I believe that the subject line was a moral and leadership failure. Effective or not, I would respectfully suggest that you stop using it immediately and begin further discussions with the community about the organization's goals and purpose.
On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 5:13 PM Joseph Seddon <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Pine, > > I appreciate and understand your feedback about this subject line. > > For some time we have been trying to find an alternative subject line to > -/This is a little awkward/-. That line works and works very well but we > have found it very difficult to effectively translate and adapt into other > languages, and despite our best efforts have struggled to find an > alternative. > > We first tested -/Deleting Wikipedia?/- as a subject line a couple of weeks > ago and it was the only winning variant in hundreds of tests. We retested > in case it was a statistical fluke and continued to see it perform well. > The effectiveness of this subject line for the most part does not come from > its apparent clickbaiting. The change in the number of people opening the > emails was relatively small and unsubscribes remained extremely low. The > big driver in terms of its success was from a significant increase in those > people who opened AND read our email appeal. We posed a question and donors > were motivated to donate when presented with the idea of imagining a world > without Wikipedia. > > Our motivation behind this sort of subject line is the fact that in three > countries today it is already as if Wikipedia does not exist. The risk that > this could happen in more countries is greater now that it ever has been. > Censorship, impediments to free speech and over regulation of copyright are > threats that Wikipedia, Wikimedia and its communities face every single day > and it is with that context that we want to lead. > > Any email that included this subject line came with at least some context > to flesh out the idea, i.e., “If Wikipedia were deleted, it would be a > great loss to the world,”, but going forward it is our full intention to > make even clearer that we intend for the donor to imagine a world without > Wikipedia and the threats it faces every day, not threaten that it is going > away. > > Our plan is to continue to testing on this theme, exploring censorship and > copyright restrictions as well as our increasing role as the backbone of > knowledge on the internet, and help donors see that knowledge can and is > threatened all the time. We are definitely and eagerly open to any > feedback, suggestions and ideas you might have. > > Best, > Seddon > > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:04 PM Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > > > There is a report from a user on Jimbo's talk page on ENWP regarding > > receiving fundraising a fundraising email with the subject line "[NAME] - > > Deleting Wikipedia?" > > > > In previous years I've disagreed with some of WMF's fundraising choices, > > and it would be unfortunate if in the era of "fake news" becoming > > mainstream WMF chooses to continue to be a part of the problem. If this > is > > happening then I request that WMF put a stop to it. Regardless of how > > effective it is to send misleading fundraising appeals and that WMF has > > received minimal repercussions for doing so over the years, it's wrong > and > > it should stop. > > > > Pine > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > -- > Seddon > > *Community and Audience Engagement Associate* > *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation* > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> -- -george william herbert [email protected] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
