
I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary. - k3dz
https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=L11_1123_combo10B_PFP/en/US
======
aresant
Brilliant headline.

But man, I would love to help Wikipedia optimize their campaign.

I know they work on CRO internally but on this page, for instance, I see 30%+
sitting on the table with:

a) Fix the headline - Wikimedia's headline is "From Wikipedia programmer
Brandon Harris". The OP in this thread fixed by taking the very compelling
first line "I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary." Still needs
an action for scanners (80% of your readers).

b) Call to Action Needs to be More Obvious - The call to action doesn't appear
as a link in the copy, users will miss the box on top right. Eye @ end of
article flows to the "give monthly" link. The box at the top right falls into
the deadzone of visual attention. An arrow would be cheesy, but effective, as
would hyperlinks in the text w/strong call to action text.

c) Edit the Copy & Formatting - The copy concept is outstanding. The
formatting and paragraph structure needs to be edited down. The old "If I'd
had more time i would have written you a shorter letter" - eg word economy.
Could be as powerful or more-so with moderate editing. Needs sub-headlines,
just something like "How can you help?" lets scanners quickly read the
headline, first paragraph and jump right into donate mode.

d) Humanize Brandon - Get a picture of Brandon on there for goodness sakes.
Humanizing the page with an actual image almost always works.

e) Fix Your CC Page - The click through to the donate page is bizarrely
formatted with the form on the far right. Why introduce more ad-copy when
somebody has indicated they want to donate? Reduce friction, don't introduce
more. Better yet partner w/Amazon or somebody to process donations that's
trusted and makes payments absurdly easy (PayPal doesn't count)

f) Leverage the Exit Action - I get that Wikipedia is a foundation but hit
some of the basic fun commerce drivers like a little javascript exit pop like
"Want to help but don't have the cash? Donate 60 seconds instead." and drive
to a simple FB / Twitter screen to have people push to social on the drive.

g) Tweak your Buttons - These buttons feel like government issue desks. You
might argue that this helps give them credibility as a charity to look a
little off-the-shelf, but that is one of the most basic things to tweak. Build
a button people can't resist rolling over, and they'll click it more and take
more actions. Period.

I love Wikipedia, I want to help. Who do I go bother?

If anybody from Wikipedia is out there I am raising my hand, I want to donate
time and expertise. Contact me via profile.

~~~
ksri
h) I entered my credit card details and submitted, but couldn't proceed
because zip code and state are mandatory. I do not stay in the US, so those
fields don't make sense to me. You are alienating non US citizens.

~~~
Arjuna
Try this link [1]. It appears to be slightly different from the one in the
original submission.

This link allows donations in various currencies, although some are only
available via credit card, while others require the use of PayPal.

The credit card details form that displays after clicking "Donate by Credit
Card" offers "Outside the U.S." as an option for the "State". Also, there is a
"Postal code" field, which is hopefully more friendly for those without a Zip
Code. Finally, there is a drop-down list for selecting "Country/Region".

There are also alternative donation methods, described here [2].

[1] <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Now/en>

[2] <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en>

------
markmccraw
Given that it costs less than $20 million to run Wikipedia (cite:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_10_11From_KPMG.pdf)),
that seems completely attainable without needing to change the nature of
Wikipedia by introducing advertising.

A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people
who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would
be little opportunity for any conflict of interest. Even if someone high
profile donated a large sum that would only be one profile to monitor for any
potential bias.

Here's why I think ads would be a terrible idea:

_________

ADVERTISING

Pros:

More Money

Cons:

Integrity possibly compromised

Contributors might leave

Readers might trust Wikipedia less

\-----------------

DONORS

Pros:

Maintains editorial independence

Maintains trust of readers and contributors

Cons:

Harder to raise money

__________

Ads are a lazy solution. I can't think of a single benefit to Wikipedia or its
users other than "it would be so easy to meet the budget."

~~~
roel_v
Back when I was a young lad, there used to be these things that had sort of
the same issues. They were a stack of 'paper' (pressed wood pulp) sheets that
content was 'printed' on (a black substance called 'ink' was sprayed on them).
People used to write for them during the day, they were produced ('printed')
at night and teenagers would deliver them in the morning so that people back
then could still read news reasonably fast after it had happened.

Anyway, they had the same issues about ads and editorial independence, yet
somehow they seemed to be able to continue to be trusted despite having ads.
And get this, even though they had ads, you still had to pay for them, too!
Those were some strange days...

~~~
obtu
Today's news is almost entirely ad-funded, with a lot of the story work done
ahead of time by PR agencies. It's not a shining example of editorial
independence.

------
RockyMcNuts
Not sure which would be less annoying - a few Adsense links clearly marked and
off on the side, or the ginormous banner and somewhat overwrought copy.

~~~
skrebbel
I don't think "annoying" is one of the reasons why they don't do ads.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
hopefully 'helpful to users' enters into the optimization function somewhere.
if not, why are users expected to donate?

------
iand
Every industrialised nation in the world has benefited from the educational
value Wikipedia brings. If at their next meeting the G20 countries were to
donate a dollar for every schoolchild in their country then Wikipedia would
have an endowment that could cover their costs for the long term.

------
yread
I don't understand people moaning about "why don't they show us ads already".
I am using wikipedia a lot and I think I got a lot of value from it.
Admittedly I was using it more as a student, but now I can afford to give
something back for that. I have no problem with donating.

We have ads everywhere, some are scammy some are annoying, advertising
companies track us with them. Why would you want to put them on wikipedia when
you can prevent that by just sending a couple of bucks?

~~~
VMG
I think those who actively engage in these kinds of discussions already have
an ad blocker

------
dudurocha
What make me sad about wikipedia is that year after year, they will have to
make this 'begging'. And jokes about Jim Wales will appear all over the web,
and some more begging, and people complaining about some rich dude who 'only'
donate 500 larges.

Well, Wikipedia has to find a sustainable model, they do not want ads or
propaganda, but some new model has to be found, books, classes, especial
encyclopedias, I don't know. But they need to stop doing this every year.

~~~
mousa
It's not really that big a deal for them to this every year. It's just
something you have to live with like NPR's fundraising drives, except much
less grating. I don't hear people irl complain about it. I know it really
irritates many of the entrepreneur types on here that one of the biggest sites
on the web is asking for money, but it's perfectly fine for them to have
fundraising drives every year.

------
pflanze
The idea behind Wikipedia is to be made by users. With our time, and our
money. It's good to know that it doesn't just run with content from other
users like me (and mine), but also their money (and mine).

------
jsight
Fortunately, they don't accept advertisements from corporations, and are thus
uncorrupted by the donations from said corporations.

~~~
namdnay
In fact, there was a dodgy moment a few years ago when Wikipedia pages would
display an advert for Virgin Unite. The argument was that since it's a
charity, it doesn't count as advertising, but for me there's a big difference
between the charitable arm of a corporation and a "true" charity. The main one
being that Unite is obviously at least partly an attempt to improve the Virgin
brand. He didn't call it The Branson Foundation or just Unite.

------
devs1010
Interesting dilemma I suppose, I think what they are worried about is the
slippery slope, Wikipedia is used to this frugal operation where theoretically
they have minimal pressure and influence as far as what is published on their
site. As others have pointed out, they could easily run ads on just a small
number of pages and start raking in cash. They could even limit themselves to
"good" or "neutral" ads, those that meet certain guidelines (no ads from
questionable companies / for questionable products, etc) but then what
happens? They get used to having this cash flow, they hire more people, get
nicer offices and then there could be pressure to start bringing in more
money, lowering the standard of ads. I think its more a testament to the
beliefs of the people who run Wikipedia as to the power of human greed and
corruption as they seem to feel that an infusion of excess cash could put
Wikipedia on a negative path.

------
jwallaceparker
I don't understand how advertisers would in any way influence the content of
Wikipedia.

I would argue that donors wield more control over an organization than
advertisers.

Advertisers pay money to an organization and receive ad placement in return.

Donors (especially large ones) pay money to an organization and are more
likely to ask for some sort of favor in return.

------
chaddeshon
There are several great organizations that have no way to make money, so they
rely on donations. Wikipedia isn't in that situation. They could sell ads that
were clearly marked as such. A simple small text ad on each page would give
them more money than they would ever need.

They're costs seem to be low enough and the value of ad space is high enough
that they wouldn't have to put up with anyone trying to extort them or take
away there independence.

If they are worried that the surplus of money would corrupt their
organization, then they can give the surplus away or just limit the number of
ads they sell (but maybe hire a couple more devs first).

That is why I will not donate.

~~~
tingletech
Wikipedia has enough problems with spam etc. now. I can't imagine how the
dynamic would be altered if ad sales folks figured out some angle to game
things.

Are you suggesting that they should do inside sales (with some sort of chinese
wall); or use an ad sale agency? Would I be able to bid on specific wikipedia
pages and keywords, or would it be random pages? What if I put a deceptive add
on a page that was sensitive politically, in an attempt to bait people with an
interest in a certain topic into some sort of targeted phising or malware
attack?

I'm not familiar with web ad sales at all, is there a general rule of thumb
for commoditization of traffic? Function(Unique visitors, page views, ??? ) =
$x

------
CharlieA
"We don’t run ads because doing so would sacrifice our independence. The site
is not and should never be a propaganda tool."

I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept
advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence--
anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have
any impact on article content whatsoever.

What's the problem with having a banner at the top saying "Wikipedia is
brought to you today by McDonalds..." just something small, as a way of saying
that they care about free access to knowledge too.

~~~
devs1010
so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some
major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business),
this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written
about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to
check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little
pressure on Wikipedia to censor or remove this page? I think its naive to
think not, and the result would be censorship and suppression of information
that would be available if Wikipedia was standing on its own and not propped
up by this specific company in question.

~~~
gojomo
I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to
the influence of commercial institutions.

How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's
a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the
Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness.

Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-
money risks a big backlash, and provides little assurance of warmer coverage.

On the other hand, even without advertising, big interests can and do try to
massage their Wikipedia entries indirectly. If they have a legal case against
content, they can and do threaten legal action – again, no advertising link
required.

There may be good reasons for excluding advertising. Since an important core
of contributors hate the idea advertising, simply keeping them happy may be a
good enough reason, and as long as annual donation drives generate plenty of
money, why not?

But I don't see where advertising would add new motivations or mechanisms for
commercial entities to meddle in article content, especially if proper care
were taken to separate and automate ad functions.

~~~
devs1010
I've worked for companies where one client has an inordinate amount of
influence over the company, why... because they are the biggest client, they
represent a significant percentage of the company's revenue. Market forces
inevitably can create situations where a particular client is "really good"
for a company, they may pay more than other companies would, etc and, if this
client is lost (or even just reduces the business they give the company)
serious consequences can result including laying people off, etc. Of course
Wikipedia can avoid this, at least initially, by not relying on one company,
going through an ad-broker, etc but its possible that at some point a
situation can arise where they are faced with a dilemma (and this would
probably be years into the future after an infusion of money has inevitably
re-shaped the organization to some degree) where a decision has to be made to
either lose a client (advertising customer) or bend to pressure from them to
censor or delete something... I'm just speculating here but past experiences
of mine lead me to believe something like this could occur as companies bend
to pressure from their clients all the time.

~~~
gojomo
Except: editing is done by an unruly hive. There is no organizational nexus on
which to place "comply or we'll withdraw our advertising" pressure. And, any
attempt to apply such pressure would quickly trigger its own self-
nullification via editor outrage (as with the 'Streisand Effect').

In order for an advertiser to have sinister influence, you'd need to assume a
bunch of other changes which weaken Wikipedia's resilience. Advertising
_could_ be implemented in a way that helps prevent such weakening-changes from
happening. And if any org could pull that off, Wikipedia could.

That said, I still understand why, given their community's biases and their
success with donation-drives so far, they have not seriously considered ads in
many years. Don't mess with what works is usually a good principle.

~~~
danssig
Your posts on the subject seem far and away too utopian when we're talking
about wikipedia. They've already had a lot of scandals about
censorship/bias/etc. _now_. That would only get worse when money was on the
line.

~~~
gojomo
How does advertising make it worse? Can't companies already hire PR firms and
other editors to slyly improve their coverage? Isn't that cheaper and less
subject to backlash than trying to communicate conditional advertising
budgets?

~~~
devs1010
they have no direct influence unless they are a customer (paying money to
Wikipedia), sure they can try to game the system, but Wikipedia isn't going to
do some action at their request. If a company pays a lot of money to Wikipedia
its possible someone within the Wiki organization would be willing to bend the
rules a bit to cave to their request because it may keep the money flowing
whereas otherwise tough decisions would have to be made (laying people off,
etc)

~~~
gojomo
If Wikipedians are so trivially corruptible by money, ads are still irrelevant
to the process. Just offer a donation for warmer treatment. (The Foundation
does not reject corporate donations.) Or an outright bribe.

Also, the organization that handles funds – the Foundation – has very little
special editorial power, and their actions are especially transparent. (For
example, their real names are necessarily known, whiich is not the case for
other editors.) Attempting to influence content by being an advertiser, then
making ad spends conditional on favorable bias, would be about the worst
possible way to try to influence Wikipedia content. You'd be spending a lot,
via a path that's under the most scrutiny. You'd probably prompt staff to be
extra harsh on you to avoid any appearance of infuence.

Anyone who really wanted to spend to influence Wikipedia would just hire
editors _outside_ the funds/ads-handling organization. That threat is larger,
and unaffected by the presence or absence of advertising.

------
prophetjohn
I don't get the reluctance to use advertising. Wikipedia could place one
small, unobtrusive text ad on each page and they would have more than enough
money to operate their business and pay their employees what they deserve. If
there's money left over, they could offer scholarships or make charitable
donations. I don't think that placing small ads on a page in an effort to keep
information free and prosperous amounts to propaganda or a loss of
independence.

~~~
chaddeshon
As if you need to buy ad space to put propaganda on Wikipedia.

~~~
ypcx
Those who know, they don't need to be told. Those who don't, they will
probably fight / downvote you because they think that if something has so much
positive, then how it could contain any negative? That's ok, our brains are
hardwired to simplify things. There have been numerous studies, and numerous
discussions e.g. on Slashdot, on this topic, and the truth about the bad about
Wikipedia is truly horrific. But I'm an optimist, I believe they/we will deal
with that at some point.

------
gizzlon
think these pro-ads comments have scared me into donating to wikipedia

------
speleding
I'm more worried that Wikipedia would feel compelled to ensure their content
is not too critical to their big donors, than that wikipedia would become
corrupted by advertisers.

I can understand how advertising could be a corrupting force, but Wikipedia
needs to explain why attracting donors doesn't have the same problem if not
bigger.

------
ZeWaren
There are also people who refuse to give them anything since they believe that
the CC-BY-SA license is not really "free" (the Share-Alike part prevents you
from doing anything without licensing your work with the same license).

------
calydon
Wikipedia needs to stop begging and find a viable business model. It may not
be easy, but it should be possible.

irony: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_begging>

~~~
tingletech
They have the same viable business model as public television and other
charities. That reminds me, I need to donate all the charitable contributions
that I've budgeted for the year soon, public television is the only one of
contributions I've remembered to make this year.

------
Volpe
Well, a little bit of self-glorification is okay...

But seriously, is it wikipedia that's giving people access to knowledge or is
it google (and other search engines)?

Without google, I'd guess wikipedia would get a fraction of the traffic it
gets now. There is no use building a massive repository of knowledge if no one
can navigate it easily.

~~~
tikhonj
I think you have it backwards--Wikipedia actually faces (in a sense)
_competition_ from Google. With Google, I can get my information from millions
of disparate sites, each specializing in some niche--if I'm looking to buy a
car, I might visit ten or twenty car club websites, for example.

Without Google, there would be no good way to find all of the little,
disparate sites. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is an organized, uniform
collection of information; finding the right article there is much easier than
finding an appropriate fan site or the like.

Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". Wikipedia's mission
could just as easily be phrased as "organize the world's _notable_
information"--there is a gigantic overlap between the two.

