Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Lodewijk]

Thanks!

2012/11/27 Zack Exley 

> One more thing I should have mentioned: We'll still be testing from time to
> time around the world during the rest of November and December. So don't be
> alarmed if you see banners up. We're still actively trying to improve
> donation processing and translations everywhere.
>
> So far this has been going really well. I know that in some ways the
> banners seem more agressive this year. (But they are only 90-120px tall on
> most screens, vs 172px last year!) But we're on track to having a radically
> shorter fundraiser.
>
> We're also hoping to experiment with turning banners off for people after
> they've seen them a certain number of times (probably 5 times). If we can
> do that without slowing down the fundraiser, we'll make that a new feature
> of the campaign.
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 11:10 PM, Zack Exley  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.
> >
> > Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
> > and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
> > efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
> > smaller banners).
> >
> > In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
> > that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
> > the banners much smaller than they've typically been.
> >
> > But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages
> > in the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known
> is
> > the right thing to do for some time.
> >
> > We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> > GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> > translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running
> the
> > global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> > designs developed in December will be used across the world.
> >
> > We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
> > messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
> > preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people
> in
> > the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
> > December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
> > campaign once a year (in April).
> >
> > *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
> > happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.
> >
> > We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over
> > the next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
> > messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing
> possibilites
> > for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
> > we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
> > December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
> > them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
> > countries.
> >
> > What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
> > to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
> > fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
> > And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't
> think
> > it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.
> >
> > So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and
> the
> > multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment on
> > the Fundraiser 2012 meta discussion page:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012
> >
> > Zack & Megan,
> > WMF fundraising
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Zack Exley
> Chief Revenue Officer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415 506 9225
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

One more thing I should have mentioned: We'll still be testing from time to
time around the world during the rest of November and December. So don't be
alarmed if you see banners up. We're still actively trying to improve
donation processing and translations everywhere.

So far this has been going really well. I know that in some ways the
banners seem more agressive this year. (But they are only 90-120px tall on
most screens, vs 172px last year!) But we're on track to having a radically
shorter fundraiser.

We're also hoping to experiment with turning banners off for people after
they've seen them a certain number of times (probably 5 times). If we can
do that without slowing down the fundraiser, we'll make that a new feature
of the campaign.


On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 11:10 PM, Zack Exley  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.
>
> Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
> and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
> efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
> smaller banners).
>
> In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
> that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
> the banners much smaller than they've typically been.
>
> But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages
> in the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is
> the right thing to do for some time.
>
> We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
> global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> designs developed in December will be used across the world.
>
> We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
> messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
> preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
> the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
> December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
> campaign once a year (in April).
>
> *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
> happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.
>
> We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over
> the next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
> messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing possibilites
> for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
> we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
> December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
> them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
> countries.
>
> What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
> to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
> fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
> And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
> it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.
>
> So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
> multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.
>
> 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.
>
> More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment on
> the Fundraiser 2012 meta discussion page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012
>
> Zack & Megan,
> WMF fundraising
>



-- 
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Wikimedia Foundation
415 506 9225
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

It's hard to predict, but yes, Thomas's numbers are probably about right.
This year, to be cautious, we'll err on the side of raising more from these
5 countries. But if the April campaign is very efficient (money per banner
impression) then we'll be able to balance the distribution better in
2013-14.

Zack


On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 7:23 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> On 27 November 2012 15:06, Lodewijk  wrote:
> > Thanks for the announcement. I'm curious how it will work out.
> >
> > Would it be possible to give a ballpark figure on what percentage of what
> > amount you're expecting/aiming to collect in these five countries in this
> > month, and how much in the rest of the world? I mean, do you expect to
> > raise 10%, 40%, 70% or 90% of the whole movement budget? (I know I could
> > probably look up last years numbers and guess some myself, but you
> probably
> > already did this :) ).
>
> You can find last year's numbers here:
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/report#Top_10_Countries_Donating_to_Wikimedia_Movement_.28to_WMF_or_Local_Chapter.29
>
> The US, Canada, UK and Australia (New Zealand didn't make the top 10,
> although the numbers will be in the Google spreadsheet linked from
> that page if you want them) raised 58% of the total (including money
> raised by chapters). Germany, France and Switzerland, who will also be
> fundraising over the winter as far as I know, raised 23%. That leaves
> 19% from countries that will have the later fundraiser (minus a little
> for NZ). Hopefully it will be more this year, since the fundraising
> team will be able to focus on them.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Thomas Dalton]

On 27 November 2012 15:06, Lodewijk  wrote:
> Thanks for the announcement. I'm curious how it will work out.
>
> Would it be possible to give a ballpark figure on what percentage of what
> amount you're expecting/aiming to collect in these five countries in this
> month, and how much in the rest of the world? I mean, do you expect to
> raise 10%, 40%, 70% or 90% of the whole movement budget? (I know I could
> probably look up last years numbers and guess some myself, but you probably
> already did this :) ).

You can find last year's numbers here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/report#Top_10_Countries_Donating_to_Wikimedia_Movement_.28to_WMF_or_Local_Chapter.29

The US, Canada, UK and Australia (New Zealand didn't make the top 10,
although the numbers will be in the Google spreadsheet linked from
that page if you want them) raised 58% of the total (including money
raised by chapters). Germany, France and Switzerland, who will also be
fundraising over the winter as far as I know, raised 23%. That leaves
19% from countries that will have the later fundraiser (minus a little
for NZ). Hopefully it will be more this year, since the fundraising
team will be able to focus on them.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Lodewijk]

Thanks for the announcement. I'm curious how it will work out.

Would it be possible to give a ballpark figure on what percentage of what
amount you're expecting/aiming to collect in these five countries in this
month, and how much in the rest of the world? I mean, do you expect to
raise 10%, 40%, 70% or 90% of the whole movement budget? (I know I could
probably look up last years numbers and guess some myself, but you probably
already did this :) ).

Best,
Lodewijk

2012/11/26 Zack Exley 

> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Thomas Dalton  >wrote:
>
> > On Nov 26, 2012 5:15 PM, "Nathan"  wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Zack Exley 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > This year we did something different and went up all over the world
> for
> > 24
> > > > hours on Nov 15 as sort of a dress rehearsal. That really helped us
> to
> > > > identify a lot of little things to fix. It also brought in two
> million
> > > > dollars -- our biggest day ever, by far. That gave us the confidence
> to
> > > > launch much later this year.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > If one-off days perform much better than individual days during a long
> > > campaign, have you considered exchanging a 1-2 month drive for a
> > > series of one or two day drives, spaced throughout the year? I don't
> > > really know if that would be easier on you, raise more money or be
> > > better for readers, but it's something to consider.
> >
> > I was thinking the same thing. My understanding is that the main reason
> for
> > a concentrated fundraising drive is that repetition is an important part
> of
> > convincing people to donate. If it is true that tests bring in the same
> as
> > the main drive, then apparently repetition isn't important for us, so
> > perhaps there isn't much point in have a drive.
> >
>
> After this fundraiser we can make some recommendations about how many days
> we'd have to fundraiser if we spread it out and see what opinions are out
> there. I think some may like keeping it to one focused time per year. But I
> do think it would be fewer days overall if we spread it out.
>
> We don't have any evidence that fundraising builds the longer we have the
> banners up. That idea probably comes from several years back when we ran
> weak messages to "warm up" before breaking out with the strongest messages.
> But then we learned that the strong messages were even stronger when we
> started with them. In fact, the power of fundraising banners drops every
> day they're up. Then every day there are no banners their power charges
> back up.
>
>
> > ___
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Zack Exley
> Chief Revenue Officer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415 506 9225
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> On Nov 26, 2012 5:15 PM, "Nathan"  wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Zack Exley 
> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > This year we did something different and went up all over the world for
> 24
> > > hours on Nov 15 as sort of a dress rehearsal. That really helped us to
> > > identify a lot of little things to fix. It also brought in two million
> > > dollars -- our biggest day ever, by far. That gave us the confidence to
> > > launch much later this year.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > If one-off days perform much better than individual days during a long
> > campaign, have you considered exchanging a 1-2 month drive for a
> > series of one or two day drives, spaced throughout the year? I don't
> > really know if that would be easier on you, raise more money or be
> > better for readers, but it's something to consider.
>
> I was thinking the same thing. My understanding is that the main reason for
> a concentrated fundraising drive is that repetition is an important part of
> convincing people to donate. If it is true that tests bring in the same as
> the main drive, then apparently repetition isn't important for us, so
> perhaps there isn't much point in have a drive.
>

After this fundraiser we can make some recommendations about how many days
we'd have to fundraiser if we spread it out and see what opinions are out
there. I think some may like keeping it to one focused time per year. But I
do think it would be fewer days overall if we spread it out.

We don't have any evidence that fundraising builds the longer we have the
banners up. That idea probably comes from several years back when we ran
weak messages to "warm up" before breaking out with the strongest messages.
But then we learned that the strong messages were even stronger when we
started with them. In fact, the power of fundraising banners drops every
day they're up. Then every day there are no banners their power charges
back up.


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415 506 9225
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Thomas Dalton]

On Nov 26, 2012 5:15 PM, "Nathan"  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Zack Exley  wrote:
>
> >
> > This year we did something different and went up all over the world for
24
> > hours on Nov 15 as sort of a dress rehearsal. That really helped us to
> > identify a lot of little things to fix. It also brought in two million
> > dollars -- our biggest day ever, by far. That gave us the confidence to
> > launch much later this year.
> >
> >
>
> If one-off days perform much better than individual days during a long
> campaign, have you considered exchanging a 1-2 month drive for a
> series of one or two day drives, spaced throughout the year? I don't
> really know if that would be easier on you, raise more money or be
> better for readers, but it's something to consider.

I was thinking the same thing. My understanding is that the main reason for
a concentrated fundraising drive is that repetition is an important part of
convincing people to donate. If it is true that tests bring in the same as
the main drive, then apparently repetition isn't important for us, so
perhaps there isn't much point in have a drive.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Nathan]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Zack Exley  wrote:

>
> This year we did something different and went up all over the world for 24
> hours on Nov 15 as sort of a dress rehearsal. That really helped us to
> identify a lot of little things to fix. It also brought in two million
> dollars -- our biggest day ever, by far. That gave us the confidence to
> launch much later this year.
>
>

If one-off days perform much better than individual days during a long
campaign, have you considered exchanging a 1-2 month drive for a
series of one or two day drives, spaced throughout the year? I don't
really know if that would be easier on you, raise more money or be
better for readers, but it's something to consider.

Nathan

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 3:36 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:

> This is an interesting idea, and makes a lot of sense. Non-English
> fundraising hasn't really had the attention it needs in previous years (for
> obvious reasons - it's more efficient to focus your attention where you can
> achieve the most) and this should make a big difference.
>
> I'm curious, as you do more and more testing each year and a shorter and
> shorter fundraiser, how much of the total are you expecting to come from
> testing? I was looking at the stats yesterday and, if I was reading it
> correctly, the recent tests have been raising about as much per day as the
> main 2010 fundraiser did.
>

Yes, as we test more, more money comes in outside of the campaign period.
It is still a small amount in proportion. But tests make just as much per
banner view as the actual fundraiser in general.

As we get closer the fundraiser we test more and more. For several months
we limited ourselves to one hour per week. Then we went up to two. And
since Nov 15 (last year's launch date) we figured we could get away with
more. So we went to 3 or sometimes more. But usually the tests are only in
one or a few countries at a time.

This year we did something different and went up all over the world for 24
hours on Nov 15 as sort of a dress rehearsal. That really helped us to
identify a lot of little things to fix. It also brought in two million
dollars -- our biggest day ever, by far. That gave us the confidence to
launch much later this year.



> On Nov 26, 2012 7:11 AM, "Zack Exley"  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.
> >
> > Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
> > and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
> > efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
> > smaller banners).
> >
> > In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
> > that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
> > the banners much smaller than they've typically been.
> >
> > But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages
> in
> > the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is
> the
> > right thing to do for some time.
> >
> > We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> > GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> > translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running
> the
> > global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> > designs developed in December will be used across the world.
> >
> > We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
> > messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
> > preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people
> in
> > the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
> > December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
> > campaign once a year (in April).
> >
> > *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
> > happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.
> >
> > We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over
> the
> > next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
> > messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing
> possibilites
> > for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
> > we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
> > December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
> > them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
> > countries.
> >
> > What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
> > to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
> > fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
> > And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't
> think
> > it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.
> >
> > So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and
> the
> > multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.
> >
> > 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 upda

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 2:09 AM, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 26 November 2012 07:10, Zack Exley  wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
>
> BTW, a blog post detailing this stuff would be an excellent thing -
> people I know are fascinated by the details of how we do what we do.
>
>
That is a very good idea. We're so busy right now, we might not be able to
do it though. But there will be the fundraising report after the fundraiser.

>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 2:08 AM, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 26 November 2012 07:10, Zack Exley  wrote:
>
> > We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> > GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> > translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running
> the
> > global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> > designs developed in December will be used across the world.
>
>
> So ... you're dividing this up by country, not by project language -
> even though language is the issue?
>

Language is not the only issue. We also want to pay closer attention to
local payment methods, local fraud monitoring, credit card and other
payment processing rates, etc... And that stuff is all country-based.

But the main reason to do it by country is that it's the best way to ensure
that people only see banners once a year. Most -- or at least many --
readers use several projects regularly. So if we did it by language, a lot
of people would see two months of banners at different times of the year.



>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Thomas Dalton]

This is an interesting idea, and makes a lot of sense. Non-English
fundraising hasn't really had the attention it needs in previous years (for
obvious reasons - it's more efficient to focus your attention where you can
achieve the most) and this should make a big difference.

I'm curious, as you do more and more testing each year and a shorter and
shorter fundraiser, how much of the total are you expecting to come from
testing? I was looking at the stats yesterday and, if I was reading it
correctly, the recent tests have been raising about as much per day as the
main 2010 fundraiser did.
On Nov 26, 2012 7:11 AM, "Zack Exley"  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.
>
> Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
> and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
> efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
> smaller banners).
>
> In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
> that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
> the banners much smaller than they've typically been.
>
> But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages in
> the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is the
> right thing to do for some time.
>
> We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
> global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> designs developed in December will be used across the world.
>
> We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
> messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
> preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
> the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
> December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
> campaign once a year (in April).
>
> *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
> happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.
>
> We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over the
> next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
> messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing possibilites
> for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
> we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
> December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
> them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
> countries.
>
> What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
> to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
> fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
> And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
> it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.
>
> So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
> multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.
>
> 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.
>
> More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment
> on the Fundraiser
> 2012 meta discussion page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012
>
> Zack & Megan,
> WMF fundraising
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Dan Rosenthal]

What would be nice to have would be a not-overly-detailed summary of how
payment processing/fundraising was done 5 years ago, and how it is being
done this year (and in the future) with new payment processing, FDC, etc.
Because frankly, I don't have a clue anymore.

Dan Rosenthal


On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Philippe Beaudette  wrote:

> I'd actually like to clarify something about the way fundraisers work,
> because it may not be readily apparent to everyone remember that the
> date that the goal is "hit" is always fuzzy, because we actually don't know
> it until it's viewed in retrospect.  There's money that comes in on a date
> that isn't actually posted until later (for instance, check transactions,
> which aren't posted the day they're received or transactions from payment
> processors that may report on a 24 hour delay - I don't know if there are
> any of these right now, but there used to be - or something similar).
>
> So you actually don't know what date you "hit" the mark until you're quite
> a bit farther down the line.  Systems are markedly better this year than
> ever before, but I remember the year that I worked the fundraiser, we were
> a week or more behind on posting checks.  That's just a manpower issue.
>
> So while it's easy to talk about the "date" as though there's a magic total
> board, there's not.  It's mostly good guesswork by Zack, his team, and the
> payment processing chapters in approximating when it happens.
>
> pb
>
> ___
> Philippe Beaudette
> Director, Community Advocacy
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:21 AM, K. Peachey  wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Zack Exley 
> wrote:
> > > 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)
> >
> > Is that 46 day figure when the goal was reached and exceeded or when
> > they were turned off, Since last year (and a few others if i'm not
> > mistaken) those were two different dates.
> >
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[David Gerard]

On 26 November 2012 07:10, Zack Exley  wrote:

> 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.


BTW, a blog post detailing this stuff would be an excellent thing -
people I know are fascinated by the details of how we do what we do.


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[David Gerard]

On 26 November 2012 07:10, Zack Exley  wrote:

> We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
> GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
> translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
> global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
> designs developed in December will be used across the world.


So ... you're dividing this up by country, not by project language -
even though language is the issue?


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Philippe Beaudette]

I'd actually like to clarify something about the way fundraisers work,
because it may not be readily apparent to everyone remember that the
date that the goal is "hit" is always fuzzy, because we actually don't know
it until it's viewed in retrospect.  There's money that comes in on a date
that isn't actually posted until later (for instance, check transactions,
which aren't posted the day they're received or transactions from payment
processors that may report on a 24 hour delay - I don't know if there are
any of these right now, but there used to be - or something similar).

So you actually don't know what date you "hit" the mark until you're quite
a bit farther down the line.  Systems are markedly better this year than
ever before, but I remember the year that I worked the fundraiser, we were
a week or more behind on posting checks.  That's just a manpower issue.

So while it's easy to talk about the "date" as though there's a magic total
board, there's not.  It's mostly good guesswork by Zack, his team, and the
payment processing chapters in approximating when it happens.

pb

___
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Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

phili...@wikimedia.org



On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:21 AM, K. Peachey  wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Zack Exley  wrote:
> > 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)
>
> Is that 46 day figure when the goal was reached and exceeded or when
> they were turned off, Since last year (and a few others if i'm not
> mistaken) those were two different dates.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[K. Peachey]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Zack Exley  wrote:
> 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)

Is that 46 day figure when the goal was reached and exceeded or when
they were turned off, Since last year (and a few others if i'm not
mistaken) those were two different dates.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Florence Devouard]

Ok

Thanks

Flo

On 11/26/12 9:22 AM, Zack Exley wrote:

No, sorry, that was an oversight in my message. We will not run campaigns
in those countries (FR, DE, CH) in April.


On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Florence Devouard wrote:


On 11/26/12 8:10 AM, Zack Exley 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.

Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
smaller banners).

In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
the banners much smaller than they've typically been.

But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages
in
the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is
the
right thing to do for some time.

We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
designs developed in December will be used across the world.

We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
campaign once a year (in April).



Hello

Very practical question...

4 chapters are currently also fundraising (right now, at the usual time
period).

Does that mean that that the WMF will fundraise in these countries in
April whilst chapters will also fundraise in these countries in nov-january
? (which mean they will see two campaigns ?)

And does "all other countries" mean "everywhere BUT US, CA, GB, AU, NZ,
France, Switzerland and Germany ?"

Flo



  *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they

happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.

We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over
the
next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing
possibilites
for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
countries.

What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.

So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.

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.

More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment
on the Fundraiser
2012 meta discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012

Zack & Megan,
WMF fundraising
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

No, sorry, that was an oversight in my message. We will not run campaigns
in those countries (FR, DE, CH) in April.


On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Florence Devouard wrote:

> On 11/26/12 8:10 AM, Zack Exley 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.
>>
>> Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
>> and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
>> efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
>> smaller banners).
>>
>> In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
>> that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
>> the banners much smaller than they've typically been.
>>
>> But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages
>> in
>> the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is
>> the
>> right thing to do for some time.
>>
>> We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
>> GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
>> translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
>> global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
>> designs developed in December will be used across the world.
>>
>> We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
>> messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
>> preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
>> the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
>> December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
>> campaign once a year (in April).
>>
>
> Hello
>
> Very practical question...
>
> 4 chapters are currently also fundraising (right now, at the usual time
> period).
>
> Does that mean that that the WMF will fundraise in these countries in
> April whilst chapters will also fundraise in these countries in nov-january
> ? (which mean they will see two campaigns ?)
>
> And does "all other countries" mean "everywhere BUT US, CA, GB, AU, NZ,
> France, Switzerland and Germany ?"
>
> Flo
>
>
>
>  *Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
>> happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.
>>
>> We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over
>> the
>> next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
>> messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing
>> possibilites
>> for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
>> we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
>> December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
>> them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
>> countries.
>>
>> What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
>> to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
>> fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
>> And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
>> it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.
>>
>> So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
>> multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment
>> on the Fundraiser
>> 2012 meta discussion page:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012
>>
>> Zack & Megan,
>> WMF fundraising
>> __**_
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>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org 
>> Unsubscribe: 
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
>>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Florence Devouard]

On 11/26/12 8:10 AM, Zack Exley 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.

Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
smaller banners).

In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
the banners much smaller than they've typically been.

But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages in
the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is the
right thing to do for some time.

We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
designs developed in December will be used across the world.

We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
campaign once a year (in April).


Hello

Very practical question...

4 chapters are currently also fundraising (right now, at the usual time 
period).


Does that mean that that the WMF will fundraise in these countries in 
April whilst chapters will also fundraise in these countries in 
nov-january ? (which mean they will see two campaigns ?)


And does "all other countries" mean "everywhere BUT US, CA, GB, AU, NZ, 
France, Switzerland and Germany ?"


Flo




*Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.

We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over the
next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing possibilites
for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
countries.

What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.

So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.

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.

More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment
on the Fundraiser
2012 meta discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012

Zack & Megan,
WMF fundraising
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Re: [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  wrote:

> On 26 November 2012 02:10, Zack Exley  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.
> >
> >
> > 
>
>
> > 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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Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Risker]

On 26 November 2012 02:10, Zack Exley  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.
>
>
> 


> 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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[Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Zack Exley]

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.

Every year, as we get closer to the launch date, we test more frequently
and discover new messages and designs that make the fundraiser much more
efficient (i.e. more money per day, shorter fundraiser, fewer and/or
smaller banners).

In the past couple weeks, we've discovered some new designs and messages
that we believe will let us shorten the fundraiser by a lot -- *and* make
the banners much smaller than they've typically been.

But we don't have time to adapt these to all the countries and languages in
the world right away. This has pushed us to do something we've known is the
right thing to do for some time.

We're going to run this end of year campaign only in 5 countries (US, CA,
GB, AU & NZ) and then spend three months meticulously localizing and
translating (and testing for new purely local messages) before running the
global campaign in all other counties, in which our best messages and
designs developed in December will be used across the world.

We will use the time over the next month to run short tests of various
messages and payment options in other languages and countries in
preparation for the global campaign that we'll run in April.  So people in
the five-country campaign will still only see a campaign once a year (in
December).  And people in all other countries will still only see a
campaign once a year (in April).

*Everyone, everywhere will only see one campaign per year* -- unless they
happen to travel from, say, the US in December to India in April.

We're excited about breaking the campaign up for several reasons.  Over the
next month, we will be able to focus on testing and finding the best
messages.  The new "Facts" banners have opened up more testing possibilites
for us, and we'll learn a lot about our messages in the next month, while
we can test 24 hours per day.  We'll use the lessons learned from the
December five-country campaign and spend the next three months applying
them correctly and testing multiple versions in other languages and
countries.

What we've learned over the past few years is that the same messages tend
to win all over the world. But that translating short, colloquial
fundraising messages takes a long time and many translators to get right.
And we're finding a new "best" message basically every day. We don't think
it's good if only English readers are getting our best messages.

So overall, we think we'll be able to run both the English banners and the
multilingual banners better by breaking up the campaign.

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.

More info to come! Instead of replying to this thread, please comment
on the Fundraiser
2012 meta discussion page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012

Zack & Megan,
WMF fundraising
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