I see that the fundraising banners currently running in Germany[1][2] no longer speak of "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free", but instead encourage people to "give something back to Wikipedia" if they find it useful.
That is a much, much better wording. Thank you. I trust the English banners that will run in December will follow the same approach. Note however that the German FAQ[3] that is linked from the German Donate Now page[4] is several years out of date. It refers to 2013/2014 as the current financial year, and directs readers to the 2011/2012 annual report (!!!). The English FAQ[5] has much less content than the German one (I'm told all the outdated content has been commented out) and now lacks any specifics that would give donors an idea of what the Foundation is doing with their money. In all languages, the link to the FAQ on the Donate Now page is in such small print as to be barely legible. Please update the FAQs in all languages as a matter of urgency, and change the font size of the links to something more reasonable. In general I would like to see the Foundation communicate more clearly, transparently and proactively about where the money goes, and what the user benefits are. Reports like the one last year on improving access speed[6] are useful. Andreas [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Spendenbanner-de-s5mini-151112_Kopie.jpg [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fehlerhafte_Spendenkampagne.png [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/de [4] https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage&uselang=de [5] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en [6] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/29/how-we-made-editing-wikipedia-twice-as-fast/ On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 11:17 PM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > I was happy to see increasing net assets and increasing revenue. The > fundraising messages that WMF sends should to reflect the facts about where > the money will go and about the current financial status of WMF. > > I've been told by someone whose history with the Wikimedia community is > longer than mine that many years ago, the chapters used to be in stronger > financial positions than WMF was. Eventually this flipped. As recently as a > few years ago were consistent questions about the effectiveness and > integrity of the chapters. In more recent history, the chapters seem to be > doing well in terms of effectiveness and integrity, and now the bulk of the > revenue is going to WMF where there are more questions about effectiveness > and integrity. I'm particularly troubled by the lack of responses from WMF > to a number of questions that I repeatedly asked about the 2015-2016 Annual > Plan, and I'd really like to see some work done on increasing financial > transparency in WMF as well as enhancing the integrity of the online > fundraising messages. > > Pine > > On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On October 30, the Wikimedia Foundation posted its audited financial > > statements for the year ended June 30, 2015. > > > > > > > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/0b/Audit_Report_-_FY_14-15_-_Final.PDF > > > > The figures contained in these statements have a bearing on the present > > discussion. Some highlights: > > > > Net assets at end of year: > > $77.8 million > > (up $24.3 million from $53.5 million) > > > > Current assets include: > > $35.2 million in cash and cash equivalents > > $29.0 million in short-term investments. > > > > Total support and revenue: > > $75.8 million > > (up $23.3 million from $52.5 million) > > > > Total expenses: > > $52.6 million > > (up $6.7 million from $45.9 million) > > > > Internet hosting costs: > > just under $2 million > > (down $0.5 million from $2.5 million) > > _______________________________________________ > > 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> > _______________________________________________ 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>
