Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 4 Dec 2012, at 19:09, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: That's nice and all, but there should also be no sticking. When I scroll a page, I expect the -entire page- to scroll. Anything that breaks that and moves with or sticks with the page is extremely visually distracting and gets hit with AdBlock at once, even if it's just a Share This bar. It indicates either poor design or an attempt to deliberately distract, and either is unacceptable. If that means more days of banners that can be scrolled past, more days it is. And no, I'm not the only one I know who thinks so. That seems a very personal, and technically adept persons, viewpoint. This IS, as you identify, an attempt to deliberately attract notice. You are not the target audience, though, so feel free to us Adblock :-) problem solved! Also on the subject of flow: A: Because it reverses the normal reading flow. Q: ... I think you might have gotten this the wrong way round ;-) Tom ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Nathan wrote: It's been clear to me, and seemingly other people, that Zack and the fundraising team take their task very seriously, and are extraordinarily thoughtful in all of their plans and interactions - with folks on the mailing list, with editors and other stakeholders, and with readers. The fundraising drive this year is head and shoulders above any prior effort by virtually any possible measure. To take a two word phrase in a short e-mail out of that greater context, and use it to imply that Zack is treating site visitors as though they're simply playthings does Zack a great disservice, and does you no credit. Try to keep in mind that Wikimedia employees are people with feelings and pride in their work, and in the future take more care with comments that impugn their work, professionalism and character. Yes, you're right. It wasn't fair to quote in the way that I did. It came close to twisting words and it unfortunately buried the larger point that I was trying to make about experimenting on users and the lack of general guidance in this area. I shouldn't have done that and I apologize. And while you're certainly right that employees are often protective of their work, you can see how Wikimedians are often protective of theirs? Fundraising banners are safely categorized as a necessary evil these days, but when they begin to intrude on page content or intrude on mouse hover, I believe that crosses a line. Finally, I've said previously that Wikimedians (or Wikipedians, rather) complain loudly, but congratulate softly. Megan and her team have done amazing work this year and I agree with you and others who rate this as the best and most successful annual fundraiser in Wikimedia's history. And not that money is the only thing that matters, but in terms of comparison to other years, this year has apparently just blown them away: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. It's very impressive work and I hope nobody on the fundraising team feels as though it's gone unnoticed. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Unacceptable! On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:52 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Zack Exley wrote: We just were playing around with the hover banners to see what kind of effect they might have. They're not up now. And probably won't come back. Your comment reminds me of discussions from earlier this year with the Editor engagement experiments (E3) team about treating Wikimedia users as colleagues, not as customers.[1] The auto-expand banners were unacceptable. As I'm currently viewing en.wikipedia.org, the banners _continue_ to block portions of the page content as I scroll down the page. This is also unacceptable. Enough playing around. You're annoying readers and editors alike with these banners. MZMcBride [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Experiments ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Zack, you may want to look up sample bias... Of course you don't get many complaints from the people that responded positively to the banners... On Dec 4, 2012 5:56 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: Unacceptable! Sorry Max, your tone and language gave me a flashback to my demonic 3rd grade teacher and it took a little while to recover. (I'm not joking.) On the topic of the sticky banners, I'd like to know what others think. Starting next year, or even now, we can remove the stickiness. That will just mean more days of banners. It's just a choice. To me, it's not clear which is better. Tens of thousands of donors have filled out a survey this year after donating. We've gotten hardly a handful of complaints. I would have expected a lot. Instead, we have lots of people thanking us for making them see the banners, because they were happy to learn this surprising news that we're a non-profit that runs on donations. Is it really so bad? Stickiness boosts donations by about 20-30%. That means many fewer days of banners. Next year it may mean that we just show people only one banner view all year instead of two. Or maybe 2 instead of 4 (we don't know how it will play out yet). On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:52 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Zack Exley wrote: We just were playing around with the hover banners to see what kind of effect they might have. They're not up now. And probably won't come back. Your comment reminds me of discussions from earlier this year with the Editor engagement experiments (E3) team about treating Wikimedia users as colleagues, not as customers.[1] The auto-expand banners were unacceptable. As I'm currently viewing en.wikipedia.org, the banners _continue_ to block portions of the page content as I scroll down the page. This is also unacceptable. Enough playing around. You're annoying readers and editors alike with these banners. MZMcBride [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Experiments ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 4 December 2012 17:37, Matthew Walker mwal...@wikimedia.org wrote: As I'm currently viewing en.wikipedia.org, the banners _continue_ to block portions of the page content as I scroll down the page. This is also unacceptable. This comment indicates to me that this behavior is not what you're seeing? If you are still seeing banners after one page load kindly provide me withbe your operating system/browser and I'll try and figure out why it's not working on your setup. I really think the correct fix for this bug is not do this more slickly but don't do this. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
OK Thomas, I'll look that up. Thanks. On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: Zack, you may want to look up sample bias... Of course you don't get many complaints from the people that responded positively to the banners... On Dec 4, 2012 5:56 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: Unacceptable! Sorry Max, your tone and language gave me a flashback to my demonic 3rd grade teacher and it took a little while to recover. (I'm not joking.) On the topic of the sticky banners, I'd like to know what others think. Starting next year, or even now, we can remove the stickiness. That will just mean more days of banners. It's just a choice. To me, it's not clear which is better. Tens of thousands of donors have filled out a survey this year after donating. We've gotten hardly a handful of complaints. I would have expected a lot. Instead, we have lots of people thanking us for making them see the banners, because they were happy to learn this surprising news that we're a non-profit that runs on donations. Is it really so bad? Stickiness boosts donations by about 20-30%. That means many fewer days of banners. Next year it may mean that we just show people only one banner view all year instead of two. Or maybe 2 instead of 4 (we don't know how it will play out yet). On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:52 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Zack Exley wrote: We just were playing around with the hover banners to see what kind of effect they might have. They're not up now. And probably won't come back. Your comment reminds me of discussions from earlier this year with the Editor engagement experiments (E3) team about treating Wikimedia users as colleagues, not as customers.[1] The auto-expand banners were unacceptable. As I'm currently viewing en.wikipedia.org, the banners _continue_ to block portions of the page content as I scroll down the page. This is also unacceptable. Enough playing around. You're annoying readers and editors alike with these banners. MZMcBride [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Experiments ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Jon Robson jdlrob...@gmail.com wrote: From as I understand it the main problems with the sticky banners seem to be due to several bugs related to it being sticky. Sticky banners do have a habit of taking a life of their own and obscuring content. They cause me a lot of pain as a developer and are hard to get right. The auto expansion on hover is very confusing and does not meet my expectations as a user of how it should behave (to the point I came close to raising a bug assuming it was misbehaving). I also encountered a bug which stopped me from sharing content [1]. Just to repeat: The auto-expanding ones are dead. We have to work with facts though and if they perform better we should be iterating on these banners and improving them so that we still get the benefits of a shorter fundraiser and do not upset our users. Good work to everyone involved that has made this fundraiser so successful with that insight. I'd be interested to know whether a sticky banner that moves to the side of the screen out of the way of content as the user scrolls was equally effective at getting lots of donations and reducing annoyance that some people have obviously been having. I look forward to seeing more experimentation. [1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42651 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
The upshot is, vocal Wikimedians on mailing lists hate banners, and are quite willing to sternly lecture about their dire consequences! It's left to the Foundation, then, to choose between large numbers of donations from happy donors and unamused mailing list participants. Tough call. My own opinion closely mirrors that of Michael Snow, so I'll quote what he said: That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all of the decisions that went into the current banners as to aesthetics or content. But I also don't have the expertise or all of the data that's behind those decisions, which is why I tend to reach a similar conclusion as Ziko. I trust that the fundraising team will attempt to balance all of these considerations, that they do listen to the concerns people have, and that they will make the best choices they can in light of the information available. Keeping that in mind usually helps me as I reflect on whether my own concerns are merely matters of personal taste or something more important. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
OK, so we're going to stop the banner sticking for now -- and to compensate we're going to show newcomers two banner impressions instead of one and that should be sufficient to close out the fundraiser. (Let me know if it's not clear what I mean by that.) If it looks like we're going to fall short, however, we might have to go back to sticking this year. Next year, we'll discuss options and do some surveys of logged in and not-logged-in users and try to make a good decision about what the least painful way for all will be to raise the money. I think that we're now in a position to raise the annual budget with very little user pain starting in 2013 -- perhaps the least pain is that everyone gets 5 banners per year that are very small and non-stick. Or maybe it's that everyone gets one slightly larger, sticky banner. It's subjective, and we need to listen to a real cross section of users about it. I am grateful for all the good faith shown over the years to the fundraising team at WMF as we've experimented in different directions that have sometimes been painful to get to this point. Zack On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: The upshot is, vocal Wikimedians on mailing lists hate banners, and are quite willing to sternly lecture about their dire consequences! It's left to the Foundation, then, to choose between large numbers of donations from happy donors and unamused mailing list participants. Tough call. My own opinion closely mirrors that of Michael Snow, so I'll quote what he said: That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all of the decisions that went into the current banners as to aesthetics or content. But I also don't have the expertise or all of the data that's behind those decisions, which is why I tend to reach a similar conclusion as Ziko. I trust that the fundraising team will attempt to balance all of these considerations, that they do listen to the concerns people have, and that they will make the best choices they can in light of the information available. Keeping that in mind usually helps me as I reflect on whether my own concerns are merely matters of personal taste or something more important. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Zack, thank you for your response. I believe you have appropriately address my concerns and the concerns of the community. Banners are necessary, but continuing the complaints about the sticky banners is not necessary. Two formats beside persistent horizontal banners located at the top and bottom that might be nice are inline banners. By placing clearly marked banners in a gray space between sections should be tried and sidebar appeals should also be tested, an idea developed but never deployed. Finally, empty space around the Vector interface (for example next to the article feedback area) would be a nice place for fundraising appeals. On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: OK, so we're going to stop the banner sticking for now -- and to compensate we're going to show newcomers two banner impressions instead of one and that should be sufficient to close out the fundraiser. (Let me know if it's not clear what I mean by that.) If it looks like we're going to fall short, however, we might have to go back to sticking this year. Next year, we'll discuss options and do some surveys of logged in and not-logged-in users and try to make a good decision about what the least painful way for all will be to raise the money. I think that we're now in a position to raise the annual budget with very little user pain starting in 2013 -- perhaps the least pain is that everyone gets 5 banners per year that are very small and non-stick. Or maybe it's that everyone gets one slightly larger, sticky banner. It's subjective, and we need to listen to a real cross section of users about it. I am grateful for all the good faith shown over the years to the fundraising team at WMF as we've experimented in different directions that have sometimes been painful to get to this point. Zack On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: The upshot is, vocal Wikimedians on mailing lists hate banners, and are quite willing to sternly lecture about their dire consequences! It's left to the Foundation, then, to choose between large numbers of donations from happy donors and unamused mailing list participants. Tough call. My own opinion closely mirrors that of Michael Snow, so I'll quote what he said: That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all of the decisions that went into the current banners as to aesthetics or content. But I also don't have the expertise or all of the data that's behind those decisions, which is why I tend to reach a similar conclusion as Ziko. I trust that the fundraising team will attempt to balance all of these considerations, that they do listen to the concerns people have, and that they will make the best choices they can in light of the information available. Keeping that in mind usually helps me as I reflect on whether my own concerns are merely matters of personal taste or something more important. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 6:04 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Wikimedia projects are composed of both readers and volunteer editors. It's bad enough to read Zack talk about playing around with site visitors as though they're simply playthings to be manipulated for money (customers, not colleagues), but when long-time contributors such as yourself blithely dismiss legitimate criticism (with a bullshit analogy, no less), I personally think it's shameful. I think you're better than that. It's been clear to me, and seemingly other people, that Zack and the fundraising team take their task very seriously, and are extraordinarily thoughtful in all of their plans and interactions - with folks on the mailing list, with editors and other stakeholders, and with readers. The fundraising drive this year is head and shoulders above any prior effort by virtually any possible measure. To take a two word phrase in a short e-mail out of that greater context, and use it to imply that Zack is treating site visitors as though they're simply playthings does Zack a great disservice, and does you no credit. Try to keep in mind that Wikimedia employees are people with feelings and pride in their work, and in the future take more care with comments that impugn their work, professionalism and character. Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 3:04 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Zack Exley wrote: Tens of thousands of donors have filled out a survey this year after donating. We've gotten hardly a handful of complaints. I would have expected a lot. Can you elaborate on this point? You seem to be saying that you would have expected a lot of complaints from people who are filling out a voluntary survey after having willingly donated money to you. Just how many complaints were you expecting and what might they look like? I'm fascinated to know. I don't know what Zack was expecting this year, but having worked on the fundraiser last year, the banners were talked about so extensively that they became the topic of numerous blog posts at large outlets. The Brandon Harris one even got him to an IAMA on Reddit. They were very much mocking the left orientation and the easy way you could screen shot the photo over a Wikipedia article title to make an insult. It was not that much fun to read when you were investing a lot of time and energy on the effort, so I think some of us were not looking forward to the same happening this year. Now that I monitor social media for the Foundation, I get to see a lot of chatter around the banner. I don't mean to suggest Tweets are proof of anything definitively, but of the ten thousand+ Wikipedia tweets since Nov 15, I've only seen a small handful of them (I would guess less than 20) that mentioned the yellow banners negatively. I haven't monitored every single tweet of course, so if someone wants to be more scientific about it, please do. A search on Twitter for yellow banner does bring up some of those negative ones, but it's not a huge list. FWIW, Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's been clear to me, and seemingly other people, that Zack and the fundraising team take their task very seriously, and are extraordinarily thoughtful in all of their plans and interactions - with folks on the mailing list, with editors and other stakeholders, and with readers. The fundraising drive this year is head and shoulders above any prior effort by virtually any possible measure. Yes, that has been awesome to watch. Both the WMF team and the WM-DE team have been inspiring me recently. I enjoyed this blog post: http://blog.marketingzone.com/how-to-ask-for-donations/ SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Dec 4, 2012 7:56 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: Next year, we'll discuss options and do some surveys of logged in and not-logged-in users and try to make a good decision about what the least painful way for all will be to raise the money. Collating some good quality data would be great. Make sure you get a statistician involved from the beginning, though - the foundation had a history of very poorly designed surveys... I think that we're now in a position to raise the annual budget with very little user pain starting in 2013 -- perhaps the least pain is that everyone gets 5 banners per year that are very small and non-stick. Or maybe it's that everyone gets one slightly larger, sticky banner. It's subjective, and we need to listen to a real cross section of users about it. If we can really reach our target with only one banner impression per person per year, then a) wow! Great work! and b) you probably don't need to worry about annoyance too much - there is a limit to how much a one-off occurrence can annoy someone. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
We've been getting a ton of positive response to the banners this year. I was at Newsfoo this weekend and a half-dozen people told me they donated this year for the first time, because they liked the banners' factual tone. I asked them if they found them ugly and they said yes, but that they didn't mind or care. I've gotten the same kind of comments from other channels as well: e-mails and Facebook and so on. The campaign this year is hugely effective. The banners are smaller and the campaign will be significantly shorter than in previous years, and yet we will raise more money: that's excellent. Thanks, Sue On Dec 2, 2012 7:30 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Mono monom...@gmail.com wrote: They are now expanded by default Not //quite// the case, actually. So far as I can see, the banners slide open when you mouse over them, but stay closed by default. I think it's kind of bad tactic, since it defies user expectations that actions are triggered by clicks, not on hover. But it is fairly common among some advertisers. One thing that might balance this out would be making the close icon more high profile (previous banners have had a proper icon, rather than a simple letter-like X). One plus: the new dropdown takes up less space on the page than the previous version, since the Jimmy appeal seems to be either removed or squashed to a smaller size. Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 12:08 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: The campaign this year is hugely effective. The banners are smaller and the campaign will be significantly shorter than in previous years, and yet we will raise more money: that's excellent. I think the change that's pointed out in this thread is that the banners that were running as of this weekend(?) expand to take up about more than 2x the vertical size with an in-banner donation form even if you just move your mouse over them. That's a change from the previous approach, where you had to click the banner to expand it. I agree that this is counterintuitive - elements shouldn't jump around, or expand when you don't expect it. It's always a balancing act, but I feel that we should steer away from dark patterns like pretending that moving your mouse into a banner area suggests strong intent -- I'd rather run the previous banner for a longer time. YMMV. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 3 December 2012 09:04, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: For easier comparability of the two banner behaviors - Activation on hover (current behavior): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Lorenzo?banner=B12_5C_120216_SuperCondensed_Hover ... yeah, that's the sort of behaviour that inspires ad-blockers. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:10 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 December 2012 09:04, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: For easier comparability of the two banner behaviors - Activation on hover (current behavior): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Lorenzo?banner=B12_5C_120216_SuperCondensed_Hover ... yeah, that's the sort of behaviour that inspires ad-blockers. Wouldn't be quite so bad if they shrunk again when you moved the mouse out of the ad/form region... ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 3 December 2012 10:09, Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:10 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: ... yeah, that's the sort of behaviour that inspires ad-blockers. Wouldn't be quite so bad if they shrunk again when you moved the mouse out of the ad/form region... Still adblocker-inspiring behaviour IMO. Could be just me, of course. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Hello, After all the experience and A/B-testing, I have confidence in the banners. My personal taste wouldn't matter. Kind regards Ziko 2012/12/3 phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:09 AM, Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:10 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 December 2012 09:04, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: For easier comparability of the two banner behaviors - Activation on hover (current behavior): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Lorenzo?banner=B12_5C_120216_SuperCondensed_Hover ... yeah, that's the sort of behaviour that inspires ad-blockers. Wouldn't be quite so bad if they shrunk again when you moved the mouse out of the ad/form region... I think it would be slightly better if the donation page quote that appears on the hover didn't say When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners,: having that phrase in the banner itself sounded pretty discordant to me, at least (could just drop the word 'banner' and leave it at 'advertising'?). Anyway, yes, the other non-hover ones were less annoying, especially the ones that were all facts and no fundraising letter phrases. All that said: hooray for our fundraising team, for running one of the best fundraisers yet and in general, for making what might be the most complex and effective website fundraiser ever look easy. :) Thanks! -- phoebe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- --- Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter http://wmnederland.nl/ Wikimedia Nederland Postbus 167 3500 AD Utrecht --- ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:26 AM, Ziko van Dijk vand...@wmnederland.nlwrote: Hello, After all the experience and A/B-testing, I have confidence in the banners. My personal taste wouldn't matter. Kind regards Ziko Yes, but brighter doesn't mean better. The A/B testing results apparently show a small difference between bright yellow and something more subtle like http://awesomescreenshot.com/0dcogli4f As another person said, the thing we are selling to people is an ad-free encyclopedia, yet we are using some of the most hated web banner techniques like pullouts, floaters, and painfully bright colors. Even the original facts banner in a blue was better - on every screen I've seen, I want to get rid of that banner as fast as possible. Wikipedia content is pretty plain and that banner is bright yellow. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
the thing we are selling to people As I see it, we are not *selling *anything. Wikimedia provides a free encyclopedia to the public, and it promotes Free Knowledge worldwide. For this, we ask for donations, during a limited time each year, and with very humble messaging and banners. We do not have to be ashamed to do so. Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Pavel Richter CEO Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tel.: +49 - 30 - 219 158 260 Twitter: @pavel 2012/12/3 Mono monom...@gmail.com the thing we are selling to people ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 3 December 2012 20:11, Pavel Richter pavel.rich...@wikimedia.de wrote: the thing we are selling to people As I see it, we are not *selling *anything. Wikimedia provides a free encyclopedia to the public, and it promotes Free Knowledge worldwide. For this, we ask for donations, during a limited time each year, and with very humble messaging and banners. We do not have to be ashamed to do so. It is, however, quite unambiguously true that this is an exercise in sales. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 12/3/2012 12:25 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 3 December 2012 20:11, Pavel Richter pavel.rich...@wikimedia.de wrote: the thing we are selling to people As I see it, we are not *selling *anything. Wikimedia provides a free encyclopedia to the public, and it promotes Free Knowledge worldwide. For this, we ask for donations, during a limited time each year, and with very humble messaging and banners. We do not have to be ashamed to do so. The difference between fundraising and sales is pretty small - both are about convincing people to part with their cash. We have to convince people that donating money to us is a good idea in exactly the same way a company needs to convince people that buying their product is a good idea - you do that by emphasising your key selling points. In our case, being ad-free is one of our key selling points, which is the point Mono was making. Even if it's fair to equate fundraising banners with advertising, that only holds up as an argument for keeping the fundraiser as brief as possible. Once you accept that there will be such banners (and I believe we have, at least provisionally), it does not actually follow that the use of editorial principles from advertising is undesirable, which is essentially where this discussion started. Take, for example, the objection on account of the painfully bright banner colors. There is a well-established tradition in advertising-supported publication, one that long predates the internet, that considers it desirable to maintain a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content. Those who value this tradition tend to object strongly when advertising is designed in a way that blurs this distinction, aesthetically or otherwise. And yet, one of the concessions we keep pushing for from our fundraising is that it somehow merge into the background and not call attention to itself as being different from the rest of the site. To be honest, compared to past fundraisers, one of my reactions when I saw these banners was to think, I don't find them especially attractive, but at least I can tell them apart from Wikipedia at a glance. From this perspective, that's an improvement on designs where the layout and color scheme is actually too integrated with the site, and the banner is just an overgrown site notice that could just as easily be informing me of some downtime for scheduled maintenance, or giving me some notification on my watchlist. That's not to say that I necessarily agree with all of the decisions that went into the current banners as to aesthetics or content. But I also don't have the expertise or all of the data that's behind those decisions, which is why I tend to reach a similar conclusion as Ziko. I trust that the fundraising team will attempt to balance all of these considerations, that they do listen to the concerns people have, and that they will make the best choices they can in light of the information available. Keeping that in mind usually helps me as I reflect on whether my own concerns are merely matters of personal taste or something more important. --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Thanks for these comments everyone. I hate the auto-expanding and sticking banners too! But before I get into the discussion about banners, I want to deliver some good news: After eight days of banners, we're free to take them down completely until Dec 26th, when we'll re-launch for a final 6-day push. That would mean a total of about 14 full days of banners for the 2012 fundraiser. (Though if you add up all our pre-campaign testing, it's more like 16 days.) That's 16 -- down from 46 days last year. But instead of taking banners down completely, I would like to experiment with showing new visitors (people who haven't seen any banners yet) only one or a few banner impressions -- and do that between today and Dec 26. Depending on the results of that experiment, we'll have some new options for next year. I think that we'll see a way to not only eliminate the need for expanding banners, but also to show the vast majority of users only a few banners all year. So here's what I think we're going to do for the rest of this campaign: 1) Let's go back to the clean, non-expanding, non-sticking banners that many of us liked at the beginning of the fundraiser. 2) Until Dec. 26, let's show banners only one or a few times to people who have not seen banners yet. Unfortunately, people with multiple computers, or who clear cookies frequently, will see them more than once. But that the vast majority of frequent Wikipedia users will stop seeing banners -- and less frequent users will see just a few, between now and December 26. I think we'll still be able to raise a couple million dollars between now and December 26th this way. 3) On December 26th we'll probably need to raise another four or five million dollars to meet our end-of-year goal of $25M (we have $18.5M so far). So on December 26th, we'll raise the fundraising level. But depending on how much we need we might be able to still hide banners after 5 or 10 views, or keep them non-sticky. We'll have a lot of choices. 4) When Dec 26 gets here, if we only need to raise a few million more, then we would like to feature Victor's video about editors and make that the closing message of this campaign. If we can't do that, then we'll feature the video in thank you messages starting Jan 1. That's the tentative plan. It may have to change. But it'll be something like that. As I said above, we could also just take down banners completely until Dec 26. But I would like to keep showing banners one time to people who haven't seen them yet because of what we will learn. And with what we learn, I think we'll have many more options next year -- and can either eliminate sticky banners, or show far fewer banners, or smaller banners -- and hopefully never have to think of auto-expanding banners again! On the topic of banner color and design: I liked blue a lot more than yellow/gold. But a lot of people like the gold better. We oddly get a lot of positive comments about it in the donor survey many donors fill out after giving. And it does significantly better than blue in the long term as far as we can tell. It amazing how differently we perceive the banners from most non-editing and non-staff users. We get a ton of positive comments about these new banners and people really don't see these new ones as ads. In general, they see them as an informative message from Wikipedia. But I agree that the sticky and auto-expand UI is not good for users, even if few complain about it. I used to want to make them as small as possible, but after getting all this feedback from donors, now I would rather swap in better information that is less effective for fundraising but more valuable for the movement. I'd love to include a couple sentences about how Wikipedia is made and who makes it, and cut out a couple of those repetitive asks. People love Wikipedia, and they love learning that we're a non-profit that runs on donations. Most of them never would have guessed. And I'm happy that these banners are waking the world up to this amazing and beautiful reality. Zack On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: On 12/3/2012 12:25 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 3 December 2012 20:11, Pavel Richter pavel.rich...@wikimedia.de wrote: the thing we are selling to people As I see it, we are not *selling *anything. Wikimedia provides a free encyclopedia to the public, and it promotes Free Knowledge worldwide. For this, we ask for donations, during a limited time each year, and with very humble messaging and banners. We do not have to be ashamed to do so. The difference between fundraising and sales is pretty small - both are about convincing people to part with their cash. We have to convince people that donating money to us is a good idea in exactly the same way a company needs to convince people that buying their product is a good idea - you do that by emphasising your key selling points. In our case, being ad-free is one of our key selling
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Thanks for the detailed thoughts, Zack! Did we run banners on the sister projects as well? It would also be great to experiment with running targeted banner messages and presentations on the sister projects, particularly Commons and Wiktionary, to see what the visitor response is like. We've certainly had some good suggested designs in the past. As you say, readers love discovering that we're a non-profit and how we run. This is one of our opportunities each year to rejoice in the work of the projects, get feedback, and hold a large-scale barnraising for the coming year's work. It's good to reduce the total amount of time people see banners on the projects, but also a very positive thing for all projects to take part. SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
I, for one, think this is totally awesome news. Snt frm my iPhne On Dec 3, 2012, at 2:00 PM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: After eight days of banners, we're free to take them down completely until Dec 26th, when we'll re-launch for a final 6-day push. That would mean a total of about 14 full days of banners for the 2012 fundraiser. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the detailed thoughts, Zack! Did we run banners on the sister projects as well? This year, we haven't so far. It would also be great to experiment with running targeted banner messages and presentations on the sister projects, particularly Commons and Wiktionary, to see what the visitor response is like. We've certainly had some good suggested designs in the past. As you say, readers love discovering that we're a non-profit and how we run. This is one of our opportunities each year to rejoice in the work of the projects, get feedback, and hold a large-scale barnraising for the coming year's work. It's good to reduce the total amount of time people see banners on the projects, but also a very positive thing for all projects to take part. I'd love to see a barn raising for participation instead of fundraising. So little money comes from the other projects that it's actually counterproductive from a revenue perspective. If the only reason to do the fundraiser on those projects is to have a coming together of the community, then why not do it around invitations to participate instead of to donate? SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On 03/12/12 20:04, Erik Moeller wrote: Activation on hover (current behavior): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Lorenzo?banner=B12_5C_120216_SuperCondensed_Hover If you ignore the banner and scroll down, then later accidentally move the cursor over the banner, the article scrolls up to the top, losing your place. That could be annoying, especially on long articles. It happens because the collapsed banner has position: fixed, whereas the expanded banner has position: absolute. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On 03/12/12 20:04, Erik Moeller wrote: Activation on hover (current behavior): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Lorenzo?banner=B12_5C_120216_SuperCondensed_Hover If you ignore the banner and scroll down, then later accidentally move the cursor over the banner, the article scrolls up to the top, losing your place. That could be annoying, especially on long articles. It happens because the collapsed banner has position: fixed, whereas the expanded banner has position: absolute. Thanks. We just were playing around with the hover banners to see what kind of effect they might have. They're not up now. And probably won't come back. -- Tim Starling ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415 506 9225 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
Brandon Harris writes: I, for one, think this is totally awesome news. It is indeed! Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: This is one of our opportunities each year to rejoice in the work of the projects, get feedback, and hold a large-scale barnraising for the coming year's work. It's good to reduce the total amount of time people see banners... also [positive] for all projects to take part. So little money comes from the other projects that it's actually counterproductive from a revenue perspective. This need not be expensive or painstaking. And a campaign could include both calls to participate, as you say, and calls to donate. For example: one Project-neutral banner or small campaign that focuses on the broad future-looking work of Wikimedia: including new and growing sister projects. That campaign could be consistent each year. And we could invite each community to come up with their own banners - celebrating the work of their project and asking for help as they see fit. If the only reason to do the fundraiser on those projects is to have a coming together of the community, then why not do it around invitations to participate instead of to donate? Invitations to participate is a great idea. We should do that -- perhaps at a low level year-round. Donation should be part of it because it is one of the most universal sorts of participation. Many people find editing hard but donating easy; we should welcome them and their support, on whatever project they support. And smaller communities like to pull their own weight. Active editors and readers who identify with a smaller project would want to give through that project. As long as some sort of campaign is running, one of the banners (and an appeal page that participants can link their friends to, which talks about their project and not about Wikipedia!) should be for donation. The smaller the community, the more important those small acts of identification are to nurturing it. SJ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Mono monom...@gmail.com wrote: They are now expanded by default Not //quite// the case, actually. So far as I can see, the banners slide open when you mouse over them, but stay closed by default. I think it's kind of bad tactic, since it defies user expectations that actions are triggered by clicks, not on hover. But it is fairly common among some advertisers. One thing that might balance this out would be making the close icon more high profile (previous banners have had a proper icon, rather than a simple letter-like X). One plus: the new dropdown takes up less space on the page than the previous version, since the Jimmy appeal seems to be either removed or squashed to a smaller size. Steven ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Banners are too bright, too long
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 6:15 PM, Mono monom...@gmail.com wrote: The facts banners started out being clean and nice. They are now expanded by default, bright yellow, full of text, and really quite annoying. Let's rephrase this as a question for the fundraising team: I think that the banners bothering the readers by the size and the color. Are the raising money that way that is exponential to the smaller, less aggressively colored banners? If there is no significant change, can we go back to that? If the answer to question one is Yes, then just click the x and move on. Fundraising is dynamic, strategies shift in an hourly motion and a day seems like a week. This isn't science, it's economics, it's an art. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
