[Wikimedia-l] 15% off merchandise today at the Wikimedia Shop

[James Alexander]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:42 AM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Marcin Cieslak wrote:
> >I just wanted to share my feelings: I went to en.wikipedia.org today and
> >I saw this message on top:
> >
> >Happy Birthday Wikipedia!
> >15% off merchandise today at the Wikimedia Shop
> >
> >My first impression was: I think I mistyped the URL...
>
> I primarily contribute to Wikipedia, so I can't say for sure, but I would
> imagine it wouldn't feel great to look at the Wikimedia Shop right now as
> a Wiktionarian or a Wikinewsie or a Wikisorcerer or....
>
> I primarily contribute in English, so I can't say for sure, but I would
> imagine it wouldn't feel great to look at the Wikimedia Shop right now as
> someone who primarily speaks French or Spanish or German or Italian or ....
>
> I imagine most active users have given up on CentralNotice and have the
> banners permanently hidden while logged in. But it isn't the banner that
> bothers me as much as the place to which it leads. These are solvable
> problems. We can do better.
>
> MZMcBride
>

First off I agree; This is currently why the Central Notice is only on
English Wikipedia right now (though I was going to post to this list and
meta later to try and get others to see it). I'm not sure
the evidence actually bears true for the permanently hidden central notice
concern but I can certainly understand why you think that. Central Notice
is an over used kludgel and we need to have better options (and Engineering
is working on them) but I think this is an appropriate use.

Re the shop concerns: These are solvable problems, and as I've told
everyone who's asked about these issues (including you) they are not nearly
easy problems to solve. We don't have the resources to dive in and make
more languages and products from the start. I learned very quickly that
running a shop like this takes far more effort and work then I would have
ever imagined and I am only staff member assigned to it (basically) full
time.  Sadly, if we had to jump in the deep end with lots of languages and
all of the projects at the start we likely would never have been able to do
this, or at least would have had to shut it down.  As we gauge the shop and
let it grow then we will be able to add them.

On the product side I actually think we've done that extremely well. It was
seeded with Wikipedia 10 product and designs we had from before I switched
to the job. This stuff was, understandably, Wikipedia centric. Because of
that I've worked to make sure the products I've introduced since then has
not been: Lapel pins and stickers for all of the projects, nicely made
button packs showcasing all of the projects and today the WLM calendar (I
did introduce the water-bottles which are WP centric but purposely not
language centric with lots of our word marks on there).

The language side is problematic because of the software we're on now, I'd
very much like to push for a couple different languages ASAP (they would be
done as separate shops sadly) but in the long term if we continue we're
going to have to look at a couple other software options and I've already
been looking and playing with them to see which is best. Sadly those other
options aren't plug and play like this was however, the require much more
customization and backend server support that we don't have yet (because we
have to prove it's worth it).

James

James Alexander
Manager, Merchandise
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur