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Review of English Wikimedia fundraising emails

The Wikimedia Foundation has posted samples of its upcoming English fundraising emails on Meta, for community review. These are the Jimbo emails that will be used in the upcoming English email campaign, scheduled to run from September 6 to November 20. Each features a photo of Jimmy Wales, followed by texts asking past donors to donate again to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free", keep Wikipedia "free" (the absence of a subscription fee is mentioned), "protect Wikipedia", etc.

I've copied the texts below, for reference. I propose that we establish a rough consensus as to the appropriateness or otherwise of these emails and communicate that to the WMF. --Andreas JN466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

N.B.: I've left off the small/greyed print with the unsubscribe options at the bottom of each email, to save space. To see the complete layout, complete with the pictures and small print, please click the links provided in the headings below. --Andreas JN466 10:21, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Email content

Email 1

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: You are one of those rare exceptions
Date: August 3, 2022 at 7:58 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

My name is Jimmy Wales, and I'm the founder of Wikipedia. In the past, you donated to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world. Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work. You have been one of those rare donors, and for this I want to thank you warmly. I'm grateful you agree that we can use the power of the internet for good. We will achieve this not as individuals, but as a collaborative movement of knowledge seekers. Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other.

Will you renew your solidarity with a donation?

This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation. We choose not to charge a subscription fee, but that doesn't mean we don't need support from our readers. We don't send a fundraising email every month. We respectfully ask for just one donation this year so that Wikipedia may continue to move forward and offer knowledge to the world.

If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over. Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come.

We're a non-profit. That means we aren't selling the articles that millions of people read on Wikipedia each day. We don't profit from the knowledge you seek. In fact, we firmly believe that knowledge should exist outside of the realm of supply and demand. That's hardly a given nowadays; so much of the world's digital knowledge is driven by profit.

Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations. It belongs to you, the readers, editors, and donors. You're our community, our family. You're the reason we exist. The fate of Wikipedia rests in your hands and we wouldn't have it any other way.

It's readers like you who safeguard our non-profit mission. You help us maintain our integrity, quality, and accessibility. Today, please consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, to keep Wikipedia free and independent.

Now is the time we ask: can we count on you to renew your solidarity with a small donation? It will keep Wikipedia online, ad-free, and growing for years to come.

https://donate.wikimedia.org

Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Founder of Wikipedia


Renew your donation

Where will your donation go?

42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects.

31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.

27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world.

Email 2

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: It's non-negotiable
Date: August 3, 2022 at 8:01 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

Logo-text-english


You have been a Wikipedia donor in the past and have donated once. You've unlocked:

Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge

When you gave in the past, you were one of those rare donors who kept Wikipedia thriving for yourself and millions of other readers.

Ready to earn your next badge? Please match your last gift today.

I took the liberty of emailing you a second time on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization responsible for the protection of Wikipedia), because I wasn’t sure you got a chance to read the first email we sent to nisrael@wikimedia.org, the address we have on file for you since your last gift. I hope this badge will act as a reminder of how crucial your commitment to supporting free knowledge has been and still is to us.

At every turn, we have been pressured to compromise our values, but I'll be honest: This isn’t negotiable for us. People always ask us, why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read? While these things seem like the norm online nowadays, we'd like to remind you that there is another way--a way that doesn’t jeopardize the neutrality of our content and threaten your personal data. We just ... ask! Not often, but it works. After 21 years of saying no, I can still say we are proud to have left that money on the table.

We’re a non-profit. Only 2% of our readers give, but we manage to serve hundreds of millions of people per month. Imagine if everyone gave? We could transform the way knowledge is shared online.

I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. We’re not salespeople. We’re librarians, archivists, and information junkies. We rely on our readers to become our donors, and it’s worked for over 20 years.

This year, please consider making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

We know people’s circumstances have changed a lot in

the last year. Some find themselves with less to spare, but
a lucky few happen to have a bit more. If you’re one of
the lucky ones, will you give a little extra to keep Wikipedia growing?

Renew your donation

Give 5

Give 20

Give 35

Give another amount

Any gift will unlock your next badge.

Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

DONATE NOW

Email 3

From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: Our final email
Date: August 3, 2022 at 8:01 PM
To: nisrael@wikimedia.org

I know you've heard from me twice already, so I'll get straight to the point. In the past, you were among the extremely rare readers who made a donation to invest in the future of free knowledge. If you've made it far enough to open this email, could you take a minute to help us out?

Many of our readers see our emails and think they'll get round to it later, but life happens and of course they forget. Our annual email fundraiser is coming to an end, so if you've been holding off until “later”, this is your moment.

I'm asking you respectfully: Please, renew your donation; it matters.

Around the time our fundraising campaign starts, I hear from friends, family, and long-lost classmates who see our fundraising messages while they're looking something up on Wikipedia. It's a reminder of how many folks, from all walks of life, rely on Wikipedia.

This incredible public support is crucial for our organization and our movement to thrive. It allows us to serve the world, and to do so with independence and integrity. We don't belong to anyone, because we belong to everyone.

You donated in the past and we sincerely thank you. If you still see value in Wikipedia, please sustain your support in 2022 and keep Wikipedia thriving.

This is our biggest fundraising moment of the year. It's when we launch the online campaign that brings in donors who will propel us throughout 2022 and beyond. I'm one of them. I'm a regular donor.

We are the non-profit that supports one of the world's most visited websites. We don't generate revenue by selling off our users' data to the highest bidder. We don't run ads that could jeopardize the integrity and neutrality of our content.

Though our size requires us to maintain the server space and programming power of a top site, we are sustained by the support of our donors who give an average of about $16. This year, will you take one minute to keep our work going?

5 / 20

25 / Other

Renew your donation

Give less this year

Thank you,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

Discussion

These emails are almost identical to the ones that were used in the recent Indian fundraising campaign (see June Signpost report, "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?). As can be seen, the second email once again invites people to unlock "badges" (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) by making sure they never miss a year of donating.

Financial development of the Wikimedia Foundation (in US$), 2003–2021
Black: Net assets (excluding the Wikimedia Endowment, which passed $100m in June 2021)
Green: Revenue (excluding third-party donations to Wikimedia Endowment)
Red: Expenses (including WMF payments to Wikimedia Endowment)

People are told very little in these emails about what it is that drives the Wikimedia Foundation's money needs, what additional work is being carried out that has caused the vast increases in budget and salary costs over the past decade, and what the benefit of this added spending is to volunteers and the public. Nor is there any mention of the Strategic Direction.

Instead, everything is focused on communicating a need for money to keep Wikipedia online/ad-free/free/independent, as though the Foundation were really struggling to keep Wikipedia online without ads – as though it were not richer than ever, with about $400 million (including the Endowment) in assets and reserves.

I think we, as a movement, should do better than these emails, and aspire to more transparency. Moreover, right now, the Internet Archive is arguably much more deserving of donations; unlike the WMF, they have a stable budget, low salary costs, no history of vast budget surpluses, and are currently fighting a lawsuit against publishers – all while supplying an absolutely critical and free service to Wikipedia. --Andreas JN466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

  • Objection to the Wikimedia Foundation speaking for the community without consultation The Wikimedia Foundation and the community of editors are not the same. The foundation is paid staff recently hired now that donations come in at a rate of US$200 million / year. The community are the volunteers and activists who produce content for the platform. When donors give money, it is because they love Wikipedia as a community of volunteers even while they have little awareness about the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation at all. More discussion is useful, but as a starting point, the Wikimedia Foundation should 1) be transparent about how it calculates its budgets and 2) only talk about budgets for the Wikimedia community the consent and approval of the Wikimedia community. For this point especially -
  • 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.
Since 31% of the donations are to support the volunteers, then 31% of the money should be in the control, governance, and oversight of the volunteers. The volunteers do not have good access to the accounting for money, nor is there any public process for including volunteers in the spending decisions for this US$90,000,000 a year. The Wikimedia Foundation makes many budget decisions without the support and consent of the volunteers. There are many possible talking points for how the Wikimedia Foundation has different priorities as compared to the contributor community, but to name one, the volunteer community has much more compassion for underrepresented demographics such as people in lower and middle income countries. If the Wikimedia community made governance decisions about that 31%, then programs to increase diversity would include showing monetary equity in the allocation of global funding. I have anxiety because the values and ethics of the centralized and control-seeking Wikimedia Foundation are diverging from those of the decentralized and power-sharing Wikimedia community. The power belongs to the user community, not to paid staff who operate without community support. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. The 31% line is misleading and definitely needs context. When I hear that my "gift will be used to support the volunteers" they don't sound much like volunteers any more. Retswerb (talk) 23:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
@Retswerb: It also makes it sound like volunteer editors receive monetary compensation in some way for their editing – which could definitely be confusing in regards to Wikipedia's policies on paid editors and conflict of interest; "if you're not allowed to be paid to edit, how come 31% of fundraiser money goes to volunteers?", etc.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 15:39, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Serious miswording. I am financially struggling and hither to forth considered a volunteer. I need to know when I became a paid editor ("31% of fundraiser money goes to volunteers?") and when I can expect my back pay? Will I receive a 1099? If I can augment my retirement I can contribute more. -- Otr500 (talk) 02:45, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
@Otr500: For just $5000 a day, I'll lift a finger to fix a typo...$6000 a day, I'll even stop adding them in.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 12:37, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Less facetiously, I got a Wikipedia shirt as a gift some years ago, and I'm geek enough to wear it in public occasionally. About a half dozen times people have commented to me, "Oh, I donate to them!", and I make it a point to stop and chat with them if we both have time (all but once). Every single one thought that at least part of what they gave went directly to editors, and was genuinely surprised when I told them otherwise. —Cryptic 14:40, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
@Ineffablebookkeeper: Good help is expensive these days. The CEO/Executive Director makes around $1062 for every day of the year, not counting any perks or benefits. For a 5 day week that would be around $1491. a day. If it wasn't located in the Bay area it would be a lucrative job. Staff gets annual cost-of-living increase, annual merit increases, annual vacation of 5-20 days, 11 paid public holiday days per year, 9 sick days, special leave for certain circumstances (bereavement, jury duty, and maternity/paternity.), and my favorite; discounted in-office massage service. The 12th lowest salary from the top was $184,729 a year. -- Otr500 (talk) 03:33, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
If we wish to negotiate with them, saying their salary is high is unwise,
I suggest we should avoid discussions of salary because hiring the cheapest would be awful, it's direction that is our main concerns. and complaining starts to look like sour grapes. Her job is difficult, and I think you migh t be suprised by IT Salaries in the Bay Area
Overall, her pay seems seems probably a bit low., (as long as there is no n=bonus for donation targets) is low considering staff and revenue Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 05:27, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
@Otr500: I believe you are looking at outdated figures. The most recent ones are for 2020: [1]. CEO base compensation was $404,053, and $423,318 total incl. benefits. The 12th-highest salary was $217,193 base, $240,345 total. These figures are from two years ago; current figures are likely to be about 10–25% higher (compare these 2020 figures to the 2018 figures). Let's meet here again in May 2024, which is when we'll have the Form 990 with the 2022 figures. Andreas JN466 07:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks -- Otr500 (talk) 03:28, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
I have chnaged my mind - attack their salaries, and especially ask if they are receiving money/shares from other sources, and are there bonuses linked to new articles, edits, or new editors
BTW their salaries are based on comparable tech as well as charities Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 00:52, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I don't think there are any such bonuses; I think what you see in the Form 990 is what it is.
Perceptions of a $350K salary vary widely around the world: in Silicon Valley, it seems quite normal to people, in Europe it causes raised eyebrows (even top managers at Volkswagen earn less, someone said the other day on Hacker News), and in somewhere like India, South Africa or Brazil it's just off the charts.
If you fundraise globally, I think it's always necessary to compare the income of the donors you're addressing to the income of the people who are ultimately being paid the money. In particular, if your audience on average earns something like 1/500 of your managers' pay, I think it would behoove you to phrase your fundraising messages conservatively – you don't want to frighten poor people into donating small amounts of money that they can barely afford (case in point) by telling them Wikipedia is about to blink out of existence if they don't give money today. That is just callous. (By the way, the current Dutch banners actually ask people to give money to "keep Wikipedia alive" or "keep Wikipedia going" – see the discussions on m:Talk:Fundraising. Talk of over-dramatizing ...)
For off-wiki discussions in the past couple of days see Hacker News and this Twitter thread (re-tweets and comments welcome). Andreas JN466 11:08, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
At the start of this thread, I assumed good faith from the WMF... But I can't find any.
I went through one small overseas charity that WMF is linked to. I thought being paid twice for the same work was cool, but 6 times is awesome. (WMF, government, private investment matching, local government, kickback from employer, employee payment, Social impact bond, ...)
So, nearly all the same issues were discussed 6 years ago, and it's got a lot, lot worse since then, and changing one email won't do much
What do we do next? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 14:15, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Write to journalists, go on social media, etc., until the WMF is prepared to have a discussion. There were such discussions in the past, so who knows, maybe there will be in the future. Indeed, post-campaign discussions will shortly be held with the Dutch community – but of course post-campaign discussions are less effective than pre-campaign discussions. They assuage everybody, giving people the feeling that they have been listened to, and then next year much the same happens again, with a post-campaign discussion to follow. At any rate, effective discussion and meaningful changes will only happen if enough people complain, on and off wiki, and especially if the matter reaches the media, as it did in 2015. Incidentally, the WMF is five times richer today than it was at the time of that Washington Post article. See also discussions here. Best, --Andreas JN466 15:00, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
If your aim is to tone down this or the next round of emails, then I think you may get some visible results.
BUT it would be relatively easy to send a different email for anyone with that address on their account, or at the same IP address, of anyone that had ever complained.
Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 03:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
With the post campaign discussions, it would be really great to get the Trustees involved, but as we have discussed they are silenced under the Code of Conduct ;-( Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 03:48, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
@Jayen466 I have been looking at discreet corners of the web and it looks like all large non-profits have bonuses and incentives these days. Didn't you do a media article on Golden handshake s??
Have you a recent version of WMF compensation policy? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I asked on the mailing list once whether there were bonuses or incentives related to fundraising revenue and received no reply. :/ At any rate, the Form 990 should contain whatever compensation has been paid. It also includes severance pay; as you say, some of these severance payments have been quite considerable.
I am not aware of any more recent version of the WMF compensation policy being online anywhere. Transparency with regard to such matters has steadily reduced over the past decade. Andreas JN466 12:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Completely agree with your concern, Jayen466. I don't think these emails as they stand are in keeping with our values. (I also complained over at Meta a few months ago, but I unfortunately failed to follow up due to other commitments.) I share your unhappiness with the obsequious, obfuscating tone and I'd like communications to be more transparent about where donors' money will go. I'm not sure the WMF will listen to these concerns, though. However, what I do find strongly objectionable are manipulative or clearly misleading phrases, of which there are several:
Specific objections (manipulative and/or misleading): "Subject: It's non-negotiable"; "we have no choice but to turn to you... to ensure Wikipedia remains ... ad-free ... for years to come" & "[your donation] will keep Wikipedia ... ad-free" (not true); "this is our biggest fundraising moment of the year" (there'll be another fundraising campaign in a different region); "donors who will propel us throughout 2022" (we already comfortably meet our running costs); "X% of your gift will be used" (not it won't, if my understanding is correct, these are expenditure breakdowns and don't account for money put into the endowment etc., it should say "X% of our spending"); "we haven't reached our fundraising goal" (what if we have reached it, will this still be sent?); Jr8825 • Talk 19:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
@Jr8825: "This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation" is cringe-worthily sheepish language; it comes across as obsequious and critical in the same sentence. It's not "awkward", WMF is actively choosing to send out fundraising emails – there's literally no reason to behave like a shrinking violet when you're a multimillion dollar non-profit choosing to do this, we're not kids asking to go through the McDonald's drive-thru. And "they simply look the other way" alienates people who can't/won't (for whatever reason) donate as cold, or even cruel, like they're taking advantage of us. We don't know people's financial situations; pigeonholing everyone who doesn't donate as turning away from WMF's figurative little match girl on the streets is upsetting.
Wikipedia can't be free for everyone to access and be taken advantage of by the people who don't donate in the same serving, that's wildly contradictory. And not convincing, either – instead of playing the woe-is-me angle, we could be focusing on the genuine good that Wikipedia is enabled to do through WMF fundraising. Guilt isn't a convincing fundraiser tactic, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth that our unpaid, willing, free and often heartfelt contributions are being dangled over people's heads to shame them into giving money. It's grim, insincere and misleading.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 15:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Also seems nuts that they need more money, but when it comes to funding very important page review software that hasn't been updated in a decade and whoopsie! We can't expect anything more than critical updates, because why assign a developer to deal with long-standing bugs at what is essentially the Hoover Dam of Wikipedia? If that 31% goes to volunteers, how come we have to beg WMF to give us the tools we need to run this website for them?--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:18, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
The NPP software has been updated over the last decade, and (it is more Hoever vacuum than hoover Dam)  :-)
We are the customers from Hell, but they are a social movement charity trying to run a technical business. Neither of us have long term roadmaps. Neither of us want to address the difficult stuff.....yet Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge This language sounds like what some multi-level marketer might use to get you to buy their product. The WMF are not salespeople, and should not be using "badges" or any other promotional language to get people to make a donation. I suspect User:Jimbo Wales would not approve of this either. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47 (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
    +1 Jr8825 • Talk 21:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
    I share your feelings about the badges. But let's bear in mind that these are very high-profile emails, sent to hundreds of thousands of people in Jimmy Wales's name. It strikes me as very unlikely that he should be unfamiliar – or indeed unhappy – with their contents. Andreas JN466 19:21, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
  • As an actual volunteer and content contributor, I would say WMF's money would be much better spent on propping up the IA and similar projects than probably anything else that counts under "supporting the volunteers". Money is being wasted on keeping up with the Joneses. Daß Wölf 22:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
    Use money more efficiently, rather than asking for more. This is giving cost-plus contract vibes... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
    Seconded absolutely. Granted, I haven't seen WMF in action many times, but I see a pattern of prioritizing highly visible over damaging problems, lack of serious timeframes, lack of communication and a general "may thy left hand not know etc." air -- sometimes you'd think it was them donating the few weekly hours of their free time to the project, not just us. What does WMF spend the money on? Server costs, MediaWiki development, legal department -- those are the indispensable bits. I'm also willing to believe that there's a lot of back-end community work that produces results that we simply don't perceive here on the wikis (T&S?). Is $120 million needed for this? Why won't $20 million from 10 years ago suffice today? TBF the root problems here are not something that WMF can address by tweaking a fundraising email, but donors should be at least given evidence that they're still getting their money's worth, as opposed to just building some kind of hypothetical war chest, or worse. Daß Wölf 17:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  • These emails will make people believe they are donating to Wikipedia. Unlike the WMF which doesn't need the money, Wikipedia could do with more donations to fund necessary software improvements (for example, to allow full participation on mobile platforms without disabling the "mobile enhancements" of the m. subdomains). Unless far more donations are spent on Wikipedia, I suggest to tell every potential donor to donate to the Internet Archive instead of to the WMF. As an aside, anyone using the threat of ads in this context is clearly a liar and should probably be banned from editing Wikipedia to prevent them from introducing other lies here. —Kusma (talk) 11:38, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  • I would suggest that this discussion should close at the end of August, a few days before the emails are due to go out. If it gets sufficient participation and a consensus to object, then we should be clear to the WMF that they do not have en.wiki community endorsement to run these emails. Each WMF staff member's attention should then be drawn to this RfC. When the WMF ignore us and send the emails anyway, we should contact the news media, alerting them to this discussion and offering to be interviewed about why we oppose the WMF's current fundraising approach, and what interested readers can actually do if they want to contribute to Wikipedia (i.e. edit). Thanks to Jayen466 for raising this. — Bilorv (talk) 11:42, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    I think the discussion should continue as the WMF deadline is arbitrary. In regards to contacting the media they are always a two edged sword, and we currently only have only had short term goals. I am 100% that WMF staff know about this exchange. We seem to have three options
    1. Email - Going to the media would get us a few articles in the New York Times etc, but it is attention But not strategic, and might accelerate tech donors to stop funding us
    2. Burn the house down - We could stop all fundraising through doing tricky things on their display ads, or we could run our own ads using templates asking for donations to EFF to defend us, or request Vandals to attack Wikimedia Foundation article. Now that would get Major media attention, but decisions would be made quickly and not strategically. There are some other options, but they are quite extreme,
    3. Negotiation WMF sends a toned down email , and becomes far far more transparent. We , in turn, accept that we are part of the problem. We didn't tell WMF what their purpose was, we are really awful to deal with, we have been delaying needed changes, newer editors are not involved in decision making, and we are dependant on WMF for coordination with other Wikis. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 23:39, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
    Agreed with option 3 – that seems to be a good idea. Option 1 and 2 is really the nuclear options really, and I really don't want that to happen. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 01:16, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
The picture used in email 3
Thanks for pointing out the inconsistencies in our email image attributions. We have now fixed the attribution to all images across all emails (please note the emails on meta are the old ones with the non fixed attribution). Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 06:46, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Statements from board candidates

It is interesting to note that in their campaign materials, three of the six candidates currently running for the WMF board (vote here) support the view that WMF fundraising is deceptive. A fourth (a current board member) criticises aspects of WMF fundraising. Below I am quoting relevant excerpts from –

  • the written responses of these four candidates to Election Compass Statement 5, WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever,
  • the candidates' Campaign Videos answering Question 3, "What do you think about the Wikimedia Foundation's current approach to fundraising?"

For a complete picture of candidates' views see the Meta page with the full responses of all six candidates and watch the Campaign Video for the fundraising question. Note that all emphases below are mine.

  1. In the Election Compass, Mike Peel strongly supports the statement that WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever, and says in his written statement: "I agree with the statement, and this needs to be fixed. ..." In the Campaign Videos, Mike says, "the banner campaigns are not entirely honest".
  2. In the Election Compass, Kunal Mehta supports the statement that WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever, and says in his written statement: "The current fundraising approach is based on the WMF constantly growing. The board and upper management set aggressive growth targets and then the fundraising team needs to resort to more and more extreme measures to reach them, which end up being perceived as deceptive. I would like to see the WMF stop growing and stabilize at its current size." In the Campaign Videos, he similarly says, "The Board and upper management set aggressive growth targets and then the fundraising team needs to resort to more and more aggressive measures to reach them. Some of those measures result in misleading fundraising banners that editors feel don't appropriately reflect the financial reality around the WMF."
  3. In the Election Compass, Michał Buczyński supports the statement that WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever, and says in his written statement: "… our fundraising, while efficient, is stressing too much server's maintenance, and should boast with other areas of activity more: from technical work to e.g. fight with misinformation." In the Campaign Videos, he says: "... a concept of systemic internal ethical validation of Wikimedia Foundation fundraising should also be explored".
  4. In the Election Compass, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, a current board member, opposes the statement that WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever, but says in her written statement: "I do feel that the online campaign can be improved. See videos for more." In the Campaign Videos, she says, "The one thing that I think we can improve is our on-wiki campaign. It is sometimes too aggressive to my taste." --Andreas JN466 20:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @Jayen466 for copying our statements here. Candidates are forbidden from campaigning while voting is open, so I can't say anything else on the matter, but I'd like to emphasize and encourage people to vote. Legoktm (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Um - What is the rationale for candidates being forbidden?? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 21:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
@Wakelamp: The Elections Committee takes the view that because candidates may have different amounts of time for campaigning, those with less time to engage with the community might be unfairly disadvantaged if others engage more. So candidates have essentially been limited to answering the official questions. Andreas JN466 09:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I did a quick look, but I can't find a tech o cultural non-profit with similar policies.
I suggest we ask for a stop in the election until that is corrected, becuase.
  1. The electoral process is already of cooncern, but it seems the campaigning process is more so.
  2. The rationale for WMF guideline policydo not make sense as we expect board members to engage with us and contribute large amounts of time working on the board, and
  3. Together with the WMF policy, the [code of conduct], and [Guidelines] mean that there is no time that a trustee CAN interact with us. Of particular concern is that,
  • "Board Members should not undermine a Board decision by stating their opposition to it, refusing to participate in any efforts or activities that follow from it, or attempting to relitigate it in a public forum,
  • Board members should avoid taking a public position on a matter that will (or is likely to) come before the Board."
If the trustees can not represent us becuase of policies we need a council of affiliates, to show true diversity Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 02:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree those two "Board Members should ..." passages from the Board's Code of Conduct stink. It's the complete opposite of transparency. Imagine a parliament that tells all its representatives – including the members of all opposition parties – that a prerequisite of their becoming a member is that they must be seen to endorse every decision taken by the parliament's majority. Andreas JN466 07:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm curious whether any other boards have similar provisions in their CoCs. Levivich 16:28, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
Not that I could find
National Council of Non Profits Board Responibilties
Sample board code of conduct (direct link to pdf)
Apache
https://www.asha.org/siteassets/uploadedFiles/Legal-Responsibilities.pdf Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 14:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah I couldn't find it either. And this idea that once the board makes a decision, none of the board members should question it, is called democratic centralism, and has had some, um, colorful proponents over the years. Levivich 14:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
From a discussion on WMF enteprise Jimbo Wales "For quite some time, the WMF has been managed well, financially, such that we bring in more money every year than we spend so that we can build up our reserves - which we have done. Additionally we have built up the WMF Endowment fund into something quite substantial. There are occasional news stories about this, basically saying "Why is Wikipedia asking for money, they have a ton of money already?" And the impact on donations has not been negative at all - indeed, I think it is arguable (and I know this in a direct way if we consider major donors who I've personally talked to) that having the WMF on sound financial footing, so that we can do more for free knowledge globally, is a stronger and more stable longterm incentive to donors, as opposed to pursuing what I would regard as folly: teetering forever on the edge of bankruptcy in order to panic people into donating money. That would be terrible!" Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 00:10, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Fundraising messages of various charities compared

Below is a list of charities in the same spaces as us (cultural/pivacy/free speech/tech). The first link is to the main source of informaton (I also had to do some calcs, conversions, guesses from Profit/Loss, etc), and the second takes you to the donation page for that charity. All the other donation pages are very different from WMFs and the email. Our peers do not try to create negative emotions (guilt, shame, blame, fear of impending doom), have alternating praising/damning building up to a promise of heaven, or down market type text.

Main Source of Data Donate Link Revenue Program % Fund Raising % Admin % Working Capital Ratio
ACLU Donate 200 84.5 10.2 5.2 2.4
Apache Donate 1 0.05 50K 30K 1
Educate Girls Donate 11 74 20 5.9 3.5
EFF Donate 2.2 72.5 12.7 14.6 2.46
Free Software Donate 2.1 88.4 4.8 6.6 0.68
Medicins Sans Frontieres Donate 1735 80 16 5 1.2
Open ID Donate NA NA NA NA NA
Phorge (was Phabricator) Donate NA NA NA NA NA
Project Gutenberg Donate 0.2 100 0 0 1.5
Reporters without borders Donate 1.75 75.17 12.8 75 0.3
Smithsonian Donate 1600 76.3 34 20.2 2.69
The Guardian Donate 223 NA NA NA 6.04
The Internet Archive Donate 37 91.89 3.5 1.7 0.08
The Khan Academy Donate 54 88.7 75 3.6 1.66
Tor Donate 4.4 89.72 7.1 35 0.4
Wikipedia Donate 124 74.5 11.5 13.8 3.2
Wiklleaks Donate NA NA NA NA NA

Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:28, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work, Wakelamp; this really puts things in perspective, and the tone of these other examples is massively different.
Some thoughts I had on wording, after coming across this post on communication (and headology) on my Tumblr:
  • Using positives after the word 'but' ("we don't receive funding from advertisers, but thanks to the hard work of our volunteers and the generous donations we receive, we're able to make Wikipedia the Internet's largest free repository of knowledge");
  • Alternatively, replacing 'but' with 'and' when a negative follows a positive ("We don't receive advertising money and we rely on the donations of people like you; and we'd like to keep it that way");
  • Replacing so-called "low energy phrases" (like worst, struggling, dangerous, precarious) with "high energy phrases" (like least ideal, least functional, least secure); this can verge into business speak but it can work well;
  • Not making it sound like Wikipedia is a stone's throw away from the house catching on fire;
  • Giving, as other people have stated, some definite bloody reasons as to why this is our "biggest fundraiser yet";
  • Completely nixing all mention of people who don't donate, for whatever reason:
    • "Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work [...] I'm grateful you agree that we can use the power of the internet for good", as if the people who don't donate don't agree with this;
    • "We choose not to charge a subscription fee" sounds like a threat, as if it's a button that could be hit at any moment;
    • "Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you" is some guilt-inducing, cap-in-hand nonsense;
    • "The fate of Wikipedia rests in your hands" is needlessly dramatic;
    • "but I'll be honest: This isn’t negotiable for us" is pressuring language. Further up in email 1 it states that "You're our community, our family." If my family acted this way – made it sound like a choice, but also not a choice – I'm not sure I'd feel too great about lending them some money. Would you?
    • "We just ... ask! Not often, but it works. After 21 years of saying no, I can still say we are proud to have left that money on the table. [...] Only 2% of our readers give, but we manage to serve hundreds of millions of people per month. Imagine if everyone gave? We could transform the way knowledge is shared online" contradicts itself in part; the donations work, and we have money left on the table...but also a lack of donations is what holds us back from doing more, even though we have a comfortable amount on the table?
    • Several mentions of how "extremely rare" it is for someone to donate really don't make things sound good; if you can't donate, for whatever reason, you're part of the common group of people who "turn away" [shame bells start ringing];
    • "Many of our readers see our emails and think they'll get round to it later, but life happens and of course they forget"; a number of reasons are vaguely offered for why people don't donate, but they seem to come from the wrong place. People "turn away" or "ignore" the emails, it's implied because they are stingy or cold; or they "forget", it's implied because they are neglectful and careless. No mention is given that people maybe can't donate. Instead of shaming people, we could simply state that if people can't give anything, that's fine; we could ask them to spread the word instead, and that anything they can do, whether it involves money or not, helps us out.
I think we could do a lot better than WMF holding up a puppet of Jimbo and pretending it's him talking; every single organisation you've linked talks about their actions as they are – a large non-profit corporation.
I don't find the tone of the WMF emails humanising, I think they aim to make WMF seem smaller than it is – more vulnerable, more precarious, when in fact we have been going for a long time and quite comfortably so. We could be listing the good Wikipedia does, the specific goals of WMF, what we've already achieved (more than 'we have an encyclopedia woohoo') and the benefits of donating, rather than mixing in pressing language, which creates an email that pretends WMF is the same as Wikipedia and doesn't list its goals and achievements on one hand, and scare-mongers about what happens if you don't donate (and what people who don't donate are like) on the other.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 13:14, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Wiki Commons has two collection of past banner banners 1) and 2. Also "Bill we looked up" Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 04:09, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Jayden 466 Working ratio WP upated from 1.92 t0 based on your numbers that they had $393 M. Thank-youWakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 07:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Decentralized fundraising report by Wikimedia Deutschland

@Wakelamp: Wikimedia Germany have just published a report titled "Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution". This research report "describes the fundraising and distribution practices of eight large international NGO confederations and networks, and puts them in the context of the changing Wikimedia Movement."

From the Executive Summary (emphases in original):

Based on interviews and information sharing with staff of eight organizations, including Amnesty International, Oxfam International, CARE International, World YWCA, Greenpeace and the International Cooperative Alliance, the research asks about key practices in the areas of fundraising, decision-making about fund allocation, and in particular, about redistribution policies and mechanisms. This latter topic was given particular focus, because Movement Strategy emphasizes equity in funds distribution across an economically unequal international movement. Yet it leaves open how this should be structured.

The main findings of the research show that the Wikimedia Movement differs significantly in its practices from the screened organizations: All of the organizations are based on their affiliates fundraising independently, online and offline. In several cases the INGO specifically invests in the fundraising capacity of affiliates. Yet fundraising is highly strategic rather than diversified, in terms of markets, fundraising affiliates, and revenue sources. ...

The results of this research can be summarized as follows: International NGO confederations practice decentralized fundraising, and those that redistribute funds for equity do so in a centralized manner, based on policies agreed upon by the democratic governance bodies of the confederation. The affiliates that fundraise in strong markets thus support the affiliates in smaller markets. --Andreas JN466 12:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

We should support affiliates, but I think WMF are mainly dropping in fundraising staff.
Those organizations are very different from WMF, asbut hey all going towards Donors->WP WMF -> Endowment ->
then
1/ WMF recommends and Tides decides-> Grant recipient-> recipient projects.
2/ Affiliate recommends and Tides decides-> Affiliate -> grant recipient-> recipient projects.
The de WMF seems more transparent https://spenden.wikimedia.de/use-of-funds has what German Donors are told are the percentages. I am using translations, They fund work in other European countries that are close to them. But the work they are funding seems related to provision of information. The DE press releases are also totally different, and they have less of the good looking editor close up pictures, and the rest as a very distance group. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 12:46, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Tracking of Donors by WMF

  1. Donor Privacy Policy [[2]]

"We also collect or automatically receive some other information, such as: which of our pages you request and visit; "As you interact with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services, we may use automatic data collection and other locally stored data technologies such as tracking pixels, JavaScript, cookies, and local storage to collect certain information about your device. WMF uses cookies and other locally stored data to enhance your donation experience. We also use this information to create a safer online environment and gain a better understanding of donor preferences and interactions with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services."

  1. Foundation Privacy Policy We actively collect some types of information with a variety of commonly-used technologies. These generally include tracking pixels, JavaScript, and a variety of "locally stored data" technologies, such as cookies and local storage.

.... "We use this information to make your experience with the Wikimedia Sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and their interaction with the Wikimedia Sites, and to generally improve our services. "

  1. And from the Board minutes "Staff noted that the Foundation does not currently track unique users for privacy reasons but staff is investigating different ways to analyze the data that is available. The Board noted that data is important and staff and the Board need to align on what the common goals are for tracking information. Staff is already working on developing metrics to show donors what impact their gifts are having." Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk)

Board Plans more fundraising, Wikipedia pageviews levelling off, more expenditure

  • Minutes March 2022 "The Foundation’s financials are looking positive but there are new trends, like declining pageviews in major markets, that are worrisome for fundraising revenue. There are macrotrends in the internet environment that are having an impact on decreased views, including TikTok rising as a popular website, Facebook being in decline, Google search being in decline (where 80% of traffic is from), and the rise of voice assistants. As a result, staff is projecting that banner revenue will be flat this year. There are two new revenue streams coming online in the next year, Enterprise and the Endowment. The biggest projected expansion in any of the revenue streams is in major gifts."

and "The Board had a discussion on working capital reserves, which is the amount of net surplus held per average annual spending. Currently, the Wikimedia Foundation is within the best practices range of 16-18 months (as determined by Charity Navigator). However, as the organization grows, the capital reserves are expected to drop, which will need to be compensated for with fundraising. The Board requested that staff draft a reserve policy with the oversight of the Audit Committee. When the reserve policy is ready, the Community Affairs Committee will help communicate the policy and the need to have reserves."

This "within the best practices range of 16-18 months" is such a joke. Wales and the WMF have been saying this for a decade, but every time their reserves exceed 16-18 months' expenditure, they raise projected expenditure. And when even that did not do the trick, they stuffed $100 million into an Endowment so it would not show up on the Foundation's balance sheet. (Every time they pay into the Endowment at Tides, that shows up as an expense in the Foundation's balance sheet, and with that the money – poof! – disappears from the Foundation's balance sheet.) --Andreas JN466 16:04, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
It's important to note that when they say "16-18 months" they don't mean 16-18 months of running Wikipedia, they mean 16-18 months of running the WMF, meaning 16-18 months salaries, rent, etc. That's why their reserves are like $100-$200 million. And of course, since they're constantly hiring, constantly expanding their staff, and so constantly needing higher cash reserves. "Most of the money we raise either goes either to pay our salaries or to fill cash reserves that will be used to pay our salaries in the event you stop donating in the future" doesn't make a good fundraising message though. Levivich 16:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

The data below come from the "Statements of Activities" in the audited reports. Assets do not include funds held in the Wikimedia Endowment. Expenses from the 2015–16 financial year onward include payments to the Wikimedia Endowment.

Year Source Revenue Expenses Asset rise Total assets
2020/2021 PDF $162,886,686 $111,839,819 $50,861,811 $231,177,536
2019/2020 PDF $129,234,327 $112,489,397 $14,674,300 $180,315,725
2018/2019 PDF $120,067,266 $91,414,010 $30,691,855 $165,641,425
2017/2018 PDF $104,505,783 $81,442,265 $21,619,373 $134,949,570
2016/2017 PDF $91,242,418 $69,136,758 $21,547,402 $113,330,197
2015/2016 PDF $81,862,724 $65,947,465 $13,962,497 $91,782,795
2014/2015 PDF $75,797,223 $52,596,782 $24,345,277 $77,820,298
2013/2014 PDF $52,465,287 $45,900,745 $8,285,897 $53,475,021
2012/2013 PDF $48,635,408 $35,704,796 $10,260,066 $45,189,124
2011/2012 PDF $38,479,665 $29,260,652 $10,736,914 $34,929,058
2010/2011 PDF $24,785,092 $17,889,794 $9,649,413 $24,192,144
2009/2010 PDF $17,979,312 $10,266,793 $6,310,964 $14,542,731
2008/2009 PDF $8,658,006 $5,617,236 $3,053,599 $8,231,767
2007/2008 PDF $5,032,981 $3,540,724 $3,519,886 $5,178,168
2006/2007 PDF $2,734,909 $2,077,843 $654,066 $1,658,282
2005/2006 PDF $1,508,039 $791,907 $736,132 $1,004,216
2004/2005 PDF $379,088 $177,670 $211,418 $268,084
2003/2004 PDF $80,129 $23,463 $56,666 $56,666

--Andreas JN466 16:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@Andreas Thank you for this table. I think it is worthwhile to create two subsections on revenue and expenses. The expenses part bothers me considerably, because of the WMF grant process. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 23:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
When I said create, I meant I am working on it rather than asking you to so. Currently going through WMF grant procedures. audit, regionals, outcomes, and board policies. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Expenses

I am trying to check the percentages, but the most up to date staff/contractors list I can find is this one one and it doesn't include all the other related companies. There also are many many sections in the link, and I would appreciate if editors could advise the split into fundraising, editors, others, platform. For instance I think Community Investment is for making grants to non WP, so it would be others. Oh they are hiring a community specialiist (although they are hiring 3 fundraisers at the same times) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 04:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

WMF Staff split into Sustain/Support/WMF

This is a list of all the staff sections at WMF. I have tried to work out what they do, but there is no information I would appreciate if people could advise what the ??? areas do in terms of the fundraising split, and if the other percentage splits are correct-ish. Once this is done, then with the the directors salary and contractors, average salary for that functional area for the Bay Area (even though some are remote) we should have a percentage we can understand.

Department Section Fundraising Sustain Support WMF Dev/Backe Profit
Ceo Office CEO 100
ADV. Office Fund 100
ADV.  Comm Programs Fund 100
ADV.  Comm Resources Fund 100
ADV.  Endowment Fund 100
ADV.  Fund Operations Fund 100
ADV.  Fund Tech Fund 100
ADV.  Major Gifts & Found Fund 100
ADV.  Online Fundraising Fund 100
ADV.  Partnerships Fund 100
ADV.  Wikimedia Enterprise Profit 100
Comms Comm office WMF 100
Comms  Brand FUND 100
Comms  Communications Team WMF 100
Comms  Marketing WMF 100
Comms  Movement Comms Move 100
Fin. & Adv Office Admin 100
Fin. & Adv  Finance Operations Mixed
Fin. & Adv  Finance Strategy Admin 100
Fin. & Adv  IT Services Admo 100
Legal Legal office WMF
Legal  Community Dev Move 100
Legal  Community Res and Sus Move 100
Legal  Compliance WMF 100
Legal Fellow WMF 100
Legal  Governance & Risk WMF 100
Legal  Move Strategy & Gov Move 100
Legal  Public Policy Move 100
Legal  Trust and Safety Editors 100
Product Office WMF 100
Product  Abstract Wikipedia Movement 100
Product  AHT ???
Product  Campaign Fund 100
Product  Community Relations WMF 100
Product  Content Integrity WMF 100
Product  Content Transform Team Wikipedia 100
Product  ConProduct Mgmt Wikipedia 100
Product  CR Ambassador Wikipedia 100
Product Design ???
Product  Growth Movement 100
Product  Inuka Profit 100
Product  Langand Trans ??? 25 25 50
Product  Mobile Apps ???
Product  Parsing & Infrastructure Dev
Product  ProdAnalytics ???
Product  Prod Design ???
Product  Prod Design Strategy ???
Product  Prod Infrastructure Dev 100
Product  Program Management Dev 100
Product  Readers Product ????
Product  Structured Content Product ????
Product  Structured Data ???
Product  Trust and Safety Tools Editor 100
Product  Web Dev 100
Product  Wishlist Ediitpr
Tal. & Cul  Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Movment 100
Tal. & Cul Learnin and Development WMF 100
Tal. & Cul  People Experience HrR?? 100
Tal. & Cul  People Operations Payroll?? 100
Tal. & Cul  Recruiting Admin 100
Tech office Back End 100
Tech  Architecture Back End 100
Tech  Data Center Operations Back End 100
Tech  Data Engineering Back End 100
Tech  Global Data & Insights Back End 100
Tech  Infrastructure Foundations Back End 100
Tech  Machine Learning NPP 100
Tech  Performance Back End 100
Tech  Platform Engineering Back End 100
Tech  Quality and Test Engineering Dev/Back en 100
Tech  Release Engineering Dev/Back en 100
Tech  Research (cool so make it supprot) R and D 100 100
Tech  Search Platform Back End 100
Tech  Security Back End 100
Tech  Site Reliability Engineering Back End 100
Tech  Technical Engagement Profit 100
You're gonna have to start with what your existing categorization system here is.. Because some of this doesn't make sense right now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:57, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
^ this, but specifically (and with my bias apparent) — Wishlist (Community Tech to the rest of us...) is marked as Ediitpr (Editors?) and probably should mostly be assigned to "Dev/Backend"? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 20:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

RfC (WMF fundraising emails)

So far no one appears to have said they like the emails or find the wording appropriate. On the other hand, there have been fewer than ten people commenting to date. Perhaps it would help to get a clearer and more representative result if we do an RfC with options editors can simply sign to express their views (see below). --Andreas JN466 17:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Endorse wording of emails

  1. As someone in the relatively small intersection of the sets of "Wikimedians" and "professional fundraisers (other than those employed by the WMF)", I think this is fine. One can raise objections to the fact that WMF has so much money, or how it's spent, and those objections are fairly well aired in various places. But if this discussion is actually about the content of the emails, then I don't see anything to complain about. The messaging is well-tested with donors and will succeed in its objective. There are a few fundraising 'tactics' used but nothing remotely unethical. And at the heart of it is a truth: Wikipedia depends on donations, and if the fundraising campaigns weren't effective and people wouldn't respond to them then WMF would run out of money quite quickly, with an inevitable impact on Wikipedia. I'm not exactly sure what the best way to bring Wikipedia offline actually is, but starting to edit fundraising campaigns based on the likes and dislikes of people on this page, rather than 15 years' evidence of what donors will actually respond to, is probably fairly high up the list. Thanks, The Land (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks for commenting. Unfortunately though I have to disagree, The Land. In my view, getting people on very limited incomes to donate $2 they can't afford, by making them "believe that Wikipedia is in trouble and that they need to give money to keep it online", is unethical. All the more so if it's done in part to raise WMF executives' compensation to $350K and beyond (bear in mind that these salary figures are two years old). Andreas JN466 20:09, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    Yes, it's obvious you disagree, as you not only started the RfC and then voted 'oppose' , but you also make these and similar points at every available opportunity in every possible place. Given that, I'm unsure why you felt the need to comment on my !vote. But thanks for clarifying and have a nice day. The Land (talk) 20:23, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    It's worth mentioning that some of those salaries have been rising steeply, even as the WMF claimed to be in urgent need of money. Compare the entries here in the 2020 Form 990 to the corresponding entries here in the 2018 form. As far as I can make out
    • the CEO's total compensation incl. benefits increased by 7% (to $423,318),
    • the DGC's and GC's by 10%,
    • the CFO's by 11%,
    • the CTO's by 17%,
    • the CAO's by 22%,
    • the CCO's by 25%,
    • the CT/CO's by 28%, and
    • the CPO's by 32%
    – all over a two-year period when the annual inflation rate in the US was at 2%. Andreas JN466 16:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC) I've added some more salaries to the list. --Andreas JN466 09:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
    To quote Upton Sinclair, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." I have no doubt that WMF staff, whose salary depends on WMF fundraising, will want to send out whatever fundraising messages work best based on 15 years' evidence of what donors will actually respond to, including but not limited to messages that convey urgency and dire need, even if there is no urgency or dire need, or messages that suggest the money will go to support volunteers, even when most of the money does not go to support volunteers (or messages that suggest Wikipedia has one founder). Thankfully, a volunteer community, not dependent upon WMF fundraising, oversees the WMF, and can ensure that Wikipedia lives up to its ideals, and doesn't just pursue whatever messaging donors will best respond to. As Email #1 says, Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other. Levivich 02:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    The "well-tested with donors" claim - and the "15 years of evidence" argument in particular - is somewhat of a McNamara fallacy as it's easy to point to the fundraising bottom-line and say "There's the proof that it works" without needing any comparative basis to determine whether it would be more or less effective than other fundraising strategies. If you were able to prove or at least demonstrate by means of comparison that the current messaging is both effective and ethical as compared to other non-profits that engage in fundraising campaign, you might have an argument there. As it is, when no such comparisons exist to back up your assertion, we are left only to point towards anecdotal evidence. And from where I'm sitting, I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of anecdotes that Wikimedia's fundraising is well-received. All of this is important because it goes to credibility. Credibility is still an extremely vital long-term commodity to possess in a public arena, particularly if one's finances ever become scrutinized by a whistleblower or a governing body, in order to show that funds are being raised in good faith. Credibility is not something that can be easily measured (except in broad, statistically sound surveys), but ongoing, repeated murmurs of discontent and disapproval does not do well to signal having wealth in this space. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:14, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    So the evidence it's effective is there in the WMF's extensive A/B testing of its fundraising. Worth taking a look on Meta, it gets summarised occasionally. Also, I don't think you can invoke the McNamara fallacy here; that's something that happens when you confuse metrics for outcomes. The desired outcome of a fundraising email campaign is raising money in the long term, the metric and the outcome are pretty identical. If I was saying "look, these emails have really high open rates so they are bound to raise money" it would be a valid criticism. I'm still not sure that '15 Wikipedians can be found who don't like it' would be better data, though. I'd say that's of pretty much zero value as data, as 15 Wikipedians can readily be found to dislike any given thing. ;)
    Regarding ethics, I could give you a really long answer regarding fundraising methods, professional standards and regulatory frameworks. However I don't have time. All I can say is the emails are gold-standard, A+ quality stuff that should be nominated for fundraising awards and which I fully intend to use as examples of good practice the next time I'm running a training session. 14:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC) The Land (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    According to who? What fundraising awards? Levivich 15:08, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    Me. Just expressing my professional opinion on the matter. The Land (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    I hope at your next training session, you also cover AFP and CFRE ethical standards for fundraising solicitations. Levivich 17:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    No, because I'm based in the UK so neither of those is relevant. What I do refer to is the UK Fundraising Regulator's Fundraising Code of Practice, which is rather more detailed. You might want to look at the Regulator's completed investigations which gives an indication of what kind of thing actually breaches the code.
    You'll also hopefully note that none of these guidelines says anything along the lines of "charities must stop fundraising when they have over X amount of money" or "fundraising emails must not convey urgency" or anything along those lines. The Land (talk) 19:19, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    Let's avoid straw manning: concerns that fundraising communications are misleading are not along the lines of "charities must stop fundraising when they have over X amount of money" or "fundraising emails must not convey urgency". Thank you for the UK Fundraising Regulator links; I found them very interesting to read, in particular:
    • 1.1.1 "Your fundraising must be ... honest ..."
    • 1.2.1. "While reasonable persuasion is allowed, you must not fundraise in a way which ... places undue pressure on a person to donate."
    • 1.3.1. "You and the fundraising materials you use must not mislead anyone, or be likely to mislead anyone, either by leaving out information or by being inaccurate or ambiguous or by exaggerating details."
    • 1.3.2. "Before you make any direct or implied claim in your fundraising which is likely to be taken literally, you must make sure that there is evidence to prove the claim."
    • 1.3.6. "You must take all reasonable steps to treat a donor fairly, so that they can make an informed decision about any donation."
    • 8.1.1. "While fundraising, you must not ... act dishonestly or manipulatively, or deliberately try to make a potential donor feel guilty; or act in any other way that a reasonable person might consider would damage the charitable institution’s reputation. This includes: ... putting undue pressure on members of the public to donate; ... or any other behaviour that harms the reputation of the fundraising profession or the charitable institution you are representing."
    • 9.1.1. "You must ... make sure all advertisements are ... honest and truthful."
    • The 2021 Shelter investigation: "However, we found that contrary to the standards in the Code of Fundraising Practice (the code), the charity had inadvertently suggested in the advertisement that donations would be spent only on the work of its helpline, when the aim of the appeal was to raise money for Shelter’s work more generally. The addition of a few clarifying words would have avoided the risk of breaching the code on potentially misleading people and restricted donations."
    And, of course:
    • 2.4.5. "You must have a clear and published procedure for members of staff and volunteers to report any concerns they have about your fundraising practice."
    • 2.4.3. "You must make sure that: complaints are investigated thoroughly and fairly to find out the facts of the case, avoiding unnecessary delay; and you respond to complaints fairly and in a way that is in proportion to the complaint."
    Cheers, Levivich 20:32, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    Is there evidence to prove the claim the Wikipedia is at risk of being forced to run ads? Jr8825 • Talk 21:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    I think it's important to look at the actual wording of the emails, not the construals that have been put upon them by other people in this thread. I see no claim that, for instance, if anyone doesn't respond to the emails, then Wikipedia will shortly become ad-supported. I do see statements that Wikipedia decided not to be ad-supported and therefore relies on donations (true!), and also statements that if people give then this will enable Wikipedia to remain ad-free for years to come (true, hopefully!). As Levivich helpfully pointed just above, it's important to avoid straw-manning, so let's look at what the emails actually say, not what people claim they say. The Land (talk) 21:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    To me, "Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come" implies that there's a risk Wikipedia will have to run ads, or otherwise the WMF would not say that it has been forced ("no choice") to request help from the recipient. Jr8825 • Talk 21:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    Undeniably, such a risk exists. If the WMF stopped soliciting donations, or no-one responded to WMF fundraising appeals, then it'd have to find other sources of funding or fold completely. The WMF have always refused to entirely rule out advertising funding and would have to consider it. It's only a non-question because of the continued success of the fundraising campaigns. The WMF may have a choice about whether it sends a particular person an email, but it doesn't really have a choice about whether to conduct fundraising activity from the general public. And it's entirely legitimate to say the result of someone giving is that Wikipedia will "remain independent, ad-free and thriving for years to come". The Land (talk) 22:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

    WMF Vice President Erik Möller estimated in 2013 that Wikimedia's mission, beyond merely keeping Wikipedia online, could be sustained on $10M a year. Even if we double that 2013 estimate, to $20M, the Foundation would at that level of spending – bearing in mind the interest it earns each year on its investments – have enough money to keep Wikipedia online and fulfil its wider mission, as scoped in that 2013 post, indefinitely, without ever asking the public for another penny.
    — User:Jayen466, m:Talk:Fundraising, 15:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)


    To me, that shows that no such risk truly exists. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:37, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    Last year, the WMF had (figures rounded to nearest million):
    • reached its $100 million goal in the Wikimedia Endowment
    • an additional $87 million in cash and cash equivalents
    • an additional $117 million in short-term investments ($81M in corporate bonds, $21M in mortgage-backed securities (!), $15M in US Treasury securities)
    • an additional $20 million in long-term investments ($4.5M in corporate bonds, $12.5M in stocks, $1M in mortgage-backed securities, $2M in US Treasury securities)
    • Between July 2020 and June 2021, the WMF brought in $159 million in revenue, and didn't spend $47 million of it (just added it to its cash/investment stockpile)
    • It did spend $68 million in salaries, benefits, and other compensation for fewer than 400 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs), which comes out to at least $170,000 per FTE (the real number is higher because there are, no doubt, far less than 400 FTEs employed by the WMF)
    • ...and spent less than $3 million on internet hosting and less than $6 million on grants.
    • Since then, there is no doubt the WMF has collected at least another $100 million in donations. We'll find out when the next audit is released in October.
    We have no choice but to turn to you, my foot. Levivich 22:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    In the nine months from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 the WMF collected another $153.6 million in revenue and already substantially exceeded its own year goal. It nevertheless proceeded to fundraise in places like India, Latin America and South Africa in the fourth quarter (April–June 2022), using much the same pleading email wordings as shown above (see Meta). However, perhaps to acknowledge that they had already surpassed their annual fundraising goal, the WMF fundraisers did change we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. We’re not salespeople ..., as shown in email 3 above, to we haven't reached our fundraising goal in India yet, and this fundraiser will be over soon. We're not salespeople ... (bolding is my emphasis) in the Indian email samples provided on Meta. --Andreas JN466 10:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
    @Levivich: Thanks for reviewing the UK Fundraising Regulator links. As for the code breach example they provide where "the charity had inadvertently suggested in the advertisement that donations would be spent only on the work of its helpline, when the aim of the appeal was to raise money for [its] work more generally", it's worth noting that email 2 e.g. says "Wikipedia donor" rather than "Wikimedia donor" and makes no reference to any other Wikimedia projects. (According to WMF staff quoted here Wikipedia costs the WMF about 30 percent of their $112.5 million operating budget ($33.75 million) to maintain.) Andreas JN466 07:22, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
    re: "the desired outcome of a fundraising email campaign is raising money in the long term", a trial which shows an email format generates immediately higher revenue does not indicate it's sustainable, it indicates it's successful at manipulating people into a desired course of action. As others have said, these campaigns are also generating bad publicity and it's plausible donors will be less likely to respond for urgent requests for money when they occur at regular intervals. The broader objection is that we don't need to mislead donors about the health of our situation. Doing this in our community's name and being unclear about how money is spent are additional frustrations. A positive campaign that focuses on why Wikipedia/WMF are precious & valuable could avoid these issues. It's not like the WMF needs that additional revenue. Jr8825 • Talk 15:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    The email programme has been running for about 15 years, which to my mind shows a good level of long-term sustainability. The negative publicity is, again to my mind, fairly minimal and consistent between years. It is just about conceivable it could start to have some cumulative impact, but in my view the reduction in income from deliberately choosing to make the emails less effective would likely be much higher. The Land (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    To me, the most striking aspect of WMF fundraising is the contrast between –
    • the WMF's very significant annual budget surpluses (over $50 million in 2020/2021, or close to $90 million if you count the Endowment growth of over $37 million in the same year) and the huge growth in expenses, above all salary costs, versus
    • fundraising messages focused strongly on the need for donations to ensure the protection and survival of Wikipedia as a subscription-free, ad-free and independent website.
    Wikipedia (as well as Wikimedia) could run and has run on a tiny fraction of the current budgets. But the narrative that Wikipedia, the website, is under some sort of threat is regularly trotted out, supported by serviceable journalists who are telling the public, counterfactually, that people at the WMF "often struggle to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running" or that Wikipedia is "launching a distress signal seeking financial help from its users" because it is having difficulty "balancing its books" – when in fact the WMF has just reported that after the first three quarters of its 2021/2022 financial year it had already exceeded its own revenue target for the entire year (which at $147.8 million was almost $40 million higher than the previous year's $108 million target, of course), had underspent and was anticipating another year-on-year net asset rise of $25.9 million (not counting Endowment growth).
    Good fundraising to me would not mislead people into thinking that Wikipedia, the website, was at risk of going offline, or losing its independence. Instead, good fundraising would (1) tell the public about all the things that the WMF is doing today that it wasn't able to do a little over a decade ago, when it had 10% of today's budget, and (2) invite people to support this new and additional work. Given that it now has a combined total of about $400 million in net assets and in the Endowment, the WMF could comfortably keep Wikipedia online, ad-free and independent in perpetuity without ever asking the public for another penny, just from the interest it earns. Andreas JN466 16:05, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
    • The Land, this portion is just flat false. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. How could one figure that? I know of no case where the community at large has been permitted to control the use of any WMF funds whatsoever, let alone 31% of them. So, since the guidelines require evidence for the truth of a claim, where's the evidence for that one? Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:40, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. When you hire someone to raise funds and they succeed in raising funds, this is generally seen as a good thing, except on Wikipedia for some reason. Gamaliel (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
    It is not the undoubted skills of the staff that are at issue here. Surely it is the board that determines how much money should be raised, and how much aggressivenes should be considered tolerable in fundraising messages. The staff merely do what they have to do to fulfil the targets set. Andreas JN466 20:00, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. I spent most of my working life in not-for-profit organisations and, if you want income to achieve your mission, then you need to employ experienced marketeers and fund raisers and let them do their job using their expertise, just as I would expect them to let me do my job with my expertise. I don't see WMF as any different. I do my part to write good cited content and I don't expect the fund raisers to tell me how to do it and I don't think I should tell them how to do the fund raising. Yes, I have opinions on how those funds might be best spent (I share the wish expressed by others for more expenditure on technical development to better support volunteers), but that's a separate discussion. Let's all focus on what we can each do best towards the mission. Kerry (talk) 01:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    Comment: In Wikipedia, we generally declare conflicts of interest. May I therefore invite commenters who –
    • are past or present board members, employees or contractors of Wikimedia affiliates, i.e. organisations that are wholly or in part funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, or
    • have ever taken full-time or part-time employment paid for by a Wikimedia Foundation grant
    to please identify themselves as such? This will result in more transparency. Thanks. Andreas JN466 08:23, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Object to wording of emails

  1. Object for reasons stated above. --Andreas JN466 17:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
    The emails' "From" field – "jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org" – also deserves a mention. As Craig Younkins put it in a piece on Medium:
    Another abuse is found in the “From” address:
    From: "jimmy@wikipedia.org" <donate@wikimedia.org>
    Reply-to: donate@wikimedia.org
    This one is so common that some people won’t consider it abuse at this point. But really, it’s an email from donate@wikimedia.org that tries to trick the user into thinking it’s from jimmy@wikipedia.org by putting that where a person’s name is intended to go. Notice that in the inbox view, only jimmy@wikipedia.org is shown. Andreas JN466 18:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  2. Daß Wölf 17:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  3. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:38, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  4. I have two specific objections. (1) I think the whole "unlock your badges" thing is tacky, and a bad look for the project. And (2) I don't like the percentages of what the funds are used for because, as already noted by others above, it's misleading. As for the rest of the text signed by Jimmy, I'm OK with that. It's the typical jargon of fundraising messages from nonprofits, and I'm not going to nitpick about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  5. Strongly object to the wording of the emails. The tugging at the heartstrings of people under the false impression that we need more server money or that WMF money goes mostly to Wikipedia. The Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum badge gimmick is tacky. The email claims: 42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. 27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world. None of this wording is quite an outright lie, but as others have said, "used to support the volunteers" creates a misleading impression—almost all of us are not paid, nor given grants or funding or reimbursement for money that we spend purchasing reliable sources or travelling to meet-ups and conferences, and so on. "Sustain and improve Wiki[m]edia" is a very vague thing to do with 42% of donations: this amount of money is not spent on server costs and technical maintenance—the WMF fail even to implement bugfixes made by volunteers.
    WMF fundraising damages the reputation of us as a community, as evidenced by the spate of news stories—admittedly often in the gutter press—which have followed fundraising drives for a number of years now ([3][4][5]). Their wealth has grown inordinately, and the community has not seen a difference. — Bilorv (talk) 11:40, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    In fairness, the donor response wouldn't be nearly as good if they were more accurate about how the donations are spent: About a third of your gift will be added to our $200-million coffers (not to be confused with our separate $100-million endowment). Most of the rest will be spent on our salaries and benefits. Less than a quarter of every dollar you give will be spent on actually running the website. Levivich 00:22, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
    Or they could follow the model used by the "public radio station" in Rockstar's GTA Vice City. That at least would be amusing...something like "If you view Wikipedia without donating, you're stealing." Intothatdarkness 16:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  6. In addition to the issues raised by others above, it's "co-founder" not "founder". Levivich 16:05, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    Made me chuckle, but it's true and a good point. — Bilorv (talk) 15:36, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  7. The wording of the emails, which imply that Wikipedia is in desparate need of money, are not accurate, and place unwarranted expectations on the volunteers by the general public. the WMF is not supposed to be a slush fund for the Tides Foundation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:14, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
  8. Deeply misleading. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:01, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
  9. Misleading and unethical. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:05, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    This comment best summarises my opinion. Dutchy45 (talk) 19:04, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
  10. Anything feeding the cancer needs to be stopped. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:20, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
  11. Misleading, and I am choosing a very mild word here. I also concur with what others above have said. Spot on, Hemiauchenia. - Darwinek (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
  12. I've already shared my thoughts about this above. Jr8825 • Talk 23:58, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
  13. These manipulative emails make us little different than an evil corporation. We should do everything in our power change this. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:07, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  14. The first time someone outside a station tells you they've lost their money, can you help them get home, etc., you do and leave with a warm feeling of having helped out in a crisis; when they approach again some time late, you have a sinking feeling of having been had; the third time you are a snarling misanthrope. These recurring emails with their appearance of being reluctantly written in a crisis degrade the benevolence which is the core of the project and they are an easy target for negative coverage. All such emails should be community-marshalled, with defined circumstances where the WMF can flag up that fundraising has become necessary (which would have to be accompanied by an explanation of what had happened to the previously-accumulated funds) and an clear and appropriate message and appropriate recipients can be defined and agreed before anything is sent out. AllyD (talk) 06:09, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  15. The percentagewise breakdown (quoted by Bilorv above) is galling, because the categories aren't even distinct. For example, take "support the volunteers" and "sustain and improve Wikipedia": does supporting the volunteers not sustain the project? If there were no percentages at all, I doubt I would have missed them, but this makes me feel looked down upon. It's disrespectful. XOR'easter (talk) 14:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  16. As above. ― Qwerfjkltalk 15:32, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  17. These fundraising messages are (nearly) unrelated to reality. In addition to the above comments, I state that creating a new, decent article is a much better way to help Wikipedia than donating 2$ to WMF. From the WMF messages, one can understand that the donations are the only accessible way to help Wikipedia. --NGC 54 (talk｜contribs) 23:20, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
  18. Apart from the emails containing the usual distortions and half-truths, there is an absence of any option to indicate where an email to the effect of "Fuck off! I've fallen for your scam once but I've now learnt how misleading your fundraising messages are. Don't you ever dare contact me again." I thought that at least through much of Europe that there was a requirement for a clear opt out in all communications of this sort. --82.45.168.246 (talk) 08:12, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
    There very likely is in the emails that are actually sent. What's been posted is the email copy, not the full email as it's built in HTML. Previous emails I've received from the WMF have "If you do not wish to receive any future emails from the Wikimedia Foundation, unsubscribe instantly." in small print at the bottom, with the unsubscribe instantly as a link to an unsubscribe page. The Land (talk) 08:19, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
    The unsubscribe options are in fact there, in the small print; I'd left them off to save space. I've added a note to that effect above. Andreas JN466 10:49, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
  19. Fundraising emails that purport to request funds for Wikipedia ought to be more transparent and truthful about the Foundation's real financial position. This wording isn't untruthful but it deceives by omission. The word for this practice is paltering.—S Marshall T/C 12:39, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
  20. Strong oppose, as the WMF is going directly against its Wikimedia Foundation Values. Three quotes from the value statement that I think is worth mentioning are:
    • "For it [collaboration] to work well, each of us needs to be honest, accountable, and transparent to one another." — Is asking people making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia honest, accountable and transparent, when WMF's funds have been spent recklessly and inefficiently? Is the statement If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over honest, accountable, and transparent, when surely the next fundraiser would be longer in length and be more aggressive?
    • "Engaging in civil discourse requires kindness, care, respect, tact, empathy, trust, and safety. It is key to getting, giving, and receiving good information." — Is saying This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation and Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: civil to non-donating contributors of Wikipedia, or non-donators in general? Is saying I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. is grateful to our existing donors?
    • "We are duty-bound to steward our resources and deliver exceptional products and services." — Is mentioning ..., why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read? or Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations. shows the would-be donors about our excellence, when we have repeated this false doomsday mantra for 20 years?
    My suggestion to the Wikimedia Foundation here is to tone down the message and don't just simply aim for getting ever more revenue than the last year. At some point, it's not gonna work anymore. Use the existing money efficiently and addressing our perennial issues would be the best way to prove the would-be donors and editors here of our worthiness. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
    Another thought: It gives the false impression that the existence of Wikipedia is irreversibly dependent on donations, to the point in which disgruntled readers/editors throwing a fit will turn around and say "I used to donate to Wikipedia, but because you guys reverted me/blocked me/annoyed me, I will never donate again". This sort of empty threat generally results in scoffing replies along the lines of "We don't see a penny of your donations anyway". This is information that most people familiar with the WMF's behind-the-scenes budget machinations are familiar with, but apparently most other people are not, and it may be causing a detrimental sense of entitlement that could also be contributing to instances of incivility or tendentious editing. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:04, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
  21. Object because the language is overly promotional, which compromises the reputation of Wikipedia and the WMF. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:5D03:C0E9:18B8:AF26 (talk) 03:21, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
  22. Misleading and, per S Marshall, paltering indeed. Retswerb (talk) 03:56, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
  23. Object, especially to If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over. I believe this statement to be untrue, and possibly a deliberate and fraudulent lie. However rich it becomes, I do not believe that the WMF will ever voluntarily stop fundraising, because it now sees fundraising as a goal rather than a necessity. Certes (talk) 11:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
    Exactly. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:08, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
    Exactly, Certes. The $150 million fundraising goal for 2021/2022 was already far exceeded by the end of the third quarter; even so, Indian and South African readers and donors were told in the fourth quarter to give money again "to keep Wikipedia online" and "ad-free", "to keep Wikipedia free" (i.e. accessible without having to pay a subscription fee), "to sustain Wikipedia's independence", etc.
    The 2020/2021 goal was revised upwards during the year, from $108 million to $125 million, and that revised, higher goal was then also exceeded, by almost $30 million ($154 million). This includes revenue generated in South America in spring 2021, at the height of the pandemic there. I believe we are witnessing untrammeled corporate greed – all the more shameless for being largely based on volunteer labour. Andreas JN466 12:54, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
    It's like NASA kept asking for more budget while spending the money on the Senate launch system. More money does not mean faster operations. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:53, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
  24. The wording is at best misleading, and that's being generous. Intothatdarkness 15:46, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
  25. Strong Objection The language used is highly misleading. That something is effective does not make that something ethical. CoffeeCrumbs (talk)
  26. Strong Objection The %s are incredibly misleading.
  27. The percentages are misleading and inspecific, for one. The whole bit about a fundraising goal and 'we don't have a lot of time left' is also misleading because I doubt the campaign would stop if a goal was met (as Jayen466 points out, they didn't in India when they had already met their annual goal) and the Foundation would be just fine if it happened to not meet a goal. The general impression that Wikipedia is in dire need of money is misleading. Mostly mentioning supporting wikipedia (there's one mention about "...Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects" in the percentage breakdown, styling taken from the email) is also problematic: it's misleading to donors and isn't true. If supporting Wikipedia (plus the other projects) and the community behind it was the Foundation's priority, some things would have a greater priority. The emails should mention the strategic direction, their non-Wikipedia use of funds and what else the foundation prioritizes, and/or how well they pay their staff (Jayen466 makes a similar point in their 2nd paragraph under "Discussion). The foundation should encourage people to donate based on the things the foundation does now with its large budget (of which keeping Wikipedia online is a fraction). Perfection shouldn't be expected, but these emails aren't good enough [collectively, perhaps not individually]. (The badges, though, seem permissible to me) —Danre98(talk^contribs) 18:49, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  28. The Land above suggests that the metric applied to the fundraising appeals is primarily their effectiveness. And I suspect that messages like these are, indeed, effective. If I stuck a gun in someone's face, that would probably also be a very effective way of getting them to give me money. The question in both cases, however, is whether doing so is ethical. These messages in the most charitable reading distort the truth, and in a more realistic one flat out lie. Even if WMF got absolutely no donations this year, they could quite comfortably keep the lights on without running ads or any of that other doomsaying stuff. They might have to lay off some administrative staff, but well, I'm not really convinced that would be a negative. So far as "Well, every charity does this"—remember your mother asking you "If all your friends ran off a cliff, would you run off it too?". The primary value in Wikipedia is to present things honestly and neutrally. These messages are not in keeping with that, and damage that reputation. These messages are unethical and must be reframed to accurately and neutrally reflect the actual situation, even if that makes them less effective. If you're going to include percentages, include the percentage of the budget that goes to WMF staff salaries and benefits. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  29. Strongly Object . I don't really care if this kind of immature, US style marketing-hype is successful or not. I don't care if it is possibly authored by the fundraising team on the fake premise that Jimbo Wales is behind it. I don't object to fundraising, I've done enough of it myself but it was always for critical humanitarian objectives. What I do object to is when an oganisation whose product is based on claims of accuracy, honesty, and neutrality, resorts to a fundraising campaign based on lies and deception. Especially when it constantly tells its volunteer workforce that there suddenly isn't enough money to develop the very software that is needed to keep the encyclopedia corpora clean. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:56, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  30. It is really important that a charity's marketing be in accord with the core values of that charity and a serious risk if they undermine them. Our core values are in providing factual information. If we were running a donkey sanctuary we could probably be forgiven for claiming something was 31% of spending instead of 3.1% or 0.31%, but if it turned out that our annual report was stuck together with glue made from rendered equine hooves we'd be in trouble. It would be easy to work out the cost of running the Wikipedia library and then put in a claim that "just $31 gets one of our volunteer factcheckers online access to her city's newspaper archives" or some similar factoid. There are charities that market in ways that project and protect their core brand values. The WMF should do the same. ϢereSpielChequers 15:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
    yes, Yes, YES! This is what the WMF should do: showcase that we are competent people and we are worth donating. Not forcing people to donate out of guilt. Two question arose though: 1. What would the money the WMF gained will be used to benefit the community? 2. Are we actually competent enough to persuade people to donate? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  31. Strongly Object, too disappointing to put into words really. Aza24 (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  32. Strongly object – this is people's money that WMF is using, and the revelation that several people end up contributing money they can't afford because of the pressing tone of these emails is genuinely horrifying to me. I edit out of love, to bring knowledge about my areas of interest to a wider group of people; you can't help but feel that your work is being taken advantage of to tug on the heartstrings of others. Some have raised the point that objections to these emails are relatively "minor and consistently minor", and that it shows that the emails are mostly successful and unobjected to, but I don't think this is a reasonable argument to take – that if it works, why think about it otherwise, and if we rework it, what if it breaks? WMF has somewhere around $400m in assets and reserves; reworking emails will not irrevocably harm it so that it has nothing to lean on. As one editor has noted, it's going to catch up to us in the long run, and it'll bite us in the ass if people realise that these emails aren't an honest appraisal of WMF funding. We can do a lot better than "send it and forget it".
    $400m in assets and reserves is a new context that no longer matches up to these fundraising methods. Maybe these emails were warranted a decade or so ago, but in light of how well the WMF is doing, it's unfair to put forth misleading, vague, emotionally pressing statements that lead people to part with their money under circumstances that are not honest. It's unethical to accept donations acquired like this, and it's antithetical to the goals of a non-profit.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 18:11, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  33. The fundraising campaign runs counter to the values of the Wikipedia community and misrepresents what we are (Kudpung and WereSpielChequers said this more eloquently). Running a scaremongering campaign risks that people will give money to the WMF and then not give money to causes that are much more in need of money (food banks in the UK will run out of food this winter, putting people at actual risk of starvation). It is disgusting to see a charity sitting on fat stacks of cash that still tries to get a bigger slice of the donation pie. —Kusma (talk) 19:40, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  34. Object. These spams are just toxic and horrible. I'm not sure we should be spamming people at all, even, because
    1) We don't need the money.
    2) But people give it to us cos we ask -- people who don't have a lot of money, who have to give up family pizza night that week to make the contribution.
    3) And for people who do have money, they still have a contribution budget and so contributions to us come out of the pile for Doctors Without Borders etc.
    4) And the more extra loose money the WMF has the more chances for corruption -- I'm not talking about embezzlement or bribery, but rather featherbedding, nepotism, raising each others salaries, contributing to personal favorite charities, buying fancier equipment and furnishings than you need, taking trips you don't need to, increasing the headcount of your department, and just generally "staff expand to meet available payroll money". This is close to an iron law of people with extra money available. If the WMF is not subject to these behaviors they would be of nearly superhuman virtue and character, which I doubt. Herostratus (talk) 10:24, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
    @Herostratus I agree Staff capture is common :-( i was also amazed by how little the most famous open source charities exist on (see table above). I was trying to find out the value of the WP banner, and saw guesses of 1 to 2 Billion dollars Let's give a week each to each of our open source brethren - they are far better at most of the missions that the WMF has set for itself Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 03:53, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
  35. Strongly object The emails are deceptive to the point of dishonesty, and there is an inappropriate pressure put on previous donors to give more money. None of this is in the spirit of Wikipedia, and if it is not illegal for an organisation to obtain money by deception in this way, it should be. SilkTork (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
  36. Object for reasons stated above. Peter Damian (talk) 11:10, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
  37. Object for the reasons stated above. BilledMammal (talk) 14:11, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
  38. Object on the strongest terms. Wikipedia is not a poor organization that has to live on the lifeline of donations. They have enough money for Tide Foundation which engages in political left activities, but somehow they didn't have enough funding to fix things up. They do not need money to "continue to survive". With these emails, WMF didn't show proper respect to thousands of editors who are truly keeping the encyclopedia alive. For an organization that claimed to be "neutral" and "transparent", WMF surely is not showing them to be one. It is worthwhile to remember that Wikipedia is not ran by some suits in WMF headquarters, but it is ran by thousands of editors from around the world who is not paid. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 01:22, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    This discussion is to review e-mails being used in Wikimedia's fundraising campaign. That they donate to a "foundation that engages in political left activities" is unimportant here and I wouldn't be able to tell by looking at your comment. "With these emails, WMF didn't show proper respect to thousands of editors who are truly keeping the encyclopedia alive", can you elaborate? I think it's reasonable to donate to an organization which supports rights for Black and LBGT people, as well as women. Many of our editors fall into these groups. But it's also hard to tell exactly what you're talking about, so I could be misinterpreting —VersaceSpace 🌃 02:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    "With these emails, WMF didn't show proper respect to thousands of editors who are truly keeping the encyclopedia alive" is not aimed at WMF's donation towards Tides. It is aimed at how WMF seems to be "begging" for money, while not giving any assistance to the editors, who are the real backbones of the project. As for where WMF donated its money, I disagreed if they donated to any organization that is political, whether it is conservative or progressive. Tides clearly favor progressive political causes, which I do not think align with the neutrality principles of WMF. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 03:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    It is reasonable for an indiviual to donate. But it is not reasonable for an orgsanisation to donate(especially if these organisation donate to Political parties), especially if there is a strong relationaship between directors, and officers and the company, and without the donors and volunteers being aware,
    At the moment the Tide Foundation (which controls the Endowment, and the knowledge fun) and WMF donate to each other, WMF CEO was CEO at grantee Tides Advocacy, and many WMF for Fraud due to WMF process issues Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 04:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what that means, but I wasn't promoting Tides. Just was saying Wikimedia donating to political left orgs is not what the discussion is about. —VersaceSpace 🌃 13:24, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
    My point is that if WMF have the money to donate to other political organization, whether it is progressive or conservative, it is wrong and dishonest to portray themselves as "vulnerable" and "in severe need of your donation to continue operating". ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 23:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
  39. Object The Wikimedia Foundation is at odds with the ethics and values of the Wikimedia community. Increasingly the Wikimedia Foundation is centralizing power and money into the control of people who are claiming the right to speak for the community without the community's input. There have been years of community objections to the nature of Wikimedia Foundation fundraising and years of community calls to decentralize the spending of the money collected. The normal and ethical way that the Wikimedia community operates is to make decisions with public, published discourse that has diverse participation from the global stakeholders, with special emphasis on the wishes of current and future volunteer content creators who have ensure the success of the Wikimedia Movement. If I am in error, then someone correct me by sharing the link to the discussion, but unfortunately I know that the Wikimedia Foundation has entered no such conversation. Donations are a US$200 million / year concern. This ethical issue is worth investment in public conversation and discourse. When the conversation does finally happen, let it be said that the Wikimedia Community called the Wikimedia Foundation to it repeatedly, and the Wikimedia Foundation declined to discuss. This is not a problem lacking a solution: the solution is a committed investment in ongoing community conversation about social and ethical issues in the Wikimedia Movement, and the sponsorship of community members and researchers to find compromise and consensus in the same. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
  40. Object to the dishonest wording of the emails. The WMF are not idiots, and should have been able to predict the backlash they are now receiving for this obvious affront to the communities that sustain its wikis. When they go ahead with this anyway, it should read taken as nothing less than an open declaration of their cynical intent. The gamification aspect is the most awful, like a parody of the barnstars that we use to recognise actual contributions to the project. --small jars tc 19:41, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
    Do we got any information on what sorts of gamification WMF would be doing? I know that the donors will receive badges, but what kind of badges? ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 01:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
    Stinking badges ?  :-) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 01:54, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
  41. Object This is misleading and it's awful. It's the kind of thing I would expect in my spam email and not from a legitimate fundraiser from the WMF. Jimmy Wales is personally sending me an email to ask me to donate? No, he isn't. Also: I feel like I should mention that we often don't see how persistant these fundraising campaigns are when we're logged in editors. If you're ever browsing Wikipedia without being logged in when one of these are going on, you get the impression that Wikipedia is in dire need of support and that your financial contribution could make or break the world's access to knowledge. Like a lot of people, I make barely above minimum wage IRL and have enough to worry about. I think using these tactics undermines the ethos of the Wikimedia Movement in itself. Clovermoss (talk) 17:17, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
    I'd like to undersign this point about us not realising the intrusiveness of the banners to logged out readers, because I didn't until recently. Banner blindness can be strong but you absolutely cannot ignore these fundraising banners, even when you've donated. Very intrusive and give the (false) impression that donations are urgent or readers will notice consequences in changes to the site. — Bilorv (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
  42. Object --- not only "deeply misleading" as Yngvadottir rightly comments, but intentionally so. It masquerades as personal and emotional (starving children in the East African famine, anyone?), when in fact it's corporate and calculating. Wholly wrong. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:03, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
  43. Object for at least three concrete reasons:
    Firstly, the percentages alluded to are ambiguous and potentially deceptive. I have no idea what the words "27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission" mean. Doesn't... all of the donation give resources to the WMF? What about "31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers"? That wording is vague and misleading. The percentages should be removed, or at least edited to be more specific about where donations go.
    Secondly, adding badges to gamify the donation process seems like bad optics at the very least. It feels rather puerile. Wouldn't it be preferable to straightforwardly ask for donations without jeopardizing the sincere, serious message by tacking on a piece of digital tinsel?
    Thirdly, the insinuation that without donations Wikipedia would run ads and steal user data is wholly unjustifiable. This is base, guilt-tripping behavior that (in my opinion) has no place in a fundraising message. Focus should be placed on the benefit that the Wikimedia community provides to the world, not the threat of losing that benefit, or the threat of having that benefit poisoned by unethical practices. Perhaps it might be suitable to mention briefly, but the message is hammered in over each of the three emails. That, to me, is unethical.
    I also have concerns with the way that fundraising always harps on the financial instability of the WMF, as if it were perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy, when in fact it has been very financially successful. I don't know enough on that topic, however, so I will refrain from commenting unduly on it. I think Andreas has done magnificent work as a gadfly and muckraker, and, not yet having seen any strong defenses of the WMF's behavior, I will continue to voice my concerns in this space and in other locations until they are addressed.
    P.S. I assume the fundraising campaign has started already (unless I missed a statement to the contrary), so my comments are pretty irrelevant. Mere words are still important, though. I hope to see change come soon. Shells-shells (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
  44. Object Maybe successful but I don't think ethical Perrak (talk) 18:23, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
  45. Strong Object The fundraising wording is misleading and unethical, which still isn't OK if misleading and unethical appeals have become standard practice in the fundraising industry. The WMF should implement a total fundraising hiatus for at least the rest of 2022/2023, or clearly state at the beginning of the all appeals that they already have enough of money to keep the wikipedia.org online without ads for years without any additional fundraising. - GretLomborg (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Neutral (WMF fundraising emails)

  • Ambivalent, not neutral - Come on. Nobody's going to "endorse" fundraising emails on Wikipedia. There are going to be people who strongly object, people who don't care, and people who have mixed feelings. File my !vote under the latter.
    Yes, the language of the fundraising emails is more like a fundraising email than something you'd see on Wikipedia. In that way it's not so different from the fundraising messages I get on a daily basis from various other organizations. I'm certainly not going to endorse how my local public radio station regularly tells me that without my donation, their programming wouldn't be possible, or when other nonprofits tell me some terrible political injustice will happen if I don't donate today. They have to balance what works with what's in line with the philosophy of the organization. In these emails I see the standard use of exaggeration and cultivated urgency that I see in many other organizations' emails. It's jarring when juxtaposed with what's said within the Wikipedia community, but they don't strike me as being contrary to the philosophy of Wikimedia/Wikipedia outside of that exaggeration. I also don't have a problem with gamification (the badges) which, again, is ubiquitous and doesn't strike me as fundamentally in conflict with the Wikimedia spirit.
    The reservations I have are mostly bound up in that breakdown of where the money goes that others have highlighted. Like some others I suspect my skeptical reaction is based less on any specific figure than on various historical frustrations regarding the foundation's allocation of funds (and/or lack thereof). So I find myself ambivalent, and curious to dig further into those figures in the email copy.
    I do think it's important to draw a distinction, however, between how the fundraising department does their job and how the funds it raises are spent. One shouldn't be a proxy battle for the other, although I wouldn't blame anyone for feeling like they don't really have a voice regarding allocation, but may have a voice about what happens on the wiki.
    TL;DR - The $ breakdown made me raise an eyebrow, but I think that's more about the debate over allocation of funds than the wording of these emails, so I'm ambivalent. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
    @Rhododendrites: See m:Talk:Fundraising#Discussion_of_the_India_emails for a WMF response on what the 31% (or 32%, as it was then) is supposed to represent. Andreas JN466 19:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Mixed, not neutral This is rather weird phrasing - ultimately it's a fundraising email. Additionally, your formatting is flawed - you are encouraging a combined up/down consideration, as opposed to per email. For example, I quite like email 3, and I could survive email 1 with no great worry on my mind. The things I dislike (badges, suggestion we are not succeeding on fundraising by not yet meeting the goal, a statement that Jimmy has been anti-ads for all 21 years) are all on email 2. Remove email 2 (it's such a wide set of issues I don't think trimming is the way to go) and the complaints lapse. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:43, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
    I agree with your comments on email 3. Email 3 seems to have the tone most consistent with the WMF's goals and mission. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:40D5:8B1F:2BD2:8163 (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Mixed. First of all, I applaud the WMF for allowing community review of the emails in advance. (This is great progress!) Regarding the content: I find the first two texts to be very problematic, and the third... contains certain issues which are endemic in WMF communications (eg, vaguely identifying its work with Wikipedia's own success), but which I don't think it's urgent to deal with within the next two weeks before the emails are to be sent. I would be quite happy if email 3 were used, and emails 1 and 2 were replaced with a similar style (ie, without misleading content, unnecessary alarmism, blatantly false statements about spending, etc). I hope this is achievable. --Yair rand (talk) 06:52, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
    @JBrungs (WMF): This sounds like a sensible way forward to me. Could you please inquire? Andreas JN466 09:47, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Mixed, this is from WMF not Wikipedia. Whatever happens here will be overturned by WMF. – The Grid (talk) 22:44, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
    Bilorv mentioned above that if the WMF send the emails as they are anyway, we should contact the news media and offer to be interviewed. I think that is a good idea – it doesn't take more than a statement by email. Andreas JN466 09:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
    Great idea. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:47, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
    Or we could just add a template on all articles saying that the email does not reflect the views of the WP editors.:-) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:26, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
    Well, we had had enough. If the WMF had't listen to us for years, we will eventually have to do something about it. Hopefully things will go alright this time. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
    WP:WMF – The Grid (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
    Do we need our own separate Wikipedia Board? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 11:18, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
    Something I was thinking about was people potentially writing and publicizing essays, but potentially doing interviews (and any other thing for that matter) is a good idea. Sending objections to the WMF won't have an impact if they don't have an incentive to respond to community concerns. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 19:03, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Meh I think the editors in this section make the most compelling arguments, particularly Rhododendrites and Nosebagbear. It's a fundraising email, not a manifesto. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:27, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Mixed The WMF won't suddenly stop asking for donations and that means being persuasive during fundraising. Not bad in itself. However, it is a problem to state erroneous claims that Wikipedia may go offline, or not saying that WMF is not volunteer-run, etc. A little honesty is needed. Yes, this might mean that donations won't exceed expectations, but the Foundation needs to accept, sooner rather than later, that donations won't continue to massively increase forevermore. Dege31 (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Talk to the media if the WMF launches the campaign anyways

If the WMF launches the predatory fundraising mails without changes mentioned in the Review of English Wikimedia fundraising emails thread, we should sent tips to newspapers about this issue. The emails will be sent by September 6, and a lack of response from a WMF representative is very concerning to me. I know that this sounds a bit over the top, but based on the fact that the community's overwhelming rage almost did not overturn the WMF's Fram's ban, it is likely that the WMF will not change their fundraising strategy or even talk to us without drastic action. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:32, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I thought you were against the nuclear options? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 08:07, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
@Wakelamp: Hmm ... what do you propose to do if the WMF launches the campaign anyway, with the email texts as they are? Andreas JN466 09:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think they will send the letter as is
Instead WMF may do the following,
  1. Reach out to large donors and charity rating firms, and frame this as Morlocks refusing to obey the [[Eloi]'s charter. They will emphasise that they have a 100 % scored feedback process which they will improve "collecting feedback from the constituents and/or communities it serves." with the wiki wishlist as an example
  2. Go Public first. The CEO will send a letter saying that the letter was a draft, and that they were reaching out to the community as part of a review, The will say that emails were written by someone who has left, but it is wonderful to have this chance to renew,
  3. Change the letter (just enough to pacify us),
  4. Ensure that their fundraising staff are trained on editing, edit, and report back how awful we are
  5. Create a new wide Wiki wide community consultation process, to stop us doing the same,
  6. Set up a committee of external experts and public fighters for diversity or free speech. The committee will report back that changes are needed, but the charity is at risk becuase of our lack of diversity and bullying, and our lack of commercial acumen, but that we are good people,
  7. Think about creating a secret WMF project to see if they could block option 2.
  8. Contact their PR firm (see page 8 of IRS 990) (Minassian Media Ny, Ny $319 K pa, to create an approach and ther advertising company Swift Possible LLC Po,OR $ 461 K pa),
  • Do a push poll on the donation form, or public polling
So, to encourage WMF to change the letter
We understand that you are in a bit of a perfect storm ; NPP complaints, elections, fund raising, structural issues within WP to do with lack of resources, general global anger, WP long term decline in behaviour, and your policies
Frankly we probably wont do option 1 as it is ineffective, but we could think about improving connectivity (new editors to old, intrawiki, with open source, with WMF, within projects) so that we are able to respond/mobilize to WMF. And option 2 is worthwhile looking at so that we can put controls in place Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
User:JBrungs (WMF) briefly contributed to the above discussion a week ago, and I pinged her six days ago with a request to inquire with her managers whether changes to the emails could be made. Given that we have not heard back from her, I think it is safest to assume that the discussion here has fallen and will continue to fall on deaf ears at the WMF. It is, after all, hardly the first time such concerns have been raised. Best, Andreas JN466 10:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I am concerned about jbrungs because of what WMF might decide to do.
The fundraising issues have been raised before. But the community has to decide whether to do anything or not, or just to forget till next year - but our readers don't have the option of turning off their banners. (You should see my option 4, and 5) :-) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:25, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Julia has always been helpful and kind. Obviously, none of these decisions are hers; she's just doing her job as a community relations contractor. Andreas JN466 13:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
My concern is doubled as she is a contractor. I really do think it's a perfect storm, and it's a management issue. She is not allowed to talk to use becuase of non-disclosure agreement, and is not covered by https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_policy, I can't find their standard employment contract, or the policy for WMF staff interacting with WP editors Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 14:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Remember that anyone can talk to the media anyway, without asking permission here. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah and to add to that, talking to the media is not "the nuclear option" or even "a bit over the top." No one should think that keeping our problems "in-house" or "quiet" is somehow noble. The readers, the donors, the entire world needs to know what happens here. They spend over ten million dollars a year on fundraising. They raise over a hundred million. They spend tens of millions of that money each year buying stocks, bonds, $20 million in mortgage-backed securities. Anyone know what's in their hundred-million-plus investment portfolio besides the mortgage backed securities? Fossile fuel companies? Pharmaceuticals? Defense contractors? I have no idea, they don't say. And the Endowment? I don't know where that's being invested either, it's not even being invested by the WMF, it's handled by Tides. Last year (2020-2021) they didn't even spend $47 million they raised. The year before, they gave $9 million to Tides for the "Knowledge Equity Fund"-- where did this money go? Don't know. In both years (19/20 and 20/21, the only years I've looked at closely), they gave more money to Tides than all other grantees combined. And today I learned the WMF is open about giving grants to sitebanned editors (check the WMF pump discussion). Meanwhile they're simultaneously telling donors that we'll get shut down if they don't donate. WMF fundraising is 100% a scam and any journalist (or anyone else) who wants me to point them to the documentation for everything I just claimed is welcome to ask at my talk page. Levivich 14:45, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree, going to the press is not the nuclear option. Here are the Google Trends for scam ,bias, wrong, diversity, fundraising How Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 15:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
But which press is interested? With many more interesting headlines today, I don't see any media willing to take up the news. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 15:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that not many people seem familiar with the difference between Wikimedia and Wikipedia, so "Wikipedians angry with Wikimedia foundation" makes for a confusing story. small jars tc 21:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Just going to ask if anyone has, you know, emailed (rather than pinged) Julia asking for a 1-2-1 zoom call? I did last year and she arranged within a week - while Julia almost certainly needs to be more aggressive in funding efforts than we would like, due to the goals set through the AP, she's also more responsive (not to mention friendlier!) than the discussion (and violation of AGF (yes, believe it or not, it applies to Foundation employees too, whatever some may do in practice)) here seems to be. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:04, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
    @Nosebagbear: Julia is simply a community relations contractor, not a decision-maker. As for WMF board/management – as Sänger said the other day over on Meta-Wiki, these sorts of discussions should be public so the community can see what is done and has a chance to weigh in. Lastly, it should be clear to everyone here that the decisions that govern the WMF's fundraising conduct are taken by the WMF Board – not any WMF executive, employee or contractor. Andreas JN466 11:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
    Also, as an afterthought: Did your call actually achieve anything other than giving you the feeling that you had been given some personal attention? If so, please let us know what changed as a result of your call. --Andreas JN466 11:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Anybody happy to do a TV interview?

If you're in the States and would be happy to speak on camera about your concerns about the fundraising emails, as discussed above, please drop me an email. Cheers, --Andreas JN466 20:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

The interest level seems low :-(
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F01c7j1,%2Fm%2F0fqw_s,%2Fm%2F02k9dy,wikipedia%20scam,wikipedia%20fundraising Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 04:53, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Not as low as you think. Try [6] Andreas JN466 07:19, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Fun fact: Nigeria is the only country on that Google Trends page where "Wikipedia money" outstrips "Wikimedia Foundation". ;) Andreas JN466 07:23, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Top 20 news articles mentioning Wikipedia

User:SunDawnUser:SmallJarsWithGreenLabels Your concerns about whether the media would be interested, or would understand made be interested to find out what the media was interested in. So

Topic BBC Guardian New York Times Google News
Anniversary 1 1 1
Conservapeia/Daily Mail 2 1 1
Doomed/Knol/Mobile 2 0.5
Edited by politicians/Businesses 2 1 2
Editing Rules 1
Editors are Biased/Diversity/Male/OCD/Crazy 1 6 8 2
Editors are People 1 1
Editors are Noble Tireless Volunteers 2 1 1
Editors are Toxic 2 1 `
Editors are warring bots 1 1
Editors were tricked 1 4
WMF Endowment 1
WMF Fundraising/Donors 1
Interesting Articles/Top N 1
WMF Legal (Sued /Right to be Forgotten 2 1 1
WMF and Nation Censorship 8 3.5
Not reliable (but used by authority figures) 3
Statistics 1 1
Vandalism/ClueBot/Sneaky Vandal 1 1
WP Blackout 1 3
WP Tech 1
WT Social 1
WMF Press Releases

This table shows en posts/press releases on WMF using the WMF's own tags. THere ar about 750 posts, but some can have more than one tag. but some posts should have also had additional tags. The press releases that seem to get traction in the News, (and I assume with large donors) are Top Lists, WMF fighting for truth, Editors are not diverse, and WMF fighting against Nation States.

Category Press Releases
Foundation 284
From the Archives 283
Wiipedia 158
Legal 96
Technology 90
Wikimedia commons 65
Events 48
Affiliates 40
Advocacy 36
Endowment 31
Research 30
Advancement (fundraising) 26
Wikisource 26
GLAM 25
Profiles 24
Blog Transistion 21
Wikiata 19
Wikipedia vs NSA 19
Photo contests 18
Wikimania 17
Grant making 14
Wikipedia Library 10

Is this a yearly thing? What changes are needed?=

There are yearly complaints about fundraising texts increased after the Strategy change in 2012. Do editors just want a change to the 2022 or 2023 letters? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 00:02, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Report on the above poll sent to the Wikimedia-l mailing list

See [7] --Andreas JN466 15:27, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

The only response from anyone at the WMF that I am aware of has been a post on Hacker News by what would seem to be a WMF Movement Communications Specialist asking another commenter whether it isn't true that "the number of editors who take umbrage with the wording is a small minority of the tens of thousands who edit and thousands (hundreds?) who are aware of the fundraising messages?"
I see no reason to assume that the emails won't go out with the wordings above. --Andreas JN466 17:04, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
If anyone has had one of these emails yet, please let me know by email. Andreas JN466 16:37, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Well, the emails have gone out, and as expected, they still have the wording above, about donating money "to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world", the "awkward to admit" bit etc. Andreas JN466 15:26, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion on Hacker News

See [8] --Andreas JN466 08:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The WMF does NOTsee the Village pump/Admin/editors as representative of the WMF community, so questioning legitimacy is to be expected. They also don't see us as representative of readers ,and also based on the hacker news comment as no threat.
Anyway, The current emails are not in line with WMF resolution 9th October 2010. "Transparency: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful with prospective donors. We need to tell people what we intend to use their money for, before they donate. And we need to report in a timely fashion on how it was actually spent ".
But I think it is important to note that it doesn't work like editing - references don't count At the moment, we are quite powerless becuase of the changes to the By-laws (especially for affilaites) , and the resolutions to do with the endowment. I am stunned to what the board has agreed to, often with the best of intentions, but each time ceding more of it's power to the CEO and to the Tides Foundation / Clinton Foundation) and George Soros Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Banners

The current banners

on desktop

are invasive, but if you page down you get this

banner

.

As an example, In India, the fundraising amount asked for is ₹150 or about US$2.50. So, to get rid of the banners take about a 1/3 to a 1/4 of a days wage.(See India'sMedian income, otherwise... So,WMF have raised from 2010 to 2020 WMF received 2 Million dollars from India.They received some complaints in 2020 and responded thus — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wakelamp (talk • contribs)

DYK elegibility criteria extension

I think DYK elegibility criteria should be expanded to new FAs (which hadn't got DYK) and to new FLs. It makes no sense to have GAs elebigle and not FAs and FLs. Dr Salvus 11:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

GA makes you DYK eligible because that's a route for a new GA to get highlighted on the front page. FA's already get onto the front page, so DYK would be redundant with that. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
What about FLs? Dr Salvus 12:07, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
Featured lists also appear on the main page. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Add top icons for WP:Vital articles

To incentivize improvement to vital articles, a template should be created that display the vital article icon to the top of the page, just like {{Featured article}} . If shows "someone has made this article really good", then would show "someone has poured their heart and soul to make this article about an important topic real good" and a lone would show "this topic is important but the article is currently kinda crap". I personally can already some objection to this idea (the vital article list isn't perfect, adding another top icon would increase maintenance, it won't actually encourage editors as you might imagine, etc.) but after personally working on these broad-topic articles for so long, I recognize the immense importance of signaling the impact of your work. A few pixels can do wonders to morale. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

P.S.: This is not a new idea as it have been implemented on other languages such as Vietnamese. Also, given that most people aren't aware of the GA/FA icons anyways, the focus of this proposal is more about incentivizing editors than informing readers. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:14, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I think that this is an excellent idea but I am wondering what vital levels will it cover? My suggestion would be to start with the top 100 articles then a new level each year rather than doing all 10,000 at once. I think that this will help people get used to it as well as helping the project remain focussed.Gusfriend (talk) 10:44, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
It will be the default level 3 – 1000 articles. More and the icon would lose its purpose. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:55, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
This would need some kind of threshold since tagging stubs as vital with a template visible to all would be a bit strange. This 3 section article is a vital topic... does seem a bit of a waste of time and energy for maintainers and doesn't provide much, like the aritcle it would be on. Terasail[✉️] 11:54, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
The simple way to prevent this from happening is to not tag these articles, since all of the articles in the Vital level 3 lists are at the very list Start-class and above, with a fair amount of sections. Level 4 Vital article list is useful, but if used for publicity would stretch the effort too thin. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:57, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea. If it nudges casual readers to improve the article, great, but if it is just a visual distinction that long-time editors recognise without having to search for VA banner in talk page, it might incentivise improvements. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 14:50, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Absolutely against, for multiple reasons. First, proposer admits that this is an ego-stroking effort to "signal the impact of your work." This is upside down and backwards - if you want an ego-massage, give yourself a barnstar. If improving Wikipedia articles gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, you don't need an icon to "prove" it. As a side note, this is a wider issue than just this, but since it has come up before, it's worth stating again that editors are volunteers, not paid labor. Let them work on whatever they want to. Beggars can't be choosers. Second, proposer admits that this is for editors not readers, but why make an icon that's reader-visible, then? If it's not of interest to readers, then don't show it. Volunteers who want to work on vital articles can find VAs just fine without need for the icon. Third, as proposer already noted, the list of VA3s isn't "perfect", but more to the point, it's not an objective list. It's just a best guess. Which is fine when it's an internal tool to roughly guess at what the vital articles are, but you're proposing surfacing this to readers. If we're going to do that, then what was once a harmless internal tool is now external-facing, and you can expect news articles on "X% of Wikipedia's vital articles are of type Y, isn't that unfair." And those articles may well be right! For what? It would cause the list of VA3s to be much more discordant and argued over, for nothing. It's similar to how tests in school are useful as long as they don't matter, but as soon as you start tying funding or teacher assessments or the like to the test, then they become tainted. I would like to point out that our process for adjusting the VA lists is very dysfunctional currently with very little participation, something I think Cacti can agree with since he attempted to radically revamp the guidelines on how to do it, the talk pages, etc. awhile back. That's not a good sign if the contents of the VA lists are suddenly going to become reader-visible and thus more important.
Having said all of that, I'd just like to point out that I personally have put some major effort into improving articles on the VA list lest I be accused of not caring, but haven't needed an icon or a barnstar or anything to do so. I imagine this experience is not unusual. SnowFire (talk) 23:08, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I like this idea a lot. I think it effectively and succinctly signals important info to both readers and editors. The VA icon seems particularly suitable too. (Not to hijack, since I'm probably the minority here, but I'd like advocate for this icon to be displayed for mobile editors too. That said, I don't ever see the GA/FA icons either, but that's a different issue, I guess?) — LumonRedacts 02:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No. Meaningless to our readers, and frankly, our vital articles process isn't consensus based. Article ranking, i.e. GA/FA, is controlled locally by a rigorous process. But the vital articles are based on a list from Meta, and there are only ~1,000 of them. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:57, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah, I'm stuck on the "meaningless to our readers" point. What value does it have to tell our readers, "You're reading about a really important topic"? I think they'd already know, that's why they're reading about it?
    It'd make more sense to do the inverse: "Congratulations! You're the first person to read this article in seven years." Levivich (talk) 16:06, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
    Agree {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:05, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
  • If it's the editor incentive, not much point putting it on the article. Instead, spruce up Template:Good Vital infobox and Template:Featured Vital infobox to include the vital symbol and perhaps a bit more colour identity (and specify level 3?), and distribute similar templates individually much like the Wikipedia:Million Award. CMD (talk) 02:51, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I Support this proposal; keep in mind that all editors used to be readers; readers who have domain knowledge, see that an article is considered Vital by Wikipedia, could just click the Vital topicon and be brought to the WP:Vital articles to see how to contribute to these articles. The most important demographic for Wikipedia readers; but that means it's critically important to prioritize article quality, which this proposal would help with. The Vital articles process is consensus based; I don't know what User:CaptainEek means by "list from Meta". DFlhb (talk) 08:00, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
    The Vital Articles list is inspired by the list of articles every Wikipedia should have on Meta-Wiki, which to me indicates we didn't choose the original topics. I'll admit to not having participated in the vital articles process before, but imo that is another reason to oppose this. If I, a veteran Wikipedian, have not in all my years and edits participated in this process, what good does communicating the article as vital do to our readers? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:05, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
    Back when those lists were created, mostly in 2004 and 2005, there wasn't such a strong feeling that Meta-Wiki was separate from enwiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't support this proposal. It's not clear to me that the importance ranking of one WikiProject should be prioritized over the rankings of other WikiProjects. Additionally for the flagged vital articles, as stated by others, I'm not sure there's added value for readers. There would be more value for more specialized domains where it is more difficult for a non-expert to figure out the importance of the topic from context. isaacl (talk) 02:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose because I believe vital article rankings are meaningless, as it's not - as CaptainEek said - a rigorous consensus-based selection process.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 17:19, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Standardise the 'Go to bottom' button

Wikipedia screens with 'Go to bottom' highlighted

Wikipedia has several pages that are in the nature of forums - Help Desk, Teahouse, Village Pump pages, Reference Desk pages, Reference Desk Talk pages - where new content is frequently added at or near the bottom of the page. For the convenience of readers, they all have a 'Go to bottom' button of some sort. For the inconvenience of readers, each of these buttons is different; either in size, colour, horizontal position, or distance from top of page (see image). This makes it difficult to find and use the button when switching between different pages. It is unintuitive that a standard function does not have a standard control interface.

I propose that the 'Go to bottom' button be standardised on all pages where it occurs. I don't much care where it is or what it looks like (though the Reference Desk version is easiest to see and click) because if it is standard I will get used to it.

I propose also that the button be added to Article Talk and User Talk pages. -- Verbarson  talkedits 21:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps someone should make a gadget version of {{Skip to top and bottom}}, that people who lack an "end" key or otherwise need that sort of thing can enable to add floating buttons to every page. Anomie⚔ 11:41, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
There is also this nice skip to top/bottom gadget that https://zh.wikipedia.org has. zh:MediaWiki:Gadget-scrollUpButton.js I like it quite a bit. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Add the following to your common.js file: 

// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇑ go to top
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8657)+' go to top', 'p-tb-top', 'Go to the top'))
  .click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: 0}); });

// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇓ go to end
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8659)+' go to end', 'p-tb-end', 'Go to the end'))
  .click( function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: $(document).height()}); });

In my case, the sidebar menus are locked to the top of the screen so I can always see the "go to top" item. For you, maybe just add the "go to end" code — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 13:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

@Verbarson, could you explain more about why you want to skip to the bottom of the page? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): I have a habit of browsing these pages to see what's new. What's new is mainly at the bottom of the page, so I go to the bottom and work my way up. I prefer to browse with a mouse (so I don't use the End key).
It has been interesting to see the alternative solutions given above, and I am trying some and may try others. My point is mainly that these pages already have a 'Go to bottom' button, but it is inconsistently placed and sized, and therefore clicking it does not become a habitual action. The Reference Desk has a nice big button - easy to see and click on - but it is tied to a position on specific Reference Desk side menu that doesn't exist on other pages. The Teahouse puts its button in small text at the bottom of all the header information, which takes a bit longer to find (granted that I visit the Teahouse less often).
If I had to pick a standard, I'd go with the Help Desk, which puts the button just under the standard menu bar, at the right hand side. That position seems to be available on almost every page. Having the button in small text doesn't bother me as much as having to search the page for it. It seems as if all these pages were designed independently by different people, each of whom thought a 'Go to bottom' button was a good idea, but didn't bother to check where previous designers had placed it.
As I understand it, this is not a skin-related issue. I use Vector 2022, but I assume the button doesn't move in other skins? -- Verbarson  talkedits 09:54, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
I think it's possible to write a button that floats (just like the Table of Contents floats in Vector 2022).
Overall, though, if I were trying to solve your problem, I think I'd start by suggesting that the wikis switch to top-posting. This hasn't been a popular suggestion at this particular wiki, but it has been suggested at others, and it would solve your problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
@GhostInTheMachine: Thank you; I am trying those out now. -- Verbarson  talkedits 09:37, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
@Verbarson: I prefer to browse with a mouse here's another recommendation: middle mouse button click on the scroll bar will jump to the location (as opposed to left click, which only scrolls a screen). I have a habit of just middle clicking the bottom right corner of the screen without looking at the scrollbar (because the browser is almost always full screen) to go to the bottom of pages. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:58, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

This is the first time I am using the Village Pump. I hope I am doing this correctly.

All film and TV show pages on Wikipedia have IMDb as one of their "external links" at the bottom of the page. IMDb has been very difficult to use for a long time now, with pages being full of pictures and Amazon ads, and all sorts of things that no-one needs but which make the pages to take forever to load and make it generally cumbersome.

I recently learned that (apart from many other subpages everyone knows) there is also the "reference" subpage for each IMDb entry, which contains most of the relevant information on a boring, practical site and also keeps the right-hand sidebar neatly at hand for any additional info one might need. The "reference" page loads much quicker than the "main" page. Since there are many Wikipedia users in all corners of the globe who may have limited band-width and/or old hardware, it would be much better for them to not be directed to a film's "main" IMDb entry, but to its "reference" entry.

You can check out the difference for yourself in this example:

Main page for Zulu (as currently used on Wikipedia): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777

Reference page for Zulu: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777/reference

My proposal is to change all IMDb links in the "external links" section of each article from the "main" IMDb entry to the "reference" IMDb entry. I assume this can be done through a bot which would simply be adding "reference" or "/reference" to each URL (I admit that I am computer-illiterate, but bots have been used before to mass-change archive.org links, IIRC, so I assume this is possible).

Otto von B. (talk) 18:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

IMDb links are generated using templates (this also means that no bot involvement is needed). See Template:IMDb for the list of templates. For titles, currently, only the /awards subpage (see parameter |section=) is supported: {{IMDb title|id=0111282|title=Stargate|section=awards}} → Stargate at IMDb. See also relevant discussions at the talk page of the template. —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:26, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
@Otto von B.: I like that reference page. Good find. What you propose makes sense to me but does indeed need to be done via the template, and proposed on the talk page there. At the very least, it would be good to have the reference subpage supported by the section parameter, so editors have a choice what to link to. Andreas JN466 06:46, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal to support reference subpage either as default or as an option added to talk page: [9] Andreas JN466 15:49, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia a genealogy site, or isn't it, or is it partly, or perhaps a teensy bit?

I've been around now for almost 15 years, logged in, and one thing bothers me especially. Info boxes are supposed, I believe, to give our readers quick, accurate facts about article subjects. But an article about a person born into royalty can only cause rather severe info-box confusion for any reader who is not a genealogist or at least aware of Wikipedia's stubborn and absolute policy of acting like Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geni and other genealogy sites where mothers traditionally always are listed by their unmarried names. The amount of our new/uninitiated readers who make corrections such as Queen Silvia, not Silvia Sommerlath, being her name when her children were born, and who then get reversed due to our stringent maiden-name pseudo-genealogy-site policy, are considerable indeed. It is an absolute fact (such as are sought by readers in our info boxes) that a woman named Silvia Sommerlath did not give birth to the royal couple's 3 children. People who see that and know no better have the intelligent right to assume that the king had an affair with a Ms Sommerlath. That's absurd! Genealogy sites are cleverly formatted so that they inform about couples who had offspring but never, or rarely, allege specifically that Princess Daughter is the daughter of Mother Maidenname. Wikipedia always does that, in all our pertinent info boxes.

Proposal In the info-boxes of people whose mothers were royal, Wikipedia policy should allow for actual facts, not genealogically-formatted idiosyncrasies, in info boxes regarding the names of all mothers when their children were born and it should not automatically be reversed when such facts are given in info-boxes, --SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  • Oppose Not being a genealogy site means we don't present genealogical information on non-notable people. Royalty is quite a different matter, especially given that titles are inherited, and prosopography is important. Maiden name is useful information; it is far more useful to know that Silvia Sommerlath married King Carl XVI Gustaf that the Queen married the King. She's still Silvia Sommerlath of course; she just uses the title of Queen Silvia. And people who know no better are by definition not intelligent. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:10, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Or uninformed. Facts: Queen Silvia's surname, legally, is * (that's right an asterisk), as used by the Swedish Tax Authority's official census for members of the royal family who do not use surnames. Were one to apply a surname to her anyway, it would be Bernadotte. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment: This proposal does not concern who married whom or what their names were then, but what name the mother had when her children were born. That's how we confuse a vast amount of readers with false info-box naming. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
    I'm inclined to agree with SergeWoodzing. The names in infoboxes should be either (a) the name the person was known by at the relevant time [whether legal or not] or (b) the name the person is known by now. In the case of notable people, the current name can be determined by looking at the article title for that person.
    Also, we already make exceptions to this rule; look at the infobox in Kylie Jenner to find an infobox that doesn't use the pre-marriage names of either parent.. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:31, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with Hawkeye7 (discuss) that "Silvia Sommerlath married King Carl XVI Gustaf...[however] she's still Silvia Sommerlath of course; she just uses the title of Queen Silvia." Pregnancy has nothing to do with it. I have been to many genealogical sites and multiple royalty listing sites and have never seen the claim that a woman should be recorded by "...what name the mother had when her children were born". I vote against female fade-out. Thank you. Wordreader (talk) 06:19, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I can't see how it would be to fade a female out who was queen when her children were born and no longer just an olympic hostess whose surname used to be Sommerlath. Are women to be defined by their maiden names rather than their actual statuses? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Section tag creation

The tag {primary sources|date=} informs that "This article relies excessively on references to primary sources". Can someone create the same tag by replacing "article" with "section"? Thank you, Manamaris (talk) 10:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

@Manamaris You can use {{Primary sources section}} for this. the wub "?!" 10:17, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you!--Manamaris (talk) 10:37, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
@Manamaris and The wub: You can also just do {{Primary sources|section}}, as with most such templates. I've never really understood why people insist on making separate templates for the purpose. Anomie⚔ 11:45, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
@Anomie they prob got build in parallel; someone could merge them and make a redirect. Template:Primary sources/doc doesn't even mention the |section directive, and actually tells editors to use {{Primary sources section}}. As long as it is seamless for editors via redirects, merging should be uncontroversial. — xaosflux Talk 13:53, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I'd suggest converting it into wrapper instead of redirecting, so that existing transclusions and existing format works post-transclusion. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 14:19, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, wasn't getting in to the details but if a straight redirect won't work a wrapper - then future updates only need to happen in one place. — xaosflux Talk 16:45, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
It already is a wrapper. The "section" version was created in 2015, as a wrapper even then. The doc page at Template:Primary sources/doc mentioned "section" until July of this year when User:Mathglot rewrote it. Anomie⚔ 20:33, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Still does (twice), in sections §§ Parameters​ and Details. Mathglot (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
@Manamaris:, if the current mentions of "section" (the parameter value is actually any string, section, paragraph, table, whatever you want) iin the template doc aren't prominent enough, you can fix it; everyone has access to the doc page. Perhaps all you need, is another line under section § Usage that includes it, or a new example in the § Examples section. Feel free to change it however you see fit. See the top of Template:Neologism for an approach which may be more to your liking. Mathglot (talk) 23:54, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Adjusted the doc. Also trying to fix the bug with BLP and Section together. OK now? — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 11:30, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Deletion discussions for lists and categories of games by game engine

Hello, there are two discussions going on whether we should keep or delete lists or categories of games by game engine, or both: categories, lists.

I notified about both of them in WikiProject Video games, but as there are a large number of lists and especially categories involved, it is a good idea to attract more people. Respiciens (talk) 11:27, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193&oldid=1118080519"