Talk:2010 Fundraiser/Update Email

Great first draft from Chris, and I like the header image. I don't feel really strongly, but I would prioritise the Wikimedia UK link at the end over the Foundation's link. I question why we should mention the number of articles in English Wikipedia, above other statistics. We have a multilingual audience and we don't want the Wikinewsians and Wikiversitans to feel excluded. That was one of the lessons I took from the AGM. How about "every day, millions of people turn to Wikipedia and its sister projects..." MartinPoulter 09:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments only

First - well done.

Chris maybe the open shouldn't SHOUT and we should summarise what is in the note straight away. ie THANK YOU => becomes

This note is only to thank you for keeping Wikipedia free for the last 6 months. No reply is necessary.

and at the end

"P.S. To learn more about the work your donation has made possible," might say

P.S. You don't need to, but if you want to learn more about etc...

I suggest that we need to make it very clear that this is not an appeal for funds and merely a thank you. Maybe the title of the email can be understated too. Something like "Just a thank you for keeping Wikimedia free" Victuallers 09:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about "Thank You" - might put it in bold in the HTML version. I am not sure there is any need to word it any more softly, people don't feel under any obligation to click on the links they receive in emails! However, it would be good if we could think of some more specific (non-financial) ways to engage with people. The Land 12:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I support Roger's suggestion for the title of the email. In fact if we use that as the subject line, then there is no need to state at the top that no reply is necessary. I am okay with the current wording of the P.S. . "To learn more" does not sound like begging or requesting action. Generally a good idea not to SHOUT. Any opinions on my suggestions above? MartinPoulter 16:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think that this needs a big rethink. Problems include:

• 3.6 million articles: that's just the English Wikipedia (it's more like 17 million across all Wikipedias - see stats.wikimedia.org). And then, that's just the Wikipedia project....
• We should be highlighting the activities that are being undertaken in the UK as a result of the donations, rather than just saying that the donations have helped keep Wikipedia free. This is part of raising the profile of WMUK's activities, rather than just the WMF's and the online projects.
• Corporate sponsor: technically, there are corporate sponsors of Wikipedia, since e.g. Google have donated a large amount of money to the Foundation, as have Orange.
• If we're sending out this email, then it needs to contain more information. Not just a thank you, but a "this is what we're using your donation for" message in the main text. We need to show that the money they donated was needed, and that it is being well spent. I'd point towards events like GLAM-WIKI, the CRUK workshop, etc. as examples of this. Ideally, we also need to help them get involved in Wikimedia - e.g. by making an edit to any Wikipedia articles that they spot a missing or incorrect fact in, or turning up to a Wikimeet or chapter activity, etc.

I'm fully in support of sending out an email to the donors - but it needs a lot more work first, I'm afraid. Mike Peel 23:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Mike. To be honest the more I've been thinking about it, the less happy I've been with the current draft. I was thinking about ways to make it more 'meaty' - the more we can connect donors with impact, rather than vaguely saying thankyou, the better. There must be material to do this but I'm not finding it easy to pull together. Challenges include...

No-one seems to know how many people actually read Wikipedia articles - that would be the ideal statistic to use.

Can definitely point towards some of the things we have done. Any thoughts on what the most impressive things we've done this year are?

Getting them involved with outreach: quite agree this is an objective. The reason I haven't included an explicit invitation to get involved with GLAM or education stuff is that our outreach programmes are still at a fairly early stage and have limited capacity. Of course there are ways to deal with that as well (e.g. it would be possible to trial something with 5,000 donors and if we got 15 useful inquiries as a result that would be manageable)

Getting them involved with editing: This too is a goal, but I am loath to invite them to just go and edit a page, because we know for a fact that the new editor experience is currently very poor. We'd probably get more donors with hurt feelings because their edits were reverted than we would new and productive users. If we're going to do this we need to do it with a bit more support and hand-holding.

This is definitely something to continue thinking about... might have another go at it on Sunday. The Land 10:58, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Statistics are available at http://stats.wikimedia.org/ - and in particular, http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/ - including the number of people reading Wikipedia articles. Mike Peel 16:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)