Sj, I appreciate your kind words because I am somewhat frustrated.
> thank you for your nuanced statistical comments; something we could use more > of. Well, I have two additional questions for you and your colleagues concerning fiduciary duties relative to the observed growth rates. I'm not going to go into my issues with the volunteer contributed messaging not being tested, or whether multivariate testing can or can not measure donations. My previous message should make my sentiment on those issues clear. This year, after the Chief Revenue Officer claimed that it would be unlikely to "significantly" exceed last year's fundraising,[1] the Annual Plan was adjusted to reflect a much slower growth rate in fundraising.[2] However, page views grew from 16.4 billion last December to 20.8 billion last month in line with their longstanding exponential trend,[3] and it became immediately apparent from the first days of presenting banners to all readers on November 27th that fundraising was occurring at about double last year's rate.[4] In spite of that, fundraising was deactivated just over a week later.[4] Then, on December 14, the fundraiser goal was announced for the first time as $25 million.[5] And now, apparently, fundraising has been discontinued for the year.[6] Would you and the other members of the Board of Trustees please state whether, and why or why not, deliberately slowing fundraising while page views continue to grow at the same exponential rate they have been over the past several years, is compatible with the fiduciary duty of the Board and employees? Would you please request comment concerning whether the community has confidence in this deliberate slow-down? Thank you. Best regards, James Salsman [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2012/How_Wikimedia_revenue_grows#So_how_much_more_can_we_raise_in_2012.3F [2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#What.27s_the_revenue_target_for_2012-13.2C_and_how_does_it_compare_to_previous_years.3F [3] http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/pageviews [4] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics [5] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/123043.html [6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2012&diff=4885494&oldid=4884949 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
