All -- we will not have a pop-up banner. I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt. We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time. Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month. And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns. ~~~~ Lila On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:39 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Ori Livneh wrote: > >On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:55 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > >>The banners may be effective, but they're not aligned with Wikimedia's > >>values. > > > >I wouldn't come out quite as strongly against these banners, but I share > >the underlying sentiment. > > What happened to "we make the Internet not suck"? What happened to the > near-universal agreement that pop-ups are bad? > > >(a) solicit input from a neutral reputation management consultancy, and > > Consultants are the reason the fundraising campaigns and associated > banners are so awful. To the idea that we continue paying people > needlessly for bad advice, I'm going to say no thank you. I'd rather not. > > >(b) create a forum for staffers to talk openly about this matter, without > >fear of reprisal > > What's wrong with wikimedia-l? I can assure you that this mailing list has > grade-A reprisal, far better than what you'll receive from work. :-) > > David Gerard wrote: > >"Wikipedia begging for donations per usual. "Advertising isn't evil" > >they say as they throw a second nag at me as I scroll down." > > > >https://twitter.com/enemyplayer/status/539180814739988481 > > Indeed. It might help if we started referring to the fundraising banners > as full-page advertising. Calling a spade a spade, and all that. > > It also occurred to me that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Adblock (Plus) > to reconsider its classification of the fundraising notices (even > "banners" is generous). Historically banners on Wikimedia wikis have not > been considered ads by Adblock and friends, but this assumed decency and > common sense on Wikimedia's part. These full-page gremlins lack both. > > >Obnoxious banners *really do damage the brand*. > > > >What are the fundraiser metrics? If they don't include effect on the > >brand, they'll be motivating damaging behaviour. > > We used to have live-updating statistics about the annual fundraiser at > <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics>. That > error message is probably highly misleading and we really ought to have > better reporting about donations. As far as I know, we've taken several > steps backward in recent years in terms of donation transparency and this > should be addressed in 2015. (I'm somewhat hoping someone will quickly > prove me wrong with a link to up-to-date donor stats... go on!) > > MZMcBride > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
