I've been thinking about these inline ads since I first encountered one, which I believe was either yesterday or today. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of inline ads, but they seem to be clearly delineated from article content, and as far as I can tell there is simply no easy way to do on-wiki fundraising without a certain amount of distraction to the reader. I don't like this practice, but it's hard for me to say that I dislike it any more than massive banners. Until WMF has such a large endowment that it no longer needs to do online fundraising (which would create a different set of financial accountability problems than we have now; maybe or maybe not more or less, but different) I'm reluctantly willing to go along with the program. If people have some convincing reasons why inline fundraising should not happen, I hope that they will speak up. At the moment I think it's OK to go with the flow.
In the future I would suggest that this kind of change should be communicated ahead of time, on this mailing list and elsewhere. (Unless I missed it, which would be my fault. Thanks, Pine On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Joseph Seddon <jsed...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hey Geni, > > So this is a style of banner that we have used on mobile over the last > year. We have previously had good feedback about the mobile version with > people feeling it was less obtrusive to the reader experience. This banner > that you saw was one of our first attempts at seeing whether transferring > this to desktop was even a viable idea. > > That test showed this design had a huge amount of potential from a > fundraising point of view, between a 60% & 90% increase in donations. > However we felt that the banner wasn't quite providing the same experience > as we were getting on mobile. The size was larger and so we think that we > can refine the concept so that it remains effective but making it less > intrusive both than it’s current form and our current control banner ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ > 1117_en6C_dsk_p2_sm_template&force=1&country=US). > We are working a number of smaller versions that are a little more in > keeping with the experience provided on mobile, so keep in mind this is far > from a finished version. > > I would like to emphasis that we are not committed to this. It's certainly > a change from what we have had in the past and, based on that, both I and > my colleagues would genuinely like to hear people's views on this type of > banner. For now this banner will be limited to testing and our current > small banner ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ > 1117_en6C_dsk_p2_sm_template&force=1&country=US) > will be remaining our control. We would like to do a few more tests with an > improved take on this style and I would be happy to share the outcomes of > those if it would help inform the discussion. > > Regards > Seddon > > > On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 8:56 PM, geni <geni...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Screenshot of what I mean: > > > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inline_donor_bannerbass.png > > > > Inline ads are generally considered to be something that gets into > > scummy advertising territory (for example even adblock plus's rather > > questionable Acceptable Ad policy doesn't accept them). > > > > > > On a related note the FAQ appears to be out of date: > > > > https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en > > > > Unless we are still in the 2015-2016 fiscal year. > > > > -- > > geni > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > > -- > Seddon > > *Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* > *Wikimedia Foundation* > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: 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 New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
