Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-11-28/News and notes

Nearly all participants agreed that the banner texts are at least partly untruthful, and that soliciting money by misleading readers is an unethical and inappropriate use of this project. Specifically, participants clearly identified that banners that state or imply any of the following are not considered appropriate on the English Wikipedia:

• Wikipedia's existence is under threat or dependent on donations
• Donated funds are used primarily to support Wikipedia and/or its volunteer editors
• Readers should feel obliged to donate regardless of their means ("guilt tripping")

A significant minority of participants objected to running banner campaigns at all. In my view beyond the scope of this RfC – arguably out of the scope of local discussions on this project entirely. Similarly, there was substantial discussion of the WMF's fundraising model and financing in general which, as several participants noted, is probably better taken up in other venues (e.g. Meta). In any case, no consensus was reached on these issues.

Few participants explicitly supported the banners. Many of those that did acknowledged the problems summarised above, but concluded that the banners were acceptable because they were effective (at raising money), comparable to similar campaigns by other organisations, and/or are an improvement over the WMF's campaigns in previous years. A number of members of WMF staff and the WMF Board of Trustees were amongst the most vocal in support of the banners. It is worth noting that, though their participation is welcome as anyone else's, it also carries no more weight than anyone else's. Their comments (understandably) tended to focus on the potential ramifications that changes to fundraising on the English Wikipedia, which constitutes a significant portion of the Foundation's income, could have on the rest of the movement. Like critical comments from opposers on movement finances in general, I considered this discussion largely irrelevant in assessing consensus on the questions posed by this RfC. To the extent that they engaged with the specific objections summarised above, a number of supporters, including several Board members, acknowledged that there were problems with the fundraising text that the WMF has placed on the English Wikipedia, though they disagreed on whether this is a fit topic for discussion on this project.

There was also significant discussion of how this consensus should be enforced, if the WMF chooses not to modify the banners before running them. This is a fraught topic given that our policies state that authorised acts of the WMF Board take precedence over consensus on this project, but that attempts to actually apply this principle have historically proved controversial. No consensus was reached on this issue, which is also strictly speaking outside the scope of this RfC. But taking off my closer's hat for a moment, I would like stress that this needn't come up – the preferred outcome for almost all participants, I believe, is that the English Wikipedia community and relevant WMF staff can come to an agreement on the content of fundraising banners.

I agree that it is time to make changes at the Wikimedia Foundation, including more direct community input into fundraising messaging. We have taken the guidance provided by the close of the RfC to change banners on the English Wikipedia campaign as early as Tuesday. The fundraising team welcomes your help and ideas on the specifics.

The task at hand in responding to the guidance provided by the RfC is that Wikipedia's existence is dependent on donations. Donated funds are used primarily to support Wikipedia. I think what we heard is that while this may be true, how we say it matters. We need banners that better recognize the real stake our communities have in how we communicate to our donors.

In the next few months, the fundraising team will work more closely with local communities to guide future campaigns. The Foundation will measure the financial results of using new banners in this year's English campaign, and we will share this information when the campaign is completed.

I will briefly address a few other areas of concern that were raised about the future direction of the Wikimedia Foundation, and commit to writing again in January after we finish this campaign. I believe some things at the Foundation can in fact be different, because they already are:

• I agree that the Foundation has grown very rapidly over the past years and that the budget should be stabilized. In my first six months, I did two things to act on this: first, I informed the Board that we would dramatically reduce hiring until we were sure that we were getting the maximum benefit from the resources we already had. Second, I started reversing the trend of prior growth by setting this year's budget to account mainly for year-on-year costs like inflation.
• I brought in a Chief Product & Technology Officer, @SDeckelmann-WMF:, who has experience supporting online communities and collaborating with technical contributors. She has been on the job for 17 weeks and has already directly responded to community concerns on New Pages Patrol and Wikimedia Commons. In March 2023, Selena will be ready to host forums on- and off-wiki with what she thinks are needed improvements to the Foundation's processes, including technical support and collaborative product development. We collectively have to respond to decades of growing technical debt, poor processes for maintaining software, and staying relevant in a world where technology keeps going faster.
• I have already started frank conversations with the Board and Foundation staff about what roles the Foundation should grow (like support for technology), and what activities we should hand over to others or stop altogether. Looking ahead, the size of our budget should be driven by what the Foundation should be doing, and can actually do well. I think the 2030 movement strategy provided guidance (and motivated much of our historic growth), but was short on the specifics. I await the Movement Charter for further clarity, but believe we'll need to make some decisions sooner.

None of these things may happen as quickly as those of you who have been very frustrated for many years would like. I think we are heading more in the right direction, and I am sure you will tell me if we aren't.

I will write again in January with more information. In the meantime, you can reach me on my talk page or by email. MIskander-WMF