Talk:Fundraising/Archive 5

"I'm about to shut down"

A February 19 WMF email to donors signed by Jimmy with his photo started with the line is "Sto per chiudere" ("I'm about to shut down"). It seems to say "I'm about to shut down Wikipedia". Not nice. Nemo 06:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Yikes. I hope that was just a mistake in the translation, as opposed to this being sent to everyone in every language. Honesty matters. Anyone know what the original English text was (assuming this was a translation)? --Yair rand (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. The complete phrasing was "sono Jimmy, sto per chiudere. Non te lo chiederò di nuovo." which was a translation of the preheader "this is Jimmy, signing off. I won’t ask again". IIUC, the literal definition of chiudere (independent of context) means "to close" in Italian, but it is a good/correct translation of 'signing-off', so it should have made sense in context, and was reviewed by it-N speakers. But we do acknowledge how it could be misinterpreted. We will keep it in mind for next year. I hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

How do we make the Wikimedia Foundation stop displaying gigantic fundraising banners?

Are there any movements, projects or petitions that actively work towards having all fundraising banners removed or substantially minimised? I am a regular donator, but I strongly dislike that I'm supporting the current business model with my money. Is there anything I can do to help change it? I could stop donating, but that might just make the problem worse. Ornilnas (talk) 06:24, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The last large-scale protest against the Wikimedia Foundation's advertising model was the Spanish Wikipedia fork of 2005, I think.

If you believe that the Wikimedia Foundation is still a functioning entity with a governance system which works as written in its bylaws, in theory you can try and influence the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to revise the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan and substantially decrease both revenues and expenditures, which would hopefully make the WMF staff be less aggressive with their requests for money. Nemo 10:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, that sounds like the correct procedure ultimately. I will try to "influence" them, but I strongly doubt my individual efforts will have much of a result (especially since I'm only a sporadic contributor to the various Wikis). Are there really no coordinated efforts to effect this influence? I know there must be many other editors/donators like myself out there. (The Spanish fork seems to have largely failed... and at the moment, Wikipedia as a whole works splendidly, apart from a few issues like these banners, so a complete fork seems unrealistic.) Ornilnas (talk) 00:57, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Usually the WMF management doesn't listen to any organised consensus, only to random individuals pretending to speak for a silent majority. Any coordination would therefore need to be covert.

Slightly ungenerously, some say it's also been historically possible to buy a board seat for about 2 million dollars. If so, more seats might be up for sale soon, but there might have been some inflation in the last few years. Nevertheless, disgruntled donors could join their money pots and then send a frontperson to act as one of those millionaire donors, get a seat on the board and then argue for a less aggressive fundraiser. To be effective, you'd probably need a few such groups gaining multiple seats at a time.

(What above is only slightly sarcastic. Might also be serious. I've yet to decide.) Nemo 14:26, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. With the myriad of lengthy and detailed debates going on about the slightest topics all around Wikipedia and the other Wikis, I'm a little baffled that I can't find any active discussions about this. Judging by your pessimistic tone, I probably don't have a good understanding of how the WMF is structured. There must be some organized process for the consensus of active editors, users, or even donors to influence decisions. Ornilnas (talk) 06:50, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

+1. These banners are really awful. Plus the message, at least in Polish, sounds really bad. tufor (talk) 17:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Tufor: - We get members of the community to review our translations. If you'd be interested in being a translation reviewer for fundraising let me know. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Seddon (WMF): I am afraid that there can be some serious issues with the original texts that were supposed to be translated. But can you please provide me a link/links to these messages? Or you can email me them; I can take a look. tufor (talk) 05:34, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Coffee

Have we removed the awful "less than your daily cup of coffee" text from the banner? This has always seemed to me to be elitist, there's really very few people who can afford to spend $5 per day on coffee (including a lot of those who do - but that's another issue).

Rich Farmbrough 02:19 26 December 2020 (GMT).

@Rich Farmbrough: we aren't currently using that line at the moment in our banners. It has come and gone over the last couple of years so I don't want to say it will never return but for now we aren't using it. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 02:44, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough 01:48 1 January 2021 (GMT).