[Wiki Loves Monuments] drop off in submissions, banner

[Matthew Roth]

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 9:45 AM, User Mono <usermono at outlook.com> wrote:

> We are sharing with the privacy policy right now. There's probably no
> flexibility there - the WMF really likes its silly banners. Like anyone in
> the public actually *cares* about our privacy policy - Facebook's is the
> only one that matters to anyone.
>

Not to be too contrarian, but this is arguably exactly why the Privacy
Policy discussion is important. We're one of the few large web properties
where users care about it -- over 40,000 words of
discussion<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy>so far
and we're only a week into the 4 month review.

:)

The Privacy Policy banners will be coming down in 4 days.


> I too have noticed a drop off in photos submitted in the last few days.
>  It's fairly important to determine what caused the drop off if we can.  It
> might be something totally outside of our control,
>

I don't know if my personal story means anything, but last year I was so
excited about the novelty of the competition, I took and uploaded a lot
more photos than I did this year. Some of the buzz wore off. I still
haven't uploaded a single photo this year, though I have a few hundred that
need to get up before the contest finishes. I think there still might be a
big rush at the end that will compensate for the current lull.


> e.g. the situation in Syria, but might be something like a change in
> banner display, which we do have some control over. Did the drop happen in
> most countries? We don't have full control over all Wikimedia banners - we
> do have to share the space with others, but perhaps they might be willing
> to delay some of their displays if we ask nicely.
>
> I do agree that changing the banner from time-to-time can help. I don't
> agree that a banner of ""Participate in the world's largest photo-contest
> and help Wikipedia," would help any.  The imperative verb "Participate"
> is very weak, and is not natural to American English speakers.  It suggests
> a high school home economics teacher telling us that we have to bring
> cookies to the annual bake-off.  Something more active is definitely
> needed, something along the line (but not exactly) of a high school
> football coach saying "Go out there and kick some butt!"  That would
> definitely get some attention as a banner, but not the exact type of
> attention we want.  A teaser ad might work however, e.g. "About your photos
> on Wikipedia .... (smaller type) upload them to Wiki Loves Monuments"
>
> "Snap" might be a verb we want to use.  It gives an idea of the action
> that we want people to take (snap a snapshot), unlike "participate."  So
> perhaps "Snap a historic site, Wiki Loves Monuments" It could wake people
> up. Or maybe "Snap a snapshot for Wikipedia".  As a noun "It's a snap, Wiki
> Loves Monuments"
>
> I don't think these ideas are good enough yet for an actual banner, but I
> think that folks should brain-storm this and come up with new ideas.
>  Straight informative banners can sound bureaucratic or just boring.
>  Different languages or dialects should be considered separately, as
> translations are really tricky, e.g. "It's a snap" might mean something
> entirely different in British English
>
> Pete
> User:Smallbones
>
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-- 

Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
www.wikimediafoundation.org
*https://blog.wikimedia.org*
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