On 19 December 2014 at 10:12, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>
>
> The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly
> unacceptable. Having the first rule be "don't lie" might be the easiest
> solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down.
> The fundraising teams, past and present, regularly lie to our readers in
> an effort to extract donations. Specific examples of lying include calling
> Sue Gardner the "Wikipedia Executive Director", calling Brandon Harris a
> "Wikipedia programmer", and repeatedly making manipulative and misleading
> suggestions that continued donations keep the projects online.
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous
> $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_
> that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money
> again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that
> suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today.
>
Please add my name to the list of people who are troubled by what's been
said and done in the latest round of fundraising.
I think that most of us, even if we feel some distaste for begging for
money, realise the importance and necessity of engaging in fundraising.
The fact that we're asking for money is not the problem. The problem is
that in order to maximise the amount of revenue gained, the Fundraising
team has engaged in a misleading scare campaign. In the short term, that
means that a few more dollars will flow into the Foundation's coffers, but
in the long term it just damages the brand and the entire movement.
It is very disappointing that the responses from the WMF to these entirely
reasonable concerns so far have been either:
a) Silence
b) Completely ignoring the point ("The fundraiser has been very successful
because we've received more money, and those who are not aware that they've
been mislead are not upset!")
c) Semantic word games ("Well, in a technical sense what we've said is not
a lie, depending on how you look at it")
The solution that I'd like to see for next time is less focus on A/B
testing that has its sole purpose of maximising the amount of revenue
raised, and more of a view to alternative ways to raise money. Imagine a
world in which we gave our readers a positive message that we already had
enough money to keep the lights on thanks very much, but needed more to
build cool new tools, improve the quality of the project content, and
implement more innovative projects to meet our movement's goals.
Regards,
Craig Franklin
_______________________________________________
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>
