It's now If everyone reading this right now gives £3, our fundraiser
will be done within an hour. That's right, the price of a cup of
coffee is all we need.
So I suppose the take-home message is that WMF fundraising has high
estimates of what a coffee costs, rather than their programmers having
expensive tastes ;-)
(In all seriousness: I generally agree with Liam's concerns, but I'd
also like to note that the banners running on mobile are much more
discreet, though are just as eye-catching. Well done to whoever
thought of those.)
Andrew.
On 19 December 2014 at 08:44, WereSpielChequers
werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote:
Two weeks ago I emailed the fundraising team with the following note, quietly
and discretely pointing out an error in their messaging. Sadly I haven't had
a reply and I think that in the UK they are still using the £3 buys a coffee
for a programmer line:
Aside from the incidental nature of the appeal, £3 and $3 are very different
sums of money. When I saw $3 I thought that was an expensive way to buy
coffees and that the WMF should invest in a kettle and some mugs. But £3 for
a coffee, now that just looks wasteful, even to someone living in an
expensive part of London. I dread to think what it looks like to someone
living in other parts of England, let alone cheaper parts of the world. £3
gets coffee and biscuits for a potential wikipedian coming to a training
session, that I could defend.
There's also the honesty/credibility factor. I doubt I am the only person
seeing different versions of these ads including different currencies, if
the sums are this far apart the suspicion has to be that none of the figures
are to be trusted. Not a great help to our program of improving Wikipedia
quality and getting such details right in our articles.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
3.
To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We receive no government
funds. We survive on donations from our readers. If all our past donors
simply gave again today, we could end the fundraiser. Please help us forget
fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.
We are deeply grateful for your past support. This year, please consider
making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
.
https://donate.wikimedia.org
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder
PS: Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep Wikipedia running.
Your contribution counts!
*DONATE NOW »*
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1b=0j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0mt=1rt=0
--
our final email?
This is the last email reminder you'll receive?
Surely that should be qualified with ... this year.??
If that weren't embarrassing, what about...
- Using *bold* AND *italics *AND yellow backgroud colouring all at the
same time in the heading.
- Sending an email on the 18th of December saying that if ALL past
donors simply gave AGAIN today [my emphasis] then you wouldn't need to do
any more fundraising for the rest of the year, i.e. for 2 weeks!!
- On the one had it says we'll never run ads but in the sentence
immediately beforehand pleads help to us stay ad-free another year.
- Does the phrase Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep
Wikipedia running mean a) that less than 1% of readers donate, which is
enough to keep us running, or b) that less than 1% of readers who have
donated, donated enough to keep us running (implying that the other 99% of
donors didn't donate enough)?
- Finally, this email is addressed from Jimmy, but when you receive a
thank you for donating email, it's addressed from Lila. [I should note
that the thank you for donating email IS very positive and
mission-oriented].
*Effectiveness != Efficiency*
One of the official WMF Fundraising principles
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles is *minimal
disruption*...aim to raise money from donors *effectively* [emphasis is
original].
I believe that this wording has been interpreted by the fundraising team to
mean **do the fundraising as quickly as possible. However, I contest that
less disruption and more effective is not the same as shorter
fundraiser. i.e.: Effectiveness != Efficiency.
I am sure that these desperate fundraising emails/banners are *efficient *at
getting the most amount of money as fast as possible (they have been honed
with excellent A/B testing), but, they achieve this by sacrificing the core
WMF fundraising principle of being *minimally disruptive. *In fact, they
actually appear to be following a principle of being as *maximally
*disruptive
as they can get away with, for as short a time as required.
Can the WMF to say how
