MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice/Archive 4

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

'Thank you!' message

I'd like to keep the the 'Thank you!' message live until 00:00 UTC Tuesday 10 January. The reason is to give plenty of time for the message to be seen by donors (many of whom don't use Wikipedia daily and/or during the weekend), me time to write a final report for the whole drive (still waiting for Dexia and more mail donation updates), and to maintain some of the current momentum (still lots of donations being made).

One other thing ; I don't know if cafepress.org can handle being linked from the sitenotice. If it becomes unavailable for too long, then please replace the second line in the sitenotice with this:

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' personal appeal for donations is still ongoing.

-- mav 06:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but everything for the election needs to be sorted out in the next 48 hours. Oh and cafepress sucks you'd think we could find someone better.Geni 13:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Mav is in charge of the fundraiser, let him decide when the message should be changed. The majority of people don't know or care about arbcom, and I doubt you're going to find someone to sort things out by sticking a message on every page. Anyone who cares already knows. If you want to try putting a message on the main page, use Template:Main Page banner. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-6 14:14

In about 36 hours I'm going to have people complaining that I didn't warn them about candidates closeing. I want to keep this number the a minium. I am not looking for help I have already got that sorted out I just don't want to many people complaining they were not warned. Oh and look at the vote tally from last time. People do care.Geni 14:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

So put it in MediaWiki:Watchdetails. Anyone who registered far enough back that they have suffrage and is still around will see it there. —Cryptic (talk) 14:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. It should definitely not go in the sitenotice. — Dan | talk 14:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I was just heading here to suggest putting it on the watchlist notice. Allow me to add my "Here here!" -- Essjay · Talk 15:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Grammar

I've added an apostrophe and s so that it now reads: "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's...". If I remember correctly, this is the proper way to place a possessive apostrophe in names of people which end in "s". Alternatively, we could just reword the whole statement to avoid apostrophes. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

'Thank you!'

Is it just me or would "Thank you!" look better than 'Thank you!'? --King of All the Franks 19:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

See scare quotes. --mav

Missing /DIV?

Is it me, or is there a missing </div> at the end? (I count two opening DIV's, then a close, then another open, and then a single close). —Locke Cole • t • c 10:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

ID of personal appeal

Hey mav, please add in the ID for the personal appeal. E.g. - <div id="pabanner" ...>. Thanks! —Locke Cole • t • c 03:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. - Mark 03:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Alignment

Having the notice is quite irritating on the right. The exact same bold font and presentation of the sitenotice is the same as the "You have new messages" notification. One could simply look in one's peripheral vision for bold text in the upper right for new messages notification, but apparently this isn't going to be the case any more. Dysprosia 04:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the final result may be, please, everyone, discuss the alignment before coming to any conclusion about changing it. I don't think people will like seeing this thing switching back and forth as they navigate the site :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 04:12

I'm not going to revert -- just putting my objection on the record. Dysprosia 04:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I would appreciate it more as a float, although the implications for pages that employ "edit top" scripting and longer titles might have dubious effects. Can we try an absolute position underneath the user bar with a negative z-index so it goes behind our tabs? — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 04:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Under MonoBook (the default skin), the "new messages" banner appears as a bright orange box with left-aligned text.

When you moved the sitenotice to the left, it appeared directly above the page titles (thereby creating unpleasant clutter) under almost every skin. —David Levy 04:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I use Cologne Blue, and there is no such "clutter". Is the inevitable outcome of this argument going to be something along the lines of "if it's good for Monobook, it's good for everyone"? Dysprosia 04:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... this is so easy to fix. Move the CSS for Monobook to MediaWiki:Monobook.css and move the CSS for Cologne Blue to... well... whatever the CSS for Cologne blue is. That is not a problem. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 04:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Found it! MediaWiki:Cologneblue.css. With absolutely nothing on it! I am amazed. And, very likely, it works out the same for the other ones too. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 04:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not that well versed in CSS to make the appropriate changes, but I'll make some attempts. Dysprosia 05:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

In every skin other than Nostalgia, the left-aligned sitenotice appeared directly above the page titles. To me, this was a distraction and an eyesore, and I assume that the same was true for others (most of whom use MonoBook).

Frankly, you're the one who changed the template to suit your preferred skin (as though the issue in question applied to everyone). I'm not implying that users of other skins shouldn't be considered, but I believe that the right-aligned version looks much better for the vast majority of users.

I don't know very much about the CSS settings that Ambush Commander referenced, but I hope that this is a viable solution. —David Levy 04:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I did not change the template to suit "my preferred skin". Please do not presume to know the motives of other users. I changed the template so it would not be visually confusing to some users. The issue you raised was clutter, not confusion. So why not fix Monobook, then? Having no clearance between skin elements is obviously not a Good Thing. Dysprosia 05:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

You just implied that my attitude was "if it's good for Monobook, it's good for everyone," and now you're accusing me of "presum[ing] to know the motives of other users."

I didn't mean that you were thinking only of your personal convenience. My point was that you altered the sitenotice's appearance to display optimally in your skin, without considering the fact that this didn't apply to everyone's skin (including the one used by most Wikipedians). I'm not ascribing this to malice; I'm merely responding to your implication that I inconsiderately disregarded users of alternative skins. —David Levy 05:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I did not. I had also said "Is the inevitable outcome of this argument going to be something along the lines of...", which is not a personal reflection on your attitude. I made this comment because of earlier attempts to change templates slightly to be beneficial across all skins have been dismissed with this attitude. In hindsight, the preamble I mentioned above to the statement in question was a bit more provocative than what I would like and apologize for making it.

I also did not intend to imply that you personally "inconsiderately disregarded users of alternative skins". If a single change in alignment in a template results in visual clutter in Monobook, possibly due to inappropriate spacing, perhaps it should be Monobook should be fixed up so there is no clutter, and the spacing improved. Visual clarity in skins should not be so sensitive to minor changes such as this. Dysprosia 05:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, I apologize for any ambiguity on my part. (In case it wasn't clear, I was assuming good faith.)

I don't know whether MonoBook or any other skin should be changed (nor do I know enough about their code to experiment in this manner), but I sincerely hope that we can create a setup that works well for everyone. —David Levy 05:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone here know how the CSS stuff works? Because I'd do it myself, but I can't edit pages in MediaWiki namespace. I'll figure out what sort of CSS would fix it, but I'm not really sure what people want to see on the Cologneblue page. Plus, unless the Monobook specific CSS gets moved to MediaWiki:Monobook.css, I will have to use !important, which really should only be last resort. Mind you, I am against keeping the message in the current state.

Sigh... this is the opposite of the situation at Meta, where I have the necessary CSS fixes, but no one's acting on them.

Finally, there are implications on moving the CSS to an external stylesheet, most importantly, that effects won't kick in until people purge their caches, so you can't be real wishy-washy about what you want. ;-) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 23:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Spam 2

...is distasteful wherever it appears. It gives the impression (true or not) that we are permanently grasping for money, from both our established contributors and any passing souls. It's in the mould of a popup, as it forces you to notice it even if you hate it. It will dull the effect of any future fundraisers, and is generally fairly toxic.

Please can we get rid of it? -Splash^talk 03:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how often Wikimedia does fundraising events, but I don't see the harm in leaving that small note there for a week or so to get any last-minute donations. I do agree that it shouldn't be there permanently. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There are 4 per year. The new can-o-spam is a permanent feature. -Splash^talk 03:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Having more noticeable reminders for people to donate is part of a long term board-approved strategy to make sure Wikipedia continues to have enough money to stay online. Please don't remove the one line message. We can't afford to not greatly increase donations between fundraisers. :) If the design is bad, then we can improve that, but something needs to stay in highly noticeable yet relatively unobtrusive place. --mav

In exchange for decreasing the impact of fundraisers because everybody's bored of the pleading already? That sounds like a zero sum game at best. -Splash^talk 03:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the effect will be as you claim. All PBS programs have a "thank you for donating" message at the beginning, and they still do well in their fundraisers. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 03:10

The point is we have to get the money somehow, and asking for it seems to be the most obvious way of doing that. When that ceases to be effective, we'll have to look elsewhere, but I think it's better to exhaust the least distasteful possibility first. — Dan | talk 03:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, and people can always ignore it in their CSS if they want to (see top of this page). — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 03:10

I can think of three ways of doing that without useing sitenotice:

1)Highlight the link in the sidebar

2)make the logo link to the donations page

3)Put a link on featured articles

all of these have the advantage that I wont have to deal with helpdeak complains that haveing to scroll down is uppping people's mobile bill.Geni 03:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

What percentage of users use mobile phones, and what percentage of those donate? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 03:22

I don't know about the first and the second can't matter unless the wikimedia foundation has changed it's charter.Geni 03:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with splash, not only was it really annoying but it really makes me NOT want to donate anything. The smaller text is better but if you guys keep it up for much longer it will make the fund raisers seem like a joke :(. The difference between PBS is that it actually isn't asking you to donate, it is thanking you for doing so... WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 03:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The current version won't be the permanent version. The permanent version is going to be just like PBS's "Thank you" message. If it annoys you, see the top of this page for how to block it. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 03:19

I've just noticed the plural in mav's message. How many different ways does the Board plan to come grasping at my wallet? -Splash^talk 03:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There are also plans to put a Donate image in the left bar, about the size of the search block. Wikimedia will also be contracting thugs to go door-to-door, shaking up Wikipedians for money. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 03:19

Would I have started editing here if the first things I saw all said "GIMME GIMME $$$$$". Hell, no. I'd have told Wikimedia and it's cutesy messages where they could place themselves. -Splash^talk 03:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

AMEN! In all seriousness though, mav et al. your thought process is wrong here - it isn't addressing the real problem - i.e. why you guys are not getting donations. Rather, you guys are taking a quick-fix approach which may hurt you in the long run. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 03:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Alright, you claim to have identified a problem. Now, can you provide any insight into fixing it? If Google ever decides to come through on their ancient promise of helping us, then we probably would be set, but until then, we're stuck with what we have. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 13:21

The problem is that non-fundraiser donation totals are way, way smaller than is healthy. Look at October About as much was taken in that *whole month* as a below average *day* in this last fund drive. I would like to get at least several fund drive equivalent days per non-fund drive month. --mav 03:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

mav, hopefully you can answer this (was something I asked brian0918 on IRC, but after you left). Is there a point where the foundation can have enough money in the bank earning interest that it can be self-sustaining (including accounting for growth)? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Not possible. Even interest earned on a $100,000,000 endowment would not grow fast enough for us. Would be enough for this year, but after that, no. We are growing way too fast and would need to use the endowment as revenue. Things would look a bit better if the endowment grew as fast as say, the stock market, but that would just add a few years before we have to start to draw down the endowment. --mav 04:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, wishful thinking, thanks mav. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think the notice should be there forever because Sitenotice simply wasn't designed for that sort of task. I remember reading in the documentation that this would simply add "a big, ugly, sitenotice on to your site." Besides, we already have a Donations link in the navigation portlet... what more could you ask for? Even WNYC isn't this annoying most of the year, and trust me: when their fundraisers roll around, they can get really annoying (although, you end up donating anyway because you get cool gifts when you donate certain amounts... mmm...) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 04:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

a long term board-approved strategy to make sure Wikipedia continues to have enough money to stay online - mav, please show me the board meeting minutes where having this banner permanently in place was approved. Dan100 (Talk) 08:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

See his talk page. There aren't any.Geni 10:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm.. the word of the CFO against the word of a user I've never heard of. Hmm, forgive me, but I'll go with what mav says. If you have a problem with it, go nag Jimbo. Otherwise, use the CSS tricks at the top of the page to make the notice disappear. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Mav has said that there was no meeting. I assume you will accept this?Geni 10:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Mav said– Mostly the internal mailing list via unanimous consent is where it was discussed. As he's the one handling the money situation, I'll take him at his word that this is necessary for now. Though I'd also like some word down the road on if this personal-appeal message was as successful as he'd hoped (and if it wasn't, that he find something else less obtrusive if possible to try). —Locke Cole • t • c 11:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not particularly willing to trust the board's judgement on this one, particularly after they stuffed up this fund drive. This is obtrusive, and is only going to lead to most regular Wikipedians turning off the sitenotice - which means that it'll be useless when it actually is required (i.e. for notices of downtimes and actual fund drives). Furthermore, I suspect it'll harm future fund drives, as people without the sitenotice turned off get used to ignoring its contents as spam. Fundraising issues really do need a lot of thought, but this is not the way to go about it. Ambi 11:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Most regular Wikipedians (ie, editors) shouldn't be donating their money, since they already donate their time. I know of several that do, and who use a periodic donation (monthly/yearly) so that they don't forget. I'm sure everyone will know about the next fundraiser when it comes around, regardless of whether they have the sitenotice blocked. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 13:25

Ambi, the board did not 'stuff up' anything. This was the most successful fundraiser in the foundation's history; taking in more money directly than all three previous drives combined. My personal wish that we could hit $500,000 should not be confused with a goal. That could have, perhaps, been reached if we started the drive right after Christmass and had Jimmy’s highly personal appeal up for the whole drive, but hindsight is 20/20. The only measure by which this drive could not be successful is *only* based on my unrealistic personal wish. --mav 13:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite sure mav is telling the truth. I'm just seeing if the descision has been made properly in the formal manner. It appears that it has not. That means it does no override descisions on idividual wikis. Now I doubt I could atchive it's removal from en wikipedia in the short run. But I have other wikis to think about.12:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

To be clear; what we want are more prominent notices and reminders that people can donate between drives. The board, nor anybody else, has mandated exactly how to do that. Thus using the sitenotice may or may not be the best way to accomplish our aim to increase donations between fundraisers. I would like to work with the English Wikipedia to find the best way to do all this so that can serve as a reference model for the other wikis. PLEASE do not take this as an order on high; just a preference. It is my hope that everybody here will agree that increasing donations between fundraisers is a worthwhile goal and either help make that happen in the best way or let others do that without undue obstruction. Giving users the ability to turn this message off is perfectly valid since I do not expect user-editors to donate ; just anons who only read. *That* is our target audience. User-editors already contribute enough and I *do not* want to upset them. --mav 13:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

In that case, let me strongly urge that you get the devs to add a custom MediaWiki message that will appear above MediaWiki:Sitenotice, but be seperate and be blockable on it's own (e.g. - it gets autowrapped in a DIV with a standard ID that can easily be blocked, as MediaWiki:Sitenotice is)... something like MediaWiki:Fundraisingnotice. In this way Sitenotice won't end up being useless for when we actually want to announce something to the whole site (logged in or not), such as server downtime, etc. With regard to the single line message, I have no problem with it, I just hope it helps. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for increasing the visibility of the donation link, for sure. I'm just against it being in the sitenotice. :) Ambi 13:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with it being in the sitenotice. The sitenotice is for messages to readers, not editors (according to either mav or jimbo, I forget which), and should be used in this way. People who are opposed to it can easily turn it off. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-10 13:52

that would appear to be the appeal to authority logical fallacy. Sitenotice was the one way we had of contacting everyone (remeber not everyone uses watchlists). Now we don't have it any more.Geni 12:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it was an "appeal to guy in charge of the site". Sitenotice can still be used for other purposes. You don't have to ignore the whole notice, just the block that has been given the id "pabanner". — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 13:55

No it isn't. The wikimedia foundation is in charge of the site and I can't find a formal board discusion showing that sitenotice is for readers only.Geni 14:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not the point. The sitenotice is not off limits. People can specifically block the fundraising part while not blocking anything else that could potentially be in the sitenotice. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 14:13

And in the end, it will still have the ugly effect of pushing down the title of articles 1em too far. Can't we just be satisfied with the "Donations" link in navigation? No one has really rebutted that yet. Plus, the contents of the mailing list discussion were not disclosed... in the end, this may not be a decision for us to decide, but I'll argue anyway. If we still want a link to the personal appeal, we can add another navigation link like "Why donate?" that links there. Anything but the stuff on the top please! :o) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, mav has repeatedly addressed this. The donations tab gets us practically nothing, whereas even this small notice in the sitenotice gets us more in 2 days than we normally get in a month. Again, if you want to ignore the sitenotice, you can, but there is no reason to destroy any hope of this site surviving for a few more years because you are concerned about 1em of space. The donation notices are going to become more obvious with time, not less, because keeping the site running is of greater concern than appealing to the visual desires of some editors who are easily able to ignore the whole thing. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 00:38

Current high costs are due to the growth rate. Logic says that has to fall at some point which should have the effect of somewhat reduceing costs.Geni 00:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This assumes that we will survive to that levelling-off, which we are currently nowhere near being able to do. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 01:00

I was not aware of that statistic. There are two more variables, however: a personal appeal is much different from a generic page soliciting donations, and also the fact that the small notice is much newer than the old Donations link. I cannot see into the future, but a large argument is that keeping the appeal there too long will dull it down. Me saying it again is redundant, but let me bring in a case study that has been only glanced over.

WNYC is an extremely widely listened to radio station in the New York area. Since it's radio, the majority of its support comes from member donations. Radio time is very much like website screen real estate: it is limited and too much will annoy the audience. Fundraising drives have proven extremely successful for WNYC, and they have several more tricks up their sleeves.

While fundraising is not perrenial, they solicit "pre-donations", which, after every $120,000 raised (bit different budget, eh?), the drive is shortened by one day. These pre-drive notices are short and sweet, but surprisingly effective.

In addition, pledges of certain amounts will net you gifts such as books, magazine subscriptions, and coffee mugs. This could be very effective if we could get more diverse Wikipedia merchandise: the gifts from WNYC are varied and interesting.

These points are not suggestions for future fundraisers (although I suppose they could work), but to show that Fundraisers can be a viable source of income, and can be preferable to constant solicitations for donations. The notice as it stands is, in my opinion, a constant solicitation for donations due to its high visibility. Periodic solicitations, however, are what WNYC opted for, and I think it is what we should opt for too. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 01:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The notice as it stands will not remain as it is for much longer. Soon it will be changed to a PBS-like notice; so just as PBS has "thank you for donating" messages at the beginning of their shows, we have "thank you for donating" messages at the beginning of our articles. It worked for PBS, so there is a "case study" to compare to. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 03:28

That analogy is flawed. If PBS had a "thank you for donating" at the top of the screen 24/7, people would start to get annoyed. Now, if it were molded into the main page, that might be more like what PBS does - and much less annoying. Ambi 03:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not flawed, because the sitenotice is only visible at the top of the page; it doesn't follow you as you scroll down the page. It is exactly like a print version of a PBS show, with every article being a show. As readers go down the page (further into the show), the notice disappears, and if they go back up to the top of the page (rewind the show), the notice reappears. And, if they have Tivo (custom CSS), they can block it all. :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-11 04:27

The fundraiser was only saved (to an extent) by Jimbo's personal intervention (this probably isn't the place to discuss the failures of the fund drive prior to that). This is a trick you can only pull once, obviously. Now, Mav wants to get each month bringing in as much/more money as each day in a fund drive. However, 4 (fund drives) x 21 (days long each) = 84, and that's rather more than 12 (months)! This suggests that we should withold the "big gun" of Jimbo's appeal for fund drives.

Regards the board: if the board (or Jimbo himself) does not make a public statement, via an open board meeting, they have no say over the site. The decision is ours, and as far as I knew we did things around here by consensus. There seems to be very much a lack of consensus over this issue! Therefore I've removed the banner for now. Dan100 (Talk) 09:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Mav simply misspoke in that quote you cite, or you misunderstood him. Whether or not we reach his goal is not the point. The point is to increase funds, which more prominent notices have been doing for us. How long will it last, who knows? But we should keep it going for as long as it is well above what we would normally expect without any notice. My only purpose for this is to increase the funds for the foundation. What is your purpose? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 09:06
Also, since when is "no consensus" = "delete"? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 09:08
Also also, I think we can all agree Mav knows more about the fundraising/donation situation than any of us, so I think his say should count for quite a bit more. Do we need a consensus on this too? :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 09:10

I'll try to address your arguments. The point is to increase funds, which more prominent notices have been doing for us. It seems to me that it means that the ends (more money) justify the means (possibly annoying notice on all pages). I feel justified to conclude that there are many people opposed to perpetuating the notice due to the edit warring going on on this page. Also, since when is "no consensus" = "delete". Ah, but this is not an encyclopedia article.

Nonetheless, it is a valid concern. In the case where there is no consensus, what should the default action be? It appears that the primary edits in favor of keeping the notice have been by Mav and Brian0918.

Raul654 made the first edit that completely removed the site notice. Before that, there was still a big yellow Thank You note as well as a notification that the appeal was still ongoing. An hour later, Brian0918 reverts. Then Brian0918 adds this huge noinclude notice which doesn't work (this is because site messages do not have the same syntax as other messages).

Four hours after the first revert, Splash removes the notice, following the instructions in a comment to the letter (unfortunantely, the comment had a very different intent). Two hours later, Maveric adds back the small notice which would be the version we would have today. He says that Jimmy's personal appeal for donations is still ongoing ; one small line will do.

Geni quickly reverts, on grounds that the appeal was equivalent to the fundraiser (which now seems to be incorrect), and the fundraiser had clearly ended already. Two minutes later, Maveric reverts again, with the personal appeal has is separate from the fund drive.

At this point, there is quite a bit of fussing around with the notice, but no outright deletions. Two days after the last revert, User:Dan100 unilaterally deletes the message, on grounds No consensus, no public board request and Brian0918 promptly reverts with and no vehement complaints either. let mav decide when to remove it. you can block it in your css if you don't want to see it. User:RN reverts and shoots back: consider this my "vehement complaint" then, mmk? Thanks :) and Bran0918 reverts again (second revert) with what exactly is your purpose? to get your own personal way? you haven't even talked once on the talk page. this sitenotice is for increasing funds. User:Dan100 reverts again, with no consensus for this, see talk.

Fortunantely, Brian0918 doesn't make the third revert, User:Sean Black does. He says: /Please/ discuss this, just leave it for now. Dan100 reverts with Yes - if the discussion says we'll keep it, we will - but not until then. Anthere reverts with Let Mav take care of this please. We have a board meeting planned in two days from now, so please be patient. Geni reverts with Or you could be patient instead. I think we've waited a few days. That seems reasonable.. Anthere reverts with see talk. Geni reverts again: yes see talk. you are not going to win by edit warring. Logical debate maybe. Edit warring no.. Second revert. Anthere reverts again: some things are needed to keep the website running..... Third revert. Geni reverts AGAIN Rv see talk. I don't think we are two days away from collapse.. Third revert.

No 3RR violations though! User:Sannse steps in with Revert - for oh so many reasons. For goodness sake, can we trust the board to do what is needed to keep us going!.

And that's where we stand. :-) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 21:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

My conclusion, then, is that by the word of Maveric and Anthere (and the enforcement of Dan0918), it seems like the site notice is here to stay. Vehement reverts by Geni and Dan100. Several unvehement admins on both sides stepped in at various moments to contribute reverts too, but they got no where near the three revert rule. There is, as you can see, no consensus. So what is the default? (Yup, I'm still not sure). I'll mull about it over dinner. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 21:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Great play by play, I like the "shoots back" part :) WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 02:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

One thing you didn't address was my first question, to the people who repeatedly remove the notice, what is their purpose in doing so? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 22:44

Being bold and fixing something they didn't like. It's that simple. When someone challenged them, they evaluated the situation, decided that they had not been reckless, and reverted again. I must point out that the initial blanking led directly to the smaller notice (sorta like a compromise, although according to the edit summaries we had it coming).

I think, however, that we need a larger, more open, discussion about fundraising. While I think the board is very capable of handling the issue itself (as I said, this may not be for us to decide), gauging community opinion about these sorts of things encourages transparency, gives the board more ideas and lets people know about the behind-the-scenes discussions. Just because Wikipedia is not a democracy doesn't mean the masses will accept decisions from a board that, in their perception, doesn't properly tell them what is going on (even if such resources are available). The edit warring, however, is indicative of a different problem involving the MediaWiki namespace as a whole, where there are pretty much no rules and the only people who can edit them are already on the top of the food chain. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 23:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

So, basically, they wanted their own way on something that they can easily block in their CSS? We are not really gauging community opinion on this talk page. Only people who are opposed enough to this notice to hunt down the mediawiki file that is responsible are going to go to this talk page to complain. I doubt people are voluntarily going to go out of their way to find this talk page just to say they are alright with the sitenotice. That this talk page has attracted such a small number of opposition (compared to the number of people who read/edit Wikipedia, and thus see this notice) is a sign to me that people are on the whole alright with it, but that's just my opinion. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 23:08

Yes. The MediaWiki namespace is the cabal of Wikipedia. Most Wikipedians don't know about it. Anons are plain out. And there is virtually no way to figure out the page exists. I only found out the namespace when I got interested in hacking the engine.

I remember once, a long time ago, Special:Recentchanges was vandalized by Willy on Wheels. It involved superimposing this huge thing over the page. The associated change was actually on a page in the MediaWiki namespace, but I tore my hair out trying to track it down (because I didn't know about it!) In the end, I dropped a note on either the Village pump or the talk page for the Main page. I found it hard to believe that other users had not yet. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 23:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

At the time that page would have been in the wikipedia namespace (with a redirect from the mediawiki). It was intentionaly made hard to find. To a degree the same applies to the mediawiki namespace although it is mentioned in the standard admin reading list I suspect most admins view it a bit like range blocks. Something they leave to other people.Geni 00:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing the thought process is close to mine in that I percieve it as a tacky spamvertisement which gives a horrible impression to new visitors. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 23:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

What is the basis for your claim about what new visitors think of this notice? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 23:24

You're being just plain difficult about this. What do you think most people think of junk mail and spam? "Oooh, give me more"? -Splash^talk 23:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course people don't like spam. That's not what I asked. I asked for evidence that newcomers consider this notice a "tacky spamvertisement" that leaves them with a "horrible impression". — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 01:40

The notion of no consensus = not delete is completely false. The correct notion is, and has always been, no consensus = do nothing. -Splash^talk 22:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The notice has been here since the fundraiser. People started wanting to remove it, but there was no consensus to do so. So, do nothing. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 22:45

It's been objected to since day 1. The do nothing would be to go back to the default of no notice.Geni 23:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

People have not been objecting to the notice's existence since the fundraiser started, only to its design. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 23:16

You know precisely what Geni is referring to. Stop being funny. -Splash^talk 23:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not being funny. Geni said people have objected to this fundraising notice's existence since day 1 (the only way to come to the conclusion that "no consensus" = "no existence"). There's no evidence of that. People objected to its design, but not its existence. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 01:43

I agree with Geni here- the default and the consensus was for no banner; the partisans for keeping the banner have not shown that consensus inclines their way. --maru (talk) Contribs 23:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You said that "the consensus was for no banner". How are you pulling a "consensus" from "no consensus". — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 01:43

By default. I have heard no petitions for a banner to be added prior to the fundraiser, and the few proposals which came anywhere near such a thing were roundly denounced. --maru (talk) Contribs 05:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

War on Sitenotice

Is this a planned attack to keep the sitenotice removed? What exactly is the point of your repeatedly removing the sitenotice without even saying one thing on the talk page? To get your way? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN &bul; 2006-01-12 08:55

Give me a chance to type! See "Spam 2" above. Dan100 (Talk) 09:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

As I've written all too many times, this is embarrassing. You (referring to all parties) couldn't possibly have picked a more visible place to do battle. I feel like I'm writing to new users who are unfamiliar with the concept of a talk page. Please cease editing the sitenotice until you reach a decision; to do otherwise reflects badly on all of us. — Dan | talk 09:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Please cease editing the sitenotice until at least Mav is up. As much as I remember, the board and financial committee was in agreement to keep the site notice up for a few more days. We have a board meeting planned in the next few days (actually, 4 board members and 4 officers will be in Tampa for the next days, for a big brainstorming), so please be patient. Mav is also working on a new system for donation. So, the appeal will probably be gone very very soon. Meanwhile, please, do not lose your time on an edit war on this poor sitenotice. Thanks a lot. Anthere

Ja.wikipedia doesn't appear to have sitenotice so Mav may be busy elsewhere. You were the onces who tried to inforce this by force rather than going through official channels. We've waited a few days I think it is yor turn to do so.Geni 10:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct. But Mav does not read japanese, so it probably does not help :-) I am not entirely sure what you call official channels... but I think that Mav, as a CFO, is allowed to turn on this sitenotice, and it should be respected. I also think that as the *only* board member being awaken right now, and being one of the 5 people in charge of keeping the website running (it needs money you know ?), I think I can restore this notice without being requested to go through the official channels. I have informed the internal mailing list of the situation 1 hour ago and I am sure Daniel or Jimbo will answer themselves as soon as they get online. If you still disagree, please write to foundation-l@wikimedia.org please. Anthere

Since you argue en.wiki notice should be turned off because ja.wiki notice has been removed, let me just point out that fr:wiki and de:wiki, which are the two biggest languages after en, still have a notice. Not the same than en:wiki indeed, but leading to the fundraising pages. Anthere

Please don't create strawmen. Of course I know the status the fundraiseing notice on those wikis. However ja.wikipedia clearly shows that there is no cordinated position on this.Geni 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

If the site is a couple of normal days worth of donations away from collapse I think you have a duty to inform everyone. Formal board descisions overule local site autonomy. Nothing else does. You are of course free to restore the notice (and I'm free to remove it) although you are getting pretty close to the 3 revert rule.Geni 10:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's all "our turn" to be calm, go edit the Wikipedia's many troubled articles that need attention, turning off the sitenotice in CSS if it offends, and not blinking the sitenotice on and off. Dysprosia 10:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we stop the reversion, please? Dysprosia 10:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I will revert again. If this lead me being blocked under the three revert rules, no problem. I will gladly take a break :-) I do not think it will be a good decision in the long run however. We have different jobs in the project. Yours might be to do good articles, a thing I can not do anymore. My job is in part to ensure developers will meet their budget this quarter. For this, I will stand :-) Again, no official board decision will be taken until the other board members wake up. It will probably be to remove the notice... or it will be to remove sysop powers to you... but I think that by respect for the job we do, and in appreciation for having the site running at all, you should keep it on. Simple. Now, time for me to have lunch :-) Good day. Anthere 10:56, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

If we are two days away from collapse I really do think you should tell us. It would allow us to take database dumps and the like. As for threatening me with deadminship I would suggest that if threats and appeals to emotion are all you have that you rethink your postion. You see below the support you need. If you had been patient for just a few hours you would not have needed to edit war.Geni 12:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to revert, but this is really ridiculous. We didn't get the money the developers need, we need the board to do what is necessary to ensure that we keep going. Top of my mind is the frustration from the slowtime in the past when we didn't have the equipment to cope with the number of visitors. We are now in the top 20 on Alexa - you can't maintain a site of that prominence without funds. Funding and how to achieve that is the board's domain - can we please not interfere with that -- sannse (talk) 10:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

your evidence that this is nessacery or if it is that it is the best rout?Geni 12:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I trust the people we elected to know this and make decisions in this area. At least enough to leave the notice where it is and discuss it if I disagree -- sannse (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Please leave it there until someone comes up with a better idea or Mav decides it isn't needed.

The Wikimedia Board of Trustees manage the nonprofit and supervise the disposition and solicitation of nonprofit donations...The Board has the power to direct the activities of the foundation.

from http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees -- the wub "?!" ^{RFR - a good idea?} 10:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

But there is no board descision. They have not met yet.Geni 12:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You are playing on words here Geni. We decided a few days ago to let a notice stand for a little while longer. This did not come from no-where. Mav did not put it entirely on his own will and certainly not against our will. So, the next decision is not to confirm we "keep" it, but it will be to "remove" it. Anthere

Perpetuating revert wars is no way to resolve any problem. Turn the sitenotice off in your CSS until they have met and made a decision, if the sitenotice offends you so much! Reversion is not the answer. Dysprosia 12:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I tried discusion but it didn't seem to be working and Anthere aparently wanted to edit war rather than waiting for more people to come along and support her position.Geni 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

As mentionned above, the decision of keeping this notice is the decision of the Foundation. It is not something which is voted by editors, just as decision over the budget or whether to purchase new servers is not a decision voted upon by editors. We certainly welcome editors opinion, but ultimately, this is a Foundation decision. Anthere

We've been through this. Please provide the minites of the meeting where it was discused or provide instructions how I can obtain them. Ok I won't mess around I already know they don't exist becuase there has not been a formal meeting and therefore there is no formal descision. Once you have had a proper meeting ande made a formal descission I will accept it. I reserve the right to say the descission is incorrect but I will accept it. However that acceptance comes at a price. The price is you follow procedure.Geni 13:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

No, you kept reverting while talk was taking place. That's not exactly "trying discussion". Just leave the sitenotice in one stable state now, please, and discuss this without further reverts. Dysprosia 12:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

cheack the revert timeings. At 09:12 Anthere reveted without discusion I did the same at 09:49. At 10:04 Anthere reverted me with the message see talk even though my comment on talk was the latest on the talk page this was still the case when I revrted at 10:08. Anthere then did comment and reverted me at 10:21. I then reverted at 10:34 haveing commented twice. I think I made a fair effert to discuss things but I was blunt force reverted. Such is life.Geni 13:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should have exercised some restraint. Don't forget that this is a template which is visible everywhere on Wikipedia, and changing it rapidly is a bad idea. Remember an edit war only exists with two people, not just one. Dysprosia 01:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I made a topic on the Administrato's Noticeboard regarding this and was told that the notice was expected to be removed January 10. If that was an official decision and there has been nothing invalidating or revoking it, it is quite clear that that decision should be carried out. Unless there is something besides Anthere's insistence, let her exceed the 3RR, be blocked, and the notice removed until the Board issues a statement ordering its restoration. Wikipedia is not a democracy. cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 13:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

you got it just right. Wikipedia is not a democracy... Anthere

It does however have processes which you are ignoreing.Geni 13:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, respect Anthere to speak for the intentions of the board. Have you read her userpage lately? Dragons flight 13:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

thanks Dragons flight. Mav is now there, I let him fix the issue. Anthere

10 January was the day when the big thank you message from the last fund drive was to be removed. It was. Jimmy's personal appeal is a separate issue. --mav 13:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Very crazy possibility

It occurs to me that it would probably be possible to hack Mediawiki:Userlogin (i.e. "Sign in / Create account" that appears at the upper right on not logged in visitors) in such a way as to add donations appeal to the top left or top center of users' screens when they are not logged in. Doing so would obviously be a fairly serious hack, but I suspect it is technically possible (though I haven't tested it for obvious reasons).

I am floating this a possible alternative to the global site notice, but don't really have strong feelings about either approach, and presumably the foundation will decide what appearance they want. Dragons flight 13:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Another similar idea would be to add the link using the technique for a static link to Kate's tool at Wikipedia:Kate's Tool. the wub "?!" ^{RFR - a good idea?} 13:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Give me the hack and I can test it on my local MediaWiki installation ;-). — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 22:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hack? Isn't the "Sign in..." message a text message which can be changed? (SEWilco 18:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC))

Might not be so easy because it's just plain text and must have the link wrapped around it - adding further content would thus be part of the registration link. Still might be possible. violet/riga (t) 19:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessary. MediaWiki:Anonnotice has been created. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 19:57

Need to increase non-fund drive donation rate

We take in less money on an average non-fund dive *month* than we do on an average fund drive *day*. Much of that is likely due to the near invisible donations link in the sidebar. Our costs are growing nearly as exponentially as our traffic. So increasing the non-fund drive donation rate is very important to ensuring the financial health of the foundation and its projects. It will also lesson the pressure we have during fund drives and may even reduce their duration. Let me reiterate some other points:

The board, by unanimous consent, agreed to keep the sitenotice up for awhile longer at least on the English Wikipedia. No specific time period was mentioned, so *they* need to clarify that at the next meeting. Until then, the notice *must* stay. Anthere, a board member, is 100% correct.
That the notice is not on any other wiki is *my* fault and my fault alone: I was supposed to coordinate translations, but since I was never completely happy with the wording of the notice, I did not do that. I had hoped we could all work right here, as adults, to find the best wording.
The board also agreed, again by unanimous consent, that we need to permanently have more prominent reminders that we need donations. No specific method to do that was decided on. That may require a message in the sitenotice, a donate button replacing the nearly invisible donations link in the sidebar, a footer message, or any combination of those things. I hope this will be one thing we can brainstorm on in the upcoming meeting.
Very important: the primary target audience for all the donation and fundraising messages are people who mainly or only just read Wikipedia. I personally do *not* expect any regular editor to donate a dime since they are already donating their time. Savvy editors already have the ability to edit their Monobook.css file to make the notice disappear. One of the things I would like to talk about in the upcoming meeting is to add that functionality to the preferences of user accounts (perhaps graying it out until the account is x days old in order to mitigate against readers creating accounts for the sole purpose of removing the donation/fundraising message).

So, please stop removing the message up until the board decides what to do. Everybody also needs to understand that a top 20 website requires serious revenue to keep going and donations made through the various foundation-supported websites is where the vast majority of its funding comes from. --mav 13:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

A few questions. Is the foundation going to collapse in the next two days? Did the board agree in a formal meeting? What have translation issues got to do with the failure of the notice to appear on wikibooks? How about you stop putting the message up until the board decides what to do? You know following process and all that. Geni 13:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

No, the foundation will not collapse in the next two days. But if you are willing to cover the amount of money we will fail to get in that time if the sitemessage is blank, then please say so. :) BTW, we got a $5000 donation yesterday, likely due to the continued existence of the sitenotice. It was not in a formal meeting; it was sparked from me asking questions on the internal list and getting either support or silence from the board members. Basically somebody says they will do something unless somebody opposes. If at least one board member opposes or wants to have an email vote, then we have to poll each board member. Requiring formal board meetings for everything would lead to deadlock since it is very hard to get everybody in the same place at the same time. The fact that I did not like the wording would make me hesitant to spread it any other place until I like that wording. But instead of working on that wording we have argued if any wording should be present at all. --mav 14:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

While that's fair enough, please don't use that as an excuse to keep the fundraising stuff in the sitenotice any longer than absolutely necessary. When is this meeting? This is already teeing off good editors, if we're going to have to run around instructing hard-working editors how to use the CSS trick, it really should be for as short a time as possible. Ambi 14:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Our budget and finance meeting will be tomorrow afternoon eastern U.S. time (add 4 hours for UTC). --mav 14:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You can have a meeting in quite a few ways without people being in the same place Just as long as all members are present or offer their excuses and minutes are taken and the like. Geni 14:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Which is the way most decisions take place. For three board members and three officers to be present at one time (as is currently happening in St Petersburg FL) is a rare occurence. [[Sam Korn]] 16:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Repeated removals: what is your purpose?

To the people who have repeatedly removed the little fundraising notice from the sitenotice, what is your purpose in doing this? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 20:17

To improve the visual layout of the site.Geni 23:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

According to whom? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 01:37

Me.Geni 02:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 02:33

Whats your problem? Until there has been a proper board meeting no one has anything higher to appeal to than themselves. Oh I supose we could consult the community. Are you prepaed to go back to the default no message untill we have done so? If not why not?Geni 02:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm appealing to the authority of mav/Anthere, who know more about this than any of us. If they say it should remain, it should remain. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 02:46

No they don't. How many hours per day do they spend on En.wikipedia?Geni 02:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

They know more about Wikimedia's financial situation than we do. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 03:00

Unless they have been lieing in their budgets and the like that is open to qustion since they do have a pretty good record of telling us what is going on.Geni 09:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Information doesn't tell you how to deal with it, or what it will look like in the future. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 11:55

Notice only visible to anons

How about if we bug the devs to create a notice that goes above the sitenotice, and is only visible to anons. According to Robchurch, it can easily be done. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 20:47

File a Bugzilla bug, and, if you're up for it, file the patch too. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 21:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's such a good idea. People don't want to use a website where the top 30% of the page is a distracting and annoying banner soliciting donations. If we're trying to get new editors, ugly and intrustive things being imposed upon non-logged in users are not cool. cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 23:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

What is the basis for your claims about what "people" want or think of the current notice, and where do you get this 30% figure from? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 23:20

The thirty percent is an estimation I made up! Depending on resolutions it could take up more or less than that. But the point is that at least I found it very distracting and gaudy, and I'm sure there are plenty of others who feel the same way. I don't think it's good for attracting new editors -- old ones won't leave because of it (they can hack it if they want and they're already addicted anyway), but I probably wouldn't have joined up if that banner were permanent. What was there for the fund drive and the thank you was much more obtrusive than the banner advertisements that so many people find distracting that there are several successful commercial applications designed to remove them. Wikipedia might as well use the space for real, outside advertising instead of begging for donations if they're gonna reinstitue that banner. cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

still a bad idea since it affects site performance. I've provided a list of ideas tha have a lesser effect. I don't see why wikipedia should want to support phone companies.Geni 23:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

How does it affect site performance? "Phone companies"??? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-12 23:20

It means you have to scroll down further to see articles. Mobile phones are known to charge by the screen since they have very small screens even the addition of a single line will increase cost over time.Geni 23:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Knowing how HTML works, I cannot help but be a bit skeptical of that claim. Screens have little to do with page size... it's lines of HTML. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The phone doesn't show the whole page at once but phone screen by phone screen going down. There is a technical limit on how much you can have on a screen. Every extra line means that the amount of other stuff you can have on that screen is decreased.Geni 02:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, the number of readers who read Wikipedia from mobile phones is likely extremely small, and the number of those who donate is likewise much smaller. We shouldn't be basing our decisions solely on their needs. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 02:35

Oh dear you relise that under its charter the foundation isn't allowed to use that line of argument? Can I suggest you don't use it either? You know people comeing from schools are unlikely to donate much. Can we block them from viewing the site? Dito the less well off parts of the planet. Lets prevernt anyone outside the US western europe and japan from editing in order to maximise viewer to donation ratio.Geni 03:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't make any sense of your reply. It appears to be a straw man. Where did I say we should block mobile phone users? Which part of the charter are you citing? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 03:39

The bit where it say isn't meant to matter if you donate or not. The rest was just a reducto abserdium on your position. If you do think it matters if people donate blocking those unlikely to donate from the site is the logical end point of your position.Geni 03:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Umm.... no. I am only saying we shouldn't design our whole site based on the desires of an extreme minority. Blocking does not enter into this at all. If you consider that a "logical end point", then I would suggest you avoid "reducto abserdium"s in the future. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 03:50

You've chaged your position there. Before you were talking about thier chance of donateting. Does this mean you withdraw your previous position?Geni 09:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I have not changed my position. You have simply changed your understanding of my position. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 11:52

So you stil stand by the postion that we should take into account how liekyl people are to donate when decideing how much we care if we inconvience them? As indicated in this line"and the number of those who donate is likewise much smaller".Geni 13:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion to everyone is just to hide it on your personal css file and forget about it. That's what I'm trying to do even though I still keep this on my watchlist to keep up with the discussions about it and to chime in if I have any suggestions. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 00:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

We have a bit of free real estate at the upper left above each page at the same level that logged in user's see there name / talk / etc, and visitors see "Sign in / Create Account". How about putting a one sentence donation request up there for not logged-in visitors? Doesn't really take any more space since it's room we aren't using and it would still be quite prominent. Still probably requires a request to devs though. Dragons flight 01:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's enough space at the very top for text to have decent margins, so it doesn't look extremely cluttered. People would probably get angry from accidentally clicking the donate button when they wanted to see a talk page or history. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 02:37

What is the basis for your claims about what "people" would probably get angry from?

We can just add another module on the side of the page for donations, as Uncyclopedia has for ads. It is unobtrusive and there is generally a lot of space there. cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 03:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

That is already going to happen. This is a different issue. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-13 11:53

"Project's fifth anniversary"

I think that wording fails. It's not grammatically correct and the fifth anniversary has nothing to with the personal appeal. If you want something about Wikipedia Day in there, at least make it make sense. !! Signed cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 00:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't seem to detect the grammatical error. Could you be more specific? — Dan | talk 05:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The notice is certainly not a gramatically correct sentence, as there is no verb. 14:28, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not supposed to be a sentence. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-15 14:53

Consistent with other languages

We are not trying to be consistent with other languages. The English Wikipedia gets far more donations than any other language. Please stop disrupting the sitenotice, it looks unprofessional to have it appear/disappear/appear. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 01:19

We generaly do try to be consitant across lanaguages (or should we get rid of meta? and rethink commons?). Et, da, ca, uk, sr, ru, bg, he, ko, de, fr, ja, pl, it and sv do not have this in their site notice. All have over 10K articles. De and ja at least have in the past made significant donations. How about you stop putting it back? I belive that would solve your problem with appearing unprofesional.Geni 01:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little late to the discussion here, but I've been watching the notice change quite a lot. I'm in complete agreement with Brian here: if the Board and CFO want it up, it stays up until they decide to take it down or ask us to come to a consensus. While I don't necessary support having the link up there, we shouldn't be revert-warring a Board member and our CFO. Let's not get in a revert-war over this. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

'Board members should not be threatening to break the 3 revert rule but hey. We don't know if the board want it. They held a meeting. We don't know the results. We do know from the failer of the notice to appear on other languages that they are not that serious about it.Geni 02:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Anon-only version

Upon request, Robchurch has created a version of the sitenotice only viewable by anonymous users (ie, most of our readers; the target audience for requesting donations), at MediaWiki:Anonnotice (not yet live). I'll ask the CFO and/or board members about this, but I think one of them originally suggested the idea. So, we would be blanking this one, and putting some form of it in the anon-only version. Comments? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 02:12

I've read the above discussion and can't understand why. Are registered users not supposed to donate? Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Well, both Jimbo and Mav have said that they don't expect editors to donate, since they already donate their time. Assuming that most of the non-editing readers are anons, this would be the best solution that would both target the largest audience while not causing an annoyance for regular editors (see any of this page for the annoyance I speak of :)). — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 02:25

This would solve all the problems. Ambi 02:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Not really since it means that the people inflicting inconvience on others don't experence it themselves. It also weakens our hand in our next clash with bugmenot. It also presents posible long term problems with meatpupets.Geni 02:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  - Geni, since you seem to feel so strongly about these notices, what alternative approach to financing would you like to see? Dragons flight 02:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    - Link more prominat in the side bar. Makeing the wikipedia logo link to the donations page rather than the main page. Looking to increase the sucess of fundraiseing drives. Getting mechendise produced by anyone other than cafepress (both pennny arcade and slahdot use thinkgeek I don't know what terms they would offer wikipedia though). There are many options.Geni 02:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to Rob for creating the possibility of this compromise. I think showing this to non-logged in users, and keeping just the donate link in the sidebar for logged-in users, should definitely be trialed. I don't want to make a permanent decision before we've seen the financial effects of this, so it should be done as an experiment which can be reviewed after a few weeks. If the anon version is used all the time, I would still like the sitenotice to be used during actual fundraising drives since it's important for everyone to be aware of these. Please keep whatever goes in the anon version tasteful. I'd hate to see it become an over-the-top demand for money just because regular users don't have to put up with it. Angela. 02:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- Does this mean no blinking text-decoration? :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 02:59

Neat! This would solve lots of problems. But I'd still like to do something with the sitenotice during fundraisers. ---mav 02:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- That would be the idea. Keep the regular sitenotice for important matters, and during fundraising events. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 02:58

Brion has added MediaWiki:Anonnotice. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 03:07

As Brian says, this is now live. During fundraisers, delete the anon. notice or set it to - - MediaWiki will fall back to MediaWiki:Sitenotice, if it exists, so you can standardise. Rob Church (talk) 03:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I notice that they have the same CSS style and placement, should I understand from your comment that only one will work at a time? If so, which has precedence? Dragons flight 04:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. If it wasn't clear already, anonnotice is shown to anonymous users when it exists, otherwise sitenotice is shown if that exists. Logged in users see sitenotice if that exists, else nothing. Rob Church (talk) 11:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yay, this is great! Despite my criticism of this notice, and my continuing concerns that permanently asking for money is what beggars on the street do with little success and much damage to their reputation, at least this version is properly targetted. I would be keen to see the notice return here during the quarterly fundraisers. -Splash^talk 03:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yay! Everybody is happy mav

Great job, guys! Thanks! I agree with Angela, though, that this should probably be just a test at first - in my opinion, registered users would be more likely to donate than unregistered users, but I guess we'll see. I doubt this is possible, but is there a way to see (or perhaps ask?) when someone donates whether or not s/he is a registered user? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I tried to modify Mediawiki:Monobook.css to avoid pushing down the entire header line with the notice, as I find that to be quite tacky. Despite tests showing it worked for IE and Netscape, my method (setting a negative bottom margin on #siteNotice) was quickly reverted by a firefox user who said it failed for him. Regardless, I would still like to talk about finding a way to not offset the header line just for the sake of the notice. Dragons flight 04:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would generally agree; the problem is that in Firefox, the entire page moves up 25 pixels, and the header text was overlapping the tabs, making it impossible to click them. Ral315 (talk) 21:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
What happens when page names are so long that they overlap the notice? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-16 22:09
- I don't think they overlap - the sitenotice (or anonnotice) is higher up than the title. For instance, log out (in order to see the anonnotice) and check out this wonderful article: Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
- Also check out Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz - the title is broken up into two lines (because of the space, I think) and the anonnotice is still placed higher up. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  - They don't overlap at present because of that extra whitespace. My proposed solution to the extra whitespace (that failed because Firefox and IE can't agree on how to render CSS) would have placed them on the same line and then they would have overlapped in cases such as you cite. I would still like to do something, i.e. higher/lower/etc., to avoid injecting the blank space between the page title and the top of the page, especially since it now seems that the notice will be semi-permanent. Dragons flight 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  - I meant if the change was instituted so that anonnotice was on the same line as titles. If you're looking for the longest title: How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it. :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-17 01:02

Should we advertise the arbcom elections here now?

Now that the sitenotice only appears to logged-in users (at least as long as there's content in the anonusers pages), should we not advertise the arbcom elections here? I think that anyone who created an account would be interested in voting. Dan100 (Talk) 10:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the sitenotice still appears to everyone, not just logged in users. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-17 13:31
No, dude. We shouldn't. cooki e caper (talk / contribs) 13:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania

Since the people most liekly to be interested are people with accounts should this not be at MediaWiki:Watchdetails?Geni 10:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The site notice only appears to logged in users now, anons see MediaWiki:Anonnotice which is still the donation message. the wub "?!" 11:13, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Positioning and overlap with icons

The notice overlaps with the Spoken Wikipedia icon {{Spoken Wikipedia}}, see India. There is more competition for this area of the screen, see Boston, which uses {{sprotected}}, another top-roght icon. Can we agree on and standardize what should go where, so an article with a sitenotice (or anonnotice) that is spoken, featured, sprotected and has coordinates doesn't look weird? Kusma (討論) 16:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

All that needs to happen to avoid hitting the spoken icon is for a couple of nbsp;s to be added to the end of the notice. Can an admin insert a couple then check how it looks? TheGrappler 16:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Invalid XHTML

Please remove the id attribute from the div tag. The site notice is automatically wrapped in <div id="siteNotice"></div>, and per W3C standards, ids must not be duplicated, even if they differ in case. The message can already be linked to via the wrapper div. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the redundant id. Dragons flight 23:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Through is American English?

Regarding this edit -- "through" is American English? I wasn't aware of that. Does "until July 15" mean that it includes July 15 or doesn't? "Through July 15" is more clear in that sense to me. kmccoy (talk) 01:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it is, and it sounds very American, too (at least it wasn't 'thru'). Yes, "until" would be taken to include the day mentioned. That said, any Brit'd undertand "through" and if there is scope for confusion with American's, it ought perhaps to be changed back. -Splash - tk 01:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the "until July 15" wording is ambiguous to American readers. I probably would interpet that to mean that 14 July is last valid date.

I recall this issue arising once before, and we ended up expanding the advertised deadline to include the specific time (23:59 UTC). I've edited the text accordingly. —David Levy 01:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Spam

Wikimedia this, Wikimania that, register now, register later, gis us your money, pay it in here, vote over there.

Does anyone have a use for this other than advertising things at me, or shall we just delete this spamoid page and be done with? -Splash - tk 16:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, those are useful notices providing important information to users who may otherwise miss the information. If it bothers you, you can always hide the current Wikimania notice by removing the div class on your monobook. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Splash's point is that the recent notices seem to be trivializing the sitenotice (and imposing on thousnads of registered editors), which is supposed to be for important stuff. Are Wikimania scholarships that important? --maru (talk) contribs 02:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't meant to have ads, I think the sitenotice should be scrapped. I think all connected users talk on the IRC channels anyway, and the rest dont care. MichaelBillington 03:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The site notice is not used for spam. It is used for issues a site-wide notice of something..and does it just fine. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Xaosflux here. We have to take note of the context in which the site notice is being placed. It is clear that this is not used as spam. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 18:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Election notice

Try MediaWiki:Watchdetails and waiting a week.Geni 01:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with its removal - we don't need that bloody thing up for a month. --SPUI (T - C) 01:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Please let the election officials do their job to ensure that the elections run smoothly, fairly, and properly; please don't revert again, Geni. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

the arcom elections ran mostly somthly and I gave people two days final warning to declare their candicy on MediaWiki:Watchdetails. You have 28 days. I think that is long enough to allow you to hold some level of discussion (something which would have hopefuly prevented you from say useing big text in a site notice).Geni 01:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the first day of this notice; it is not planned to run all month, and had you bothered to ask rather than just unilaterally blank it, you would have been told that. We are quite aware of the watchlist notice, and we plan to use it when we take this notice down on the 3rd. Anyone blanking it before then will find thier sysop flag missing. Essjay (Talk) 01:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Had you bothered to discuss and inform first (yeah I know it slows things down but people keep telling me these things are important) we might not be in this situation. So now we are what is so magic about those three days that MediaWiki:Watchdetails can't handle it?Geni 01:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about how the Wikimedia Foundation works. You see, there is a Board of Directors, and they control the whole place. If they say "Shut it down" the site shuts down. If they say "Make it green" all the pages will suddenly become green. And if they say "We hereby appoint three election officials to coordinate an election for a replacement Trustee, and we grant them those powers necessary to do so" then that's what happens. Designated officers of the Foundation, including the Election Officials, then have the authority to make such changes as are necessary in order to do what the Board has charged them with doing. This was done as an official action of the Election Officials, who are officers of the Wikimedia Foundation, and is being done on all sites, not just this one. The Board, and it's officers, are not required to obtain the consent of users to do the business of the Wikimedia Foundation; indeed, it is the other way around, users must obtain the consent of the Board in order to do things. You lack said consent, and no amount of grandstanding on your part is going to change that. The simple fact of the matter is that you deliberately overruled a directive of the Board of Directors with no authority whatsoever to do so. Essjay (Talk) 02:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I am well aware of what the foundation can do. In this case your argument fall apart at the line "such changes as are necessary". I assume you are going to make some argument based around people not looking at their watchlists but past experence suggests that they have this tendancy to find out anyway. Geni 14:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to your actions, I've finally hidden this in my CSS. --SPUI (T - C) 01:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

True, I have to agree with Essjay here. There is no harm to have this notice here for three days. However, having it for a month is a little bit too much. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 02:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please take the notice down after three days. It is extremely ugly, distracting, and irrelevant to the absolute majority of people visiting wikipedia. Belongs on watchlists at most. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

So I guess the notice needs to come down today, right? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Per this talk, and the note that it was meant for 3 days only, I've moved this to the other suggested location of MediaWiki:Watchdetails. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The developers did a direct insertion for us to all wikis where there is no notice specified; blanking the notice caused this to take over, effectivly rendering the blanking inoperative. I've replaced the totally blank notice with &-emsp-; (without the hyphens), which doesn't show up as any text, but is enough to override the default. Essjay (Talk) 04:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Fix template please

My antivandalism scripts are being broken by the new site notice. Please change

<br>

<br />

in the mediawiki template to make it proper xml Kevin_b_er 05:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Ruud 12:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories: MediaWiki talk archives