From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149(a)yahoo.com>
...
...Also, a little annoyance
works wonders in encouraging people to donate; The donation text in small
font below "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (or corresponding other
language/project message) is a great way to subtly nudge those with the
means
to help us keep going.
The only worry I have is that practically every state in the US has charity
registration rules about soliciting donations and as far as I know Wikimedia
is only registered in Florida to "solicit" donations. There has been debate
in the online charity law community about this issue and it is not really
resolved
or settled. As you know I feel an ounce of prevention is worth more than
a pound of potential litigation. That is why I stated on the donations page
that the donation page is not a solicitation for donations. Posting a Donate
Now
link on every page however seems to be a solicitation.
When the drive is over the header text should be
removed but the new
"Donate"
link in the side bar should remain. The cache,
however, needs to be
updated
before the month long drive starts (it will start as
soon as the press
release is distributed). Therefore I propose this, or a similar, message
be
displayed:
Can it say "donations" or "donation info." rather than Donate (a bit
of a
command)?
Help us buy a new database server. [Donate
today!].
[Donate today!] would be a link to
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising/
Learn about helping support [Wikipedia] (with the link to the fundraising
page).
Or "Learn about [donating] to support Wikipedia. "
Or "Learn about helping Wikimedia buy a new database server."
Or: Information about [donations] and helping to keep Wikipedia free,"
Something that just puts the initiative and choice on the person reading the
text (a very low key, soft sell approach).
"Donate today!" is more of a solicitation. I just worry that the Attorney
General's
of many states may decide that Wikipedia is reaching into their state. The
other option is a footnote (i.e." † This is not a solicitation to
make a
donation.") But that kind of clutters up the page and I know people don't
like having a lot of legal boilerplate floating around.
Alex756