Fundraising 2009/Launch Feedback

Fundraising 2009
General
Plan Timeline
Design and message (Meta)
Original website design mock-ups Alternative banner ideas Launch feedback
Translations
Translations main page Core messages Supplementary messages FAQ Translatewiki extensions Thank You Appeal
Live donation pages (WMFwiki)
Main donation landing page (en) Donor comments feed
Raw statistics
FundraiserStatistics ContributionStatistics ContributionTrackingStatistics csv
Public relations/Announcements
Opening press release Closing press release Blog posts
This template: view · edit

This page is for discussion of the 2009 Annual Fundraiser launch.

We acknowledge a few things won't be perfect upon launch:

1. Not all project specific notices will be in place.
2. Geo IP and chapter giving pages will be coming on after launch.
3. We may have imperfect and incomplete translations. We are, of course, trying to translate everything and will do our best to rectify any problems.

Please comment on any problems, questions, or thoughts you have here. Rand Montoya 23:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See also (may not be reviewed by WMF)

• Talk:Fundraising 2009/Website Design, Talk:Fundraising_2009/Translations, Talk:Fundraising_2009/core messages;
• w:en:Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Abolish the silly headers
• n:en:Wikinews:Water cooler/technical#Ugly Ass central site notice
• w:ru:Википедия:Форум/Вниманию_участников#Слава КПСС! или Да здравствует Википедия!

Credit card form

The credit card processing form is far from being in a usable state and IMO should not be deployed as is; see my notes on internal-l for specific issues. --brion 14:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Well that's scary. Did they get fixed?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 06:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Improvements are said to be in the works, but it's still pretty spotty. The only change I recommended that's live so far is that the amount is now editable. Currency isn't, and we're still missing a credit card type, shouldn't even be asking for a credit card type in the first place (should just list them), have broken state and country fields that don't retain values across submissions, don't indicate which fields are required, don't give any interactive feedback on whether fields values are valid until submission (at which point half your fields reset their fvalues), and use a "first/middle/last" name breakdown which is unnecessary and doesn't translate well outside the US. (More generally there's a whole UI on that page including sidebar links that doesn't do anything useful and just sends you to dead-end pages.)

It's ok for new untested code to be rough, but if it wasn't tested and ready it really shouldn't have been deployed in the fundraiser at this stage; continuing to send people through the PayPal form until this was ready would have been much better for our donors. --brion 14:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried it twice two hours ago. Nothing happened (I think) but before I try again I have to wait two days to be sure that no money has been withdrawn from my bank account. //StefanB 18:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

red links on Chapters/en

I am seeing two redlinks on wmf:Chapters/en.

the links are rendered as red links:[1][2] but when I click on them, they take me to the correct pages:wmf:Resolution:Approval_of_Wikimedia_Australia and wmf:Resolution:Approval_of_Wikimedia_Brasil. John Vandenberg 05:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. Cbrown1023 talk 05:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

IE6 support

wmf:Donate says "To give using IE6 or last year's form, please click here."

Is IE6 not supported in the current implementation?

According to SquidReportClients.htm, IE6 accounts for 13.18% of traffic. John Vandenberg 05:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• We are working to resolve this. But it may take a few days...hence the workaround. Rand Montoya 05:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Support buttons link to dev website

wmf:Support/en provides links to the "dev" website; e.g.

<a href= "http://dev.donate.wikimedia.org/index.php/Donate/en"><img border="0" alt="Wikipedia Affiliate Button" src="/w/extensions/skins/Donate/images/banners/Banner_125x125_0000_A.jpg" /></a>

John Vandenberg 05:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. Cbrown1023 talk 06:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The collapsed banner

The text in the hidden banner is almost impossible to read on high screen resolutions. From testing on 1920x1200: Firefox - not too bad, but pretty small. Opera - almost completely illegible. Safari - probably the best. Chrome - almost readable. IE8 - hard to read (also centered for some reason). Additionally, every browser except Firefox puts the text on a white background but gives the box a gray background, which is kind of awkward looking. Mr.Z-man 05:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

When I'm logged in in de:wp and collapse the banner, everything else on the page (not the sidebar on the left) disappears too. I'm using Beta; Opera browser, WinXP SP3. -- 87.123.197.8 11:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: After having left Beta, it's OK again. -- 87.123.197.8 13:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

CSS problem

Whoever wrote the embedded CSS for the notices, didn't realize that those styles would propagate globally to the entire page under most browsers, in particular messing up people A styles.

The following is a quick and dirty rewrite to specify that the styles apply to the site notice only. I don't have an easy way to test it with Wikimedia's full setup, but I think this should be sufficient to force it to apply the styles only with the id="siteNotice" div. It would need to be installed in the central notice templates. Dragons flight 06:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

New CSS

/* Styles for Notices */ #siteNotice a { text-decoration: none; } #siteNotice a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } #siteNotice a:hover table tr td #no-link-underline { text-decoration: none; } #siteNotice a table { text-decoration: none; color: #6e98c2; } #siteNotice a:hover table tr td { text-decoration: underline; } #siteNotice a:hover table tr td #use-underline { text-decoration: underline; } #siteNotice a:hover #no-link-underline { text-decoration: none; } #siteNotice .text-one-line { font-size: 3.08em; font-weight: bold; } #siteNotice div.grayBorder { border: 1px solid #bbb; background-color: #fbfbfb; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; overflow: hidden; } #siteNotice .nobr { white-space: nowrap; } #siteNotice img { border-style: none; } #center-logo { padding: 0 20px; background-color: #fbfbfb; margin-bottom: 10px; } #siteNotice .notice-wrapper { position: relative; width: 100%; height: 100px; border: 1px solid #bbb; background-color: #fbfbfb; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; overflow: hidden; } #siteNotice .toggle-box { float: right; font-size: 0.6em; } #siteNotice .blue-text { font-weight: bold; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #6e98c2; text-align: left; margin:auto; width:100%; } /* Notice 2 and up */ #siteNotice .notice-collapsed-wrapper { position: relative; border: 1px solid #bbb; background-color: #fbfbfb; padding: 1px 20px; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; color: #6e98c2; } #siteNotice .notice-collapsed-wrapper img { padding: 0 5px; margin-bottom: -1px; } #siteNotice .collapsed-text { margin-left: 10px; font-size: 0.7em; font-weight: normal; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; color: #333; } #small-links { float: right; margin-top: -25px; margin-right: 30px; font-family: helvetica, impact, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; } #small-links2 { position: absolute; bottom: 16px; right: 32px; font-size: 0.7em; } #siteNotice .quote-text { } #siteNotice .quote-data { font-size: .8em; color: black; font-weight: normal; } #siteNotice .center1 { font-weight: bold; color: #6e98c2; vertical-align: middle; } #siteNotice .meter-text { color: black; } #siteNotice .lines-1 { font-size: 2.25em; } #siteNotice .lines-2 { font-size: 1.85em; } #siteNotice .lines-3 { font-size: 1.52em; }

I've already attempted to fix this (by adding yet another class (notice-all)). Please see MediaWiki:Centralnotice-template-2009 Notice1 and MediaWiki:Centralnotice-template-2009 Notice1 Wikipedia2; if there are issues, please post here and I'll try to implement them as quickly as possible. I haven't modified the other CSS entries as I don't believe there's a reasonable chance of collision (and I don't want to introduce too many new variables at this point). Also, it should be noted that there's a delay (about 30 minutes, I think) between new code and seeing it live. --MZMcBride 06:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yay! My underlines are back. (Well not yet live, but whatever.) BTW, secure.wikimedia.org renders site notices immediately with no delay, so you can go there to test changes, just clear your cache when there. Dragons flight 06:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems the CentralNotice cache at en.wiki (and elsewhere) has now cleared. Things seem better. Thank you very much for the secure.wikimedia.org tip. :-) --MZMcBride 07:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Whitespace in IE

Right now, IE is adding extra whitespace above the slogan, so it is pushed down towards the bottom.

I've been playing with this and the best I've come up with is to set "height:0;" on the <a style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;" href="{{{donate-url}}}?utm_source=2009_Notice1&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2009">. That gets FF 3 and IE 8 to render the same vertical placement; however, I'm a little worried that some older browsers might not respect the height:100px on the enclosed table and thus ignore it. Dragons flight 07:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Banner not clickable in IE

As someone else pointed out, the banner is not clickable at all in IE 8. Dragons flight 08:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

yes, it doesn't work on IE 8.0.6001 ~Pyb

Shocked

I'm really shocked by this banner. So ugly, so big. Unprofessional, childish. The least you should do, is to make it 5 times smaller. Absolutely not clear that it is an invitation to donate. (But if it would be, I would actually withdraw my money if I was a donor). By the way, why should anyone donate if it is already sure that Wikipedia and even Wikimedia will last forever? Really, I think you have now found the ideal way to frighten away any donors. 132.229.117.120 09:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The banner is indeed very big and ugly. Also very 'American' in its message (by that I mean it is SHOUTING to the reader). 195.235.227.10 09:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If WMF wants a stupid banner to get money off people -- less than a fifth of which is actually spent on anything related to Wikipedia, and none of which goes to any of Wikipedia's contributors or maintainers -- can it at least say something less lame? 144.32.58.96 (talk) 09:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the banners are meant to get rid of the people who try to built Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, it seems they do not care at all about the readers and the workers on the many projects. Sad situation - Romaine 14:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Community Backlash

If your after feedback, see this fantastic collection of views on the english wikipedia village pump. You guys really did screw up on this one I'm afraid. Seddon 09:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If the plan was...

...to get Wikipedia's need of donations into the news, then that's probably going to work. If that wasn't actually the plan, then I propose adopting it as Plan B. Let's make a big drama out of the removal of these childish banners, until the press starts reporting about it. There is no such thing as bad news. Hans Adler 09:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The news that we're too incompetent to hire someone to put forth a slogan that doesn't make you cringe with embarrassment does not send the message that wikipedia has a future as a legitimate resource encyclopedia. It just makes us look childish and amateurish. How could it be incentive to donate to wikipedia knowing they'll waste the money? Please rethink. --IP69.226.103.13 10:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You can help us translate the 2009 fundraising messages.

"OUR SLOGAN WRITER USES A C-64."

"The community response to this will cause more drama at an ad agency than a series of Mad Men."

"You know we argued really hard for a <blink> tag, but it got shot down."

"Our arrogance knows no boundaries."

I just don't think I'm conveying the nuance of the original, maybe other people need to help me out here. You can help us translate the 2009 fundraising messages. Fifelfoo 09:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

yeah at least they didn't get the fucking <marquee> tag on there this time... sheesh.... 144.32.58.96 09:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, please don't transfer that message, "Wikimedia Forever" into any other languages. It will still sound like the drivel it is. --IP69.226.103.13 10:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia Forever?

Seriously, if WMF actually paid money for this eyesore, then they got ripped off. This is something I would have felt nervous about using in my high school newspaper, and to have such an amateurish (and evidently widely hated) slogan on the top of a top-10-in-the-world-website is frankly embarrassing. The whole fundraising shebang should be put on hold until someone comes up with a slogan that's not so utterly cringeworthy. Craig Franklin 08:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC).

+1 --79.247.31.125 08:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC) And: Not one cent!

[Fixed your Wikipedia link. Should probably be a permanent link, though.] --MZMcBride 09:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like GDR propaganda. See the discussions at German Wikipedia and German translation page here. --Pjacobi 10:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Better German translation

"Wenn Sie uns nicht Ihr ganzes Geld überweisen, werden Kleinkinder wegen dieses Banners an Augenkrebs sterben!" 82.113.121.24 09:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Erinnert mich irgendwie an die DDR. Da gab auch so schöne Banner für Blinde, wie Ewige Freundschaft mit den Völkern der Sowjetunion!. --91.41.91.225 10:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Where's that? It's bizarre. (Oh, it's a sarcastic recommendation.) Incidentally the German translation of "Wikipedia forever" is "Strengthen Wikipedia [logo] for the future", which is not too bad (the donation page has the rather clumsier "Wikipedia [logo] For the future!"). Rd232 13:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Politbureau will be contacting all of you shortly. Wekipediya tikdem! -- Llywrch 18:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Translation suggestions should be placed on the translation's talk page: Talk:Fundraising 2009/core messages/de. Cbrown1023 talk 23:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Harhar, there were several. But they were obviously ignored. --Catfisheye 00:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

That was a sarcastic suggestion: "If you don't send us all of your money, your toddlers will die from eye cancer." The other comment was about banners in the GDR like "Friendship forever with the peoples of the Soviet Union". --X-Weinzar 04:46, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Explanation?

How exactly are we supposed to interpret "Wikipedia forever"? I guess that it was meant to be aspirational, as in "Wikipedia: it should be forever" or "Give the gift of Wikipedia forever". But the way I read it (helped along by the 'shouting'), it sounds like an appeal to en:ingroup - along the lines of "I am with Wikipedia forever!", "You're part of Wikipedia, forever!". Judging by all the complaints of "propaganda", I think this is how other people are reading it too. For all of us not knowing what's in the minds of the Wikimedia Foundation, what was it meant to be? AySz88 04:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Jesus Christ

What a horrible obnoxious banner. Imbeciles. 89.100.67.231 11:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Lessons to learn

Note: This section is in progress.

Some of the lessons to be learned for the next banners / next year:

1. Wiktionaries and other non-Wikipedia projects want their logos used, not the Wikipedia globe;
   • On Wikipedia-projects, the Wikipedia globe is now two times on top of the page. Just leave the logo away. 132.229.117.120 09:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
2. Be sure to test in every major browser in multiple configurations — the current banners are entirely unclickable in IE8 and the collapsed banner is nearly illegible with high resolutions;
3. <style> tag elements need to be specific; the banners broke link underlining behavior for a few hours;
4. Come up with a less lame slogan;
5. The "hide" button should actually HIDE the effing thing. If we don't want to see it we don't want to see it. I'm not going to give you any money regardless.

Please feel free to add other lessons to learn. --MZMcBride 09:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Less is more. People get angry of big fonts and caps. Big fonts and caps express anger, impatience, shouting, childisness, and / or arrogance (and possibly many more negative emotions) in at least some cultures. 132.229.117.120 09:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought lesson 1 was already learned! This has been a running problem for years  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Please remove the exclamation mark "！" in the zh- variants

The mark is not in the translation page, I don't know for sure why that appears. But, please could anyone remove that from the Central Notice, because it just breaks the balance between the words. Thanks.--Jimmy Xu 10:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Cbrown1023 talk 23:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

A chat log

• bleh, connection dropped
• Did you see my request for opinion?
  • Becky: no
• you use Wikipedia every now and then, right?
• not regularly, but.... sometimes.
• Right?
  • Becky: use it as in a reference, yes.
• Right
• okay. We've got a fundraiser going now
• and
• with the fundraiser
• comes a BANNER AD
• I'd like your opinion on the banner ad
  • Becky: bleh. that's my opinion.
• Did you look?
  • Becky: no. you didn't give me a link or anything.
• ah
• it's on every single Wikipedia page now
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page
  • Becky: that sure is a banner.
  • and it certainly doesn't encourage you to click on it.
  • it doesn't tell you that it's something important, if in fact it is.
• do you see a button marked 'hide' ?
  • Becky: yes
• try clicking on that
  • Becky: it doesn't actually hide it.
  • that's retarded.
• ....no?
  • Becky: it just makes it smaller.
• well, it works for me, but I'm logged in.
• oh, does it say anything different when you shrink it?
  • Becky: yeah, the text is almost too small to read and still doesn't encourage me to do much.
  • it's very ignorable.
• okay
• Are you okay with me relaying this chat log to the relevant people?
• you would be identified as "Becky"
  • Becky: you can if you want.

so that's my friend Becky's opinion. DS 13:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Becky seems very sensible. Pretzels 23:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

My dad, only a casual Wikipedia user who is also a project manager, says it "doesn't really mean anything - it doesn't convey a message". He says it looks like an anniversary celebration or somesuch rather than a request for money, people wouldn't know to click on it. Orderinchaos 01:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

severe Bug in Beta/IE8

On nl.wikipedia, a severe bug has been reported when clicking on "hide" in IE8 using Beta. See this figure. 132.229.117.120 14:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Big Bug in "hidden" fundraiser

This is how the "hidden" banner looks on my screen

The fundraising banner looks to me as Wikipedia showing off after several doses of highly illegal steroids: a lot of muscle, no brains.

But I have a more urgent objection: when I want to use my brain, I have to click hide, but then the encyclopedic content gets more or less hidden, pushed down by a large white space around the petite "hidden" banner, see illustration. I don't know whether IE8 or the new Dutch standard skin (In its last Beta tests) or something else is to fault, but please, can someone kill this big bug?

Thanks, B222 14:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Rendering of donation message with Opera 9.64 and Opera 10

Please have a look at the rendering with Opera 9.64 and Opera 10. The "donate by credit card" and "donate via paypal" buttons are very hard to read as you can see. I have no screenshot of the top-banner because it is not displayed anymore, but it was about the same, and was also hard to read. The top-banner is fine now, either it was fixed or I was wrong. But the donation buttons need to be fixed, they look horrible. I hope someone can fix this issue. Yours, Dodoïste 23:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

End of (work) Day update for 11/11/09 PST

Lots of progress made today:

1. Working on the IE6 and related browser glitches. Mostly fixed (some banners will just always look funky in some browsers). Final testing of banners tomorrow morning.
2. Un-capitalizing all the banners. (Done and done: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&template=2009_Notice1&wpUserLanguage=all). And new banners will not be all caps.
3. Re-working the display and back code for the credit card payment system. Half done. More adjustments were made. More on the morrow...none of the remaining issues are showstopping.
4. Another critical issue was resolved regarding our Anonymous/non-Anonymous showing on our Donor Comments page.
5. The Geo IP testing and implementation. This is working well, but we still expect a slow launch. It's tested, but we need to review under actual load conditions. Want to try it?

Click on this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GeoLite?lang=fr&?utm_source=2009_Notice11&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2009

If you live in France, you should see this page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Global_Support/fr . That's the French Chapter donation page.

If you don't live in France, you should see the regular French donation page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Support_Wikipedia/fr

What's happening Thursday?

1. Last testing of banners on different browsers.
2. We relaunch on Wikipedia only with the following messages: 'Wikipedia Forever' (33%), 'For your great, great, great grandson' (16%), 'For your great, great, great granddaughter' (16%) and 'Free Knowledge Forever. Ad-Free Forever. Wikipedia Forever.' (33%). (Maybe someone could link to them from the staging page?).
3. We monitor GEO IP settings and load in France as well as overall performance of our banners.
4. We work on tracking numbers for our banners and buttons.
5. We work on the infamous Ariel Extension (keeps users on their project pages when they give). It could go live shortly.
6. We continue work on project specific banners with project specific logos.

I appreciate all your help and comments. Please feel free to post on this page on any issues or questions. Rand Montoya 03:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Counter-productive message by me deleted but still in the page history. I needed to vent. --Daniel Mayer (mav) 04:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

"Ad-Free Forever." Well, actually I'm one of the few (?) Wikipedians that is in favour for ads, if well organized. We could do many good things with the money obtained from ads! I find it a very bad thing that by this campaign a position is taken in the debate about ads.

Moreover, saying "Add-free Forever" in an ad seems a bit self-contradicting to me... 132.229.117.120 09:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the wikimedia foundation has now accepted donations under the banner of "ad free forever"… Well, in my book it would be unethical to reverse on something like that. It seems ill-considered to close off that possibility for the future, though the messages being mildly embarrassing seems to be catching more attention. --Gmaxwell 16:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

So... basically, the community's views on the theme of the campaign are being set aside and we're continuing forward? Hm. Tony Fox 16:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know the slogan "Ad-Free Forever" has not yet been displayed. Not yet - still it is not to late. But as Gmaxwell says, as soon as the first donation has been accepted, there is no way back from an ethical perspective. So please PLEASE please Do Not Show The Slogan "Ad-Free Forever". 16:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• (e/c) Quoting from Rand Montoya's comment above: "We relaunch on Wikipedia only with the following messages: 'Wikipedia Forever' (33%), 'For your great, great, great grandson' (16%), 'For your great, great, great granddaughter' (16%) and 'Free Knowledge Forever. Ad-Free Forever. Wikipedia Forever.' (33%)." There's one significant issue about these slogans that nobody seems to have addressed: none of them imply that it's part of a fundraiser. They don't convey any meaning, or even suggest that the banner can be clicked. The casual reader might think that we were just bragging about ourselves. This would, at the least, look silly and unprofessional. Feedback from from some non-WP users suggests they also feel this way. If we're obliged to use the slogans (which I still think are completely unsuitable), we could at least add a "Donate today!" or "Please support" message below them to clarify what the whole thing is about. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Cultural awareness

As the protests at :EN have shown, all of this "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER" Wiki-cultish stuff is even too heavy for an American audience. For the US you do need rather aggressive advertising but can you imagine how much more in-your-face-ish this campaign comes across to people in countries that value understatement more? In Germany, for example, being shouted at with "FOREVER" stuff reminds people of communist party slogans in the GDR and also the Nazi propaganda in Hitler's "Tausendjährigem Reich" (= the empire that was supposed to exist 1000 years = "forever"). Same thing applies to wiki-cultish stuff like "Our shared knowledge. Our shared treasure. Help us protect it." or "We write it. We share it. We improve it. Now let’s protect it." Those are slogans you would expect in China, for example. What may come to a German's mind is Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer — "One People, One Nation, One Leader". Ouch! Has anyone over there ever heard of such a thing called cultural awareness? By the way, some people felt reminded of en:George Wallace's "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" so "forever-slogans" are probably not a good choice even in the US. --X-Weinzar 04:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Point of information: Americans are not that fond of aggressive advertising either. As a result, it is only used to promote such quality goods as payday loans, fast food, cheap furniture, used cars and politicians. (On the plus side, at least we don't have to deal with sound trucks -- although there have been a few elections where I would have preferred them to the campaign ads.) -- Llywrch 18:11, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not just Germans who feel that way. "Ein Volk..." was the first thing to come to my mind as well. --65.101.119.25 23:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The banner is just agressive - I pressed "hide" instantly. Luckely its now gone from the DE:WP, but it threatens to reappear. Has the foundation already paid the designer of this desaster? --Eingangskontrolle 16:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Cultural awareness is taken into account in the translation process. I know of three specific groups of translators (Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavians) who adjusted the language of the slogans to fit better in their cultural contexts – we encourage this: Fundraising 2009/Translations. I'm assuming you didn't see it on dewp, otherwise you'd know that it said: "Stärke Wikipedia für die Zukunft!" which isn't really the same as "WIKIPEDIA FOREVER". Cbrown1023 talk 23:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Why do have the unpaid volunteers to take the cultural awareness into account, when a PR company was paid with donation money to create a PR campaign for the Wikimedia projects? Shouldn't that company take care of that too, the majority of Wikimedia projects aren't en.Wikipedia after all? --89.246.212.83

Moreover, especially en.wikipedia is read in many, many cultures. So especially the campaign on en.wikipedia should prevent cultural bias as much as possible. 132.229.117.120 16:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The German blogosphere is laughing about Wikipedia and is ranting in promoting one euro donations. Of course the costs for receiving such donations are more expensive. The WMF did damage the project with this unprecedented unprofessional banner campaign. Thank you very much. --88.102.101.245 06:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

links? My understanding is that this "one-euro donation" thing relates to the recent German Wikipedia "Relevanz" (notability) debate, not the banners, with the one-euro-donation giving people a chance to leave prominent protest comments. Rd232 12:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• That and "[name] Forever" is what I'd expect a fourteen-year-old girl to scrawl on her binder, declaring her everlasting love for this week's romantic partner. --24.79.231.57 16:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Open source --> Free knowledge

Please change 'open source' to 'free knowledge' or 'free software', as noted here: Talk:Fundraising_2009/core_messages#.22Open_Source.22 Thanks, Sj+ translate 13:45, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I second this motion. 88.148.208.105 06:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

So? Is this going to be changed?--OsamaK 02:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Put the logo on the right for rtl languages

Wikipedia logo should be on the right side for right-to-left languages (ar,he,fa,ur,..), instead of left. Please change that.--OsamaK 02:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that not only the logo needs to be rtl, but the whole message.--OsamaK 02:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please do something about it? It looks ugly.--OsamaK 14:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Pointers to this page

Please consider putting pointers on Talk:Support_Wikipedia/en and http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Talk:Support_Wikipedia/en as well as similar pages in other languages that let people know they can provide feedback here. Jokestress 04:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a link there, thanks. Cbrown1023 talk 13:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Full localization

Please add "&uselang=xx" and, in case of right-to-left languages, "&rtl=1" to the link of the donations page for a better localization. BTW, isn't the non-MediaWiki-style interface (that was used last year) more beautiful?--OsamaK 06:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

We try to not use &uselang because it doesn't stick... when the people navigate to other pages, the ?uselang setting is lost and they assume they did something wrong/get worried. Cbrown1023 talk 13:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Issue with Geo-IP

When clicking on the banner in de.wikipedia.org, I do not allways land on the right landing page (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Global_Support/de), but sometimes on the landing page for users from outside of Germany (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Support_Wikipedia2/de). Could this please be fixed?--Pavel Richter 07:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Same issue for France. Actually, I tried many many times and it seems the majority of time the banner is the general one. Anthere 13:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

50% of the time you should land on Global Support/de and the other 50% on Support Wikipedia/de. Tomasz is working on fitting the second landing page into GeoIP (we need to make sure that we can get Special:GeoIP to redirect people to Support Wikipedia *and* Support Wikipedia2). This should be fixed soon, it's just a temporary issue at the beginning. Cbrown1023 talk 13:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• Working on this issue now. If you're here and having problems, would you post your IP address as well? It will help us track down the problem. Thanks. Rand Montoya 18:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not see the chapter page at all since this morning. Ant. My IP:l 90.52.172.60 18:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

This is likely because of our load testing as we only have GeoIP on for 50% of banner views. To test explicitly please follow this link and report back which page you hit.

I believe this issue to be resolved, but I am easily proven wrong. Please post additional problems here. Rand Montoya 01:55, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia forever

It is just embarassing that the fundraising banner says "Wikipedia" instead of "Wikimedia" forever... I could understand this on a banner at Wikipedia itself, but at other projects it is just wrong...--Kozuch 16:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Which projects are you talking about? I'm under the impression that the banner is only live on certain Wikipedias (de.wiki and en.wiki, mostly) right now. I don't see it on projects like en.wiktionary (though that could be my cache). Where do you see it? --MZMcBride 16:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The banner seems to be on strategy: (but not on any other non-WP projects, as far as i can tell). Tempodivalse [talk] 16:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I have asked - many times - to have that changed. For some reason, there's a technical hiccup. We're working on it, Kozuch. In the meantime, I just spoke with Rand and we disabled the banners locally at Strategy, since theoretically those users are being served the banner other places. --Philippe 18:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

why?

Why should I donate? What is the vision? Where is a link to the data or finances or anything?

I have donated in the past (look it up). But I don't feel compelled to this time.

And why should I donate, if a not small part of the Money is blown out of the window? (See next paragraph). --Carbenium 17:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

If you decide to click through the banner, and then manage to find the FAQ link on the landing page, you'll find links to actual details like this. This was all much more prominent in previous years. --brion 22:26, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

$250,000 ???!

Hi, I really CAN'T imagine, what part of the campaing takes so much money. I consider the expense of such an amount of mones (more than 6% of the outcome of (one of) the last fundraising campaigns!) as an irresponsible, unaccountable and unjustifiable waste (you could also say: as a misappropriation) of hard acquired donated funds. And not only as we have as an international poject w/ many of thousands contributors surely many marketing experts between us who would also surely do the work ik a wiki-like way for free, but also because I think, it would be possible to engage a marketing company for a way less money and to a much more reasonable price.
I'd highly like to have a look at a detailed line-up of this project. Greetz, Carbenium 17:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is extremly bad value for money. As an IT professional, I hold the opinion that neither the visual nor technical design, nor the content of this banners is worth anything near a quarter million dollars. It's more like something a student would have happily stiched together for 1000 dollars, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly how Fenton did it. -- Theoprakt 07:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:Fundraising_2009/Alternative_banners#An_update_on_the_fundraiser for WMF response. Rd232 11:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, I just read the text. Since it is a cooperation for 11 months, there is spent ca. $23K a month. In other words: Fenton has to accomplish the work of possibly 5 full-time-equivalents. What are they doing all the time? Wasn't it better to recruit one or two own marketing-people (if the foundation believes, it can't trust / use the community's experience and knowledge – which in my eyes is a confession of failure) for a longer period of time – $250K could possibly pay two people for at least 2 years. And: Since WP is one of the world's widest-known internet-sites, I don't see necessity for other PR-Work than the fundraising-related one.

Furthermore the investment must generate an appropriate refund – that means, the work of Fenton has to cause an increase of donations of more than $23K per month to be an adequte return-of-investment. I can't imagine, how this should work. --Carbenium 17:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not just about fundraising. They also want Fenton to help modify the public image of Wikimedia. I don't really know what that means, but it could be things like increasing the awareness of Wikimedia (as opposed to Wikipedia), increasing the awareness of our licensing model, making people see Wikipedia as more reliable, or any number of other things. Dragons flight 19:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: I think, it would be really effective and helpful to mention this in the fundraising banner. --Carbenium 17:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Landing page redux

If I click on the banner I am offered the page at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Global_Support/uk?utm_source=2009_EM1Notice&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2009&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3AWatchlist. Note the "/uk?" in the middle there: that I am located in the UK is being recognised. So whey then am I being asked to donate in US$? --Alison Wheeler 18:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

We let the chapters control their own landing pages, so the reason you're being asked to donate in USD is because they didn't change it. I changed it. Cbrown1023 talk 20:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The form on that page is for the donations to the WMF only, not for WMUK, so it's up to the WMF to modify it. WMUK's form is at http://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/ - and that has GBP only on it. Mike Peel 21:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Ariel extension?

There was mention above of an extension which will allow donations whilst staying within a project. Is there any more information available on this, and any idea when it could be implemented. It sounds like it would resolve some of the concerns at other projects (e.g. on Wikinews) which have been about the Wikipedia centred donation page. the wub "?!" 23:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oh yeah...I would love to have that up and working and implemented. Sadly, it's going to have to wait until next week. It'll be a nice feature. We absolutely have tried to take the other projects into account and the Ariel Extension is a large part of that work. It won't solve the banner logo issue, that's a separate fix. Sorry, I don't have a way to show it off yet. Rand Montoya 01:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I would be very interested in getting an early look at this. Is there even a high-level specification available for this somewhere?

Incidentally, perhaps worth taking a look at the main page of en.wikinews right now. There is a Donate link in the page header now — not just intended to be fundraiser-only — to feature there permanently. For this in Wikinews-specific use the linked-to page would have to be on-project with full access to all the other MediaWiki extensions (Flagged Revisions, Dynamic Page Lists). A news wiki soliciting donations should up-front justify asking; that means the donate page would feature a list of latest news, or the current top 2-3 lead stories.

A last point on Ariel is that — to me — it would be very important to be able to filter donor's comments that originated from Wikinews. These are the ones where project admins could select examples to highlight on the project-specific donate page. And, per a point of mine RJD imported, the page should be secure (https); not the convoluted 'standard' secure domain, but http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Donate --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

seamonkey 1.1.17

Still borken Geni 02:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, that looks like a SeaMonkey / local issue to me. Split globe? WTF. --MZMcBride 06:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

payments server is currently offline

I get the following message when trying to doante by credit card: "The payments server is currently offline due to a scheduled maintence window. Please check back after 4AM PST. If you would like to donate during this time window please follow the link from our Support Page to donate through paypal." I suppose such things happen, but I do hope you're tracking somehow how many people end up with this message, this could mean a lot less money received. Regards, Finn Rindahl 10:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Security of Donate page

I saw this point made at Wikinews:Fundraiser, and copy it here:

• "There is a form to fill in if you wish to donate; the page is not secure (https:), and there is no notice emphasising the next step will be secure."

Rd232 11:43, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Secret Advertising

I know wikipedia doesnt want to advertise, but would it be profitable to put a google ad on, perhaps, the adsense article, or the google article, not only as a reference but to make some profit too? Maybe even use the adsense searchbar at the bottom of the page (since theres not already a web search system). It could effectivly earn money (since it is one of the most visited sites in the world) without giving the appearance of advertising at all. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.138.50.226 (talk)

No. Gigs 16:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Partly translated sitenotices

1. In zh-yue:, "Wikipedia Forever" and "Donate Now" is displayed in Cantonese, but "Knowledge Forever Ad-Free Forever Wikipedia Forever" is still in English.
2. In zh-classical:, "Wikipedia Forever" and "Knowledge Forever Ad-Free Forever Wikipedia Forever" is displayed in Classical Chinese, but "Donate Now" (the blue button) is still in English.

--Manyin 14:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The Ad banner remains even after donating

I would appreciate the ad banner for "Wikipedia Forever" being removed after donating. Job's done, so it doesn't need to be there, and it's starting to irritate. It's like donating money to your favourite charity (like, say, Wikipedia), and they still knock on your door every day to ask for money. The irony is that the banner says Ad-Free Forever! SilkTork 15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello,

I think its pretty easy to fix when you press hide after donating, I do not think its technical possible to remove the banner after donating because you could work from a internet cafe, open proxy and all kind of stuff that makes sure it can be hidden per person, and ofcourse the possible way to donate anonymous. Just press Hide and its gone :)

Best regards,

Huib talk 19:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If your "home wiki" is enwiki, go to en:Special:Preferences, then the "gadgets" tab, then check "Suppress display of the fundraiser banner." Killiondude 20:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Which will suppress fundraising messages indefinitely, and the donater won't see future fundraising campaigns. Not ideal! Rd232 10:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Credit Card form

If someone know where it lives, the banner on the credit card form (reached by clicking "donate by credit card" on the donation landing page) is still all uppercase. Dragons flight 09:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

some points

• 1) defective fundraising-box on wp
• 2) defective hidden fundraising-box
• 3) fundraising-box collides with geo-coordination
• 4) hidden fundraising-box collides with the fundrising message-text
• 5) the message was (until the local community rewrite it. thx to Pavel for example) a total desaster for the german campaign. some of the original messages are historical (in D-A-CH more than bad) associated. others are simply embarrassing for a global project with educational emphasis and colides with the core of the trademark.
• 6) some spanish users told me, that the spanish subtext isn`t better localized (other example)
• 7) media feedback? well, i have read nothing in the european press
• 8) no single project adjustment. no special slogans for wikiquote, commons, etc.

the core question is: why is this campaign a local (us-american) concept with a global validity claim?

• request local chapters & community to localize the core message to the most important markets beside usa: unknown (but if the german example is representative....)
• test of the box, included the potential conflicts with local features like geo-coordinates?: insufficient

let's hope, that this campaign reaches its target und collects 250000 $ more than planned, regards --Jan eissfeldt 12:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia a gossip project?

There are media like NY Times whose design reminds me of reliability and quality contents. There are other papers like The Sun whose design reminds me of paternalism, gossip content and half-truth.

There are unobstrusive banners and there are our banners. I truly believe that this year's campaign is not good at all for the project's reputation. I plead for more decent campaigns in the next years, but I'm afraid that in future I'll have to scroll to get to the banners' bottom (at least this fear illustrates the last years' trends). → «« Man77 »» ^[de]·[bar] 18:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Banner height

I'm not sure if it is intentional or not, but the two banners definitely appear to be different sizes on FF 3. The Wikipedia Forever one is taller. If that's not intentional, then perhaps someone should look at standardizing the height. Dragons flight 19:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Twitter Integration

Surely wikimedia isn't so far behind the times to use 200 characters (60 too many) to provide feedback with a donation, and then not to give the option to instantly tweet it out! Twitter and Wikipedia both allow anyone to contribute to the collective knowledge of the culture, wikipedia should be big-sibling-ing and toss some integration over. Could also do it for edit history comments. Of course, on twitter no one has to agree with you. --98.26.55.181 05:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Use of JavaScript in the banner ad

is stupid and unnecessary. You don't want glitz, you want donations. --User talk:88.148.208.105

I think people like being able to collapse the banner. JavaScript is used for these global banners in general to avoid search engine cache pollution and as it allows for quick updates. --MZMcBride 06:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the biggest factor is to avoid thrashing Wikimedia's internal squid caches every time a banner is changed or rotated. Dragons flight 07:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Also means you never see the things in any way with JS turned off. --89.246.209.255 09:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Project-specific page render bugs

• Kurdish: moves the whole article page to the right one screen. Not sure what combination of the page's wikimarkup and the banner's makes this happen -- http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destp%C3%AAk

Number of Wikipedia articles banner

[http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&template=2009_Notice14]

A couple comments on this:

1. Its not really necessary (and technically wrong) to specify "in millions" in the title, then add a "M" after the number. I'm pretty sure we don't have 13 trillion articles :)
2. Where did the 25 million target come from? Was this arbitrarily chosen, or are we just going to shut down the sites once we hit it?

-- Mr.Z-man 04:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I brought this same issue up in the Wikipedia main talk page, but nobody seems to have paid any attention to it :( Cribananda 06:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Completely agree the million million thing makes us look very amateurish. Also wondering why 25 million? Should we now stop adding articles once we reach 25 million? - Dumelow 10:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the above issues, I can think of no better way to convey that we value quantity over quality. A great many of those articles are rubbish, and we're proudly trumpeting their existence and encouraging people to keep creating them as rapidly as possible. —David Levy 13:57, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't believe that the million/M problem still hasn't been fixed after nearly a whole day. It must have been seen by hundreds of thousands of people now. If this had been an error on wikipedia's main page it would have been dealt with within half an hour at most - Dumelow 20:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Number of wikipedia articles banner should be removed

[relocated from lower on the page]

I think that banner should be removed asap, due to following:

• it gives the signal we are planning to make 10.5M articles this fundraiser
• it gives the impression we have a target of 25M articles
• it gives the signal we think quantity if better than quality

AzaToth 19:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with talking about the number of articles we've created (quantity also matters, and our breadth is a large part of our utility), but it isn't good to suggest that there is a specific goal (and certainly not a near term goal).

Perhaps could say something like: "Your support has helped Wikipedia grow to X million articles. Donate today.", but without including the thermometer. Dragons flight 20:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree 100%. Who the hell came up with the figure of 25 million articles? I know you think thermometers are good, but they have to make some kind of sense... Trebor 23:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Update for Monday 11/16 PST

Hey All--

Acknowledging that our early fundraising efforts extremely slow (less than 50% from last year) so we are switching up messaging and testing some new messages and approaches.

In addition, we continue to make strides to our significant technical hurdles:

1. GEO IP: I believe, but could be wrong, that this is working well. I continue to monitor things here. I'm finally going to knock this one off the list.
2. Credit Card Payment gateway page has been re-skinned (in addition to other improvements) for an even better donor experience.
3. Tracking: We continue to make progress towards both cleaning up some errant data and providing accurate public reporting. I expect that we will have something presentable on Wednesday at the earliest.
4. The titles of our primary donation page on WikimediaFoundation.org is no longer visible and annoying.
5. New Site Notices: After a weekend of data, we have significantly adjusted our messaging to both test and explore how our users respond to different messages.

We are running these on Non-English Wikipedia sites:

• Wikipedia Forever 50%
• Thermometer - Article 25%
• Thermometer - Users 25%

We are now in the following rotation on English Wikipedia:

• Wikipedia Forever 20%
• Thermometer - Article 20%
• Now WP needs you 20%
• WP Powered by you 20%
• Ad Free WP 20%

Still on the list for tomorrow (smaller items not included):

1. Tracking!
2. Cleaning up our errant data.
3. Plan next set of banners including a possible community banner. We should have a post up soon @alternate banners for process.
4. The infamous and dreaded Ariel Extension.
5. Project Specific Banner
6. Discussion of solution to Javascript banners and donation page.
7. Do reasonable followup on some possible fraudulent donations.

As always, I appreciate your questions and comments. Rand Montoya 04:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Why not just ditch "Wikipedia Forever" once and for all. Its hugelly unpopular among editors and from what you've said it's been a disaster in terms of performance aswell. Acer 10:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh and this "...Omidyar Network has generously offered to provide up to $500,000 to match individual donations between $100 and $9,999 made during the Wikimedia Foundation's 2009-10 fundraising drive. The purpose of the matching grant is to encourage people to donate a slightly larger amount than they otherwise might have..." needs to be prominently displayed somewhere. Its not going to encorage people to donate if they don't know about it! Acer 13:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the thermometers for articles or users - I assume they're raising awareness that we're growing in more ways than simply financially - but where are the upper numbers coming from? At least, this is the question that I suspect potential donors will be asking: if they are telling me that they need $7M, do they similarly 'need' xM users/articles? Cormaggio ^@ 17:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I find that confusing too, I'm worried people will take that to mean that they need to go to Wikipedia and create a bunch of articles... which isn't really a good thing, since they'll probably end up getting speedied. Cbrown1023 talk 02:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm moderately more comfortable with the current group of banners with the thermometers; these at least are providing goals, stronger statements, and a less in-your-face attitude than the terrible "Wikipedia Forever" smack-upside-the-head banners. The thermometers give an indication of where the program is aiming to go, and should provide viewers with a greater sense of need. This is more like it - still not hugely thrilled with the whole thrust of the campaign, but at least this is a step forward. Tony Fox 23:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

How many total articles on WP?

The currently running banner says that there are 13.3 million articles in total on Wikipedia, but List of Wikipedias reports closer to 14.4. Where is the 13.3 number coming from?--Danaman5 06:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

It says 14.3 now, thanks for the note. Cbrown1023 talk 02:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles notice translation

Despite the fact that normally this message has been localized and published in lb, I nevertheless got the message in english. Is there someting additional that has to be done from the tranlators part? Robby 06:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you still experiencing this issue? It looks fine to me now. Cbrown1023 talk 02:34, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing link problems

Some Wikipedia banners continue to have javascript GoToDonationPage() problems. "Donate Now" buttons all work.

Clicking the text link or the thermometer on a thermometer template (instead of the button) sends donors here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Support_Wikipedia/en&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2009&utm_source=2009_Notice30&target=Support_Wikipedia2

Also discussion pages should take people somewhere or have a soft redirect:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Talk:Support_Wikipedia2/en

Could someone who has been granted a Foundation account please check all links as they go live? Jokestress 07:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Which browser/OS are you experiencing the link issues on?--Eloquence 07:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Firefox/Mac (both latest/greatest). I don't think it's a browser issue, though. Some (not all) banners don't have the images and text linked to the donation page. Jokestress 08:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't reproduce this, but we'll investigate.--Eloquence 08:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Jokestress, are you still experiencing this issue? Is anyone else?--Eloquence 02:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I think I experienced it once or twice a day or two ago, but I haven't had any issues since then. They were probably just minor hiccups in GEOIP's redirecting. Cbrown1023 talk 03:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

banner showing number of wikipedia articles

The banner showing 'Number of Wikipedia articles (in millions)' is still in English on Welsh Wikipeida (cy) although the rest of the core messages appear to be all in Welsh. Can somebody let me know how to fix this? Lloffiwr 13:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems like this has already been fixed, sometimes it takes time for the translations to update. Cbrown1023 talk 02:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

currency not updated

The donate form lacks logic handling change of currency in the input filed, and still has the pre filled USD amounts which is possibly irrelevant for other currencies. AzaToth 19:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

USD duplicated in drop down

In the dropdown of currencies USD is found twice. AzaToth 19:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a feature, not a bug. ;) The default currency is listed at the top (no matter what it is), above the --, followed by the list of all possible currencies. See wmf:Support Wikipedia/de and wmf:Support Wikipedia/zh-hant for example. Cbrown1023 talk 01:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Who can get things done?

This is a general question. If there is a problem with a banner or a donation page, etc., then who is actually able to fix it? Since CentralNotice is administered from Meta, does that mean that Meta admins in general have the ability to fix problems with the banners? What about the donation pages temselves, who controls them? Dragons flight 22:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

If it's an obvious, clear-cut, technical fix, I'd say that any person who has access to the interface can fix it. If it's a more complicated issue, a message here or to someone like Rand would definitely be better than trying to tackle the issues alone. The same stands for the donation pages – anyone who has access (those with WMFwiki accounts) should feel free to make changes that are obvious. Cbrown1023 talk 02:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

500 million?

The banner says that already 330 million are contributed and 500 Million is the goal. Sometimes it shows "12 Million of 25 Million". But of what? I cannot image that half a billion USD or euros are needed. Could you please add the currency unit? Merlissimo 22:49, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not talking about money, it's talk about readers. Since you're from the German Wikipedia, I assume this question is about the German Banner([3]). It says we have 330 Millionen *Leser* der Wikipedia (readers), not that we have $330 million. Cbrown1023 talk 02:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Non-secure site notice

I was put off from donating by the message that my information was about to be transmitted to a non-secure site. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coreillygreen (talk) 04:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Moved here from talk page. AySz88 00:34, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

At what point in the process do you see such a notice? Dragons flight 01:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Update for Tuesday 11/17/09 PST

Hey All--

Another day of testing and tweaking and improvement.

Most of the day was spent on fixing our various donation streams, tracking, and reporting.

I'm very happy to say that this page is mostly accurate: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics with about 550 gifts missing from our start. We are still tracking why these donations were not passed through to CiviCRM, but our audit was able to identify them and we'll get them uploaded over the coming days.

In addition, we got most of our 'bad' data corrected (like the 25000 yen(?) donation that was registering as 25000 USD).

I was able to breathe a bit and sent out long late emails to WM HU, WM RU, & WM IL about getting chapter donation pages up.

Yesterday's banner switch has generated some nice results: nearly 2000 donations and over $60K in total.

We continue to tweak things to find some messages that resonate with people. I really believe that different messages appeal to different people. At the same time, we still work with our Fenton partners to keep our messages on the overarching theme.

As of 5:30 today, we're on the following rotation:

Non-English Wikipedia:

• Thermometer Articles 25%
• Thermometer Users 25%
• Wikipedia Needs You 50%

English Wikipedia:

• Wikpedia Needs You 60%
• Wikipedia Ad-Free 20%
• People Powered You 20%

Tomorrow:

1. Work on the banner plan for the next 9 days..several key staff want to go home on weekends and during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and want to prepare as much in advance of that as possible.
2. Additional updates to the CC Payment Page.
3. Continued work on our tracking statistics, including entering in missing gifts.
4. The oldies: the nefarious "Ariel Extension" and Project Banners (someday these will get working...I keep dreaming).
5. Work on our Paypal-WMF reporting and reconciliation. Need to do refunds better and more quickly.
6. Numerous and varied other things.

As always, I appreciate your questions and comments.

-Rand