MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice/Archive 3

message: I think it's a significantly big issue that there should be a link to it in the sitenotice. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 03:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: it's a message for editors and for the most part heavy editors at that. If there must be a message MediaWiki:Watchdetails would be a far more logical place.Geni 03:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Agree with Geni. ~~ N (t/c) 03:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I'm sorry about the revert I saw Sitenotice on my watchlist and just blind reverted. I want to make it clear that at this time I neither endorse nor opose placeing the message on watchlists.Geni 03:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not too annoyed at Geni, I'm more annoyed at Zscout370 for abusing the rollback button, the one meant for rolling back vandalism. Redwolf24 (talk) 03:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advert announcement 

message: " 
style="margin-top:5px;">Wikimedia's board of trustees has agreed to a partnership deal with answers.com. The extra money will be used to help people in under-developed contries 
For more information, click here. 
I will be posting the above 30 days after October 20th. November 19th that is, when the tool actually appears. I have Jimbo's support in IRC, so I hope I won't be reverted this time. Redwolf24 (talk) 03:44, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So you want to oppose what is widly viewed as an advitiseing deal  with an advert? I think there are better ways to deal with this.Geni 03:51, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We went over this. It's not advertisement in the slightest, it's news... Redwolf24 (talk) 08:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I'd only have it up for one day, any longer would just be obnoxious, and feel free to work the wording ant. Redwolf24 (talk) 08:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you get the November 19 date from? Have you read Wikipedia talk:Tools/1-Click Answers where Jimmy has attempted to clarify that this is not an advertising. Angela. 09:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: This is a really bad use of the site notice and use of the word 'advertising' is both misleading and inflamatory (since the ads would be on a copy of Wikipedia content hosted by Answers.com and would not be on Wikipedia itself). Modified wording should just go on the annoucements page and maybe on RC. But not here. I do not support having this message displayed at all. --mav 14:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree wholeheartedly with Mav, and am surprised to hear you say that Jimbo agreed to the message, especially using the word "advertising", which he has made clear is not an accurate description of the deal. — Dan | Talk 15:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly disapprove of this sitenotice as written.  I think it will be fine if people want to have a sitenotice when the answers.com tool is available, but really, Redwolf24, it should be accurate and not provocative.--Jimbo Wales 20:38, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coming soon 

message: "The free encyclopedia" is the project's byline, and has been for quite some time.  Changing the sitenotice to bring it out of line with this warrants more than a few minutes' discussion on IRC, without mention of the fact that the wording is extremely awkward.  Austin Hair ✍ ✉ 03:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The community-written free encyclopedia" 

message: Jimbo has requested that we add something either in here or in the Tagline letting people know in some sense that either "anyone can edit" or that Wikipedia should be "taken with a grain of salt". My suggestion is: "All content should be verified from multiple sources", since this isn't wishy-washy, and doesn't sound compromising. Any other suggestions? Of course, nobody is going to agree completely on any changes, but it is better to put something up than to debate about it forever. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-7 14:20
:I think that if something is put up (And I don't think it should be) then it will have to be legalistic. Something like this:
:"While every effort is made by Wikimedia and its volunteer editors to maintain articles of the highest level of quality, Wikimedia does not accept responsibility for any personal loss due to inaccuracy of site content."
:Seabhcán 15:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Jimbo's request

message: Jimbo, Mav, and others are interested in experimenting with more prominent fundraising notices. For now, it will be restricted to the main page, using  as shown below:

This will produce the normal appearance on any other page, but on the main page will show up a little larger. Can anyone provide other suggestions for making the message more prominent on the main page (since Jimbo is not content with simply making the message bigger)? — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-16 19:47
*Nevermind. It works when you test it out on pages, but the way that Sitenotice is placed on every page must break it. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-16 19:59
Actually, I've come to complain that it's too big - I find the bar intrusively wide, and would like to see it slimmed down to about 1/3 of its current width (although I think the length does not matter). bd2412 T 23:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been slimmed down. Can't go much farther. --mav 23:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine - about what I was looking for. Thanks! bd2412 T 01:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bigger fundraiser notice

message: This notice has expanded to three lines, and it might annoy some users.  Is there a way for individual users to edit their local CSS to hide it?  Denelson83  07:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This decision isn't yours, mav. Put in on the donation page, where it belongs. Dan100 (Talk) 10:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Getting back to the question Denelson83 actually asked, yes.  #fundraising { display:none; } will get rid of it completely; #fundraising img { display:none; } will just get rid of the fugly graph. —Cryptic (talk) 10:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam 

message: You may want to create a black border around the fundraiser graph, as it looks quite stylish on the english wikinews: (courtusy of me) Bawolff 08:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fundraiser graph 

message: Can we please get rid of that ridiculous black border? This started out as a nice message, then it got a neat picture, then it got daily reports, then it got a US centric touch, then it got a black border....get a grip! I can't work out where the black box comes from - did someone change CSS? -Splashtalk 14:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aesthetics 

message: thumb
Like/no like? v1 v2 v3 http://tom.me.uk/2005/12/fundraising-experiment-wording.html Tom- 16:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Neato! I like the second one better. What do other people think? --mav 18:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, I did make it live, but Phroziac reverted it, claiming it "looks like a popup"...?! Tom- 10:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New design idea 

message: Look, can we decide whether it is tax deductible elsewhere or not? And phrase a short essay listing the countries in which it is indeed tax deductible. The Foundation has a CFO and I presume legal counsel. If we insist on having the US there, which is plainly US centric, then at least be even handed about it. Or, javascript it in the same way the Error Message is scripted. Or, just suppress the entire fugly thing with a .css entry like I already did. -Splashtalk 17:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deductibility 

message: Passive voice - "donations can be made" - is awkward. In the interest of minimizing changes to the sitenotice, which seems desirable, I propose it be changed back to "See our fundraising page for details." Are there any issues with that wording? — Dan | talk 17:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: My reason for changing the wording was not mainly about removing references to the US.  My main objection is to the phrasing "and may be elsewhere".  This sounds horribly kludgy and imprecise at first glance, even though it's grammatically correct.  I am trying to find some way to avoid this wording.  Sam Korn 19:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style 

message: For goodness sake. Will people stop playing around with this. It needs one change per day. Brian0918, you in particular. This isn't some new experiment in graphic design. MediaWiki space isn't article space. Let the Foundation set the text and then quit. -Splashtalk 05:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. What we have now is fine! Dan100 (Talk) 09:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, there are the daily reports. Although I could just create a redirect on the foundation wiki and update that each day.. Then the sitenotice would not need to be edited again until the end of the drive. In fact, I'll do that after I create the next report to night. There seem to be serious caching issues this time and we have a donation bar that updates w/o the need to edit the site notice. So let's keep our hands off the notice unless we agree here first that more changes would significantly increase donations. --mav 13:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop it! 

message: Grudingly, I admit that going by mav's daily reports, the addition of the graph has increased daily donations! Dan100 (Talk) 10:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does seem to work though 

message: Current message reads:
:"You can help in our current fundraiser by donating here!"
:cold, detached and directed toward our needs, not the donors'
Let's put ourselves in the shoes of people who only use Wikipedia as a source for information (same group that donates most of the money we get). Now, why should they care about our fundraiser? I mean, the fund drive itself. I think they care more about seeing Wikipedia improve and grow. The current message does not make this link emotionally explicit.
So how about something like this:
:You can help Wikipedia grow and improve by donating here!
:warm, nurturing and directed toward what donors want 
Comments? Suggestions? If none, then I will implement this in one day. -mav 05:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Let's see if this improves things. --mav 01:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better message needed 

message: Jimbo has suggested that we experiment with this notice, testing out different ideas to see how they do. For example, the statement "Donations are tax-deductible in the U.S." occurred on Sunday, when we brought in $16,000 (though they don't necessarily correlate). Since we have a few weeks, we can test a different change each day.
Please list any suggested changes to test out for 24 hours. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-21 03:00
# Replace the tax-deductibility bit with "You can donate via PayPal, mail, or money transfer."
#*I think specifically mentioning PayPal might have a positive effect, and it's certainly worth trying. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-21 03:00
#**Mentioning PayPal in the Sitenotice is a bad idea since almost all potential donors DO NOT HAVE a PayPal account. I've worked hard to deemphasize the PayPal connection since a top complaint about our donation methods was the perceived lack of a way to donate online only using a credit card. I do like option 2 though. --mav 18:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Other ideas

message: Is it just me or did the notice jump to the right side of the screen? `Broken S 16:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Alignment?

message: Hi there! Um...I decided to be bold and updated the value for C$22 to ssay CAD$30. Are we trying to include all sorts of currencies, or just the major ones? --HappyCamper 01:52, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Average per currency

message: I think this is worth pointing out - for a valid experiment, you must only change one variable at a time, or you cannot see which variable is having what influence on the results. Thing is, this being Christmas, visitor numbers and attitudes towards donation are undoubtedly changing daily. Therefore we have two variables changing, and no worthwhile information can be gained from these "tests". Dan100 (Talk) 12:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, I think the fact that it's Christmas Eve will have a greater effect on the amount of donations than whether the text is centred or floated right.  violet/riga (t) 13:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: That doesn't mean we can't still test them out. Every year we'll have a fundraiser during this time, so we can compare each year's efforts. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-24 15:17
No - the test are not worthless and should continue on a daily basis. I would like to find something that works better. But edit warring over this on the sitenotice, of all pages, is NOT tolerable and NEEDS to stop. We are grownups here, so let's act like them. --mav 15:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: To play devil's advocate here, is it possible that the expected amount was a bit too optimistic? If the fund drive is bringing in half of the expected amount, could a change in the site note really result in a doubling of donations? I do believe that the site notice has a correlation with donation amounts, but probably not to the extent that a poor notice would depress response by 50%. For what's it worth I preferred the progress bar since it gave a clear idea of what the goal was. Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone! Carbonite | Talk 15:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A big problem with this drive is that there is no goal. The progress bar only has milestone ticks up the expected amount we thought we could bring in during this fundraiser. --mav 16:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's dodging Carbonite's question, which I think is quite appropriate.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but our best day ever was $16,285.68, and it's a 21-day fundraiser.  It's unrealistic to expect to reach $500k if we'd only get 2/3 of the way there if we had 21 straight record days. —Cryptic (talk) 16:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that the fundraiser has started, it is unrealistic. But beforehand, we were predicted to pull in more than $16k each day, and now we realize that we can barely even meet that. --BRIAN0918 16:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Agree! Agree! Agree! Do it! Do it! Blackcap (talk) 21:58, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The donation graphic is already inserted using a custom extension; extensions can output any HTML without a need to change the main site config. It needs to be hacked, but there's nothing fundamental that prevents us from showing a secure donation form as part of the site notice. (In fact, see memorywiki for an example, where I hacked a mini-fundraising extension to be able to add a PayPal button anywhere on the site.) As for vandal comments, you could say that only comments associated with a donation of $10 or more are displayed in the box. If someone wants to pay $10 to troll a bit, I say let them :-). Both changes are, however, technical in nature, and Brion is on his way to Berlin, so he probably doesn't have time to do this during this fundraising drive.--Eloquence* 02:00, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  These tests are worthless 

message: The two helps ("You can help give the gift of knowledge by donating to help Wikipedia!") look somewhat funny next to each other, and it doesn't change that it sounds like you're giving something. That you're helping giving something makes no difference in that you're giving something. I think this ought to go back. Blackcap (talk) 19:58, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm. That looks O.K. now, although I admit I liked it better the first way around. Anyway, though, I'm not complaining. --Blackcap (talk) 20:04, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: BAH! Too wordy. It should read: Give the gift of knowledge - donate to Wikipedia! Also, we should have some program in place for people do donate in the name of someone else (you know, like buying someone a name in the star registry). bd2412 T 00:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "You can give the gift of knowledge!" changed to "You can help give the gift of knowledge!" 

message: The notice is not very eye-catching or cheerful.  How about something like this?
You can help give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia
  <fundraising/>  Tax-deductibility of donations  –  Daily report
--+sj + 23:44, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Trying it out, starting at 19:18 EST.  +sj + 00:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The icons cause the sitenotice to take up too much space, at least when it's a sidebar, so that it interrupts the layout of article text. Images are okay (although I thought the progress bar served that purpose), but if they're going to bloat the space like this, then we need to go back to a centered notice. --Michael Snow 00:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It already is centered again. Hold down [CTRL] and click reload. I also don't like the images since clicking on them takes people to a useless and unexpected place ; a page about the image. If more color is needed or whatever, then it should be part of the progress bar image. --mav 00:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I also fretted about the bit about taking people to an unexpected place... that's always an issue with images.  We /really/ need to add functionality that allows one to change where images take you (and add 'leave images linking to their source pages whenever possible' as a style guideline). +sj + 01:42, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Template:Click will let you do it.  It's a pretty ugly hack, though. —Cryptic (talk) 01:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Not quite sure I like the images. I took them off a few minutes ago to upload them from Commons and reprotect them; they're back on now. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  They're gone now.  Would other images work better, or do you not like the images there in general?  I would definitely notice the top bar more with some more cheerful color; even something very simple; but couldn't think of a more information-rich way to integrate it.  I think that any specific implementation of images/color will offend some people's artistic sensibilities, but will increase visibility of the notice for everyone.  +sj + (remembering how much I hated the Dean baseball bats) 01:42, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm unthrilled with images in general, but these ones are particularly bad.  It made us look like a Congratulations-for-graduating-from-elementary-school card. —Cryptic (talk) 01:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  I liked the idea of adding little interesting bits about us and why we need the money, such as that (AFAIK) we have no paid workers, etc. That'd add something neat, relevant, and would attract attention. Blackcap (talk) 02:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  m:Wikimedia staff —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  I always wanted one of those cards.  What about non-iconic colorful images?  I don't like this use of red and green, or of an image centered just below the status bar (I preferred something small on one/either side of the bar) but it is an example:  +sj + 02:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images, more color 

message: See also Template_talk:Main_Page_banner#This_looks_HUGE +sj + 02:14, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main page banner 

message: There is talk of keeping a very small version of this for use between fundraisers, since donations are accepted year-round, but drop off to nill inbetween fundraisers (ie: most of the time of the year). Please discuss possible short sentences at MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice/temp. --BRIAN0918 04:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It will make it look like we're running a fund drive all the time, and so will kill the proper drives. Suicide. Dan100 (Talk) 10:18, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Running the campaign sporadically is better, since people will not learn to tune it out, and it retains its credibility. In addition, such smacks of advertising, definitely an impression to avoid. --Maru  (talk) Contribs 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WNYC does it similarly. Aggressive campaigning for a month or so, then absolutely no mention of fundraising for a while. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 17:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Version for in between fundraisers

message: I am rather upset by the recent banner at the top of Wikipedia:
Please take a moment to read this personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
While this notice clearly was but up with good intent, that Jimmy Wales is the sole founder of Wikipedia is disputed and saying that he is a direct violation of NPOV. Do we really want a violation of Wikipedia principles to be placed on top of every page. What does it say about Wikipedia if we tell others to be NPOV but Wikipedia is not?
Jimmy's argument is that Sanger's contribution is irrelavent since Sanger worked under him. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to think that this logic is equivalent to saying that William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain don't deserve credit for making the first transistor because they worked underneath the CEO of AT&T. Thus logic is not recognized by most people - they all won nobel prizes.
I propose that the text be replaced with something like "Wikimedia chairman" or "Wikipedia head".
Where 01:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NPOV is for articles. Jimbo considers himself the sole founder of Wikipedia, and the banner is from the Wikimedia Foundation, so it doesn't really matter. You could bring this up on MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice if you feel strongly, however.--Sean|Black 02:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The banner doesn't assert that Jimbo is the only founder of Wikipedia; it simply identifies him as a founder, implying neither that he is the sole founder nor that there are other founders. I don't think anyone can argue that he is not a founder of Wikipedia. The statement is very NPOV. --TantalumTelluride 03:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The implies only one. It thus implies he is the sole founder. If he used "a", it would be different. Even you used "a founder" when talking about him; I think that undermines your point. I guess I am technically wrong that it is literarly against the NPOV policy because NPOV is for articles. However, the statement is definately POV, and thus violates the spirit of Wikipedia. Where 04:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just suppressed the entirety of the playground-for-admins-and-spam by adding a couple of lines to my monobook.css. Much more pleasant, and I can ignore all the frivolity that one or two or three or four editors have been suffering from throughout the current fund raising. Not that this solves your problem, of course. -Splashtalk 04:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV at top of page 

message: If we add an ID to that notice, it will allow people who have already read the personal appeal to remove it from their screen via a  #siteNotice #personalAppeal {display:none;}. The current set up takes up 4+ lines of space on the top, and it is getting annoying, even though I know how important donations are to Wikipedia. Ideally, I would block the image and the personal appeal message while setting display:inline; for all child tags of the siteNotice, but the current setup makes this infeasible, any solution brittle and probably breaking upon the next shuffle.
I really do not want to block #siteNotice. Thanks. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 17:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It already has one: #pabanner. (See User:Splash/monobook.css.)-Splashtalk 17:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How does this help us Cologne Blue users? Ambi 09:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you'd need to edit User:Ambi/cologneblue.css? —Locke Cole • t • c 09:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please add an ID to the "Please take a moment..."