An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

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Ziyuan Yao

6 Aug 2013 6 Aug '13

4:01 p.m.

Dear All, Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising: Instead of asking for money but offering nothing in return, Wikipedia can ask supporters to buy a monthly or annual issue of "Offline Wikipedia DVD". The DVD contains software and data that let the user browse Wikipedia offline, which can be good for times when Internet access is limited or unavailable (e.g. on travel). Of course the price will be higher than the actual DVD creation and shipping costs, so as to support Wikipedia's operation. This idea has some foundations in consumer psychology theories. For example, street artists don't just ask for money; they perform to give supporters something in return. Regards, Ziyuan Yao

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Tobias

6 Aug 6 Aug

4:28 p.m.

On 08/06/2013 06:01 PM, Ziyuan Yao wrote:

...

Dear All, Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising:

Ziyuan Yao

4:40 p.m.

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value". On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 12:28 AM, Tobias <church.of.emacs.ml(a)googlemail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

On 08/06/2013 06:01 PM, Ziyuan Yao wrote:

Dear All, Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising:

There was also the idea of having beside the free App an (nearly identical) App-with-donation that is not free but costs a few bucks. The revenue from the App then goes to Wikimedia as a donation. Alternatively, there is In-app billing, for example with https://github.com/**dschuermann/android-donations-**lib<https://github.… This would allow adding a "Donate" button inside the App. There are numerous ways of making donations possible... not just web banners! Cheers, Tobias ______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.**org <Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l<https://lists…-l>, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.org<wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> ?subject=**unsubscribe>

Kevin Wayne Williams

4:52 p.m.

Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef:

...

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".

More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would want to try to store on DVDs. KWW

Federico Leva (Nemo)

5:44 p.m.

We did it in the past, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DVD Kevin Wayne Williams, 06/08/2013 18:52:

...

Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef:

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".

More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would want to try to store on DVDs.

Not really, a DVD-DL is usually (i.e. for all languages but en) enough thanks to openZIM's compression techniques; few years ago we didn't even need that, a normal DVD was enough. As someone who spent countless hours working on the 2nd edition of the DVD in Italy around 2009 (which was never born), I'd of course like to see this done again, but there are a few problems from an economical POV. 1) "You are mad!" Publishing a DVD and hosting an open website are two entirely different matters. WMIT could earn a 10 years lawsuit for every single wrong sentence on Wikipedia; this must be handled by professional publishers. 2) "Not worth it". DVDs are extremely cheap nowadays (printing a few thousands, a packaged DVD-DL could cost around 0.10 € last time I checked), but for the same reason they don't sell a high prices and they don't make an interesting enough income to enter into negotiations with publishers and distributors. The areas with poor internet that would benefit from it tend also to have worse distribution. 3) Of course, trademarks. You probably want to stick the Wikipedia logo, and possibly other Wikimedia projects logos (there's space enough in a disc for all of them), on your DVD. It was hard enough to negotiate everything with the WMF a few years back even for an established chapter; it gets more restrictive month by month, so it would surely be a nightmare nowadays. It's probably not worth the few cents more (see previous point), I'd probably end up not using the Wikipedia logo at all but only my chapter's. Nemo

Matthew Walker

5:46 p.m.

Ziyuan, Thanks for the idea! :) Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

...

From my perspective buying a DVD set sounds scarily close to having to pay

for the content and even if it doesn't fall under that category that it would fall under the shadow of gift premiums. In addition what use would giving a donor a DVD set serve? They clearly already have access to the site -- with the caveat that some countries have restricted use restrictions from the local government. If instead we are talking about donating them for the purposes of expanding our reach into countries where we presently have limited participation; it seems the current strategy is to convince local mobile carriers to support Wikimedia Zero. Taking into account technology -- I am unsure that spending the money to develop the infrastructure would be offset by the amount of interest we would have. Think also that although the shop will ship something for 15 USD, that's actually a subsidized rate for most international destinations. My guess is that we would be looking at more than 50$ a set, just for production and shipping, before getting anywhere near breaking even. ~Matt Walker Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Technology Team On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Kevin Wayne Williams < kwwilliams(a)kwwilliams.com> wrote:

...

Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef: The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that

they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".

More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would want to try to store on DVDs. KWW ______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.**org <Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l<https://lists…-l>, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.org<wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> ?subject=**unsubscribe>

David Gerard

6:30 p.m.

On 6 August 2013 18:46, Matthew Walker <mwalker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

In addition what use would giving a donor a DVD set serve? They clearly already have access to the site -- with the caveat that some countries have restricted use restrictions from the local government. If instead we are talking about donating them for the purposes of expanding our reach into countries where we presently have limited participation; it seems the current strategy is to convince local mobile carriers to support Wikimedia Zero.

While it isn't so applicable to funding, I will note that the Wikipedia Selection for Schools DVD - which is actually edited and reviewed - is much loved by teachers. So there are people who want this stuff. - d.

MZMcBride

6:50 p.m.

Matthew Walker wrote:

...

Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

Hi Matt. This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to start a page. :-) MZMcBride

Jane Darnell

7 Aug 7 Aug

7:32 a.m.

Actually, an offline version of WIkipedia, though useful in remote locations and for secure-internet areas like schools (or prisons), is probably not as desirable as copies of specific content, such as a Wikipedia dump of the Paleontology portal or something like that. For people who wish to create informative apps (such as museum curators) using Wikipedia content, it might be interesting to be able to order a chunk of static data, such as everything we have on Monet (in all languages: https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Improve-an-artist If a template exists for specific dump-creation, it might be useful to have this be a paid service, where the product is not necessarily one dump on a dvd, but a hyperlink to a specific dump that can be updated periodically (once a year maybe?). 2013/8/6, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com>om>:

...

Matthew Walker wrote:

Hi Matt. This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to start a page. :-) MZMcBride _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Svavar Kjarrval

8 Aug 8 Aug

9:47 a.m.

On 07/08/13 07:32, Jane Darnell wrote:

...

If a template exists for specific dump-creation, it might be useful to have this be a paid service, where the product is not necessarily one dump on a dvd, but a hyperlink to a specific dump that can be updated periodically (once a year maybe?).

Doesn't have to be a dump per se. There could be a client program which could retrieve a list generated by the server or the user could produce an existing list. The program would use it to download the articles via the API (or maybe get it from an official dump) and generate offline versions. - Svavar Kjarrval

Matthew Walker

14 Aug 14 Aug

7:20 p.m.

...

>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the >team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay >to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

...

This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to start a page. :-)

In the past days there's been discussion internal to the fundraising team -- it appears that the 'fundraising principles' I thought we held are not uniformly held by others. In this particular instance it seems that gift premiums are not entirely off the table. I've been told that the reason we have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations. The current view is that we should keep our options open to future experimentation if the situation allows. <personal hat> At this I'll take off my foundation hat and state that I remain firmly opposed to gift premiums being used as a donation incitement. I hope that if we do, at some point, press forward and experiment with premiums that, before this happens, ... - We show reasonable evidence that the gain in monetary income will fully offset the new cost in managing gifts. - We either have some method to ship worldwide without subsidy; or we communicate beforehand that we will not be able to do this in some regions *and* that we understand and have a plan for the fallout that will probably cause. - We have premiums that actually mean something to the movement; e.g. you do not donate $100 and get a t-shirt. - We show reasonable evidence that if the experiment doesn't work that we will not have hurt our future donation prospects. (E.g. will people always expect premiums if we offer them once?) - That we have a solid communications plan in place to immediately offset any possible suggestion that you are 'buying' a piece of the foundation with your donation. Just my two cents. </personal hat> ~Matt Walker Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Technology Team On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:

...

Matthew Walker wrote:

Nathan

7:39 p.m.

YMMV, but I'd prefer if the solid value returned from my donation went to someone in more dire need of it - i.e. if my donation could be used to directly improve access for others who may not enjoy it. Indirectly any donation to Wikimedia fits into the vein of sustaining access to project content, but think of the success enjoyed by charities who drive donations by linking them to the support of individual needy recipients.

David Gerard

10:54 p.m.

On 14 August 2013 20:39, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

In general, earmarked donations are a massive pain in the backside. Worse, if you offer a slightly earmarked donation then people will think that's a reasonable thing to demand of you. - d.

Sue Gardner

10:46 p.m.

A supportive anecdote for you, Matt: Back in 2008, I got toured through the fundraising operation of one of the major American public broadcasters. It had a large fundraising team that included a group dedicated solely to tracking and shipping premiums. Its boss advised us to avoid going down the premiums road: he said once you start it's very difficult to stop, because donors grow to expect them. I remember being reminded of a study, I think by Dan Ariely, in which he found that if you offer people small material incentives for doing something, they begin to see the transaction in self-interested terms, and the incentive can end up being viewed as too small -- insulting, and not good value. Essentially IIRC small material incentives can have the effect of shifting people from an intrinsically-motivated mindset (donor) into a transactional mindset (economically-self-interested rational actor). So, I agree with you that before we instituted premiums, we'd want to think long and hard about what benefits they would bring, and what unintended consequences might result. Thanks, Sue On Aug 15, 2013 4:20 AM, "Matthew Walker" <mwalker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to start a page. :-)

Matthew Walker wrote: >Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in

the

>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*

pay

to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

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Zack Exley

20 Aug 20 Aug

4:45 p.m.

Sue: I also hate the idea of premiums. We will never want to do lame "premiums". But there may in the future be a cool thing to offer with donations, who knows -- so why limit ourselves by saying we will "never ever" do something? Zack On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

>>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in

the

>>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*

pay

>to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

>This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these >documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great

start a page. :-)

have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations.

The

current view is that we should keep our options open to future experimentation if the situation allows. <personal hat> At this I'll take off my foundation hat and state that I remain firmly opposed to gift premiums being used as a donation incitement. I hope that if we do, at some point, press forward and experiment with premiums that, before this happens, ... - We show reasonable evidence that the gain in monetary income will fully offset the new cost in managing gifts. - We either have some method to ship worldwide without subsidy; or we communicate beforehand that we will not be able to do this in some

regions

*and* that we understand and have a plan for the fallout that will

probably

cause. - We have premiums that actually mean something to the movement; e.g. you do not donate $100 and get a t-shirt. - We show reasonable evidence that if the experiment doesn't work that we will not have hurt our future donation prospects. (E.g. will people

always

expect premiums if we offer them once?) - That we have a solid communications plan in place to immediately offset any possible suggestion that you are 'buying' a piece of the foundation with your donation. Just my two cents. </personal hat> ~Matt Walker Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Technology Team On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:

Matthew Walker wrote: >Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in

the

>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*

pay > >to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums. > > Hi Matt. > > This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these > documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great

start a page. :-) MZMcBride _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Zack Exley Chief Revenue Officer Wikimedia Foundation

MZMcBride

19 Aug 19 Aug

4:57 a.m.

Matthew Walker wrote:

...

Hi. I think establishing fundraising principles and documenting them at Meta-Wiki would still be a great idea. Would you be able to start such a page if one doesn't exist already? Outside of purely fundraising techniques, establishing what is and is not appropriate for fundraising banners would also be nice to have. For example, are splash pages off the table? CentralNotice has previously been used to completely block out the site, so it's certainly technically possible. What about banners that obstruct or obfuscate article content? Are these ever acceptable? Is it okay to stretch the truth if it brings in more money (e.g., "Wikipedia Executive Director")? I think clarity as to what the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising team considers appropriate or off-limits in order to reach its goals is very important to have. MZMcBride

Peter Coombe

20 Aug 20 Aug

6:13 p.m.

Yes MZ, agreed that this is would be good to have documented on meta. In fact this has been raised in our internal discussion already. At the moment one of my side projects is a major overhaul of the fundraising pages on meta, and I plan to incorporate aims and principles into this prominently. I'm hoping to post a draft in the next few weeks, and will post to this list when I do. On 19 Aug 2013 05:57, "MZMcBride" <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:

...

Matthew Walker wrote:

Richard Farmbrough

6 Aug 6 Aug

6:03 p.m.

enwiki-20130708-pages-articles.xml.bz2 <http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20130708/enwiki-20130708-pages-articles.xml.bz2> 9.3 GB - a double sided single layer DVD (9.4gb). The images would be more challenging. On 06/08/2013 17:52, Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:

...

More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would want to try to store on DVDs. KWW

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participants (14)

David Gerard
Federico Leva (Nemo)
Jane Darnell
Kevin Wayne Williams
Matthew Walker
MZMcBride
Nathan
Peter Coombe
Richard Farmbrough
Sue Gardner
Svavar Kjarrval
Tobias
Zack Exley
Ziyuan Yao