Ryan Lane,
The whole of your post suggests that the fundraising folks are deaf. Your last sentence
doesn't make you more to the point. This makes you really unapproachable and puts the
fundraising folks into harder position as they have to cry, beg pardon and spend time
apologizing -- as if they had killed a kitten -- before they can approach you and ask for
help.
On one side, such hostile approach is something you might feel these folks deserve for
their awful mistakes. You might feel that you're being more clear about it - but
clarity doesn't really have to come at the cost of shaming and not having made a
single move toward changing the situation. We are all learning.
We should work out measurable, actionable steps toward solving the problem. Such steps
should look pleasant, nice, encouraging, motivating, and informative. When looking at
them, everyone reading the thread should smile and feel that they should've come up
with these steps long ago (including all of the WMF staff and the fundraising folks), and
feel motivated to expand them.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles was mentioned in this thread
earlier as a collaboration space. It is probably a good one (although it lacks geometry
specs or any kind of time or statistics suggestions or past analysis results). That's
a wiki. It is just waiting for you to touch it and put it in better shape.
--
svetlana
On Thu, 4 Dec 2014, at 15:34, Ryan Lane wrote:
svetlana <svetlana@...> writes:
I wrote:
> it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault for accumulating
their rage instead of
communicating it early
I unintentionally skipped a couple words. I meant to say:
> it's usually both sides of the conversation at fault, *such* *as* for
accumulating their rage instead of
communicating it early
I worked for Wikimedia Foundation for a little over four years. Every year I
(and many other staff members) have expressed worry about the size and
message of the banners. There's been plenty of early communication.
Every year we get promises that they'll work on making the banners better.
However, it seems when they say better, they mean more effective from the
perspective of generating revenue. The message from the fundraising staff
and Lila is more of the same.
This year I've started having people I know worry that Wikipedia is in
financial trouble. It makes me feel ashamed when I have to tell them
Wikipedia is in fact fine, but that the foundation uses this messaging to
more effectively drive donations. It makes them angry to hear it.
I'm not trying to paint this as us vs them. I'm trying to express that
planting heads firmly in the sand is not an effective approach to dealing
with the brand damage that's readily apparent on social media.
- Ryan
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