Wikipedia talk:Petition for reconsideration of the Wikipedia Forever banner

File:2009 fundraiser parody banner.png

Cutting off your nose to spite your face

For what it's worth, a strike would just be biting off your nose to spite your face. The average non-editor reader (aka donor) would be largely fine even if nobody added new content for a day or even a week and would be unlikely to even notice, especially if only 50/100/1000 suddenly stopped. The only people that would get hurt would be your fellow editors and yourselves - we're volunteers, so why stop editing if you enjoy it? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Spite?? It's not spite. It's trying to get the attention of the Foundation - to demonstrate seriousness. Withholding labour is a time-honoured practice for doing that. Rd232 ^talk 15:46, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

-sigh- I really don't know if i could stay away from wiki that long (What else would I do in school? Work?). However I must agree, the Wikimedia Foundations actions were dumbfounding to me.--SKATER ^Speak. 16:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, the slogan is dumb. However, Wikimedia projects are much too important to go on strike because of a silly advertisement. If the Foundation were to do something particularly egregious, like issuing an edict that no Internet sources were acceptable (or something equally ridiculous) I could see this happening. However, this is pretty much the definition of disrupting Wikipdia to prove a point. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

If "not editing Wikipedia" is WP:POINTy, there's an awful lot of ex-editors we have to go and tell off. And it's not just one slogan which is outstandingly, egregiously dumb (particularly outside the US, and even more so in translation), the whole campaign theme makes no sense. Wikipedia belongs to the editors as much, if not more, to the Foundation, and they don't get to cock up fundraising drives without editors having something to say about it. Rd232 ^talk 16:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course they do. They're incorporated as a nonprofit organization, with a Board and employees and everything. The idea that an organization shouldn't be able to choose their own fundraising campaign is absurd. They asked for input from volunteers, and then they made their decision. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're getting it. It's really quite like an employer/employee dispute: both need each other. Rd232 ^talk 17:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Also your response sounds like a misreading of my comment. I said "they don't get to cock up fundraising drives without editors having something to say about it." Rd232 ^talk 17:55, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, as the WP:VPR and other comments show, it isn't just the ads being bad (ineffective) that's a concern, it's the ads being embarrassing and making Wikipedia look silly, plastered at the top of every page (this applies also to some of the later planned messages not mentioned on the main RFC page - see Meta). That verges outside of pure "fundraising" territory and makes it more necessary to take editors' concerns on board. Rd232 ^talk 17:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is nothing without it's powers, imo they didn't seem to recognize that with this banner campaign.Oh and, congratulations on your RFA appearing like it's about to pass Amory.--SKATER ^Speak. 17:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

1. What. Just as an aside, I don't think the Foundation is anywhere near a position where they can claim to be "ad-free" as long this is happening. --93.104.66.73 (talk) 17:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Give money to those who can't do basic math?

"'Wikipedia Forever' (33% rotation), 'For your great, great, great grandson' (16%), 'For your great, great, great granddaughter' (16%) and 'Free Knowledge Forever. Ad-Free Forever. Wikipedia Forever.' (33%)." ([1])

In the case of the other 2% of the time, are there no banners? JPG-GR (talk) 05:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I expect the percentages are just real approximations accurate only to the displayed figures of the rational values 1/3 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/3 (=1). --Gmaxwell (talk) 06:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Then rounding 1/6 up (which would be rounding to the nearest) would yield 17%. 33 + 17 + 17 + 33 = 100. Either way, we've got someone in charge of money who made an error that should be corrected in second grade math. JPG-GR (talk) 20:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Well no, if this weren't an opportunity to "stick it to the Man", truncation would be recognized as a routine alternative depending on the precision desired. Art LaPella (talk) 01:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Truncation is all fine and well, but I'd love to see anyone else market such statistics and have them fail to add up to 100%. JPG-GR (talk) 08:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, just since you asked for it, the 7 continent percentages at the bottom of this add to 99.97%. Art LaPella (talk) 19:25, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It's just this sort of thread that make the Foundation ignore editors as a load of nerds who don't understand marketing. Please let's concentrate on the real issues of the total ineptness of the campaign's slogans and implementation rather than argue about how figures should be rounded. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not one of the substantive points made in the RFC, so I wouldn't worry about that. It is a distraction though. Rd232 ^talk 21:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

When it comes to the world of percentages, there is a WIDE difference between 98% and 99.97%. JPG-GR (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I am a nerd who doesn't understand marketing. I am judging your knowledge of marketing by your statistics, and presuming the same psychology is at work. Art LaPella (talk) 05:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

New WMF update

There's a new update on Meta, at the alternative banners talk page. Why not on a higher-traffic location, I dunno. I just work here. Tony Fox (arf!) 08:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The message this sends

Copied from WP:VPR. Excellent point. Rd232 ^talk 11:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the comments here, about how lame a crappy this campaign is. I can also report that over in Hebrew Wiki most people feel the same way.

But beyond this, I'd like to highlight another aspect - the whole concept of Wikipedia (and sister projects) is using the "wisdom of crowds" and volunteer work to create something to match and surpass high-quality commercial work (like Britannica). All the content, editorial decisions, and designs were produced by the community. We have created all of this, we are the reason people come here (and are greeted by crappy banners). And we also spend countless hours explaining why, even though we're free (in both ways), we're high-quality, reliable, professional, etc.

But when the foundation wanted banners, did they take the community approach? No. They chose to pay a commercial company to produce this. So, the message is clear - community efforts are nice, but when we want something serious, we'll work with the adults. Really advocating those collaborative principles, eh? okedem (talk) 09:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

where else? missing banners?

I'm not sure where else to ask this since I'm disinclined to much about at Meta or anything; my apologies if this is wholly inappropriate to ask here:

I'm only aware that a fundraising campaign is occurring because of http://www.twitter.com/wikisignpost tweeting about it the other day. Since then, I have yet to even see any banners on en.wiki and I don't know why. I know that if I log out or run a disused browser they'll show up, but can anybody point out to me where I must've mucked about with something I shouldn't have to prevent the FR banners from showing? Thanks, everybody for assistance and patience! — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 22:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• You've probably got the gadget switched on to hide the banners. You can change your setting on the Gadgets tab of Special:Preferences. — Pretzels ^Hii! 01:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

  That was it, thanks! I didn't even know/remember that was there! — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 02:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

  No problem! Enjoy the banners! — Pretzels ^Hii! 02:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

  This is the problem with that Gadget. It should really only hide the current fundraising drive. Or at least provide two options, one of which does that. Rd232 ^talk 09:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)