Mailing List Archive

Ah - I was told that ru.wikibooks did not have the banner because all
banners there were disabled.

Thank you to everyone else who commented. I suppose I wasn't "plugged-in"
enough last time around to get a full sense of the reaction to the banner -
I remember some negative reactions, but not on the level I've seen so far.
Given your answers, and particularly the statistics on donations so far, it
does seem like the positive reaction outweighs any potential negative.

I hope that the folks who are vocal about not donating to the WMF and why
are met, as often as possible, with counter-arguments about why they should
and why others should as well. I'm concerned that when that doesn't happen,
it makes other current Wikimedians have less confidence in the Foundation
and also makes them less likely to personally donate.

Nathan

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> > and remains unavailable (last I checked) at the
> > Russian Wikibooks.
>
> because we haven't enabled it on the sister projects yet.
>
>
>

--
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Brion Vibber <brion@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> [...]
> The support we're getting is breathtakingly positive, with the first two
> full days bringing in about $95,000 *each day* towards our operating budget:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics
> [...]

| [...]
| Breakdown of contributions by value for the fiscal year of 2008

| Amount (USD) Contributions Percentage (YTD) Average (USD)
| Exactly 30.00 2106 15.36% -
| Exactly 75.00 149 1.09% -
| Exactly 100.00 542 3.95% -
| Under 99.00 110043 802.41% 21.29
^^^^^^^
| From 100.00 - 999.99 3276 23.89% 219.23
| Over 1000.00 124 0.9% 30792.08

I demand a recount! :-)

Tim

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On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> If they decide not to, and they can dismiss it only to a smaller banner,
> there is guilt that may drive them to donate at a later moment. When they
> are not reminded at all we have lost that opportunity.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>

Trying to guilt someone into donating isn't exactly nice...

Like I said, if someone wants to donate, by all means we should
make it easy and accessible and welcome it with open arms. If
they don't, forcing the "please donate now" message down their
throats is both rude and nonconstructive.

-Chad
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2008/11/7 David Moran <fordmadoxfraud@gmail.com>:

> As far as my own reactions go, I'm not terribly bothered. Yes, the banner
> is visually irritating (I don't think it minimizes enough when you hide it),
> but that's kinda the point. Annual pledge drives on public television
> channels are irritating too, but that's the price of having PUBLIC
> TELEVISION. Wikipedia is not Google, and I think the banners are a helpful
> reminder to people of that.


Well, yeah. We're the #8 (Alexa) or #4 (ComScore) site that *doesn't
have ads*. One banner? Any other site would have FLASHING CRAP and
POPUPS and HANDY LINES OF TEXT with "Get Marcus Aurelius on eBay!" and
OTHER SUCH ANNOYING RUBBISH. We have a banner for a while once a year.

And I like the theme: "C'mon, you use the heck out of us. You can
spare some pennies."

(I'm not contributing money - I pay in chunks of my soul, like most of
us here. But I feel I get good value for them!)


- d.

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2008/11/7 Al Tally <majorly.wiki@googlemail.com>:
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia-inc.com> wrote:

>> At the same time, I think the request that it be made dismissible or
>> collapsible are directly on target. Since the option exists in user
>> preferences, surely it can be exposed with only a little effort.

> Not for anonymous users though.


Incentive to create a login. Hey kid, your first edit's free!


- d.

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Tim Landscheidt wrote:
> | Breakdown of contributions by value for the fiscal year of 2008
>
> | Amount (USD) Contributions Percentage (YTD) Average (USD)
> | Exactly 30.00 2106 15.36% -
> | Exactly 75.00 149 1.09% -
> | Exactly 100.00 542 3.95% -
> | Under 99.00 110043 802.41% 21.29
> ^^^^^^^
> | From 100.00 - 999.99 3276 23.89% 219.23
> | Over 1000.00 124 0.9% 30792.08
>
> I demand a recount! :-)

It's being fixed. ;)

- -- brion
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Nathan wrote:
> It was pointed out to me that my bit in this thread was quoted out of
> context on a website called valleywag. It doesn't seem like that particular
> publication is likely to have a sterling reputation for accuracy, but my
> apologies to the folks whose good work was denigrated none the less.
>
> Nathan

Hmmm, I hope that you do not take this as a strong signal that from now
on, you should not raise issues anymore in public.

WalleyWag is paper toilet. That's useful, but that's often dirty and
goes down the drain very quickly.
Most people who read that kind of stuff know that there is always a bit
of truth in it, and always a lot of exageration. And they take the
content with a bit of salt.

The worse that can happen is not WalleyWag making exaggeration. It is
people stopping to talk, discuss, claim, complain, raise issues etc...
publicly, because of the fear the toilet paper will absorb the worse.

Ant


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Regarding the statistics page:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics

The "minimum" columns isn't that useful. I'd propose using its
space for a "median" column.


Regards,
Peter

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Florence Devouard wrote:
> WalleyWag is paper toilet. That's useful, but that's often dirty and
> goes down the drain very quickly.
> Most people who read that kind of stuff know that there is always a bit
> of truth in it, and always a lot of exageration. And they take the
> content with a bit of salt.
>
> The worse that can happen is not WalleyWag making exaggeration. It is
> people stopping to talk, discuss, claim, complain, raise issues etc...
> publicly, because of the fear the toilet paper will absorb the worse.
>
>
Valleywag has a current Alexa page rank of 28,596. We wouldn't want
that to improve.

Ec

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Peter Jacobi wrote:
> Regarding the statistics page:
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics
>
> The "minimum" columns isn't that useful. I'd propose using its
> space for a "median" column.
>
> Regards,
> Peter

I understand how the minimum donated some day can be $0.01 USD. But 0.00?
Looks like it's saying "The person who donated the less, didn't donate"

I suppose that it was a donation on a different currency, valued less
than $0.01, but then it should probably be shown with more decimal digits.

How useful are donations smaller than a cent?


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On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Platonides <Platonides@gmail.com> wrote:

> Peter Jacobi wrote:
> > Regarding the statistics page:
> >> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics
> >
> > The "minimum" columns isn't that useful. I'd propose using its
> > space for a "median" column.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Peter
>
> I understand how the minimum donated some day can be $0.01 USD. But 0.00?
> Looks like it's saying "The person who donated the less, didn't donate"
>
> I suppose that it was a donation on a different currency, valued less
> than $0.01, but then it should probably be shown with more decimal digits.
>
> How useful are donations smaller than a cent?


If I recall last year's discussions, most donations under a dollar actually
cost more to the WMF than they bring in (due to PayPal transaction fees).
Also, I saw somewhere in the plans a Javascript solution to set the minimum
donation so that every donation brings in money (~1$ mimimum donation).

Regards,
Bence Damokos
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On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 11:14 AM, Bence Damokos <bdamokos@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Platonides <Platonides@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Peter Jacobi wrote:
>> > Regarding the statistics page:
>> >> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics
>> >
>> > The "minimum" columns isn't that useful. I'd propose using its
>> > space for a "median" column.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Peter
>>
>> I understand how the minimum donated some day can be $0.01 USD. But 0.00?
>> Looks like it's saying "The person who donated the less, didn't donate"
>>
>> I suppose that it was a donation on a different currency, valued less
>> than $0.01, but then it should probably be shown with more decimal digits.
>>
>> How useful are donations smaller than a cent?
>
>
> If I recall last year's discussions, most donations under a dollar actually
> cost more to the WMF than they bring in (due to PayPal transaction fees).
> Also, I saw somewhere in the plans a Javascript solution to set the minimum
> donation so that every donation brings in money (~1$ mimimum donation).

As I understand, it donations less than $0.30 go entirely to PayPal.
There is no cost to the WMF if the donation is less than $0.30, but
there is also no gain.

-Robert Rohde

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Robert Rohde schreef:
> As I understand, it donations less than $0.30 go entirely to PayPal.
> There is no cost to the WMF if the donation is less than $0.30, but
> there is also no gain.
>
> -Robert Rohde

It could be useful to include on the donation page something like;

"Every donation, how small it may be is welcome ... but know that by
donation only $1 means we get only X% of your money after transactions
fees. If you donate $5 then we receive X% of your donation."


I do not know the current fees but it think for $1 is must be around
$0,60 to the WMF and $0,40 paypal. So 40% lost, 60% of your donation
received. For $5 that is that a smaller part that goes to paypal.

That could motivated people for not donating a very small amount but
give a bit more.

Btw;
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionHistory

these numbers are those not the source amounts before the transactions fees?

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


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On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Walter Vermeir <walter@wikipedia.be> wrote:
> It could be useful to include on the donation page something like;
>
> "Every donation, how small it may be is welcome ... but know that by
> donation only $1 means we get only X% of your money after transactions
> fees. If you donate $5 then we receive X% of your donation."

Most of the really tiny donations (especially in USD) are criminals
attempting to verify stolen credit cards. There is no point in begging
them to donate more. :)

For the non-fraudsters use JS to set a currency dependent minimum
which makes sense for the typical users of the currency. Trying to
get people to understand paypal fees is just too much complexity, and
is likely to just bring crys about why we don't offer a lower overhead
option (I think the google payment service is less costly than paypal,
for example).

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On 9 Nov 2008, at 20:54, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Walter Vermeir
> <walter@wikipedia.be> wrote:
>> It could be useful to include on the donation page something like;
>>
>> "Every donation, how small it may be is welcome ... but know that by
>> donation only $1 means we get only X% of your money after
>> transactions
>> fees. If you donate $5 then we receive X% of your donation."
>
> Most of the really tiny donations (especially in USD) are criminals
> attempting to verify stolen credit cards. There is no point in begging
> them to donate more. :)
[citation needed]

> For the non-fraudsters use JS to set a currency dependent minimum
> which makes sense for the typical users of the currency. Trying to
> get people to understand paypal fees is just too much complexity, and
> is likely to just bring crys about why we don't offer a lower overhead
> option (I think the google payment service is less costly than paypal,
> for example).

If you explain paypal fees clearly as they'll apply to that
transaction (i.e. taking into account the currency), then I'm sure
99% of people will be able to understand them just fine. However, the
ideal would be to use lower overhead options, as you say - is there
nothing around that has a low to zero overhead fee for non-profits/
charities?

Mike

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On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>> Most of the really tiny donations (especially in USD) are criminals
>> attempting to verify stolen credit cards. There is no point in begging
>> them to donate more. :)
> [citation needed]

The list is not Wikipedia: If you don't care to believe me it's your
own loss. This was what paypal told Wikimedia during a prior fund
raising drive. Perhaps it's no longer true, but I think it's a lot
more plausible than the notion of people genuinely intending to donate
0.01 USD.

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By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.

Ant


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2008/11/10 Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
> By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
> wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
> with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
> pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
> the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
> perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
> But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.

the least negative reaction... have there been any positive so far?
I've seen none on de.

greetings,
elian

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Hoi,
If you are looking for positive reactions, on my blog,
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com I have endorsed the fund raiser. I have
even included the banner twice in a blog entry.

As has been also said by others, fund raising is an activity that enables
other activities, and there is more good that can be expected of the WMF
when it has the money that makes things possible. It will be interesting to
notice how the balance between expenditure and income will be. So far the
WMF organisation has done wonders with relatively little money.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:59 PM, elisabeth bauer
<eflebeth@googlemail.com>wrote:

> 2008/11/10 Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
> > By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
> > wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
> > with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
> > pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
> > the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
> > perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
> > But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.
>
> the least negative reaction... have there been any positive so far?
> I've seen none on de.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
> _______________________________________________
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Hoi,
If you are looking for positive reactions, on my blog,
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com I have endorsed the fund raiser. I have
even included the banner twice in a blog entry.

As has been also said by others, fund raising is an activity that enables
other activities, and there is more good that can be expected of the WMF
when it has the money that makes things possible. It will be interesting to
notice how the balance between expenditure and income will be. So far the
WMF organisation has done wonders with relatively little money.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:59 PM, elisabeth bauer
<eflebeth@googlemail.com>wrote:

> 2008/11/10 Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
> > By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
> > wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
> > with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
> > pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
> > the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
> > perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
> > But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.
>
> the least negative reaction... have there been any positive so far?
> I've seen none on de.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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Hoi,
If you are looking for positive reactions, on my blog,
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com I have endorsed the fund raiser. I have
even included the banner twice in a blog entry.

As has been also said by others, fund raising is an activity that enables
other activities, and there is more good that can be expected of the WMF
when it has the money that makes things possible. It will be interesting to
notice how the balance between expenditure and income will be. So far the
WMF organisation has done wonders with relatively little money.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:59 PM, elisabeth bauer
<eflebeth@googlemail.com>wrote:

> 2008/11/10 Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
> > By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
> > wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
> > with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
> > pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
> > the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
> > perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
> > But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.
>
> the least negative reaction... have there been any positive so far?
> I've seen none on de.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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elisabeth bauer wrote:
> 2008/11/10 Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
>> By the way, to jump backward to the original topic of this discussion, I
>> wanted to point out that on the French Wikipedia, this year is the one
>> with the least negative reaction. I saw rather little discussion on the
>> pump. Certainly, some people are not so happy by the ridiculous size of
>> the banner, and by the fact it can not be easily collapsed entirely. And
>> perhaps are they tired of complaining year after year ;)
>> But seriously, there is rather little complaining this year.
>
> the least negative reaction... have there been any positive so far?
> I've seen none on de.
>
> greetings,
> elian
>

If we can identify some donations coming from community members, I guess
that can count as a positive reaction ;-)

cheers

Ant


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