Upper right messages

...okay, this is weird.

Any non-logged-in user now gets a randomly selected message
displayed
in quite small text in the upper right - "Find out more
about
navigating Wikipedia" or "Learn how to use
Wikipedia for research".

Anyone know when we started doing these, and why? It seems
fairly
cluttering and quite hard to notice - I think I only picked
it out
because I've been staring at the UI for too many years!

-- 
- Andrew Gray
 andrew.graydunelm.org.uk

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2008/5/8 Andrew Gray <shimgraygmail.com>:

> Any non-logged-in user now gets a randomly selected
message displayed
> in quite small text in the upper right - "Find out
more about
> navigating Wikipedia" or "Learn how to use
Wikipedia for research".
> Anyone know when we started doing these, and why? It
seems fairly
> cluttering and quite hard to notice - I think I only
picked it out
> because I've been staring at the UI for too many
years!


Ages, I think. Used to be a donation beg notice, now cycles
through
various things. (Is there a way to switch it on for
logged-in
editors?)


- d.

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2008/5/8 David Gerard <dgerardgmail.com>:
> 2008/5/8 Andrew Gray <shimgraygmail.com>:
>
>> Any non-logged-in user now gets a randomly selected
message displayed
>> in quite small text in the upper right - "Find
out more about
>> navigating Wikipedia" or "Learn how to
use Wikipedia for research".
>> Anyone know when we started doing these, and why?
It seems fairly
>> cluttering and quite hard to notice - I think I
only picked it out
>> because I've been staring at the UI for too many
years!
>
>
> Ages, I think. Used to be a donation beg notice, now
cycles through
> various things. (Is there a way to switch it on for
logged-in
> editors?)

There's *also* a donation-beg notice in the upper left,
aligned flush
above the tabs, which vanishes when logged in as well. Hmm.

This one just seems a lot untidier than the begging notice.
I wonder
if - once we get a better fundraising flow - it might be
best to drop
the begging notice and move this into its place...

-- 
- Andrew Gray
 andrew.graydunelm.org.uk

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On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Andrew Gray
<andrew.graydunelm.org.uk> wrote:
>  >> Any non-logged-in user now gets a randomly
selected message displayed
>  >> in quite small text in the upper right -
"Find out more about
>  >> navigating Wikipedia" or "Learn how
to use Wikipedia for research".
[snip]
>  There's *also* a donation-beg notice in the upper
left, aligned flush
>  above the tabs, which vanishes when logged in as well.
Hmm.
>
>  This one just seems a lot untidier than the begging
notice. I wonder
>  if - once we get a better fundraising flow - it might
be best to drop
>  the begging notice and move this into its place...

Oh how short our memory is:  Those same notices were there
for much of
2007 and a top of the page donation notice has been on
English
Wikipedia for several years.

They got taken down during the fundraiser after Erik
requested it on
11/13/2007, a request which made a lot of sense to me.

I pinged some people about restoring the notices in January
.. but it
was thought it would be a good idea to give a couple weeks
breathing
room after the fundraiser... Well, it seems that no one
remembered to
bring the beg notice back.

Last year outside of fundraisers the monthly 'run rate'
donation
average was something around 50k/month.
Last month there was only 19.5k donated through the online
system.
I thought this was rather alarming and I went and rung bells
about it
earlier in the week.

If the decline was due to the lack of the prominent notice
on EnWP
then the foundation would have lost a rather considerable
amount due
to this oversight (add up the difference over a couple of
months..!)
,... but part of the decline was probably due to general
economic
conditions.   It's hard to say what the impact was because
the rate of
donations has historically been pretty noisy, though I
suppose it will
be more clear in a few weeks.  ... Although the first couple
days of
the notice being restored show >2x the donations vs the
week before
so.. ::shrugs::  then again just about any change in how
we're
requesting donations causes a big short term spike.

Obviously having the best looking and least obtrusive
behavior is
desirable, but something which generates tens of thousands
of dollars
a month in donations is not something that should be toyed
with
lightly. ;)   (Though feel free to send me $30k/month if you
think
it's an unimportant sum ....  ;) )

(Beyond just measuring the income, the anon notices can be
expected to
have other important positive results that are harder to
measure...
like increasing public awareness that Wikipedia is run by a
charity,
etc)

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2008/5/8 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwellgmail.com>:

> (Beyond just measuring the income, the anon notices can
be expected to
> have other important positive results that are harder
to measure...
> like increasing public awareness that Wikipedia is run
by a charity,
> etc)


This is actually very important - that's why the copyright
notice at
the bottom of every page on en:wp just happens to detail
precisely
what Wikimedia Foundation is (at the suggestion of the
comcom). That
all the wikilinks in that notice don't end up topping the
wikicharts
suggests hardly anyone gets that far down the page ...


- d.

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On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Gray <shimgraygmail.com> wrote:

> ...okay, this is weird.
>
> Any non-logged-in user now gets a randomly selected
message displayed
> in quite small text in the upper right - "Find out
more about
> navigating Wikipedia" or "Learn how to use
Wikipedia for research".
>
> Anyone know when we started doing these, and why? It
seems fairly
> cluttering and quite hard to notice - I think I only
picked it out
> because I've been staring at the UI for too many
years!



I've always thought it's a great idea to have information
prominently placed
on how Wikipedia works and how it can be improved - with
more and more
people turning to Wikipedia for information, 'Wikipedia
literacy' becomes
increasingly important. However, I do agree these notices
are pretty
cluttered - I've uploaded an example screenshot (viewed on
mac with Safari)
at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sitenotices09050
8.jpg>.

Cormac
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2008/5/9 Cormac Lawler <cormaggiogmail.com>:

> I've always thought it's a great idea to have
information prominently placed
> on how Wikipedia works and how it can be improved -
with more and more
> people turning to Wikipedia for information, 'Wikipedia
literacy' becomes
> increasingly important. However, I do agree these
notices are pretty
> cluttered - I've uploaded an example screenshot (viewed
on mac with Safari)
> at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sitenotices09050
8.jpg>.


Yeah, not the best. Does it clash with geographical
information as
well there? We need some l33t design sk1llz applied to this.
Monobook
looks very nice, but could easily rot ...


- d.

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These would look a lot better with proper whitespace, etc. 
(It's the
same reason people hated the no-free-image placeholders;
they were
terribly designed.  That's not why people *thought* they
hated them.)
Let me know if you want me to tweak it a little.

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 2:34 PM, David Gerard <dgerardgmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/5/9 Cormac Lawler <cormaggiogmail.com>:
>
>
>  > I've always thought it's a great idea to have
information prominently placed
>  > on how Wikipedia works and how it can be improved
- with more and more
>  > people turning to Wikipedia for information,
'Wikipedia literacy' becomes
>  > increasingly important. However, I do agree these
notices are pretty
>  > cluttered - I've uploaded an example screenshot
(viewed on mac with Safari)
>  > at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sitenotices09050
8.jpg>.
>
>
>  Yeah, not the best. Does it clash with geographical
information as
>  well there? We need some l33t design sk1llz applied to
this. Monobook
>  looks very nice, but could easily rot ...
>
>
>  - d.
>
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  WikiEN-l mailing list
>  WikiEN-llists.wikimedia.org
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>  https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>



-- 
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com

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