Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-11-25/News and notes



Fundraising update
In the run-up to the December fundraiser, Wikimedia Foundation Director of Online Fundraising posted another fundraising update on the Wikimedia-l mailing list (see last month's Signpost coverage of the previous update).


 * Some key points:
 * The banner wording asking readers to donate to Wikipedia to "keep it online and ad-free", used in previous years, has been replaced with references to keeping Wikipedia "online and growing". This addresses past criticism from the community that banners incorrectly implied that the Foundation was in dire financial straits and might have to run ads to keep Wikipedia online if readers failed to donate enough money.
 * At the Wikimedia Foundation's request, Lake Research Partners ran another survey on the fundraising banners. The online survey, which took place from October 30 to November 3 (sample size n = 1,000 Wikipedia readers in the United States), specifically addressed some points that were not covered in the February survey (see previous Signpost coverage). Some findings from the survey:
 * Respondents were asked to rate three banner designs. Criteria included the banners' intrusiveness and whether they suggested an acute financial emergency, as opposed to routine fundraising to sustain a successful organisation. Most survey respondents saw the new banner texts as suggestive of routine fundraising.
 * Laptop and desktop use to access Wikipedia have further declined since February 2015, while mobile phone/smartphone and tablet access are up.
 * Asked to rate the quality of Wikipedia on a scale ranging from 0 to 10, close to two-thirds of respondents chose a rating of 8 or higher.
 * Interested readers can find mock-ups of some current banner designs on Meta:
 * Large coffee
 * Large lightbulb
 * Small blue
 * Small coffee

Below is the full text of Megan's update.

AK

FDC recommendations
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) has published its recommendations for round 1 of the 2015–2016 Annual Plan Grant program, as summarised in the following table:

The FDC noted

Wikimedia Germany and Wikimedia UK, the two biggest chapters involved in this round of FDC recommendations, saw the greatest discrepancies between requested and recommended funding, with the FDC recommending that they be granted 80% (Germany) and 89.5% (UK) of the amounts requested.

Wikidata costs were a particular point of contention in the FDC recommendations:

The publication of the Funds Dissemination Committee recommendations was also announced on the Wikimedia blog. The blog post contains further background on the FDC's work and methods. AK

Telephone fundraising by Wikimedia Germany sparks controversy
Members of Wikimedia Germany reported on November 20 receiving phone calls from a call centre agency thanking them for their contributions, and suggesting they increase their financial support. Wikimedia Germany's confirmed that the agency's calls were indeed made on behalf of Wikimedia Germany, and that there was a parallel mailing campaign to the same effect.

Community feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Volunteers objected to the fact that the call centre employee presented himself as "working for Wikipedia" and to the nuisance factor inherent in the "cold calling" approach. , a founding member and former board member of Wikimedia Germany, went so far as to suggest it might be time to release a press statement "in the name of the authors of Wikipedia", advising the public to ignore calls for donations from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany.

Mletzko at first defended the action, saying that many non-profits use telephone fundraising very successfully and this was merely an attempt to find out whether the same approach might also work for Wikimedia Germany, but promised to take community feedback into account in the campaign's evaluation. On November 23 he posted an update, saying the telephone campaign would be stopped with immediate effect. 108 members from a pool of 3,000 had been called; 44% of them agreed to increase their contributions. AK



Brief notes

 * Editor numbers stabilising: A Wikimedia blog post invites users to help analyse a new data set indicating that volunteer editor numbers seem to have stabilised after a long period of decline. The blog post suggests several possible reasons: 1. Existing editors could be editing more. 2. Fewer editors could be leaving. 3. More editors could be coming back. 4. The community could be reaching its new carrying capacity. 5. Faster editing as a result of December 2014’s performance improvements  (“How we made editing Wikipedia twice as fast“) could be enabling more edits. 6. A temporary resurgence, known more colorfully as a "dead cat bounce". A page on Meta is available for users wanting to provide feedback. AK
 * New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrators, and . AK
 * Milestones: The Ukrainian Wikipedia reached 600,000 articles earlier this month. AK