Knowledge

:Knowledge Signpost/2009-11-16/Fundraiser - Knowledge

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381: 90: 981: 117: 107: 172: 818: 859: 33: 127: 850:"Knowledge is there when you need it — now it needs you" is also being used. Non-English Wikipedias are featuring "Knowledge Forever" and two thermometer banners, one about the number of articles and one about the number of users. According to Montoya, the fundraising team will constantly test the effectiveness of different banners against each other and adjust the messages as the fundraiser progresses. 282: 87: 137: 1314:
capitalization is a case in point. "Knowledge. Ad-free forever. Donate Now." is anemic and far inferior to the original version with capital letters, and that concession seems to have done nothing to allay the crowd. Probably nothing would be satisfactory except for a plain twelve-point Arial statement saying "Knowledge. Ad-free for now. You can donate if you feel like it, or do it later."--
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larger set of banners, still raises concerns. Please be assured that we're listening. Again, the "Knowledge Forever" theme is only the kick-off of the campaign, not the entire campaign. We've already eliminated all-caps from all our banners, and we've pulled up some of our later-stage banners into the first phase. This represents a change in response to the feedback we've received from you.
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With regard to cultural awareness, we've given translators a lot of flexibility in how they want to translate/localize the messages, and chapters have played a role here as well where they exist. For example, the German Knowledge banner says "Strengthen Knowledge - for the future". But for next year,
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Our fundraising messages have, historically, always caused significant unhappiness among the editor community. However, we also acknowledge that the early, all-caps, "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER" banner was too in-your-face for many Wikipedians, and that even the current "Knowledge Forever" theme, as part of a
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First, a few comments on the theme "Knowledge Forever", and why we chose it for this year's campaign. "Knowledge Forever" is meant to represent both a present and future commitment from the Wikimedia Foundation to preserve, protect, and support Knowledge for the long run, and to appeal to the public
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This table shows the statistics for the first five days of the fundraiser, along with the equivalent data for the past two years. Donations to international chapters are excluded from these totals; although 50% of chapter revenue will be reinvested in the Foundation. Figures have been rounded to the
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As you've probably noticed, we've phased in new banners, and "Knowledge Forever" is only running at 20% on en.wp right now. We're running different banners on the English Knowledge and the non-English projects, and should have solid comparison data tomorrow. We'll also build at least one banner for
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when the prospective donor comes from a country with a participating chapter. Chapters have participated before, but they're receiving significantly more visibility than last year. Wikimedia UK is also participating for the first time. Chapter totals aren't included in the statistics, but chapters
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Early on 17 November (UTC), the banners were adjusted again and "Knowledge Forever" was reduced to a 20% frequency. More traditional thermometer-style banners are now being shown, with the slogans "Knowledge. Ad-free Forever" and "Knowledge Is Powered by People Like You." A slogan from last year
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Last week's launch of the annual Wikimedia Fundraiser had a rocky start. Originally scheduled to begin on Monday, November 9, the first sitenotice banners were put up across the global projects on Tuesday evening (PST), only to be taken down again in the early hours of Wednesday due to technical
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I just want to say that in my experience, marketing campaigns always face the same criticisms when presented to a committee of engineers. Such committees seem unable to appreciate, let alone agree on, anything beyond literal meaning. (And geeky kitten jokes.) The fanatical insistence on proper
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The guiding principle of our campaign is data. As we're gathering the first full reports about the success of the banners we're currently running, we'll be able to make a better decision, going forward, about which ones to continue to run. This is the primary driver of the campaign.
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Möller also noted that at least some community-developed banners will be used, though it takes time to test new banners. He also addressed some of the criticisms of the campaign, and announced that customised banners for non-Knowledge projects will be rolling out next week.
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We're working on next stage banners right now and hope to have them up soon for testing. We're also further investigating whether there are remaining issues with the new donation module, credit card processing, etc. (We may end up testing this year's form against last
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much did the Wikimedia Foundation pay for this bit of silliness? This sort of factually dubious assertion makes me less, not more, willing to donate. If I weren't a regular, I wouldn't have upon seeing this, instead of the more tasteful appeal we had last year.
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is still in alpha stage. Emulation is too slow for me, and native doesn't work for my eclectic software collection. I try every new release, but alpha is alpha. As soon as I can use it for production work, M$ can kiss my hairy cesarean. ;)
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By Thursday morning, several fixes and modifications had been made by the Foundation fundraising team. Thursday's relaunch, to Knowledge projects only, used four banners as sitenotices with the uppercase text changed to sentence case:
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to support us in doing so. Yes, it's an emotional appeal, not a literal message. It's our kick-off message, not our only message. It will be followed by other messages later in the campaign which will re-connect to the same theme.
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Other controversies included the campaign's other messages, and whether the community should have been further consulted. In addition, some people objected to the amount of money being paid to the public relations company
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So the banners which everyone hated and didn't think would work....didn't work. Strange. And why are we aiming for 25 million articles (Who came up with the figure and what relevance does it have to anything)???
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Technical fixes were implemented for various browser compatibility problems and issues with the credit card form. Additionally, the landing pages for international chapters have been improved. Issues with
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Why are people still using Windows and Microsoft products in general? Management stupidity, a/k/a the Dilbert Factor. We have no choice when our Pointy-Haired Bosses are reading "Zero" on the cluemeter.
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for underline links were also affected, as the banner code was overriding their settings. Möller said, "This is unacceptable and inexcusable, and I apologize on behalf of WMF for the bad start."
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According to Erik Möller the November 13th dollar amounts reported online are grossly incorrect due to a problem recording currency conversions with the new credit card processing form.
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The Tuesday start had been delayed because of technical issues, including problems with the new in-house credit card processing mechanism. (All previous fundraisers have used
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The use of the Knowledge logo on all projects' banners, and the donation page - including non-Knowledge projects, such as Wiktionary, even though the project
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The campaign began with the "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER" banner displayed as a sitenotice on all projects. The banner had previously been criticized on Meta (
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According to Montoya the fundraising team is working on better public reporting of donation statistics, and expect to have something up this week.
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the sitenotices across all projects. This was due to technical mistakes in the banner code, which resulted in the banner links being unclickable in
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about removing the banners due to community displeasure with them; as a result of this, at noon (UTC) on Wednesday, English Knowledge administrator
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problems. Modified versions of the controversial banners were subsequently restored on Thursday evening, but only to Knowledge projects.
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The numbers so far still need to be treated with caution; we're optimizing the reporting infrastructure as I write this.
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I agree. Caps would've been appropriate for "Knowledge. Ad-free forever. Donate Now.". After all, it's B1FF, not b1ff.
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The grandson / granddaughter slogans were discontinued during the first day. According to Head of Community Giving
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will re-invest 50% of their revenue in the Wikimedia Foundation. We'll be getting the first chapter reports soon.
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to work on the Foundation's messaging. The current drive marks the beginning of an 11-month, $ 250,000
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I definitely want us to have more lead time in developing culturally appropriate messaging.
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There are no results for November 12th as the banners were disabled for technical fixes.
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November 11th data is for a partial day; banners were not visible for the entire period.
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On the English Knowledge, there are two pages for discussion about the fundraiser:
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This is the first fundraiser, ever where we're using geo-targeting to highlight a
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reported that the collapsed banner obscured the entire page in Internet Explorer 8
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Thanks Erik, I incorporated some of your points into the story pre-publication.
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to work on improving the Foundation's public relations and public image.
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There are two current pages on Meta for feedback about the fundraiser:
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the central sitenotice on the English Knowledge by altering Knowledge's
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That was a funny add. I didn't realize it was asking for money. -
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Help Knowledge Raise $ 7.5 Million in 'Knowledge Forever' Campaign
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Fundraiser 2009 statistics in comparison to previous fundraisers
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Knowledge seeks to raise $ 7.5M in ‘Knowledge Forever’ campaign
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I still think it should have been "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER " --
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Outside media coverage of the fundraiser so far includes:
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After all it's given me I thought I'd give something back.
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about the fundraiser and the "Knowledge Forever" theme:
418:"For your great, great, great, great granddaughter" (16%) 803:, which has drawn a number of suggestions. He also left 400:, and blanking the entire page when dismissed. Users of 876:, for feedback about technical problems with the launch 896:
Knowledge:Village pump (proposals)/Fundraising headers
421:"For your great, great, great, great grandson" (16%) 1086:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try 924:Knowledge Runs Ads Highlighting Their No-Ad Policy 1419: 948:And if you're looking to donate, the form is at 891:Knowledge:Requests for comment/Wikipedia Forever 357:for this, which was signed by over 20 editors. 824:, Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation 148: 462:A live feed of donor comments can be viewed 285:The original banner was controversial and 882:, for suggesting new or modified banners. 857: 816: 379: 313:awkward, ominous or threatening phrasing 280: 1089: 14: 1420: 1131:the non-Knowledge projects tomorrow.-- 801:a page for alternative banners on Meta 68:"Knowledge Forever" fundraiser begins 51: 1097:A couple of quick additional notes: 809: 1428:Knowledge Signpost archives 2009-11 311:Some slogans appeared to result in 27: 979: 241: 226: 211: 196: 170: 53: 31: 28: 1439: 1071:These comments are automatically 330:There was discussion on both the 294:The use and message of "Forever"; 135: 125: 115: 105: 95: 85: 466:, and an overview of donations 392:After two hours Möller himself 376:Technical problems and relaunch 1082:add the page to your watchlist 13: 1: 1361:16:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC) 1338:14:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC) 1324:01:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC) 1307:23:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1287:23:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1268:16:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1233:21:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1210:16:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1192:15:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1178:15:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1154:14:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1139:01:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC) 1126:20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC) 472: 301:and large size of the banner; 266:for credit card processing.) 1057: 799:On Wednesday, Möller posted 18:Knowledge:Knowledge Signpost 7: 1160:Why are people still using 795:Campaign banners and themes 10: 1444: 678: 588: 498: 412:"Knowledge Forever" (33%) 362:reverted 15 minutes later 360:However, his action was 491:Average Donation (US$ ) 1375:looking for new talent 1079:. To follow comments, 984: 866: 825: 805:a detailed explanation 456: 453:Ms. Eanna Kiely, donor 389: 290: 175: 36: 983: 861: 820: 444: 383: 321:Fenton Communications 284: 174: 35: 1075:from this article's 494:Max Donation (US$ ) 325:contract with Fenton 1041:Features and admins 880:Alternative banners 488:Money Raised (US$ ) 475: 441:Fundraiser response 181:Fundraiser launches 1357: 1066:Discuss this story 1046:Arbitration report 985: 867: 864:alternative banner 826: 473: 390: 291: 258:Launch controversy 176: 42:← Back to Contents 37: 1351: 1182:Corporate users. 1162:Internet Explorer 1090:purging the cache 1051:Technology report 1036:Discussion report 843: 842: 788: 783: 778: 774: 773: 398:Internet Explorer 332:English Knowledge 248: 247: 178:Previous Articles 47:View Latest Issue 1435: 1411: 1355: 1295:Peregrine Fisher 1264: 1258: 1251: 1248: 1218:The problem is, 1207: 1201: 1190: 1175: 1170: 1152: 1093: 1091: 1085: 1064: 1003: 995: 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Index

Knowledge:Knowledge Signpost
2009-11-16
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16 November 2009
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