

Jimmy Wales' "Appeal" results in 15x more donation dollars - aspir
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-science-behind-wikipedias-jimmy-appeal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+InformationIsBeautiful+(Information+Is+Beautiful)

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thenbrent
I would gladly have 2-3 lines of relevant Google ads shown to me everytime I
visit wikipedia if it meant I didn't have to see Jimmy staring back at me for
a few days.

~~~
FluidDjango
I felt the same way ...so strongly that it took me several days to notice the
little 'x' in upper right corner. However, after once having clicked box,
wikipedia remembered for me (on all pages) that I did not want to be
distracted by Jimmy's rugged good looks.

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chaosmachine
Lots of stats here, and you can view each variation:

[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Banner_testi...](http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Banner_testing)

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dennyabraham
When I saw the 'personal appeal', I thought Wikipedia was to shut down if they
didn't receive funds. After reading the letter, I realized they were in no
more danger than any other nonprofit. I wonder if others who donated did so
because of what that sort of advertisement implied to them.

tldr; I feel like wikipedia cried wolf this year.

~~~
e1ven
I absolutely agree. The header emphasized this- "A personal Appeal from Jimmy
Wales" gave the impression that they were in trouble, and badly needed help.

Further, the "Please Read:" header at the beginning implies that this banner
is more important than the others they had shown you before.

While it may have raised revenue this year, if they try the same tactic next
year I suspect they'll start seeing user fatigue.

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duck
This was discussed two days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1908546>

And last year for the 2009 campaign:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006438>

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loewenskind
Oh great, I guess that means I can expect to see more faces staring back it me
when surfing the web now. Is anyone writing a "face blocker" browser plug in?
I have a feeling I'll be willing to pay for one soon.

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jergason
Also of note: if you follow the link to the source of the data, it shows that
the click through rate for the "staring eyes" banner was sometimes 10x greater
than some of their other tries. See
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=t79ue7YKT1c4AmHRs6ss...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=t79ue7YKT1c4AmHRs6sswzw&hl=en#gid=12)

~~~
rmc
How much of clickthrough were because of the desire to donate, and how many
were people misssing the tiny X close button?

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troymc
The Wikimedia Foundation collected similar data from their 2008-2009 campaign,
where they also varied the appeal:

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Fundraising...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Fundraising_2008/Report)

If you look at the 'Total Donation by Template' graph, you'll see that the
"jimmy letter" appeals (templates) generated the most donations then as well.

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steipete
Instead of turning it of, just activate it for all sites. hilarious.
[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/idkjdjficifbfjjk...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/idkjdjficifbfjjkdkiimioljbloddpl)

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darwinGod
While its really cool that they have raised 15-X donation, for the "staring
eyes" banner on every single wiki, for a site that has 400 million monthly
users, 47 K still seems less. I would have expected atleast double the amount.

~~~
gojomo
That's the number from some small test. You can view daily numbers for this
campaign (and prior ones) here:

[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatis...](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics)

They're currently pulling in over $400K per day. If they keep it up, and/or
the pattern from prior years holds, they should have no problem raising their
$16 million target by January 15th.

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andre
Put up a female face up there and see what happens....

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reinhardt
Or perhaps some other female aspect instead of (or in addition to) face...

~~~
beaumartinez
Worked for Evony...

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brendano
I still don't understand why they didn't use a more pleasant image, say,
pictures of kids learning in classrooms.

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Uchikoma
Funny: Add says "founder", article says "co-founder". I thought only Steve has
a reality distortion field.

<http://yfrog.com/mv3nvp>

~~~
die_sekte
Lots of people have them. It's just that Steve's is particularly strong and
the transition from RDF to reality is particularly jarring.

