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The Wikimedia Foundation has posted samples of its upcoming English fundraising emails on Meta, for community review. These are the Jimbo emails that will be used in the upcoming English email campaign, scheduled to run from September 6 to November 20. Each features a photo of Jimmy Wales, followed by texts asking past donors to donate again to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free", keep Wikipedia "free" (the absence of a subscription fee is mentioned), "protect Wikipedia", etc.
I've copied the texts below, for reference. I propose that we establish a rough consensus as to the appropriateness or otherwise of these emails and communicate that to the WMF. -- Andreas JN 466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Email content
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Email 1From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org My name is Jimmy Wales, and I'm the founder of Wikipedia. In the past, you donated to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world. Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work. You have been one of those rare donors, and for this I want to thank you warmly. I'm grateful you agree that we can use the power of the internet for good. We will achieve this not as individuals, but as a collaborative movement of knowledge seekers. Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other. Will you renew your solidarity with a donation? This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation. We choose not to charge a subscription fee, but that doesn't mean we don't need support from our readers. We don't send a fundraising email every month. We respectfully ask for just one donation this year so that Wikipedia may continue to move forward and offer knowledge to the world. If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over. Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come. We're a non-profit. That means we aren't selling the articles that millions of people read on Wikipedia each day. We don't profit from the knowledge you seek. In fact, we firmly believe that knowledge should exist outside of the realm of supply and demand. That's hardly a given nowadays; so much of the world's digital knowledge is driven by profit. Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations. It belongs to you, the readers, editors, and donors. You're our community, our family. You're the reason we exist. The fate of Wikipedia rests in your hands and we wouldn't have it any other way. It's readers like you who safeguard our non-profit mission. You help us maintain our integrity, quality, and accessibility. Today, please consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, to keep Wikipedia free and independent. Thanks,
Where will your donation go? 42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. 27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world. Email 2From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge When you gave in the past, you were one of those rare donors who kept Wikipedia thriving for yourself and millions of other readers. Ready to earn your next badge? Please match your last gift today. I took the liberty of emailing you a second time on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization responsible for the protection of Wikipedia), because I wasn’t sure you got a chance to read the first email we sent to nisrael@wikimedia.org, the address we have on file for you since your last gift. I hope this badge will act as a reminder of how crucial your commitment to supporting free knowledge has been and still is to us. At every turn, we have been pressured to compromise our values, but I'll be honest: This isn’t negotiable for us. People always ask us, why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read? While these things seem like the norm online nowadays, we'd like to remind you that there is another way--a way that doesn’t jeopardize the neutrality of our content and threaten your personal data. We just ... ask! Not often, but it works. After 21 years of saying no, I can still say we are proud to have left that money on the table. We’re a non-profit. Only 2% of our readers give, but we manage to serve hundreds of millions of people per month. Imagine if everyone gave? We could transform the way knowledge is shared online. I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. We’re not salespeople. We’re librarians, archivists, and information junkies. We rely on our readers to become our donors, and it’s worked for over 20 years. This year, please consider making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia. We know people’s circumstances have changed a lot in
the last year. Some find themselves with less to spare, but Renew your donation Give 5 Give 20 Give 35 Give another amount Any gift will unlock your next badge.Thank you, DONATE NOW Email 3From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org I know you've heard from me twice already, so I'll get straight to the point. In the past, you were among the extremely rare readers who made a donation to invest in the future of free knowledge. If you've made it far enough to open this email, could you take a minute to help us out? Many of our readers see our emails and think they'll get round to it later, but life happens and of course they forget. Our annual email fundraiser is coming to an end, so if you've been holding off until “later”, this is your moment. I'm asking you respectfully: Please, renew your donation; it matters. Around the time our fundraising campaign starts, I hear from friends, family, and long-lost classmates who see our fundraising messages while they're looking something up on Wikipedia. It's a reminder of how many folks, from all walks of life, rely on Wikipedia. This incredible public support is crucial for our organization and our movement to thrive. It allows us to serve the world, and to do so with independence and integrity. We don't belong to anyone, because we belong to everyone. You donated in the past and we sincerely thank you. If you still see value in Wikipedia, please sustain your support in 2022 and keep Wikipedia thriving. This is our biggest fundraising moment of the year. It's when we launch the online campaign that brings in donors who will propel us throughout 2022 and beyond. I'm one of them. I'm a regular donor. We are the non-profit that supports one of the world's most visited websites. We don't generate revenue by selling off our users' data to the highest bidder. We don't run ads that could jeopardize the integrity and neutrality of our content. Though our size requires us to maintain the server space and programming power of a top site, we are sustained by the support of our donors who give an average of about $16. This year, will you take one minute to keep our work going? 5 / 20
25 / Other Renew your donation Give less this yearThank you, |
These emails are almost identical to the ones that were used in the recent Indian fundraising campaign (see June Signpost report, "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?). As can be seen, the second email once again invites people to unlock "badges" (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) by making sure they never miss a year of donating.
People are told very little in these emails about what it is that drives the Wikimedia Foundation's money needs, what additional work is being carried out that has caused the vast increases in budget and salary costs over the past decade, and what the benefit of this added spending is to volunteers and the public. Nor is there any mention of the Strategic Direction.
Instead, everything is focused on communicating a need for money to keep Wikipedia online/ad-free/free/independent, as though the Foundation were really struggling to keep Wikipedia online without ads – as though it were not richer than ever, with about $400 million (including the Endowment) in assets and reserves.
I think we, as a movement, should do better than these emails, and aspire to more transparency. Moreover, right now, the Internet Archive is arguably much more deserving of donations; unlike the WMF, they have a stable budget, low salary costs, no history of vast budget surpluses, and are currently fighting a lawsuit against publishers – all while supplying an absolutely critical and free service to Wikipedia. -- Andreas JN 466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum BadgeThis language sounds like what some multi-level marketer might use to get you to buy their product. The WMF are not salespeople, and should not be using "badges" or any other promotional language to get people to make a donation. I suspect User:Jimbo Wales would not approve of this either. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47 ( talk) 21:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
It is interesting to note that in their campaign materials, three of the six candidates currently running for the WMF board (vote here) support the view that WMF fundraising is deceptive. A fourth (a current board member) criticises aspects of WMF fundraising. Below I am quoting relevant excerpts from –
For a complete picture of candidates' views see the Meta page with the full responses of all six candidates and watch the Campaign Video for the fundraising question. Note that all emphases below are mine.
Below is a list of charities in the same spaces as us (cultural/pivacy/free speech/tech). The first link is to the main source of informaton (I also had to do some calcs, conversions, guesses from Profit/Loss, etc), and the second takes you to the donation page for that charity. All the other donation pages are very different from WMFs and the email. Our peers do not try to create negative emotions (guilt, shame, blame, fear of impending doom), have alternating praising/damning building up to a promise of heaven, or down market type text.
Main Source of Data | Donate Link | Revenue | Program % | Fund Raising % | Admin % | Working Capital Ratio |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ACLU | Donate | 200 | 84.5 | 10.2 | 5.2 | 2.4 |
Apache | Donate | 1 | 0.05 | 50K | 30K | 1 |
Educate Girls | Donate | 11 | 74 | 20 | 5.9 | 3.5 |
EFF | Donate | 2.2 | 72.5 | 12.7 | 14.6 | 2.46 |
Free Software | Donate | 2.1 | 88.4 | 4.8 | 6.6 | 0.68 |
Medicins Sans Frontieres | Donate | 1735 | 80 | 16 | 5 | 1.2 |
Open ID | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Phorge (was Phabricator) | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Project Gutenberg | Donate | 0.2 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 1.5 |
Reporters without borders | Donate | 1.75 | 75.17 | 12.8 | 75 | 0.3 |
Smithsonian | Donate | 1600 | 76.3 | 34 | 20.2 | 2.69 |
The Guardian | Donate | 223 | NA | NA | NA | 6.04 |
The Internet Archive | Donate | 37 | 91.89 | 3.5 | 1.7 | 0.08 |
The Khan Academy | Donate | 54 | 88.7 | 75 | 3.6 | 1.66 |
Tor | Donate | 4.4 | 89.72 | 7.1 | 35 | 0.4 |
Wikipedia | Donate | 124 | 74.5 | 11.5 | 13.8 | 3.2 |
Wiklleaks | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 10:28, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Wakelamp: Wikimedia Germany have just published a report titled "Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution". This research report "describes the fundraising and distribution practices of eight large international NGO confederations and networks, and puts them in the context of the changing Wikimedia Movement."
From the Executive Summary (emphases in original):
Based on interviews and information sharing with staff of eight organizations, including Amnesty International, Oxfam International, CARE International, World YWCA, Greenpeace and the International Cooperative Alliance, the research asks about key practices in the areas of fundraising, decision-making about fund allocation, and in particular, about redistribution policies and mechanisms. This latter topic was given particular focus, because Movement Strategy emphasizes equity in funds distribution across an economically unequal international movement. Yet it leaves open how this should be structured.
The main findings of the research show that the Wikimedia Movement differs significantly in its practices from the screened organizations: All of the organizations are based on their affiliates fundraising independently, online and offline. In several cases the INGO specifically invests in the fundraising capacity of affiliates. Yet fundraising is highly strategic rather than diversified, in terms of markets, fundraising affiliates, and revenue sources. ...
The results of this research can be summarized as follows: International NGO confederations practice decentralized fundraising, and those that redistribute funds for equity do so in a centralized manner, based on policies agreed upon by the democratic governance bodies of the confederation. The affiliates that fundraise in strong markets thus support the affiliates in smaller markets. -- Andreas JN 466 12:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
"We also collect or automatically receive some other information, such as: which of our pages you request and visit; "As you interact with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services, we may use automatic data collection and other locally stored data technologies such as tracking pixels, JavaScript, cookies, and local storage to collect certain information about your device. WMF uses cookies and other locally stored data to enhance your donation experience. We also use this information to create a safer online environment and gain a better understanding of donor preferences and interactions with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services."
.... "We use this information to make your experience with the Wikimedia Sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and their interaction with the Wikimedia Sites, and to generally improve our services. "
and "The Board had a discussion on working capital reserves, which is the amount of net surplus held per average annual spending. Currently, the Wikimedia Foundation is within the best practices range of 16-18 months (as determined by Charity Navigator). However, as the organization grows, the capital reserves are expected to drop, which will need to be compensated for with fundraising. The Board requested that staff draft a reserve policy with the oversight of the Audit Committee. When the reserve policy is ready, the Community Affairs Committee will help communicate the policy and the need to have reserves."
The data below come from the "Statements of Activities" in the audited reports. Assets do not include funds held in the Wikimedia Endowment. Expenses from the 2015–16 financial year onward include payments to the Wikimedia Endowment.
Year | Source | Revenue | Expenses | Asset rise | Total assets |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2020/2021 | $162,886,686 | $111,839,819 | $50,861,811 | $231,177,536 | |
2019/2020 | $129,234,327 | $112,489,397 | $14,674,300 | $180,315,725 | |
2018/2019 | $120,067,266 | $91,414,010 | $30,691,855 | $165,641,425 | |
2017/2018 | $104,505,783 | $81,442,265 | $21,619,373 | $134,949,570 | |
2016/2017 | $91,242,418 | $69,136,758 | $21,547,402 | $113,330,197 | |
2015/2016 | $81,862,724 | $65,947,465 | $13,962,497 | $91,782,795 | |
2014/2015 | $75,797,223 | $52,596,782 | $24,345,277 | $77,820,298 | |
2013/2014 | $52,465,287 | $45,900,745 | $8,285,897 | $53,475,021 | |
2012/2013 | $48,635,408 | $35,704,796 | $10,260,066 | $45,189,124 | |
2011/2012 | $38,479,665 | $29,260,652 | $10,736,914 | $34,929,058 | |
2010/2011 | $24,785,092 | $17,889,794 | $9,649,413 | $24,192,144 | |
2009/2010 | $17,979,312 | $10,266,793 | $6,310,964 | $14,542,731 | |
2008/2009 | $8,658,006 | $5,617,236 | $3,053,599 | $8,231,767 | |
2007/2008 | $5,032,981 | $3,540,724 | $3,519,886 | $5,178,168 | |
2006/2007 | $2,734,909 | $2,077,843 | $654,066 | $1,658,282 | |
2005/2006 | $1,508,039 | $791,907 | $736,132 | $1,004,216 | |
2004/2005 | $379,088 | $177,670 | $211,418 | $268,084 | |
2003/2004 | $80,129 | $23,463 | $56,666 | $56,666 |
-- Andreas JN 466 16:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
I am trying to check the percentages, but the most up to date staff/contractors list I can find is this one one and it doesn't include all the other related companies. There also are many many sections in the link, and I would appreciate if editors could advise the split into fundraising, editors, others, platform. For instance I think Community Investment is for making grants to non WP, so it would be others. Oh they are hiring a community specialiist (although they are hiring 3 fundraisers at the same times) Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 04:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a list of all the staff sections at WMF. I have tried to work out what they do, but there is no information I would appreciate if people could advise what the ??? areas do in terms of the fundraising split, and if the other percentage splits are correct-ish. Once this is done, then with the the directors salary and contractors, average salary for that functional area for the Bay Area (even though some are remote) we should have a percentage we can understand.
Department | Section | Fundraising | Sustain | Support | WMF | Dev/Backe | Profit | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ceo | Office | CEO | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Office | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Comm Programs | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Comm Resources | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Endowment | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Fund Operations | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Fund Tech | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Major Gifts & Found | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Online Fundraising | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Partnerships | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Wikimedia Enterprise | Profit | 100 | |||||
Comms | Comm office | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Brand | FUND | 100 | |||||
Comms | Communications Team | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Marketing | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Movement Comms | Move | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | Office | Admin | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | Finance Operations | Mixed | ||||||
Fin. & Adv | Finance Strategy | Admin | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | IT Services | Admo | 100 | |||||
Legal | Legal office | WMF | ||||||
Legal | Community Dev | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Community Res and Sus | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Compliance | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Fellow | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Governance & Risk | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Move Strategy & Gov | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Public Policy | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Trust and Safety | Editors | 100 | |||||
Product | Office | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Abstract Wikipedia | Movement | 100 | |||||
Product | AHT | ??? | ||||||
Product | Campaign | Fund | 100 | |||||
Product | Community Relations | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Content Integrity | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Content Transform Team | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | ConProduct Mgmt | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | CR Ambassador | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | Design | ??? | ||||||
Product | Growth | Movement | 100 | |||||
Product | Inuka | Profit | 100 | |||||
Product | Langand Trans | ??? | 25 | 25 | 50 | |||
Product | Mobile Apps | ??? | ||||||
Product | Parsing & Infrastructure | Dev | ||||||
Product | ProdAnalytics | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Design | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Design Strategy | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Infrastructure | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Program Management | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Readers Product | ???? | ||||||
Product | Structured Content Product | ???? | ||||||
Product | Structured Data | ??? | ||||||
Product | Trust and Safety Tools | Editor | 100 | |||||
Product | Web | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Wishlist | Ediitpr | ||||||
Tal. & Cul | Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | Movment | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | Learnin and Development | WMF | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | People Experience | HrR?? | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | People Operations | Payroll?? | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | Recruiting | Admin | 100 | |||||
Tech | office | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Architecture | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Data Center Operations | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Data Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Global Data & Insights | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Infrastructure Foundations | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Machine Learning | NPP | 100 | |||||
Tech | Performance | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Platform Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Quality and Test Engineering | Dev/Back en | 100 | |||||
Tech | Release Engineering | Dev/Back en | 100 | |||||
Tech | Research (cool so make it supprot) | R and D | 100 | 100 | ||||
Tech | Search Platform | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Security | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Site Reliability Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Technical Engagement | Profit | 100 |
Ediitpr(
Editors?) and probably should mostly be assigned to "Dev/Backend"? — TheresNoTime ( talk • they/them) 20:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
So far no one appears to have said they like the emails or find the wording appropriate. On the other hand, there have been fewer than ten people commenting to date. Perhaps it would help to get a clearer and more representative result if we do an RfC with options editors can simply sign to express their views (see below). -- Andreas JN 466 17:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other. Levivich 02:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
along the lines of "charities must stop fundraising when they have over X amount of money" or "fundraising emails must not convey urgency". Thank you for the UK Fundraising Regulator links; I found them very interesting to read, in particular:
"Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come"implies that there's a risk Wikipedia will have to run ads, or otherwise the WMF would not say that it has been forced ("no choice") to request help from the recipient. Jr8825 • Talk 21:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
WMF Vice President Erik Möller estimated in 2013 that Wikimedia's mission, beyond merely keeping Wikipedia online, could be sustained on $10M a year. Even if we double that 2013 estimate, to $20M, the Foundation would at that level of spending – bearing in mind the interest it earns each year on its investments – have enough money to keep Wikipedia online and fulfil its wider mission, as scoped in that 2013 post, indefinitely, without ever asking the public for another penny.
— User:Jayen466, m:Talk:Fundraising, 15:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
We have no choice but to turn to you, my foot. Levivich 22:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
"the desired outcome of a fundraising email campaign is raising money in the long term", a trial which shows an email format generates immediately higher revenue does not indicate it's sustainable, it indicates it's successful at manipulating people into a desired course of action. As others have said, these campaigns are also generating bad publicity and it's plausible donors will be less likely to respond for urgent requests for money when they occur at regular intervals. The broader objection is that we don't need to mislead donors about the health of our situation. Doing this in our community's name and being unclear about how money is spent are additional frustrations. A positive campaign that focuses on why Wikipedia/WMF are precious & valuable could avoid these issues. It's not like the WMF needs that additional revenue. Jr8825 • Talk 15:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.How could one figure that? I know of no case where the community at large has been permitted to control the use of any WMF funds whatsoever, let alone 31% of them. So, since the guidelines require evidence for the truth of a claim, where's the evidence for that one? Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:40, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
From: "jimmy@wikipedia.org" <donate@wikimedia.org>
Reply-to: donate@wikimedia.org
donate@wikimedia.org
that tries to trick the user into thinking it’s from jimmy@wikipedia.org
by putting that where a person’s name is intended to go. Notice that in the inbox view, only jimmy@wikipedia.org
is shown.
Andreas
JN
466 18:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. 27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world.None of this wording is quite an outright lie, but as others have said, "used to support the volunteers" creates a misleading impression—almost all of us are not paid, nor given grants or funding or reimbursement for money that we spend purchasing reliable sources or travelling to meet-ups and conferences, and so on. "Sustain and improve Wiki[m]edia" is a very vague thing to do with 42% of donations: this amount of money is not spent on server costs and technical maintenance—the WMF fail even to implement bugfixes made by volunteers. WMF fundraising damages the reputation of us as a community, as evidenced by the spate of news stories—admittedly often in the gutter press—which have followed fundraising drives for a number of years now ( [3] [4] [5]). Their wealth has grown inordinately, and the community has not seen a difference. — Bilorv ( talk) 11:40, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
About a third of your gift will be added to our $200-million coffers (not to be confused with our separate $100-million endowment). Most of the rest will be spent on our salaries and benefits. Less than a quarter of every dollar you give will be spent on actually running the website.Levivich 00:22, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipediahonest, accountable and transparent, when WMF's funds have been spent recklessly and inefficiently? Is the statement
If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be overhonest, accountable, and transparent, when surely the next fundraiser would be longer in length and be more aggressive?
This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donationand
Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you:civil to non-donating contributors of Wikipedia, or non-donators in general? Is saying
I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left.is grateful to our existing donors?
..., why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read?or
Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations.shows the would-be donors about our excellence, when we have repeated this false doomsday mantra for 20 years?
"With these emails, WMF didn't show proper respect to thousands of editors who are truly keeping the encyclopedia alive", can you elaborate? I think it's reasonable to donate to an organization which supports rights for Black and LBGT people, as well as women. Many of our editors fall into these groups. But it's also hard to tell exactly what you're talking about, so I could be misinterpreting — VersaceSpace 🌃 02:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
t
c
19:41, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
If the WMF launches the predatory fundraising mails without changes mentioned in the
Review of English Wikimedia fundraising emails thread, we should sent tips to newspapers about this issue. The emails will be sent by September 6, and a lack of response from a WMF representative is very concerning to me. I know that this sounds a bit over the top, but based on the fact that the community's overwhelming rage almost did not overturn the WMF's
Fram's ban, it is likely that the WMF will not change their fundraising strategy or even talk to us without drastic action.
CactiStaccingCrane (
talk) 17:32, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
t
c
21:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)If you're in the States and would be happy to speak on camera about your concerns about the fundraising emails, as discussed above, please drop me an email. Cheers, -- Andreas JN 466 20:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
User:SunDawn User:SmallJarsWithGreenLabels Your concerns about whether the media would be interested, or would understand made be interested to find out what the media was interested in. So
Topic | BBC | Guardian | New York Times | Google News |
---|---|---|---|---|
Anniversary | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Conservapeia/Daily Mail | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Doomed/Knol/Mobile | 2 | 0.5 | ||
Edited by politicians/Businesses | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
Editing Rules | 1 | |||
Editors are Biased/Diversity/Male/OCD/Crazy | 1 | 6 | 8 | 2 |
Editors are People | 1 | 1 | ||
Editors are Noble Tireless Volunteers | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Editors are Toxic | 2 | 1 | ` | |
Editors are warring bots | 1 | 1 | ||
Editors were tricked | 1 | 4 | ||
WMF Endowment | 1 | |||
WMF Fundraising/Donors | 1 | |||
Interesting Articles/Top N | 1 | |||
WMF Legal (Sued /Right to be Forgotten | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
WMF and Nation Censorship | 8 | 3.5 | ||
Not reliable (but used by authority figures) | 3 | |||
Statistics | 1 | 1 | ||
Vandalism/ClueBot/Sneaky Vandal | 1 | 1 | ||
WP Blackout | 1 | 3 | ||
WP Tech | 1 | |||
WT Social | 1 |
This table shows en posts/press releases on WMF using the WMF's own tags. THere ar about 750 posts, but some can have more than one tag. but some posts should have also had additional tags. The press releases that seem to get traction in the News, (and I assume with large donors) are Top Lists, WMF fighting for truth, Editors are not diverse, and WMF fighting against Nation States.
Category | Press Releases |
---|---|
Foundation | 284 |
From the Archives | 283 |
Wiipedia | 158 |
Legal | 96 |
Technology | 90 |
Wikimedia commons | 65 |
Events | 48 |
Affiliates | 40 |
Advocacy | 36 |
Endowment | 31 |
Research | 30 |
Advancement (fundraising) | 26 |
Wikisource | 26 |
GLAM | 25 |
Profiles | 24 |
Blog Transistion | 21 |
Wikiata | 19 |
Wikipedia vs NSA | 19 |
Photo contests | 18 |
Wikimania | 17 |
Grant making | 14 |
Wikipedia Library | 10 |
There are yearly complaints about fundraising texts increased after the Strategy change in 2012. Do editors just want a change to the 2022 or 2023 letters? Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 00:02, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
See [7] -- Andreas JN 466 15:27, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
See [8] -- Andreas JN 466 08:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
The current banners
are invasive, but if you page down you get this
.
As an example, In India, the fundraising amount asked for is ₹150 or about US$2.50. So, to get rid of the banners take about a 1/3 to a 1/4 of a days wage.(See India's Median income, otherwise... So,WMF have raised from 2010 to 2020 WMF received 2 Million dollars from India.They received some complaints in 2020 and responded thus — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wakelamp ( talk • contribs)
I think DYK elegibility criteria should be expanded to new FAs (which hadn't got DYK) and to new FLs. It makes no sense to have GAs elebigle and not FAs and FLs. Dr Salvus 11:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
To incentivize improvement to vital articles, a template should be created that display the vital article icon to the top of the page, just like {{ Featured article}} . If shows "someone has made this article really good", then would show "someone has poured their heart and soul to make this article about an important topic real good" and a lone would show "this topic is important but the article is currently kinda crap". I personally can already some objection to this idea (the vital article list isn't perfect, adding another top icon would increase maintenance, it won't actually encourage editors as you might imagine, etc.) but after personally working on these broad-topic articles for so long, I recognize the immense importance of signaling the impact of your work. A few pixels can do wonders to morale. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 10:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
The Vital Articles list is inspired by the list of articles every Wikipedia should have on Meta-Wiki, which to me indicates we didn't choose the original topics. I'll admit to not having participated in the vital articles process before, but imo that is another reason to oppose this. If I, a veteran Wikipedian, have not in all my years and edits participated in this process, what good does communicating the article as vital do to our readers? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! ⚓ 16:05, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia has several pages that are in the nature of forums - Help Desk, Teahouse, Village Pump pages, Reference Desk pages, Reference Desk Talk pages - where new content is frequently added at or near the bottom of the page. For the convenience of readers, they all have a 'Go to bottom' button of some sort. For the inconvenience of readers, each of these buttons is different; either in size, colour, horizontal position, or distance from top of page (see image). This makes it difficult to find and use the button when switching between different pages. It is unintuitive that a standard function does not have a standard control interface.
I propose that the 'Go to bottom' button be standardised on all pages where it occurs. I don't much care where it is or what it looks like (though the Reference Desk version is easiest to see and click) because if it is standard I will get used to it.
I propose also that the button be added to Article Talk and User Talk pages. -- Verbarson talk edits 21:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Add the following to your common.js file:
// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇑ go to top
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8657)+' go to top', 'p-tb-top', 'Go to the top'))
.click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: 0}); });
// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇓ go to end
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8659)+' go to end', 'p-tb-end', 'Go to the end'))
.click( function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: $(document).height()}); });
In my case, the sidebar menus are locked to the top of the screen so I can always see the "go to top" item. For you, maybe just add the "go to end" code — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 13:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
I prefer to browse with a mousehere's another recommendation: middle mouse button click on the scroll bar will jump to the location (as opposed to left click, which only scrolls a screen). I have a habit of just middle clicking the bottom right corner of the screen without looking at the scrollbar (because the browser is almost always full screen) to go to the bottom of pages. — andrybak ( talk) 09:58, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the first time I am using the Village Pump. I hope I am doing this correctly.
All film and TV show pages on Wikipedia have IMDb as one of their "external links" at the bottom of the page. IMDb has been very difficult to use for a long time now, with pages being full of pictures and Amazon ads, and all sorts of things that no-one needs but which make the pages to take forever to load and make it generally cumbersome.
I recently learned that (apart from many other subpages everyone knows) there is also the "reference" subpage for each IMDb entry, which contains most of the relevant information on a boring, practical site and also keeps the right-hand sidebar neatly at hand for any additional info one might need. The "reference" page loads much quicker than the "main" page. Since there are many Wikipedia users in all corners of the globe who may have limited band-width and/or old hardware, it would be much better for them to not be directed to a film's "main" IMDb entry, but to its "reference" entry.
You can check out the difference for yourself in this example:
Main page for Zulu (as currently used on Wikipedia): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777
Reference page for Zulu: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777/reference
My proposal is to change all IMDb links in the "external links" section of each article from the "main" IMDb entry to the "reference" IMDb entry. I assume this can be done through a bot which would simply be adding "reference" or "/reference" to each URL (I admit that I am computer-illiterate, but bots have been used before to mass-change archive.org links, IIRC, so I assume this is possible).
Otto von B. ( talk) 18:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
/awards
subpage (see parameter |section=
) is supported: {{
IMDb title|id=0111282|title=Stargate|section=awards}}
→
Awards for Stargate at
IMDb. See also relevant discussions at
the talk page of the template. —
andrybak (
talk) 10:26, 30 September 2022 (UTC)I've been around now for almost 15 years, logged in, and one thing bothers me especially. Info boxes are supposed, I believe, to give our readers quick, accurate facts about article subjects. But an article about a person born into royalty can only cause rather severe info-box confusion for any reader who is not a genealogist or at least aware of Wikipedia's stubborn and absolute policy of acting like Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geni and other genealogy sites where mothers traditionally always are listed by their unmarried names. The amount of our new/uninitiated readers who make corrections such as Queen Silvia, not Silvia Sommerlath, being her name when her children were born, and who then get reversed due to our stringent maiden-name pseudo-genealogy-site policy, are considerable indeed. It is an absolute fact (such as are sought by readers in our info boxes) that a woman named Silvia Sommerlath did not give birth to the royal couple's 3 children. People who see that and know no better have the intelligent right to assume that the king had an affair with a Ms Sommerlath. That's absurd! Genealogy sites are cleverly formatted so that they inform about couples who had offspring but never, or rarely, allege specifically that Princess Daughter is the daughter of Mother Maidenname. Wikipedia always does that, in all our pertinent info boxes.
Proposal In the info-boxes of people whose mothers were royal, Wikipedia policy should allow for actual facts, not genealogically-formatted idiosyncrasies, in info boxes regarding the names of all mothers when their children were born and it should not automatically be reversed when such facts are given in info-boxes, --
SergeWoodzing (
talk) 18:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
The tag {primary sources|date=} informs that "This article relies excessively on references to primary sources". Can someone create the same tag by replacing "article" with "section"? Thank you, Manamaris ( talk) 10:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
{{
Primary sources|section}}
, as with most such templates. I've never really understood why people insist on making separate templates for the purpose.
Anomie
⚔ 11:45, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
|section
directive, and actually tells editors to use {{
Primary sources section}}. As long as it is seamless for editors via redirects, merging should be uncontroversial. —
xaosflux
Talk 13:53, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Hello, there are two discussions going on whether we should keep or delete lists or categories of games by game engine, or both: categories, lists.
I notified about both of them in WikiProject Video games, but as there are a large number of lists and especially categories involved, it is a good idea to attract more people. Respiciens ( talk) 11:27, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
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The Wikimedia Foundation has posted samples of its upcoming English fundraising emails on Meta, for community review. These are the Jimbo emails that will be used in the upcoming English email campaign, scheduled to run from September 6 to November 20. Each features a photo of Jimmy Wales, followed by texts asking past donors to donate again to "keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free", keep Wikipedia "free" (the absence of a subscription fee is mentioned), "protect Wikipedia", etc.
I've copied the texts below, for reference. I propose that we establish a rough consensus as to the appropriateness or otherwise of these emails and communicate that to the WMF. -- Andreas JN 466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Email content
|
---|
Email 1From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org My name is Jimmy Wales, and I'm the founder of Wikipedia. In the past, you donated to keep Wikipedia online for yourself and millions of people around the world. Each year, fewer than 2% of Wikipedia readers choose to support our work. You have been one of those rare donors, and for this I want to thank you warmly. I'm grateful you agree that we can use the power of the internet for good. We will achieve this not as individuals, but as a collaborative movement of knowledge seekers. Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other. Will you renew your solidarity with a donation? This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donation. We choose not to charge a subscription fee, but that doesn't mean we don't need support from our readers. We don't send a fundraising email every month. We respectfully ask for just one donation this year so that Wikipedia may continue to move forward and offer knowledge to the world. If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be over. Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come. We're a non-profit. That means we aren't selling the articles that millions of people read on Wikipedia each day. We don't profit from the knowledge you seek. In fact, we firmly believe that knowledge should exist outside of the realm of supply and demand. That's hardly a given nowadays; so much of the world's digital knowledge is driven by profit. Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations. It belongs to you, the readers, editors, and donors. You're our community, our family. You're the reason we exist. The fate of Wikipedia rests in your hands and we wouldn't have it any other way. It's readers like you who safeguard our non-profit mission. You help us maintain our integrity, quality, and accessibility. Today, please consider giving again, or even increasing your gift, to keep Wikipedia free and independent. Thanks,
Where will your donation go? 42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. 27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world. Email 2From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org
Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum Badge When you gave in the past, you were one of those rare donors who kept Wikipedia thriving for yourself and millions of other readers. Ready to earn your next badge? Please match your last gift today. I took the liberty of emailing you a second time on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization responsible for the protection of Wikipedia), because I wasn’t sure you got a chance to read the first email we sent to nisrael@wikimedia.org, the address we have on file for you since your last gift. I hope this badge will act as a reminder of how crucial your commitment to supporting free knowledge has been and still is to us. At every turn, we have been pressured to compromise our values, but I'll be honest: This isn’t negotiable for us. People always ask us, why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read? While these things seem like the norm online nowadays, we'd like to remind you that there is another way--a way that doesn’t jeopardize the neutrality of our content and threaten your personal data. We just ... ask! Not often, but it works. After 21 years of saying no, I can still say we are proud to have left that money on the table. We’re a non-profit. Only 2% of our readers give, but we manage to serve hundreds of millions of people per month. Imagine if everyone gave? We could transform the way knowledge is shared online. I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left. We’re not salespeople. We’re librarians, archivists, and information junkies. We rely on our readers to become our donors, and it’s worked for over 20 years. This year, please consider making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia. We know people’s circumstances have changed a lot in
the last year. Some find themselves with less to spare, but Renew your donation Give 5 Give 20 Give 35 Give another amount Any gift will unlock your next badge.Thank you, DONATE NOW Email 3From: jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org I know you've heard from me twice already, so I'll get straight to the point. In the past, you were among the extremely rare readers who made a donation to invest in the future of free knowledge. If you've made it far enough to open this email, could you take a minute to help us out? Many of our readers see our emails and think they'll get round to it later, but life happens and of course they forget. Our annual email fundraiser is coming to an end, so if you've been holding off until “later”, this is your moment. I'm asking you respectfully: Please, renew your donation; it matters. Around the time our fundraising campaign starts, I hear from friends, family, and long-lost classmates who see our fundraising messages while they're looking something up on Wikipedia. It's a reminder of how many folks, from all walks of life, rely on Wikipedia. This incredible public support is crucial for our organization and our movement to thrive. It allows us to serve the world, and to do so with independence and integrity. We don't belong to anyone, because we belong to everyone. You donated in the past and we sincerely thank you. If you still see value in Wikipedia, please sustain your support in 2022 and keep Wikipedia thriving. This is our biggest fundraising moment of the year. It's when we launch the online campaign that brings in donors who will propel us throughout 2022 and beyond. I'm one of them. I'm a regular donor. We are the non-profit that supports one of the world's most visited websites. We don't generate revenue by selling off our users' data to the highest bidder. We don't run ads that could jeopardize the integrity and neutrality of our content. Though our size requires us to maintain the server space and programming power of a top site, we are sustained by the support of our donors who give an average of about $16. This year, will you take one minute to keep our work going? 5 / 20
25 / Other Renew your donation Give less this yearThank you, |
These emails are almost identical to the ones that were used in the recent Indian fundraising campaign (see June Signpost report, "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?). As can be seen, the second email once again invites people to unlock "badges" (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) by making sure they never miss a year of donating.
People are told very little in these emails about what it is that drives the Wikimedia Foundation's money needs, what additional work is being carried out that has caused the vast increases in budget and salary costs over the past decade, and what the benefit of this added spending is to volunteers and the public. Nor is there any mention of the Strategic Direction.
Instead, everything is focused on communicating a need for money to keep Wikipedia online/ad-free/free/independent, as though the Foundation were really struggling to keep Wikipedia online without ads – as though it were not richer than ever, with about $400 million (including the Endowment) in assets and reserves.
I think we, as a movement, should do better than these emails, and aspire to more transparency. Moreover, right now, the Internet Archive is arguably much more deserving of donations; unlike the WMF, they have a stable budget, low salary costs, no history of vast budget surpluses, and are currently fighting a lawsuit against publishers – all while supplying an absolutely critical and free service to Wikipedia. -- Andreas JN 466 15:31, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Bronze Badge / Silver Badge / Gold Badge / Platinum BadgeThis language sounds like what some multi-level marketer might use to get you to buy their product. The WMF are not salespeople, and should not be using "badges" or any other promotional language to get people to make a donation. I suspect User:Jimbo Wales would not approve of this either. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:AC39:F771:78B1:4C47 ( talk) 21:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
It is interesting to note that in their campaign materials, three of the six candidates currently running for the WMF board (vote here) support the view that WMF fundraising is deceptive. A fourth (a current board member) criticises aspects of WMF fundraising. Below I am quoting relevant excerpts from –
For a complete picture of candidates' views see the Meta page with the full responses of all six candidates and watch the Campaign Video for the fundraising question. Note that all emphases below are mine.
Below is a list of charities in the same spaces as us (cultural/pivacy/free speech/tech). The first link is to the main source of informaton (I also had to do some calcs, conversions, guesses from Profit/Loss, etc), and the second takes you to the donation page for that charity. All the other donation pages are very different from WMFs and the email. Our peers do not try to create negative emotions (guilt, shame, blame, fear of impending doom), have alternating praising/damning building up to a promise of heaven, or down market type text.
Main Source of Data | Donate Link | Revenue | Program % | Fund Raising % | Admin % | Working Capital Ratio |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ACLU | Donate | 200 | 84.5 | 10.2 | 5.2 | 2.4 |
Apache | Donate | 1 | 0.05 | 50K | 30K | 1 |
Educate Girls | Donate | 11 | 74 | 20 | 5.9 | 3.5 |
EFF | Donate | 2.2 | 72.5 | 12.7 | 14.6 | 2.46 |
Free Software | Donate | 2.1 | 88.4 | 4.8 | 6.6 | 0.68 |
Medicins Sans Frontieres | Donate | 1735 | 80 | 16 | 5 | 1.2 |
Open ID | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Phorge (was Phabricator) | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Project Gutenberg | Donate | 0.2 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 1.5 |
Reporters without borders | Donate | 1.75 | 75.17 | 12.8 | 75 | 0.3 |
Smithsonian | Donate | 1600 | 76.3 | 34 | 20.2 | 2.69 |
The Guardian | Donate | 223 | NA | NA | NA | 6.04 |
The Internet Archive | Donate | 37 | 91.89 | 3.5 | 1.7 | 0.08 |
The Khan Academy | Donate | 54 | 88.7 | 75 | 3.6 | 1.66 |
Tor | Donate | 4.4 | 89.72 | 7.1 | 35 | 0.4 |
Wikipedia | Donate | 124 | 74.5 | 11.5 | 13.8 | 3.2 |
Wiklleaks | Donate | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 10:28, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
@ Wakelamp: Wikimedia Germany have just published a report titled "Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution". This research report "describes the fundraising and distribution practices of eight large international NGO confederations and networks, and puts them in the context of the changing Wikimedia Movement."
From the Executive Summary (emphases in original):
Based on interviews and information sharing with staff of eight organizations, including Amnesty International, Oxfam International, CARE International, World YWCA, Greenpeace and the International Cooperative Alliance, the research asks about key practices in the areas of fundraising, decision-making about fund allocation, and in particular, about redistribution policies and mechanisms. This latter topic was given particular focus, because Movement Strategy emphasizes equity in funds distribution across an economically unequal international movement. Yet it leaves open how this should be structured.
The main findings of the research show that the Wikimedia Movement differs significantly in its practices from the screened organizations: All of the organizations are based on their affiliates fundraising independently, online and offline. In several cases the INGO specifically invests in the fundraising capacity of affiliates. Yet fundraising is highly strategic rather than diversified, in terms of markets, fundraising affiliates, and revenue sources. ...
The results of this research can be summarized as follows: International NGO confederations practice decentralized fundraising, and those that redistribute funds for equity do so in a centralized manner, based on policies agreed upon by the democratic governance bodies of the confederation. The affiliates that fundraise in strong markets thus support the affiliates in smaller markets. -- Andreas JN 466 12:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
"We also collect or automatically receive some other information, such as: which of our pages you request and visit; "As you interact with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services, we may use automatic data collection and other locally stored data technologies such as tracking pixels, JavaScript, cookies, and local storage to collect certain information about your device. WMF uses cookies and other locally stored data to enhance your donation experience. We also use this information to create a safer online environment and gain a better understanding of donor preferences and interactions with the Wikimedia Fundraising Services."
.... "We use this information to make your experience with the Wikimedia Sites safer and better, to gain a greater understanding of user preferences and their interaction with the Wikimedia Sites, and to generally improve our services. "
and "The Board had a discussion on working capital reserves, which is the amount of net surplus held per average annual spending. Currently, the Wikimedia Foundation is within the best practices range of 16-18 months (as determined by Charity Navigator). However, as the organization grows, the capital reserves are expected to drop, which will need to be compensated for with fundraising. The Board requested that staff draft a reserve policy with the oversight of the Audit Committee. When the reserve policy is ready, the Community Affairs Committee will help communicate the policy and the need to have reserves."
The data below come from the "Statements of Activities" in the audited reports. Assets do not include funds held in the Wikimedia Endowment. Expenses from the 2015–16 financial year onward include payments to the Wikimedia Endowment.
Year | Source | Revenue | Expenses | Asset rise | Total assets |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2020/2021 | $162,886,686 | $111,839,819 | $50,861,811 | $231,177,536 | |
2019/2020 | $129,234,327 | $112,489,397 | $14,674,300 | $180,315,725 | |
2018/2019 | $120,067,266 | $91,414,010 | $30,691,855 | $165,641,425 | |
2017/2018 | $104,505,783 | $81,442,265 | $21,619,373 | $134,949,570 | |
2016/2017 | $91,242,418 | $69,136,758 | $21,547,402 | $113,330,197 | |
2015/2016 | $81,862,724 | $65,947,465 | $13,962,497 | $91,782,795 | |
2014/2015 | $75,797,223 | $52,596,782 | $24,345,277 | $77,820,298 | |
2013/2014 | $52,465,287 | $45,900,745 | $8,285,897 | $53,475,021 | |
2012/2013 | $48,635,408 | $35,704,796 | $10,260,066 | $45,189,124 | |
2011/2012 | $38,479,665 | $29,260,652 | $10,736,914 | $34,929,058 | |
2010/2011 | $24,785,092 | $17,889,794 | $9,649,413 | $24,192,144 | |
2009/2010 | $17,979,312 | $10,266,793 | $6,310,964 | $14,542,731 | |
2008/2009 | $8,658,006 | $5,617,236 | $3,053,599 | $8,231,767 | |
2007/2008 | $5,032,981 | $3,540,724 | $3,519,886 | $5,178,168 | |
2006/2007 | $2,734,909 | $2,077,843 | $654,066 | $1,658,282 | |
2005/2006 | $1,508,039 | $791,907 | $736,132 | $1,004,216 | |
2004/2005 | $379,088 | $177,670 | $211,418 | $268,084 | |
2003/2004 | $80,129 | $23,463 | $56,666 | $56,666 |
-- Andreas JN 466 16:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
I am trying to check the percentages, but the most up to date staff/contractors list I can find is this one one and it doesn't include all the other related companies. There also are many many sections in the link, and I would appreciate if editors could advise the split into fundraising, editors, others, platform. For instance I think Community Investment is for making grants to non WP, so it would be others. Oh they are hiring a community specialiist (although they are hiring 3 fundraisers at the same times) Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 04:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a list of all the staff sections at WMF. I have tried to work out what they do, but there is no information I would appreciate if people could advise what the ??? areas do in terms of the fundraising split, and if the other percentage splits are correct-ish. Once this is done, then with the the directors salary and contractors, average salary for that functional area for the Bay Area (even though some are remote) we should have a percentage we can understand.
Department | Section | Fundraising | Sustain | Support | WMF | Dev/Backe | Profit | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ceo | Office | CEO | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Office | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Comm Programs | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Comm Resources | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Endowment | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Fund Operations | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Fund Tech | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Major Gifts & Found | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Online Fundraising | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Partnerships | Fund | 100 | |||||
ADV. | Wikimedia Enterprise | Profit | 100 | |||||
Comms | Comm office | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Brand | FUND | 100 | |||||
Comms | Communications Team | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Marketing | WMF | 100 | |||||
Comms | Movement Comms | Move | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | Office | Admin | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | Finance Operations | Mixed | ||||||
Fin. & Adv | Finance Strategy | Admin | 100 | |||||
Fin. & Adv | IT Services | Admo | 100 | |||||
Legal | Legal office | WMF | ||||||
Legal | Community Dev | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Community Res and Sus | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Compliance | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Fellow | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Governance & Risk | WMF | 100 | |||||
Legal | Move Strategy & Gov | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Public Policy | Move | 100 | |||||
Legal | Trust and Safety | Editors | 100 | |||||
Product | Office | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Abstract Wikipedia | Movement | 100 | |||||
Product | AHT | ??? | ||||||
Product | Campaign | Fund | 100 | |||||
Product | Community Relations | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Content Integrity | WMF | 100 | |||||
Product | Content Transform Team | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | ConProduct Mgmt | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | CR Ambassador | Wikipedia | 100 | |||||
Product | Design | ??? | ||||||
Product | Growth | Movement | 100 | |||||
Product | Inuka | Profit | 100 | |||||
Product | Langand Trans | ??? | 25 | 25 | 50 | |||
Product | Mobile Apps | ??? | ||||||
Product | Parsing & Infrastructure | Dev | ||||||
Product | ProdAnalytics | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Design | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Design Strategy | ??? | ||||||
Product | Prod Infrastructure | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Program Management | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Readers Product | ???? | ||||||
Product | Structured Content Product | ???? | ||||||
Product | Structured Data | ??? | ||||||
Product | Trust and Safety Tools | Editor | 100 | |||||
Product | Web | Dev | 100 | |||||
Product | Wishlist | Ediitpr | ||||||
Tal. & Cul | Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | Movment | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | Learnin and Development | WMF | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | People Experience | HrR?? | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | People Operations | Payroll?? | 100 | |||||
Tal. & Cul | Recruiting | Admin | 100 | |||||
Tech | office | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Architecture | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Data Center Operations | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Data Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Global Data & Insights | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Infrastructure Foundations | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Machine Learning | NPP | 100 | |||||
Tech | Performance | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Platform Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Quality and Test Engineering | Dev/Back en | 100 | |||||
Tech | Release Engineering | Dev/Back en | 100 | |||||
Tech | Research (cool so make it supprot) | R and D | 100 | 100 | ||||
Tech | Search Platform | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Security | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Site Reliability Engineering | Back End | 100 | |||||
Tech | Technical Engagement | Profit | 100 |
Ediitpr(
Editors?) and probably should mostly be assigned to "Dev/Backend"? — TheresNoTime ( talk • they/them) 20:08, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
So far no one appears to have said they like the emails or find the wording appropriate. On the other hand, there have been fewer than ten people commenting to date. Perhaps it would help to get a clearer and more representative result if we do an RfC with options editors can simply sign to express their views (see below). -- Andreas JN 466 17:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Together, we can rebuild trust in the internet, and by extension, in each other. Levivich 02:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
along the lines of "charities must stop fundraising when they have over X amount of money" or "fundraising emails must not convey urgency". Thank you for the UK Fundraising Regulator links; I found them very interesting to read, in particular:
"Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you: please renew your gift to ensure that Wikipedia remains independent, ad-free, and thriving for years to come"implies that there's a risk Wikipedia will have to run ads, or otherwise the WMF would not say that it has been forced ("no choice") to request help from the recipient. Jr8825 • Talk 21:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
WMF Vice President Erik Möller estimated in 2013 that Wikimedia's mission, beyond merely keeping Wikipedia online, could be sustained on $10M a year. Even if we double that 2013 estimate, to $20M, the Foundation would at that level of spending – bearing in mind the interest it earns each year on its investments – have enough money to keep Wikipedia online and fulfil its wider mission, as scoped in that 2013 post, indefinitely, without ever asking the public for another penny.
— User:Jayen466, m:Talk:Fundraising, 15:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
We have no choice but to turn to you, my foot. Levivich 22:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
"the desired outcome of a fundraising email campaign is raising money in the long term", a trial which shows an email format generates immediately higher revenue does not indicate it's sustainable, it indicates it's successful at manipulating people into a desired course of action. As others have said, these campaigns are also generating bad publicity and it's plausible donors will be less likely to respond for urgent requests for money when they occur at regular intervals. The broader objection is that we don't need to mislead donors about the health of our situation. Doing this in our community's name and being unclear about how money is spent are additional frustrations. A positive campaign that focuses on why Wikipedia/WMF are precious & valuable could avoid these issues. It's not like the WMF needs that additional revenue. Jr8825 • Talk 15:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day.How could one figure that? I know of no case where the community at large has been permitted to control the use of any WMF funds whatsoever, let alone 31% of them. So, since the guidelines require evidence for the truth of a claim, where's the evidence for that one? Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:40, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
From: "jimmy@wikipedia.org" <donate@wikimedia.org>
Reply-to: donate@wikimedia.org
donate@wikimedia.org
that tries to trick the user into thinking it’s from jimmy@wikipedia.org
by putting that where a person’s name is intended to go. Notice that in the inbox view, only jimmy@wikipedia.org
is shown.
Andreas
JN
466 18:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)42% of your gift will be used to sustain and improve Wikipedia and our other online free knowledge projects. 31% of your gift will be used to support the volunteers who share their knowledge with you for free every day. 27% of your gift will give the Wikimedia Foundation the resources it needs to fulfill its mission and advance the cause of free knowledge in the world.None of this wording is quite an outright lie, but as others have said, "used to support the volunteers" creates a misleading impression—almost all of us are not paid, nor given grants or funding or reimbursement for money that we spend purchasing reliable sources or travelling to meet-ups and conferences, and so on. "Sustain and improve Wiki[m]edia" is a very vague thing to do with 42% of donations: this amount of money is not spent on server costs and technical maintenance—the WMF fail even to implement bugfixes made by volunteers. WMF fundraising damages the reputation of us as a community, as evidenced by the spate of news stories—admittedly often in the gutter press—which have followed fundraising drives for a number of years now ( [3] [4] [5]). Their wealth has grown inordinately, and the community has not seen a difference. — Bilorv ( talk) 11:40, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
About a third of your gift will be added to our $200-million coffers (not to be confused with our separate $100-million endowment). Most of the rest will be spent on our salaries and benefits. Less than a quarter of every dollar you give will be spent on actually running the website.Levivich 00:22, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipediahonest, accountable and transparent, when WMF's funds have been spent recklessly and inefficiently? Is the statement
If all our past donors gave a small amount today, our fundraiser would be overhonest, accountable, and transparent, when surely the next fundraiser would be longer in length and be more aggressive?
This is awkward to admit, but I have to be honest: 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way when we ask for an annual donationand
Unfortunately, most people will ignore this message. We have no choice but to turn to you:civil to non-donating contributors of Wikipedia, or non-donators in general? Is saying
I've been happily stunned by the response from our donors, but we haven't reached our fundraising goal and we don't have a lot of time left.is grateful to our existing donors?
..., why not just run ads to make revenue? Or capture and sell reader data? Or make everyone pay to read?or
Wikipedia is different in that it doesn't belong to the highest bidder, the advertisers, or corporations.shows the would-be donors about our excellence, when we have repeated this false doomsday mantra for 20 years?
"With these emails, WMF didn't show proper respect to thousands of editors who are truly keeping the encyclopedia alive", can you elaborate? I think it's reasonable to donate to an organization which supports rights for Black and LBGT people, as well as women. Many of our editors fall into these groups. But it's also hard to tell exactly what you're talking about, so I could be misinterpreting — VersaceSpace 🌃 02:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
t
c
19:41, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
If the WMF launches the predatory fundraising mails without changes mentioned in the
Review of English Wikimedia fundraising emails thread, we should sent tips to newspapers about this issue. The emails will be sent by September 6, and a lack of response from a WMF representative is very concerning to me. I know that this sounds a bit over the top, but based on the fact that the community's overwhelming rage almost did not overturn the WMF's
Fram's ban, it is likely that the WMF will not change their fundraising strategy or even talk to us without drastic action.
CactiStaccingCrane (
talk) 17:32, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
t
c
21:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)If you're in the States and would be happy to speak on camera about your concerns about the fundraising emails, as discussed above, please drop me an email. Cheers, -- Andreas JN 466 20:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
User:SunDawn User:SmallJarsWithGreenLabels Your concerns about whether the media would be interested, or would understand made be interested to find out what the media was interested in. So
Topic | BBC | Guardian | New York Times | Google News |
---|---|---|---|---|
Anniversary | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Conservapeia/Daily Mail | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Doomed/Knol/Mobile | 2 | 0.5 | ||
Edited by politicians/Businesses | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
Editing Rules | 1 | |||
Editors are Biased/Diversity/Male/OCD/Crazy | 1 | 6 | 8 | 2 |
Editors are People | 1 | 1 | ||
Editors are Noble Tireless Volunteers | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Editors are Toxic | 2 | 1 | ` | |
Editors are warring bots | 1 | 1 | ||
Editors were tricked | 1 | 4 | ||
WMF Endowment | 1 | |||
WMF Fundraising/Donors | 1 | |||
Interesting Articles/Top N | 1 | |||
WMF Legal (Sued /Right to be Forgotten | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
WMF and Nation Censorship | 8 | 3.5 | ||
Not reliable (but used by authority figures) | 3 | |||
Statistics | 1 | 1 | ||
Vandalism/ClueBot/Sneaky Vandal | 1 | 1 | ||
WP Blackout | 1 | 3 | ||
WP Tech | 1 | |||
WT Social | 1 |
This table shows en posts/press releases on WMF using the WMF's own tags. THere ar about 750 posts, but some can have more than one tag. but some posts should have also had additional tags. The press releases that seem to get traction in the News, (and I assume with large donors) are Top Lists, WMF fighting for truth, Editors are not diverse, and WMF fighting against Nation States.
Category | Press Releases |
---|---|
Foundation | 284 |
From the Archives | 283 |
Wiipedia | 158 |
Legal | 96 |
Technology | 90 |
Wikimedia commons | 65 |
Events | 48 |
Affiliates | 40 |
Advocacy | 36 |
Endowment | 31 |
Research | 30 |
Advancement (fundraising) | 26 |
Wikisource | 26 |
GLAM | 25 |
Profiles | 24 |
Blog Transistion | 21 |
Wikiata | 19 |
Wikipedia vs NSA | 19 |
Photo contests | 18 |
Wikimania | 17 |
Grant making | 14 |
Wikipedia Library | 10 |
There are yearly complaints about fundraising texts increased after the Strategy change in 2012. Do editors just want a change to the 2022 or 2023 letters? Wakelamp d[@-@]b ( talk) 00:02, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
See [7] -- Andreas JN 466 15:27, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
See [8] -- Andreas JN 466 08:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
The current banners
are invasive, but if you page down you get this
.
As an example, In India, the fundraising amount asked for is ₹150 or about US$2.50. So, to get rid of the banners take about a 1/3 to a 1/4 of a days wage.(See India's Median income, otherwise... So,WMF have raised from 2010 to 2020 WMF received 2 Million dollars from India.They received some complaints in 2020 and responded thus — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wakelamp ( talk • contribs)
I think DYK elegibility criteria should be expanded to new FAs (which hadn't got DYK) and to new FLs. It makes no sense to have GAs elebigle and not FAs and FLs. Dr Salvus 11:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
To incentivize improvement to vital articles, a template should be created that display the vital article icon to the top of the page, just like {{ Featured article}} . If shows "someone has made this article really good", then would show "someone has poured their heart and soul to make this article about an important topic real good" and a lone would show "this topic is important but the article is currently kinda crap". I personally can already some objection to this idea (the vital article list isn't perfect, adding another top icon would increase maintenance, it won't actually encourage editors as you might imagine, etc.) but after personally working on these broad-topic articles for so long, I recognize the immense importance of signaling the impact of your work. A few pixels can do wonders to morale. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 10:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
The Vital Articles list is inspired by the list of articles every Wikipedia should have on Meta-Wiki, which to me indicates we didn't choose the original topics. I'll admit to not having participated in the vital articles process before, but imo that is another reason to oppose this. If I, a veteran Wikipedian, have not in all my years and edits participated in this process, what good does communicating the article as vital do to our readers? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! ⚓ 16:05, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia has several pages that are in the nature of forums - Help Desk, Teahouse, Village Pump pages, Reference Desk pages, Reference Desk Talk pages - where new content is frequently added at or near the bottom of the page. For the convenience of readers, they all have a 'Go to bottom' button of some sort. For the inconvenience of readers, each of these buttons is different; either in size, colour, horizontal position, or distance from top of page (see image). This makes it difficult to find and use the button when switching between different pages. It is unintuitive that a standard function does not have a standard control interface.
I propose that the 'Go to bottom' button be standardised on all pages where it occurs. I don't much care where it is or what it looks like (though the Reference Desk version is easiest to see and click) because if it is standard I will get used to it.
I propose also that the button be added to Article Talk and User Talk pages. -- Verbarson talk edits 21:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Add the following to your common.js file:
// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇑ go to top
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8657)+' go to top', 'p-tb-top', 'Go to the top'))
.click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: 0}); });
// add link to the "Tools" menu -- ⇓ go to end
$(mw.util.addPortletLink( 'p-tb', '#', String.fromCharCode(8659)+' go to end', 'p-tb-end', 'Go to the end'))
.click( function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: $(document).height()}); });
In my case, the sidebar menus are locked to the top of the screen so I can always see the "go to top" item. For you, maybe just add the "go to end" code — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 13:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
I prefer to browse with a mousehere's another recommendation: middle mouse button click on the scroll bar will jump to the location (as opposed to left click, which only scrolls a screen). I have a habit of just middle clicking the bottom right corner of the screen without looking at the scrollbar (because the browser is almost always full screen) to go to the bottom of pages. — andrybak ( talk) 09:58, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the first time I am using the Village Pump. I hope I am doing this correctly.
All film and TV show pages on Wikipedia have IMDb as one of their "external links" at the bottom of the page. IMDb has been very difficult to use for a long time now, with pages being full of pictures and Amazon ads, and all sorts of things that no-one needs but which make the pages to take forever to load and make it generally cumbersome.
I recently learned that (apart from many other subpages everyone knows) there is also the "reference" subpage for each IMDb entry, which contains most of the relevant information on a boring, practical site and also keeps the right-hand sidebar neatly at hand for any additional info one might need. The "reference" page loads much quicker than the "main" page. Since there are many Wikipedia users in all corners of the globe who may have limited band-width and/or old hardware, it would be much better for them to not be directed to a film's "main" IMDb entry, but to its "reference" entry.
You can check out the difference for yourself in this example:
Main page for Zulu (as currently used on Wikipedia): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777
Reference page for Zulu: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058777/reference
My proposal is to change all IMDb links in the "external links" section of each article from the "main" IMDb entry to the "reference" IMDb entry. I assume this can be done through a bot which would simply be adding "reference" or "/reference" to each URL (I admit that I am computer-illiterate, but bots have been used before to mass-change archive.org links, IIRC, so I assume this is possible).
Otto von B. ( talk) 18:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
/awards
subpage (see parameter |section=
) is supported: {{
IMDb title|id=0111282|title=Stargate|section=awards}}
→
Awards for Stargate at
IMDb. See also relevant discussions at
the talk page of the template. —
andrybak (
talk) 10:26, 30 September 2022 (UTC)I've been around now for almost 15 years, logged in, and one thing bothers me especially. Info boxes are supposed, I believe, to give our readers quick, accurate facts about article subjects. But an article about a person born into royalty can only cause rather severe info-box confusion for any reader who is not a genealogist or at least aware of Wikipedia's stubborn and absolute policy of acting like Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geni and other genealogy sites where mothers traditionally always are listed by their unmarried names. The amount of our new/uninitiated readers who make corrections such as Queen Silvia, not Silvia Sommerlath, being her name when her children were born, and who then get reversed due to our stringent maiden-name pseudo-genealogy-site policy, are considerable indeed. It is an absolute fact (such as are sought by readers in our info boxes) that a woman named Silvia Sommerlath did not give birth to the royal couple's 3 children. People who see that and know no better have the intelligent right to assume that the king had an affair with a Ms Sommerlath. That's absurd! Genealogy sites are cleverly formatted so that they inform about couples who had offspring but never, or rarely, allege specifically that Princess Daughter is the daughter of Mother Maidenname. Wikipedia always does that, in all our pertinent info boxes.
Proposal In the info-boxes of people whose mothers were royal, Wikipedia policy should allow for actual facts, not genealogically-formatted idiosyncrasies, in info boxes regarding the names of all mothers when their children were born and it should not automatically be reversed when such facts are given in info-boxes, --
SergeWoodzing (
talk) 18:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
The tag {primary sources|date=} informs that "This article relies excessively on references to primary sources". Can someone create the same tag by replacing "article" with "section"? Thank you, Manamaris ( talk) 10:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
{{
Primary sources|section}}
, as with most such templates. I've never really understood why people insist on making separate templates for the purpose.
Anomie
⚔ 11:45, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
|section
directive, and actually tells editors to use {{
Primary sources section}}. As long as it is seamless for editors via redirects, merging should be uncontroversial. —
xaosflux
Talk 13:53, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Hello, there are two discussions going on whether we should keep or delete lists or categories of games by game engine, or both: categories, lists.
I notified about both of them in WikiProject Video games, but as there are a large number of lists and especially categories involved, it is a good idea to attract more people. Respiciens ( talk) 11:27, 14 October 2022 (UTC)