Do people read site notices?

Yes.  Absolutely.  Our users respond to different messages… and we continue to test what messages resonate and drive donations.   Reflect back to my previous post and you’ll see that site notices with the thermometer had much higher click through rates than those without.

We decided that we wanted to test the impact of the meters over a few days (generating several million page views) to see how different notices performed with and without thermometers.  Phase 1a, below, we went down to 3 notices in random cycling.  One had a meter, the other two did not.

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In Phase 1b, we completely reversed the placements of the thermometer from our initial run.  As expected, those with meters had significantly higher clicks and donations.

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Now, over the last few days, we’ve gone with all meters on all notices.  Not only has there been a nice spike in donations, but it seems that people are reading the messages.  In particular, the educational notice, “Wikipedia is a non-profit project” has done significantly better from our initial run.

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We’re now going to focus on improving our conversion rate:  fewer and fewer people are donating after a click-through.  It’s expected as the fundraiser goes on, but we need to find a better way to get people to donate once they’ve shown interest.

Our next steps include testing a new “Learn More” link on all the notices (maybe people need more information before they give) and other Phase 2 notices.   We’re also going to test some different looks and images in an attempt to draw in new and different donors.

-Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving<

This week, the German language version of Wikisource started the transcription of a precious manuscript with the title “Bemerkungen über den Feldzug gegen Rußland in den Jahren 1812 und 1813” (Remarks on the campaign against Russia in the years 1812 and 1813).

The manuscript from the early nineteenth century was written by an eye witness of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Contrary to other accounts of the march of the Grande Armée on Russia it is focussing on the landscape, places and inhabitants along the itinerary.

The precious and up to now not entirely published manuscript had been digitized by the State and University Library of Göttingen, Germany, and then uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The travelogue gives new and invaluable insights in the daily life of a Saxon Hussar Regiment on his way to Russia in the years 1812/1813.

Wikisource is a free library of source texts which are in the public domain or legally available for free redistribution. Wikisource is an official project of the Wikimedia Foundation and a sister project of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Frank Schulenburg
Head of Public outreach<