> and to address improvements that they suggest.
>
> Good luck to the fundraising team in the campaign that's about to kick off,
> and the new one in April.
>
> Risker
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-- 
Zack Exley
Chief Revenue Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
415 506 9225