I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.(wikimediafoundation.org) |
I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.(wikimediafoundation.org) |
But man, I would love to help Wikipedia optimize their campaign.
I know they work on CRO internally but on this page, for instance, I see 30%+ sitting on the table with:
a) Fix the headline - Wikimedia's headline is "From Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris". The OP in this thread fixed by taking the very compelling first line "I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary." Still needs an action for scanners (80% of your readers).
b) Call to Action Needs to be More Obvious - The call to action doesn't appear as a link in the copy, users will miss the box on top right. Eye @ end of article flows to the "give monthly" link. The box at the top right falls into the deadzone of visual attention. An arrow would be cheesy, but effective, as would hyperlinks in the text w/strong call to action text.
c) Edit the Copy & Formatting - The copy concept is outstanding. The formatting and paragraph structure needs to be edited down. The old "If I'd had more time i would have written you a shorter letter" - eg word economy. Could be as powerful or more-so with moderate editing. Needs sub-headlines, just something like "How can you help?" lets scanners quickly read the headline, first paragraph and jump right into donate mode.
d) Humanize Brandon - Get a picture of Brandon on there for goodness sakes. Humanizing the page with an actual image almost always works.
e) Fix Your CC Page - The click through to the donate page is bizarrely formatted with the form on the far right. Why introduce more ad-copy when somebody has indicated they want to donate? Reduce friction, don't introduce more. Better yet partner w/Amazon or somebody to process donations that's trusted and makes payments absurdly easy (PayPal doesn't count)
f) Leverage the Exit Action - I get that Wikipedia is a foundation but hit some of the basic fun commerce drivers like a little javascript exit pop like "Want to help but don't have the cash? Donate 60 seconds instead." and drive to a simple FB / Twitter screen to have people push to social on the drive.
g) Tweak your Buttons - These buttons feel like government issue desks. You might argue that this helps give them credibility as a charity to look a little off-the-shelf, but that is one of the most basic things to tweak. Build a button people can't resist rolling over, and they'll click it more and take more actions. Period.
I love Wikipedia, I want to help. Who do I go bother?
If anybody from Wikipedia is out there I am raising my hand, I want to donate time and expertise. Contact me via profile.
This link allows donations in various currencies, although some are only available via credit card, while others require the use of PayPal.
The credit card details form that displays after clicking "Donate by Credit Card" offers "Outside the U.S." as an option for the "State". Also, there is a "Postal code" field, which is hopefully more friendly for those without a Zip Code. Finally, there is a drop-down list for selecting "Country/Region".
There are also alternative donation methods, described here [2].
A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity for any conflict of interest. Even if someone high profile donated a large sum that would only be one profile to monitor for any potential bias.
Here's why I think ads would be a terrible idea:
_________
ADVERTISING
Pros:
More Money
Cons:
Integrity possibly compromised
Contributors might leave
Readers might trust Wikipedia less
-----------------
DONORS
Pros:
Maintains editorial independence
Maintains trust of readers and contributors
Cons:
Harder to raise money
__________
Ads are a lazy solution. I can't think of a single benefit to Wikipedia or its users other than "it would be so easy to meet the budget."
We have ads everywhere, some are scammy some are annoying, advertising companies track us with them. Why would you want to put them on wikipedia when you can prevent that by just sending a couple of bucks?
Well, Wikipedia has to find a sustainable model, they do not want ads or propaganda, but some new model has to be found, books, classes, especial encyclopedias, I don't know. But they need to stop doing this every year.
I would argue that donors wield more control over an organization than advertisers.
Advertisers pay money to an organization and receive ad placement in return.
Donors (especially large ones) pay money to an organization and are more likely to ask for some sort of favor in return.
They're costs seem to be low enough and the value of ad space is high enough that they wouldn't have to put up with anyone trying to extort them or take away there independence.
If they are worried that the surplus of money would corrupt their organization, then they can give the surplus away or just limit the number of ads they sell (but maybe hire a couple more devs first).
That is why I will not donate.
Are you suggesting that they should do inside sales (with some sort of chinese wall); or use an ad sale agency? Would I be able to bid on specific wikipedia pages and keywords, or would it be random pages? What if I put a deceptive add on a page that was sensitive politically, in an attempt to bait people with an interest in a certain topic into some sort of targeted phising or malware attack?
I'm not familiar with web ad sales at all, is there a general rule of thumb for commoditization of traffic? Function(Unique visitors, page views, ??? ) = $x
I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence--anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have any impact on article content whatsoever.
What's the problem with having a banner at the top saying "Wikipedia is brought to you today by McDonalds..." just something small, as a way of saying that they care about free access to knowledge too.
I can understand how advertising could be a corrupting force, but Wikipedia needs to explain why attracting donors doesn't have the same problem if not bigger.
But seriously, is it wikipedia that's giving people access to knowledge or is it google (and other search engines)?
Without google, I'd guess wikipedia would get a fraction of the traffic it gets now. There is no use building a massive repository of knowledge if no one can navigate it easily.
Without Google, there would be no good way to find all of the little, disparate sites. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is an organized, uniform collection of information; finding the right article there is much easier than finding an appropriate fan site or the like.
Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". Wikipedia's mission could just as easily be phrased as "organize the world's notable information"--there is a gigantic overlap between the two.
Isn't the risk of influence higher if a "lone rich donor" funds Wikipedia rather than hundreds of advertisers?
Anyway, they had the same issues about ads and editorial independence, yet somehow they seemed to be able to continue to be trusted despite having ads. And get this, even though they had ads, you still had to pay for them, too! Those were some strange days...
And thats not mentioning the over 7 million (40%) on salaries and wages..... I'm not sure you can describe this as a 'small non-profit'....
Sorry if that all sounds cynical - but this is a not-for-profit institution here... I think that they have a duty to provide an efficient (value for money) service, which I am concerned is not being done....
Try to think of an example where editorial maintained independence from the sales department.
My favorite example from dead-tree newspapers: For all the noise they make about the sacredness of editorial, I don't think it was a coincidence that the number of articles about the bubble in real estate were inversely proportional to RE advertising dollars.
Charge, say, $50 or $100 to reduce nuisance ads and pranks. Careful design of a form for purchasing these ads, rather than using freeform text, would help cut down on the potential for controversy over content.
These would be non-commercial, so that wouldn't be an issue. They'd be small, so any one ad buyer would be unlikely to wield much influence. Most ads would have little or nothing to do with any content in Wikipedia, so skewing of related pages shouldn't be an issue.
How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness.
Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-money risks a big backlash, and provides little assurance of warmer coverage.
On the other hand, even without advertising, big interests can and do try to massage their Wikipedia entries indirectly. If they have a legal case against content, they can and do threaten legal action – again, no advertising link required.
There may be good reasons for excluding advertising. Since an important core of contributors hate the idea advertising, simply keeping them happy may be a good enough reason, and as long as annual donation drives generate plenty of money, why not?
But I don't see where advertising would add new motivations or mechanisms for commercial entities to meddle in article content, especially if proper care were taken to separate and automate ad functions.
Wikipedias force in this regard is that their operating budget is small potatoes: they can easily afford to shun any one donor - commercial or personal.
Although I would prefer that they take ads rather than disappear.
Note that Brandon used the term propaganda. Certainly, Wikipedia would be extremely effective as a propaganda tool.
Perhaps ads could be sold for a day on a specified Wikipedia entry, which would expand the possibility of sales, but also increases the possibility for controversy. (Imagine someone buying a birthday message for Lee Harvey Oswald to be posted on the John F. Kennedy article, or a message honoring Himmler on the Judaism page.)
No guarantee of number of page views or impressions. This wouldn't be a money-maximizing advertising scheme, so regular ad-marketing measures would be irrelevant. Avoiding such things would also keep it informal, which might cut down on "OMG Wikipedia sold out and went corporate!" angst.
It'd just be an additional source of revenue that would avoid entanglement and influence issues. If it was popular, Wikipedia could tune it to raise revenue.
Not from 2002-2005. By that point, it had already surpassed bubble prices of 1989 in real dollars.
To be honest, though, it's not my problem.
Begging all the time is a bit silly for the 5th largest site on the internet.
If anything I think it may be the other way around - advertising is a stupid way for organizations that need to be unbiased to get their money, begging is the only way to get money with integrity for that sort of organization.
In order for an advertiser to have sinister influence, you'd need to assume a bunch of other changes which weaken Wikipedia's resilience. Advertising could be implemented in a way that helps prevent such weakening-changes from happening. And if any org could pull that off, Wikipedia could.
That said, I still understand why, given their community's biases and their success with donation-drives so far, they have not seriously considered ads in many years. Don't mess with what works is usually a good principle.
I also worry about the increased tracking on politically sensitive pages or controversial topics.
Also, the organization that handles funds – the Foundation – has very little special editorial power, and their actions are especially transparent. (For example, their real names are necessarily known, whiich is not the case for other editors.) Attempting to influence content by being an advertiser, then making ad spends conditional on favorable bias, would be about the worst possible way to try to influence Wikipedia content. You'd be spending a lot, via a path that's under the most scrutiny. You'd probably prompt staff to be extra harsh on you to avoid any appearance of infuence.
Anyone who really wanted to spend to influence Wikipedia would just hire editors outside the funds/ads-handling organization. That threat is larger, and unaffected by the presence or absence of advertising.