Hi Anna,
Thanks for your note. For what it's worth, Lisa Seitz Gruwell[1] said[2] a couple of days ago on Meta, in response to Liam Wyatt,
Thanks for the feedback. I think you are referring to language about
"keeping Wikipedia ad-free." We have taken that language out of the banner.
She added, in response to myself,
Thanks for the suggestions. Here is the language we are now using to
summarize costs: "If Wikipedia is useful to you, please take one minute to keep it online and growing. We're a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs."
I personally like the simple German wording about "giving something back to Wikipedia" very much. I think many of us started editing with that sort of sentiment in mind.
However, "to keep it online and growing", too, is a vast improvement over "to keep it online and ad-free". I am very happy to see Lisa confirming that "ad-free" has been dropped.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lgruwell-WMF [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising%2F2015-16_Fundraisi...
On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 6:49 AM, Anna Stillwell astillwell@wikimedia.org wrote:
Andreas,
Thank you for this positive feedback. I can't comment on future banner messages because I don't have the requisite knowledge.
Here's where we are right now... I've seen Megan and the fundraising team really apply themselves on this concern. They've interviewed many people and they are starting to collaborate with some of the people who have not liked our banners.
I have no promises. None. I am just filling you in on the process. We're also headed into the busiest times of our year and we are a small team so we may not be able to update you in a timely fashion.
/a
On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 5:42 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
I see that the fundraising banners currently running in Germany[1][2] no longer speak of "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free", but instead encourage people to "give something back to Wikipedia" if they find it useful.
That is a much, much better wording. Thank you. I trust the English
banners
that will run in December will follow the same approach.
Note however that the German FAQ[3] that is linked from the German Donate Now page[4] is several years out of date. It refers to 2013/2014 as the current financial year, and directs readers to the 2011/2012 annual
report
(!!!).
The English FAQ[5] has much less content than the German one (I'm told
all
the outdated content has been commented out) and now lacks any specifics that would give donors an idea of what the Foundation is doing with their money.
In all languages, the link to the FAQ on the Donate Now page is in such small print as to be barely legible. Please update the FAQs in all languages as a matter of urgency, and change the font size of the links
to
something more reasonable.
In general I would like to see the Foundation communicate more clearly, transparently and proactively about where the money goes, and what the
user
benefits are. Reports like the one last year on improving access speed[6] are useful.
Andreas
[1]
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Spendenbanner-de-s5mini-151112_Kopie.jpg
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fehlerhafte_Spendenkampagne.png [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/de [4]
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage...
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/29/how-we-made-editing-wikipedia-twice-as-...
On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 11:17 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I was happy to see increasing net assets and increasing revenue. The fundraising messages that WMF sends should to reflect the facts about
where
the money will go and about the current financial status of WMF.
I've been told by someone whose history with the Wikimedia community is longer than mine that many years ago, the chapters used to be in
stronger
financial positions than WMF was. Eventually this flipped. As recently
as a
few years ago were consistent questions about the effectiveness and integrity of the chapters. In more recent history, the chapters seem to
be
doing well in terms of effectiveness and integrity, and now the bulk of
the
revenue is going to WMF where there are more questions about
effectiveness
and integrity. I'm particularly troubled by the lack of responses from
WMF
to a number of questions that I repeatedly asked about the 2015-2016
Annual
Plan, and I'd really like to see some work done on increasing financial transparency in WMF as well as enhancing the integrity of the online fundraising messages.
Pine
On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
On October 30, the Wikimedia Foundation posted its audited financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2015.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/0b/Audit_Report_-_FY_14-...
The figures contained in these statements have a bearing on the
present
discussion. Some highlights:
Net assets at end of year: $77.8 million (up $24.3 million from $53.5 million)
Current assets include: $35.2 million in cash and cash equivalents $29.0 million in short-term investments.
Total support and revenue: $75.8 million (up $23.3 million from $52.5 million)
Total expenses: $52.6 million (up $6.7 million from $45.9 million)
Internet hosting costs: just under $2 million (down $0.5 million from $2.5 million) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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