[Foundation-l] Blink tag jokes are now obsolete.

Tue Jan 3 22:36:33 UTC 2012

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 5:34 AM, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > This year pictures at top left, blinking banners, etc - are becoming a
> norm.
>
> This is simply untrue hyperbole. The fader was used in the same way as
> last year, at the same time. (In fact, I think last year they used the
> word "urgent", which I don't believe was used this year.)
>
> So what's your slippery slope argument? That we've had photographs on
> the left side of the banner this time? While at the same time, 1)
> we've shortened the fundraiser, 2) we've disabled banners for logged
> in users more quickly, 3) we've (for the first time) disabled banners
> for donors once they made a donation, 4) we've reduced reliance on
> Jimmy dramatically.
>
> Yeah, sure sounds like a slippery slope to dancing monkeys to me.

I think the Domas is spot on, on this one. The slippery slope is there,
people might be looking at it from a different perspective.

WMF started the email campaign last year for the first time I'm assuming,
we used it this year as well. We had a period of several months before the
fundraiser, that fundraising team conducted tests to replace Jimmy, the
fundraiser started and look who showed up back on the first week and all
that testing didn't change the biggest revenue draw since the beginning of
WMF fundraising. Yes, there were more banners but it really didn't take
away from Jimmy, I have the impression that you can probably put server
kittens and lol cats on the banners, and you would have the same or better
results than the ones that were tried.

But I digress, I think what the slippery slope others can see is, the WMF
has been increasing its budget plan annually by 30-40% in some cases, and
still maintaining that the increased amount is needed to keep us online.
Depending on what spectrum of urgency and call to action, the "ask" lies,
that is probably a flat-out lie.

We don't need $20-25 Million annually to keep the projects online. This
aggressive expansion is indeed going to lead to exploiting more ways to
maximize the revenue, and probably, animated gif, splash screens and who
knows, even dancing monkeys. A little restraint or control, when others can
feel there is something morally ambiguous about asking for 10 times the
amount that is actually needed to keep the project online. The ask is the
same, the target on the other hand, keeps going up higher and higher.

Regards
Theo