User talk:BilledMammal/Fundraising banners

Draft
Sorry for the delay, I've been busy. What do you think of this as an initial draft? BilledMammal (talk) 19:57, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Very good, thanks. Would have to run sometime in September. Would we need a summary of WMF financials? Andreas JN 466 21:23, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, might be useful, to demonstrate what the WMF needs to keep the core aspects operational.
 * Pinging you, as while doing research in preparation for writing this I came across comments from each of you suggesting that you had considered such a discussion in the past, and as such might have some useful insights into what it should and should not contain. BilledMammal (talk) 00:35, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's difficult. I won't say the WMF is secretive, but the categories in which they declare spending don't correspond neatly to those we'd like to measure.  Legitimate and useful activities such as hosting, legal and software development won't be cheap, and I've never managed them myself, but I see consensus that the order of magnitude is nearer $10m pa than $100m.  As I understand it, U.S. freedom of information requests apply only to government bodies, so we might have to rely on the WMF volunteering the information, or get a leak from an ex-staffer, or find published figures from comparable organisations. Certes (talk) 10:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * For hosting costs see . It's less than $2.5 million a year, a pittance compard to the size of the budget. (Yet this is what a lot of people think they are funding when they respond to the fundraising messages.) Andreas JN 466 10:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We may also have to count some money from other categories, such as part of the $67m spent on the nebulous "Salaries and wages", but it's still going to be seven digits rather than eight. I agree that hosting is what many donors think they are funding.  If I were American, I'd be a Democrat, and everyone should be free to fund Democrat ideals, but only knowingly. Certes (talk) 12:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * As for salaries, compare the entries here in the 2020 Form 990 to the corresponding entries two years prior in the 2018 Form 990.
 * As far as I can make out, you've got the CEO's total compensation increasing by 7%, the DGC's and GC's by 10%, the CFO's by 11%, the CAO's by 22%, the CCO's by 25%, the CT/CO's by 28%, and the CPO's by 32% – all of this over a two-year period when US inflation was at 2%. Andreas JN 466 15:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for putting this together, it's probably worth a broader discussion. I'm not sure, though, about the proposed solution--requiring the community to sign off on all banners--as opposed to a more targeted proposal prohibiting the WMF from running certain banners. I'm not sure how everyone else will feel, but for my part, I have a problem with some of the language in some of the banners (the % breakdowns, the suggestion that we're at risk of not being ad-free), but I certainly don't want to take the time to read and review every single fundraising banner they ever write. There's maybe a related, but broader, question about whether enwiki wants to approve every banner that's on enwiki regardless of whether it's for fundraising or something else. But again, this means that we'd have veto power over global banners on enwiki, and that seems like... a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Levivich 15:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * A better solution would be for the community to sign off on the 31% of funding that goes to volunteers! Certes (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Or at least to explain it. I'm somewhat well-versed at this point in the WMF's Forms 990, financial statements, and annual plan, and I cannot figure out what that 31% corresponds to. But the community actually does sign off on the 31% funding, indirectly: we elect trustees who vote on the budget every year. Levivich 16:15, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't make sense of those 31% either. That figure (said by the WMF to come from the Annual Report) seems to have been plucked out of thin air.
 * Bear in mind though that this figure only appears in the emails, not the banners.
 * I think it makes sense to focus on fundraising message that we're not okay with, rather than reviewing everything. As I understand it, the WMF continously A/B-tests variations of existing wordings, so reviewing banners might become a full-time job. :) It would be enough to arrive at a mutual understanding of what is okay and what is not.
 * I would love the WMF to talk about what it is actually doing. Keeping Wikipedia online and independent can be done with a fraction of the current budget. Even today, according to this article, "the website we know and use – costs the firm about 30 percent of their $112.5 million operating budget ($33.75 million) to maintain according to Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Chief Advancement Officer at Wikimedia."
 * They could talk about the WMF's work to make sure that Wikipedia software remains up to date, about Wikidata, about Abstract Wikipedia, about their lobbying, about their investments in developing countries (as long as they don't exaggerate them as they did here), or whatever it is that swallows up all these unprecedented amounts of cash. People should know what they're funding, and the Thomases of this world should know that they may sleep soundly even if they keep those two dollars to themselves. Andreas JN 466 16:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I see the 31% figure in 5 banners on the User:BilledMammal/Fundraising banners page (and so I would !vote to not display those 5 banners). Also I want to add: it doesn't have to be a confrontational thing; like we (the community) just want to be able to flag certain banners for further review/discussion before they go live. I don't see this as a big deal or a big "ask", it seems really uncontroversial and routine to me, as I'd guess the community would want to do this for any banner that it had concerns about. I'm pretty sure we've done this before I just can't remember examples. Levivich 18:29, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Right. The 31% figure is "shown to readers who donated in response to this second ad" (that must be why I've never seen it ). Agree about the non-confrontational thing in principle, except that the WMF seems in recent years to have valued its bank balance over the community's opinion of its fundraising ethics.
 * This wasn't always so. There were productive discussions with the WMF back in 2015 that are worth re-reading (that's why I'm quoted in the Washington Post report as saying – somewhat overenthusiastically – that they'd addressed the problem, even though the concessions didn't go as far as I would have liked).
 * These somewhat productive discussions followed the complaints summarised in this 2015 Signpost report. So it is potentially worth being vocal about these things. Andreas JN 466 18:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, I really like what Bluerasberry wrote here. Andreas JN 466 16:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I actually considered all of that, but in the end I felt this was the best of the group.
 * I rejected the possibility of banning specific banners because I don't trust the WMF to comply with the spirit of any such ban, rather than just the wording; I suspect what will happen is they will pull the ads we ban and implement other, equally problematic ones.
 * I also don't believe there will be that many banners to review; since we would be approving banners, not campaigns, once approved they would be able to rerun the same banner without needing to talk to us. This is something they already do; there are sometimes minor differences between banners, but I suspect those differences are something they would drop as they won't want to have to go through our review process dozens of times a year any more than we would want to review dozens of banners a year.
 * I did also consider the option of requiring approval for all banners, but I decided it was best to keep this focused on a single issue; if we find that this works well, and doesn't put too much of a burden on either the WMF or the community, then I think that is something we can consider for the future, but not now. BilledMammal (talk) 23:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Just realising the end of the month is approaching fast. Were you planning to run this on the Proposals Village Pump or in the Signpost? (If VP, the Signpost could carry a link; it's due to be published Sep 30.) Best, Andreas JN 466 18:16, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the village pump, in the format discussed below, but I was going to wait till the October Signpost to advertise it as the discussion won't be open until then. BilledMammal (talk) 23:14, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Okeydoke. Just checking. :) Best, Andreas JN 466 23:19, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Reddit discussion, for reference
A couple of weeks ago, someone asked on Reddit:


 * What's going on with Wikipedia asking for donations and suggesting they may lose their independence?
 * https://imgur.com/gallery/FAJphVZ


 * Went there today and there are Apple-esque chat bubbles asking users to 1) read this text and 2) donate a minimum of $2.75.
 * It's not clear how they got to this point, given the multitude of years they've been around and free / ad-free.


 * So why is this suddenly happening?

The top answer, with 8.9K likes, is:


 * ANSWER: This is not suddenly happening. Wikipedia has been doing donation drives like this for many years. This may just be the first time you have seen them. The issue is that Wikipedia doesn't want to have ads on their pages to make money. They feel that if they took ads, then there would be pressure to make sure that the companies paying for the ads are happy by not having articles talk about negative things those companies might have done. They believe that the only way for Wikipedia to remain able to keep their current neutral status is to get donations from the public rather than payments from companies.


 * It costs a lot of money to keep Wikipedia going, to pay for the computers running 24/7 and the staff that maintains them. That money has to come from somewhere.

There is very little awareness of the following facts – that the WMF
 * has grown its staff continuously,
 * has increased its budget tenfold in the space of a decade (unlike many comparable NGOs),
 * has substantial annual surpluses (revenues have exceeded expenses each year),
 * has assets and reserves of around $400 million (including the endowment),
 * chooses to pay expensive US salaries for remote jobs that could be done more cheaply elsewhere
 * spends only about a third of its budget on Wikipedia
 * pays comparatively little to keep "the computers running 24/7" (Wikipedia became a top-ten site serving the world in 2007, when Wikimedia's annual expenses were $2 million).

Makes me think of lemmings. Wikipedia and the emails sent in Wikipedia's name are successfully used to establish a substantially false narrative as the truth. Andreas JN 466 09:39, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * A few other discussions that I came across while preparing this that may be of interest:
 * Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_68
 * Talk:Main_Page/Archive_203
 * meta:Talk:Fundraising/Archive_3
 * meta:Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6
 * Help_desk/Archives/2020_December_10 - designed to encourage guilt at not donating
 * - Presently shown to readers in pandemic-ridden Latin America, these banners have created a widespread impression that the WMF must be struggling to keep Wikipedia up-and-running
 * meta:Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6 - readers who can't afford to donate feel pressured to do so. This includes on VRT
 * Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-03-18/Op-ed - issues raised with the campaigns as early as 2015, but the fundamentals have not changed
 * - I've donated to Wikipedia annually for about 5 or 6 years now, but the tone of the donation requests have always felt manipulative and gross to me. I find I tend to avoid using the site as much as possible when I start seeing those banners.
 * meta:Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6 - confuses and worries readers
 * meta:Talk:Fundraising/Archive_6 - In January, the WMF said they were listening and collecting the feedback we saw around the Helpdesk, the Teahouse, the general VP boards on English Wikipedia, and here. Looking at the ads they have run since, such as the campaigns in India and South Africa saying that they need donations to sustain Wikipedia's independence, this feedback has not been heeded.
 * BilledMammal (talk) 10:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussions today: Twitter (Thread Reader), Hacker News --Andreas JN 466 23:05, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Planned banners
I've asked the WMF to provide a list of banners they plan to run. Depending on the specifics of the banners, it might be a good time to run this discussion.

Are there any thoughts on the content, or how we should run it; should we open it as an RfC, and if so how should we phrase it comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL? BilledMammal (talk) 04:45, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * VPP RFC, "Is there consensus to run this banner on enwiki?" Levivich (talk) 06:30, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We would have to wait till November to do that, as they aren't going to tell us what banners they plan to run until then. I'm not sure that would work, as that also means that we have less than 30 days to hold the RfC in, and if there is no consensus to run the banner then there won't be time for us to consider the banner they replace it with.
 * Instead, if we want to reject certain banners rather than the WMF having to get approval for banners I think it would need to be questions on various general aspects of the banners, but I'm not sure what those questions would be. BilledMammal (talk) 09:59, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Under the circumstances, it would probably be reasonable to break our 30-day rule. We might start a well-advertised placeholder saying "An RfC closes in 30 days on some banners which haven't been revealed yet; please watchlist this page ready to comment and !vote when the details appear". Certes (talk) 11:30, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Start advertising it around October 25 then, to give time for the RfC to be closed? That should work.
 * For the question, I think: Is there consensus to run these banners as is on enwiki? If no, please specify what aspects need to be changed before the banners are run.
 * It should allow the WMF to know what changes they need to make, and if the banner is rejected and they still publish an unacceptable one, then we can go for the nuclear option and require every banner to be approved before being run. BilledMammal (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Asking what should be changed is a good idea. Levivich (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * One possibility would be to ask for comments on certain phrasings. The most recent banners posted on Fundraising are the Dutch ones, and I am pretty sure something similar is planned for English. Here are two machine translations and the original:
 * DeepL: Don't scroll past this. We'll get straight to the point: this Thursday, we're asking you to help us keep Wikipedia alive. 98% of our readers do not donate; they simply ignore our request. If you are one of those special readers who has already donated, we thank you very much. If you donate just €2 today, Wikipedia can stay online for years to come. We kindly ask you: please don't scroll away. If Wikipedia has given you €2 of knowledge, please take a moment to donate. Show the world that access to reliable, neutral information is important to you. Thank you.
 * Google: Don't scroll past here. We'll get straight to the point: This Thursday, we're asking you to help us keep Wikipedia going. 98% of our readers don't donate; they just ignore our request. If you are one of those special readers who has already donated, we thank you very much. If you donate just $2 today, Wikipedia can stay online for years to come. We kindly ask you: please don't scroll away. If Wikipedia gave you $2 worth of knowledge, take a moment to donate. Show the world that access to reliable, neutral information is important to you. Thank you.
 * Original: Scroll hier niet voorbij. We komen meteen ter zake: deze donderdag vragen we je om ons te helpen Wikipedia in stand te houden. 98% van onze lezers doneren niet; zij negeren ons verzoek gewoon. Als jij een van die bijzondere lezers bent die al heeft gedoneerd, dan danken wij je hartelijk. Als je vandaag slechts € 2 doneert, kan Wikipedia nog jaren online blijven. We vragen je vriendelijk: scroll alsjeblieft niet weg. Als Wikipedia je € 2 aan kennis heeft gegeven, neem dan even de tijd om te doneren. Laat de wereld zien dat toegang tot betrouwbare, neutrale informatie belangrijk voor je is. Dank je.
 * I think anything with "if you donate ... Wikipedia can stay online ..." is misleading. The lead sentence is something I'd like to discuss with a native Dutch speaker (do you know one here?), as "in stand (te) houden" can have a variety of meanings – though what Google and DeepL plumped for is not encouraging. --Andreas JN 466 13:59, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's technically true, as is if you whistle Dixie, Wikipedia can stay online. What's not mentioned is that if no one donated anything this year, we could still find $2.5m a year down the side of the WMF's sofa to keep the servers running for a while.  It's a classic fundraising technique; the question is whether it's ethical to mislead as long as no one actually lies. Certes (talk) 20:26, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

November 2022 Banners RFC
See for the proposed text; feel free to edit. A few questions:
 * 1) Is the question suitable?
 * 2) Is the closing date of November 23 ideal?
 * 3) I believe WP:VPW is the most appropriate place to run the discussion, but WP:VPR might be better?
 * 4) I've currently only got names from two discussions to ping; are there other relevant discussions that should be included?
 * 5) Is common.css the correct file to modify to block the banners?
 * 6) Should the RfC tag be included from October 23, or from when the RfC opens?
 * 7) How should notifications be sent; pings, or mass message?

BilledMammal (talk) 08:05, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing this.
 * Re #3 (best place to run the RfC): I think this would be WP:VPR, with a link at WP:VPW and a listing at WP:CENT in addition to the RfC tag.
 * Re #4, perhaps the people that contributed to this Signpost talk page?
 * Re #5 (MediaWiki:Common.css): Important point, and I don't know. Maybe User:MZMcBride or User:Legoktm could advise? --Andreas JN 466 12:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you asking about blocking the ads for your personal wiki user account? Or are you asking about blocking the ads for all users? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:03, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * All users, in case the RfC finds a consensus that the banners should not be run without modification but the WMF ignores the consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 11:09, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

RFC on banners for the November 2022 fundraising campaign
Are all of the banners that the WMF is planning to run for the November 2022 fundraising campaign appropriate? If they are not, what changes need to be made before the campaign can start?

Survey
If opposing, please specify what changes need to be made to the banners before the campaign can start.

Information
Between 29 November and 31 December, the WMF will be running their English fundraising banners campaign (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, and US). Every year this results in a number of discussions objecting to certain aspects of the campaign but these discussions start too late to address any issues. This RfC, running before the campaign starts, is intended to prevent that from happening again.

The RfC will start when the WMF provides the banners they are planning (likely to be in early November) and it will run until 22 November (chosen so that if changes are required the WMF has time to implement them). On 22 November, the discussion will be hatted pending closure; closers will be pre-identified in order to facilitate a quick close.

In order to ensure that enough comment has been received that consensus is reached despite the shortened RfC period it has been listed prior to opening; editors who wish to be notified when the RfC is opened are invited to add their name to the "Editors to notify" list. It has been pre-populated with editors who have participated in similar discussions

If there is a consensus that the banners are not appropriate to run but the WMF tries to run them without implementing the required changes then our proposed method to enforce the consensus is for Common.css to be modified to prevent them from appearing.

Some of the banners tested in September and October are available below; they may be indicative of the final banners.

The following banners ran between 2022-10-11 21:00 (UTC) and 2022-10-12 00:00 (UTC) on enwiki for readers from Australia, Canada, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. 100% of pageviews for logged-out readers included a banner, up to ten times per reader.

The following banners ran between 2022-10-03 20:00 (UTC) and 2022-10-10 20:00 (UTC) on enwiki for readers from Australia, Canada, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. 7% of pageviews for logged-out readers included a banner, up to ten times per reader.

The following banners ran between 2022-09-23 20:00 (UTC) and 2022-09-25 20:00 (UTC) on enwiki for readers from Australia, Canada, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. 10% of pageviews for logged-out readers included a banner, up to ten times per reader.

This list consists of editors who have added their name, or have participated in related discussions (Review of English Wikimedia fundraising emails, Wikimedia Foundation English fundraising campaign - October pre-tests, and Wikipedia Signpost/2022-06-26/Special report). Please raise any issues with the list on the talk page.


 * 1) AllyD
 * 2) AndyTheGrump
 * 3) Aza24
 * 4) Betseg
 * 5) BilledMammal
 * 6) Bilorv
 * 7) Blaze Wolf
 * 8) Bluerasberry
 * 9) Catleeball
 * 10) Certes
 * 11) Chiswick Chap
 * 12) Chris Troutman
 * 13) Clovermoss
 * 14) CoffeeCrumbs
 * 15) Cryptic
 * 16) Danre98
 * 17) Darwinek
 * 18) Daß Wölf
 * 19) Dege31
 * 20) Dutchy45
 * 21) Fram
 * 22) GretLomborg
 * 23) Guy Macon Alternate Account
 * 24) Hemiauchenia
 * 25) Herostratus
 * 26) Indy beetle
 * 27) Ineffablebookkeeper
 * 28) Intothatdarkness
 * 29) Iridescent
 * 30) Jayen466
 * 31) JBrungs (WMF)
 * 32) Jim.henderson
 * 33) Jr8825
 * 34) Kerry Raymond
 * 35) Kolya Butternut
 * 36) Kudpung
 * 37) Kusma
 * 38) Legoktm
 * 39) Levivich
 * 40) Mathmo
 * 41) Nardog
 * 42) NGC 54
 * 43) Nosebagbear
 * 44) Otr500
 * 45) Perrak
 * 46) Peter Damian
 * 47) Pppery
 * 48) Qwerfjkl
 * 49) Randy Kryn
 * 50) Retswerb
 * 51) Rhododendrites
 * 52) S Marshall
 * 53) Seddon
 * 54) Seraphimblade
 * 55) Shells-shells
 * 56) SilkTork
 * 57) SmallJarsWithGreenLabels
 * 58) SunDawn
 * 59) The Grid
 * 60) The Land
 * 61) TheDJ
 * 62) TheresNoTime
 * 63) Tryptofish
 * 64) VersaceSpace
 * 65) Wakelamp
 * 66) WaltCip
 * 67) WereSpielChequers
 * 68) Wugapodes
 * 69) XOR'easter
 * 70) Yair rand
 * 71) Yngvadottir

YouTube coverage
Hi BilledMammal, you'll be pleased to know that there are a few screenshots of your RfC in this German-language YouTube video. It was uploaded 3 days ago and so far has had about half a million views.

The video was made by "Simplicissimus". This used to be part of a joint venture of the two primary national TV channels in Germany but recently went independent. They have 1.2 million subscribers.

The (German-language) video also includes screenshots of (English-language) correspondence with the WMF, which would have happened around the time your RfC ran. The video's sources are listed in a Google document which also includes the WMF's responses to their questions.

Also note that the Italian banner campaign appears to have been postponed, possibly as a result of a recent TV program on Rai 3, a channel of Italy's national broadcaster. This was highly critical of the fundraising effort and mentioned the community's unhappiness with the banners (there is a mention of the programme in the current Signpost issue's "In the media" section). Best, --Andreas JN 466 15:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)