[Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Pelagic via Wikimedia-l]

[ Cross-posted from 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you_care%3F
 ]
I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and was 
struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of the 
appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the "awkward" 
bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there:
    "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to 
donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information that 
their work matters."

As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that the 
work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to start 
handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's to 
implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will funds be 
used to run better "community consultations" where the communities are actually 
listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie? 

[Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that 
actually causes people to donate.  But this skates very close to implying that 
Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.]
Cheers, 
Pelagic  
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Update From the Board

[Pelagic via Wikimedia-l]

Anyone know where Dan would have gotten this update?  I've searched for it 
without success.  
Pelagic

Dan Szymborski dszymborski at gmail.com
Fri Oct 30 16:53:46 UTC 2020> Surprised to not see this here yet.> ...
> In response to comments from community members, the Board GovernanceCommittee 
> has ...

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[Wikimedia-l] An Update From the Board

[Uwe Herzke]

@Pelagic:

The last update I know of is this here from November 17:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2020_-_Call_for_feedback_about_Bylaws_changes_and_Board_candidate_rubric#Update_after_the_Board_Governance_Committee_meeting_on_Nov_17

Greetings from Sänger


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[Wikimedia-l] An Update From the Board

[Uwe Herzke]

@Pelagic:

As I just saw, that you were referring to an even older post, that was
about this section on the same talk page, the talk page on Meta about
the changes. That's the first place to look for such stuff, as that's
the most legitimate place for such discussions. Where did you expect this?

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2020_-_Call_for_feedback_about_Bylaws_changes_and_Board_candidate_rubric#Update_after_the_first_feedback_round

Greetz from Sänger


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Joseph Seddon]

Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the donations
our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if they
aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to give
any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will look
into this and if we can, try and to improve it.

Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were
when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the
editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest
entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise
an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much
easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools
that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use.

Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has
seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will
finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on
which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal
experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community
projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement.

At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or
completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs,
real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on
Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems
the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates.
Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on
the projects.

The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can often
be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work further
downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and mission driven
choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work harder for us.
The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we accumulated a huge
amount of technical debt and digging out of that is always harder after the
fact. I'd defer to the opinions of my colleagues but the increasing
investment over the last few years has allowed us to start actually making
headway, even if there is still a long way to go.

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> [ Cross-posted from
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you_care%3F
> ]
>
> I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and
> was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of
> the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the
> "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still there:
>
> "If Wikipedia has given you $2.75 worth of knowledge, take a minute to
> donate. Show the editors who bring you neutral and verified information
> that their work matters."
>
> As an occasional editor I want to know: how do the donations show me that
> the work matters? Is there some W?F "appreciation fund" that's going to
> start handing out disbursements to editors? Will the money hire more dev's
> to implement all the unfinished items from the Community Wishlists? Will
> funds be used to run better "community consultations" where the communities
> are actually listened to? Or is it just a big fat cynical marketing lie?
>
> [Add: okay, I get it that donation appeals have to phrased in a way that
> actually causes people to donate.  But this skates very close to implying
> that Wikipedia's editors are paid from donors' money.]
>
> Cheers,
> Pelagic
> ___
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-- 
Seddon


*Senior Community Relations Specialist*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads [and a Privacy Policy question]

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey Yury,

I want to note that my response specifically deals with the messaging you
raised. I will note that the privacy of our users is of paramount
importance across the organisation and is taken seriously and with care.
You can view with Wikimedia Foundation's data retention guidelines on Meta.
[1]

Regarding the specifics about fundraising, the system that delivers banners
is CentralNotice and the tools that we use are fairly basic. [2] [3]

CentralNotice notes how many times someone has seen a particular
fundraising campaign. This number is counted and kept within the web
browsers localstorage and not a cookie. This means that information is NOT
stored in the HTTP request header sent to our servers.

This feature is used for all sorts of community and programmatic banners as
well as fundraising. It means that when an individual has seen X number of
banners within their browser they don't see anymore. We wrote a blog post
about this a couple of years ago. [4]

All we are doing is taking the same number that is stored and using that to
note in the message. We don't track users through CentralNotice across
browsers to set messaging, nor do we track across devices via CentralNotice
to set messaging.

I will say that even though it IS privacy sensitive, the potential
perception of it is something we will need to think about and along with
the other feedback will be something we talk about as a team this week.

Regards
Seddon

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CentralNotice
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:CentralNotice
[4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/10/03/fundraising-banner-limit/

On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 7:40 PM Yury Bulka 
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> In the context of this discussion, I think it might be appropriate to
> share the following. A few days ago I had a brief conversation with a
> (non-Wikipedian) user on social media regarding a fundraising banner
> they were seeing. In their case they had an additional concern with the
> banners (apart from "making Wikipedia unusable"). They wrote:
>
> "<...> I find it more than a little creepy that wikipedia is tracking
> how often I visit."
>
> Curious, I asked if the popup said anything about their browsing
> behavior, and it did (citing a snippet they have shared with me):
>
> "Hi, reader in Canada, it seems you use Wikipedia a lot; that's great!
> It's awkward, but this Tuesday we need your help. This is the 10th
> appeal we've shown you. We don't have salespeople. Thanks to the
> donations of 2% of our readers, Wikipedia remains open to all. If you
> donate just $2.75, or whatever you can this Tuesday, Wikipedia could
> keep thriving. Thank you."
>
> I have decided to look this up in the Privacy Policy, and indeed:
>
>   We want to make the Wikimedia Sites better for you by learning more
>   about how you use them. Examples of this might include how often you
>   visit the Wikimedia Sites, what you like, what you find helpful, how you
>   get to the Wikimedia Sites, and whether you would use a helpful feature
>   more if we explained it differently.
>
>
> https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Information_Related_to_Your_Use_of_the_Wikimedia_Sites
>
> This contradicted my intition about the privacy of anonymous Wikipedia
> readers. It seems like some behavioral data is collected and then used
> to target readers for fundraising in some ways.
>
> Is it specified in more detail anywhere what kind of behavioral data is
> collected, for how long it is stored, how it is associated with a
> reader's device(s), and what behavioral data is used in the context of
> fundraising specifically?
>
> Best,
> --
> Yury Bulka
> https://mamot.fr/@setthemfree
> #NotOnFacebook
>
>
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-- 
Seddon


*Senior Community Relations Specialist*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An Update From the Board

[Dan Szymborski]

It's my fault for not posting the link! I actually thought I had.

Dan

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 9:40 AM Uwe Herzke  wrote:

> @Pelagic:
>
> As I just saw, that you were referring to an even older post, that was
> about this section on the same talk page, the talk page on Meta about
> the changes. That's the first place to look for such stuff, as that's
> the most legitimate place for such discussions. Where did you expect this?
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2020_-_Call_for_feedback_about_Bylaws_changes_and_Board_candidate_rubric#Update_after_the_first_feedback_round
>
> Greetz from Sänger
>
>
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>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[WereSpielChequers]

I agree that praying emojis look like a certain type of religious practice,
a hand gesture that implies certain religions and not others.

I assume the fundraising team would have the good sense not to describe
their campaign as a crusade or a jihad. Even if they had carefully targeted
that emoji to cultures where it was close to common currency, I think it
was inappropriate.

But I'm also concerned at the 98% look away bit. Presumably this was tested
and at least in the short term it raised more funds. The problem may be
longer term, it looked to me the sort of counterproductive message that
normalises not giving rather than normalising giving.

We need to remember the long term impact of our messaging on the people who
are less inclined to give as well as the short term impact on donations. To
me that 98% pitch looked like as much of a mistake as the £5 coffee ad that
fed the overpaid and wasteful meme.

I've seen some marketing from other organisations in the last few months
that has been more along the lines of "We know that money is tighter than
usual for a lot of the people who usually support us, and if you are one of
them we get that you can't give us money this year. But if you find
 useful, and you are one of those people who is financially OK in
these troubled times, then please make a donation". Most people can
identify with one or other of those groups, and I suspect neither would
think the worse of us for pitching to them in those terms.

Regards

WSC




On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 14:24, 
wrote:

> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wikimedia-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>1. Re: Annoying ads (Chris Gates)
>2. Re: Annoying ads (Gnangarra)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2020 08:57:48 -0500
> From: Chris Gates 
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads
> Message-ID:
>  c4hm3dvi7+duitoof...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> I opened a browser I’m not logged in on to see what these ads were.
>
> Here is the text, unedited, of the second ad I was shown (after closing the
> first):
>
> “Hi reader 🙂. Sorry for the interruption, but this Saturday Wikipedia
> really needs your help. This is the 3rd appeal we've shown you. 98% of our
> readers don't give; they look the other way 😢. All we ask is $2.75 and
> then you can get back to your article. We ask you, humbly: please don't
> scroll away 🙏🙏.“
>
> It would be quite helpful if the WMF’s marketing and fundraising-focused
> teams weren’t so intent on destroying Wikipedia’s reputation. I, and I’m
> sure most editors, don’t care that praying and crying emojis illicit more
> money. There are social and reputation costs to portraying Wikipedia like a
> crying, praying beggar about to go broke. And though I understand the
> employees responsible for pushing this nonsense in front of every reader
> evidently do not care about the costs of their actions, and only whatever
> money they can get from it, it remains wholly unacceptable.
>
> Tell me: why should I volunteer to work on a project whose owners,
> regardless of the incredibly large quantities of money they already have,
> seek frequently to illicit donations through methods that damage
> Wikipedia’s reputation? Why would I give hours of my time a week to make
> Wikimedia projects clear of vandalism and abuse, seeking to give readers
> the impression of a functional and reliable source of information, knowing
> that some marketing person could undo all of the volunteers’ work through
> some ad campaign?
>
> And yes, I also understand that volunteers complain every time this
> happens. There’s very good reason to do so, as every time these campaigns
> go out they are worse than the last, wholly ignorant of community wishes,
> and taking no views into account other than those who reflect purely a goal
> of getting more donations.
>
> Regards,
> Vermont
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 05:22 Fæ  wrote:
>
> > Let's try kicking this perennial thead again.
> >
> > This morning (5 Dec 2020) I paused cooling my porridge when looking up
> > how Wikipedia describes 'Latinx' usage on my cellular, I was faced
> > with a *2 page* advert.
> > * The advert meant nothing of the article could be seen, not even the
> > title, without having to pass the two pages of several big blue
> > fundraising notices.
> > * There's some statements in those notices that, frankly, look
> > unencycl

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[Joseph Seddon]

Hey WSC!

We have used variations on this line for at the last 7 years and the
counter-intuitive approach approach has been debated by marketing
professionals for much of the last decade.

What you describe is known as social proof and despite it being considered
a core tenet in marketing it doesn't work for our fundraising. We have
tested and tested and tested every year.

Chris Keating has written his thoughts [1] about why he thinks it doesn't
work; was recently explored as part of academic study done in partnership
with WMDE; [2] and I have some of noted some of my thoughts on twitter
which I'll include here:

The altruistic motives of any donor would often be based on a person's
personal experience with a cause or services of a non-profit. The
relationship between benefactor and beneficiary is intertwined.

For Wikipedia, those two groups are one and the same. Every donor is a
direct benefactor. Degree of separation between benefactor and beneficiary
is zero. Their personal experience is that of being a beneficiary,
receiving direct and instant benefit.

Personal benefit outweighs the social guilt felt for not supporting
something that is conceptually more distant from them. Social guilt is no
longer the driver. It's not that social proof doesn't work, its just that
for Wikipedia personal context works better.

[1]
https://medium.com/@chriskfundraising/why-doesnt-social-proof-work-for-wikipedia-fundraising-65d55a047911
[2]
https://hertieschool-f4e6.kxcdn.com/fileadmin/5_WhoWeAre/1_People_directory/Faculty_downloads/Traxler/Publications/LT-Wiki-CondCoop.pdf

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 10:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that praying emojis look like a certain type of religious
> practice, a hand gesture that implies certain religions and not others.
>
> I assume the fundraising team would have the good sense not to describe
> their campaign as a crusade or a jihad. Even if they had carefully targeted
> that emoji to cultures where it was close to common currency, I think it
> was inappropriate.
>
> But I'm also concerned at the 98% look away bit. Presumably this was
> tested and at least in the short term it raised more funds. The problem may
> be longer term, it looked to me the sort of counterproductive message that
> normalises not giving rather than normalising giving.
>
> We need to remember the long term impact of our messaging on the people
> who are less inclined to give as well as the short term impact on
> donations. To me that 98% pitch looked like as much of a mistake as the £5
> coffee ad that fed the overpaid and wasteful meme.
>
> I've seen some marketing from other organisations in the last few months
> that has been more along the lines of "We know that money is tighter than
> usual for a lot of the people who usually support us, and if you are one of
> them we get that you can't give us money this year. But if you find
>  useful, and you are one of those people who is financially OK in
> these troubled times, then please make a donation". Most people can
> identify with one or other of those groups, and I suspect neither would
> think the worse of us for pitching to them in those terms.
>
> Regards
>
> WSC
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 14:24, 
> wrote:
>
>> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> wikimedia-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>1. Re: Annoying ads (Chris Gates)
>>2. Re: Annoying ads (Gnangarra)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2020 08:57:48 -0500
>> From: Chris Gates 
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads
>> Message-ID:
>> > c4hm3dvi7+duitoof...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> I opened a browser I’m not logged in on to see what these ads were.
>>
>> Here is the text, unedited, of the second ad I was shown (after closing
>> the
>> first):
>>
>> “Hi reader 🙂. Sorry for the interruption, but this Saturday Wikipedia
>> really needs your help. This is the 3rd appeal we've shown you. 98% of our
>> readers don't give; they look the other way 😢. All we ask is $2.75 and
>> then you can get back to your article. We ask you, humbly: please don't
>> scroll away 🙏🙏.“
>>
>> It would be quite helpful if the WMF’s marketing and fundraising-focused
>> teams weren’t so intent on destroying Wikipedia’s reputation. I, and I’m
>> sure most editors, don’t care that praying and crying emo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads

[Frederick Noronha]

It's 0415 IST on the West Coast of India, and am just writing to say that I
always read the hands-folded symbol as a "namaste":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namaste
It's a kind of a respectful, non-contact greeting, and here we wouldn't
take it as religious, more cultural if anything.
For other non-contact forms of greetings during Covid times, depending on
one's traditions, one could also choose *salaam* or *aadaab *too. In a
multi-cultural, multi-religious region (like South Asia), the more the
merrier. There are more too:
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/not-just-namaste-here-are-some-other-greetings-from-around-the-world-that-are-coronavirus-proof-2535697.html

But I don't think computer programmers worldwide are so clued in to subtle
nuances on culture and society.
In any case, as George Bernard Shaw says: The will to believe creates its
own evidence.
--Fredericknoronha

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 at 04:11, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Hey WSC!
>
> We have used variations on this line for at the last 7 years and the
> counter-intuitive approach approach has been debated by marketing
> professionals for much of the last decade.
>
> What you describe is known as social proof and despite it being considered
> a core tenet in marketing it doesn't work for our fundraising. We have
> tested and tested and tested every year.
>
> Chris Keating has written his thoughts [1] about why he thinks it doesn't
> work; was recently explored as part of academic study done in partnership
> with WMDE; [2] and I have some of noted some of my thoughts on twitter
> which I'll include here:
>
> The altruistic motives of any donor would often be based on a person's
> personal experience with a cause or services of a non-profit. The
> relationship between benefactor and beneficiary is intertwined.
>
> For Wikipedia, those two groups are one and the same. Every donor is a
> direct benefactor. Degree of separation between benefactor and beneficiary
> is zero. Their personal experience is that of being a beneficiary,
> receiving direct and instant benefit.
>
> Personal benefit outweighs the social guilt felt for not supporting
> something that is conceptually more distant from them. Social guilt is no
> longer the driver. It's not that social proof doesn't work, its just that
> for Wikipedia personal context works better.
>
> [1]
> https://medium.com/@chriskfundraising/why-doesnt-social-proof-work-for-wikipedia-fundraising-65d55a047911
> [2]
> https://hertieschool-f4e6.kxcdn.com/fileadmin/5_WhoWeAre/1_People_directory/Faculty_downloads/Traxler/Publications/LT-Wiki-CondCoop.pdf
>
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 10:21 PM WereSpielChequers <
> werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree that praying emojis look like a certain type of religious
>> practice, a hand gesture that implies certain religions and not others.
>>
>> I assume the fundraising team would have the good sense not to describe
>> their campaign as a crusade or a jihad. Even if they had carefully targeted
>> that emoji to cultures where it was close to common currency, I think it
>> was inappropriate.
>>
>> But I'm also concerned at the 98% look away bit. Presumably this was
>> tested and at least in the short term it raised more funds. The problem may
>> be longer term, it looked to me the sort of counterproductive message that
>> normalises not giving rather than normalising giving.
>>
>> We need to remember the long term impact of our messaging on the people
>> who are less inclined to give as well as the short term impact on
>> donations. To me that 98% pitch looked like as much of a mistake as the £5
>> coffee ad that fed the overpaid and wasteful meme.
>>
>> I've seen some marketing from other organisations in the last few months
>> that has been more along the lines of "We know that money is tighter than
>> usual for a lot of the people who usually support us, and if you are one of
>> them we get that you can't give us money this year. But if you find
>>  useful, and you are one of those people who is financially OK in
>> these troubled times, then please make a donation". Most people can
>> identify with one or other of those groups, and I suspect neither would
>> think the worse of us for pitching to them in those terms.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> WSC
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 14:24, 
>> wrote:
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Donations - show the editors you care?

[Demian]

Hey Seddon,

On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 at 16:23, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Short answer: I don't think it's a cynical lie. I think that the donations
> our donors give do results in benefits to the community, even if they
> aren't transactional or tangible things. We definitely don't want to give
> any misleading impression that the benefits are tangible so we will look
> into this and if we can, try and to improve it.
>
> Long answer: If I look at where things are now versus where things were
> when I first started editing, it's amazing the amount of progress the
> editing experience has made. Even some of the projects with the bumpiest
> entries into the movement have been profoundly impactful. Some might raise
> an eyebrow in my use of it as an example, but I am astounded by how much
> easier the visual editor makes writing articles. Especially with the tools
> that are built into like Citoid. It is a dream to use.
>

Visual Editor was a big step for the WMF. I appreciate very much that it
exists, along with other projects, like Flow and MediaViewer, despite the
community's initial/final rejections (respectively).
Unfortunately, I can only use it effectively when I don't plan on editing
templates or links, those workflows are inefficient and easy to make
mistakes. I like to use Citoid, but I always have to fix up the result.
With the lengthy loading time, every time I have to weigh whether it's
worth the time using Visual Editor. As a result I use it roughly once a
month (estimate), although I wish it would be feasible to use it more often.

Looking at the greater picture I'm happy that new editors are somewhat more
likely to use the Visual Editor, proving its benefit. On the other hand, as
a senior software architect who had worked on improving Visual Editor, I am
aware of the technical reasons that caused the community's low acceptance -
and how it can be fixed -, therefore I fully understand the community's
response.

With these different aspects in mind I wonder why you find the Visual
Editor a dream to use, given that on average at most 4 in 500 of your edits

 (2
,
3
,
4
,
5
,
search: "visual edit") are made using Visual Editor.


Aron
*Senior Software Architect and Analyst*



>
> Or on the multilingual front with the content translation tool which has
> seen 700,000 articles at last count? In the last couple of years we will
> finally have integrated editor onboarding tools that are being worked on
> which are critical for the health of our communities? From personal
> experience, having better onboarding will massively improve community
> projects that aim to engage and bring in new editors to the movement.
>
> At one level you have the discrete improvements being worked on or
> completed with things like partial blocks, revision scoring, visual diffs,
> real time watchlists. At a more global level things like Structure Data on
> Commons or Abstract Wikipedia have the potential to solve massive problems
> the community has faced like multilingual categories or global templates.
> Those have the potential to bring huge benefits to the editing community on
> the projects.
>
> The benefits aren't always tangible to a specific individual and can often
> be invisible even if it enables or supports community focused work further
> downstream. It's worth noting that many of the pragmatic and mission driven
> choices made cumulatively over 15 years have made this work harder for us.
> The limited resources in the earlier years meant that we accumulated a huge
> amount of technical debt and digging out of that is always harder after the
> fact. I'd defer to the opinions of my colleagues but the increasing
> investment over the last few years has allowed us to start actually making
> headway, even if there is still a long way to go.
>
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:37 PM Pelagic via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> [ Cross-posted from
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Donations_-_show_the_editors_you_care%3F
>> ]
>>
>> I had the misfortune of visiting Wikipedia logged-out the other day, and
>> was struck by the large size of the donation banner, and the odd wording of
>> the appeal. (Something about awkward and humble.) Re-checking now, the
>> "awkward" bit is gone, but the following sentences are still t