Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-09/News and notes

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At the risk of ruining a good story, there was no <blink> tag involved. It's a JavaScript fader that was used in the last hours of the campaign. See the source and preview here. It's also not the case that this was the first use of such a fader, in spite of geni's beliefs. It was first used in the 2010 campaign, for the same short period at the end of the campaign. [1] --Eloquence * 06:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Implementation method wasn't what was raising objections, implementation itself was. I think that the concerns raised are valid. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the false claim from the story. Please do not report jokes as facts. Kaldari (talk) 17:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you hadn't removed that link to this discussion. After the bit about blink tags, individuals contributing to that thread raised some issues about the philosophy behind the fundraising which I believe more than a few Wikipedians would be sympathetic to, namely that it appears the annual fundraising is no longer simply about keeping the servers running & maintaining the Wikimedia software, but to fund other goals which may be a surprise to Wikipedians, & aren't mentioned in the fundraising advertisements. Maybe those additional goals are important enough to justify funding; I'm not going to opine about that. However, considering that the people who raised those concerns are long-term Wikipedians, & are usually supportive of the project, that suggests there is a lack of communication between the WMF staff & many Wikipedians. A lack of communication that may have a relationship to the editor recruitment/retention problem we all know about. -- llywrch (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sven. Of course I agree it's a valid concern. However, each of those decisions is a judgment call on the part of the fundraising team, and I think in the case of raising visibility a little bit at the year-end spike in giving is a reasonable one. Moreover, I don't think it's fair to construct or imply a narrative of "the WMF fundraiser is getting more aggressive every year", as the thread on the mailing list did. The 2011 fundraiser was in many ways materially less aggressive than the 2010 campaign (fewer fundraising days, banners disabled after donating, shorter banner period for logged in users, no use of the word "urgent" in the year-end appeal banner, fewer days where Jimmy stares at you as opposed to other messages).--Eloquence * 17:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also the following statement in the article isn't accurate: "Although the average donor contribution has remained steady". The average donor contribution was significantly less this year due to more contributions from outside the U.S. and Europe. See the averages tab at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics. Kaldari (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe average by region remained steady? Rich Farmbrough, 12:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Strange, I remember reading somewhere that the amounts stayed the same but the numbers have been ballooning... ResMar 22:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]