[Foundation-l] Global banners usage

Mon Mar 14 06:21:46 UTC 2011

Liam Wyatt wrote:
> I presume you are raising this point now in because of the recent global
> banner referring people to the "March 11 Update" on Strategy Wiki signed by
> Sue - http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/March_2011_Update
> Unless I'm mistaken that banner was only displayed to logged-in editors
> however this RfC does not differentiate between banners that are only shown to
> either logged-in or anonymous users. As a result I do not think that this RfC
> which you started last August is an adequate representation of the consensus
> of Wikimedians towards this particular banner (if that is indeed the reason
> why you to raise this issue now).

That banner is what reminded me of the RFC (and the general issue). It's a
bit late to pull that one back, though. Instead, I'd like to try to make
sure that future banners undergo some sort of sanity check before being
translated/deployed.

> Certainly, as time goes on there is an increasing need for guidelines about
> who is allowed to use what kind of banners, for what purpose, when and
> displayed to whom. This discussion could also include elements of: banners on
> watchlists; frequency (e.g. "only 1 in every 1,000 hits");
> logged-in/anon/everyone; which projects/languages; Chapters/WMF originated;
> geolocation (and to what level of precision); what category of thing it's
> promoting (fundraising, IRL event, election); etc. 

Yes, CentralNotice's feature set has grown, which is great for a lot of
reasons, but it increases the complexity of any attempt to regulate and
control global banners.

I'm not really sure what the best solution is to make sure that global
banners are appropriate (and appropriately targeted). I think it'd be
reasonable to not run any new banners until a better process is defined, but
I imagine some people would object to that. :-)

MZMcBride