An open letter to Wikipedia—you can do better

Wikipedia just sent me an email asking me to donate again. It had a nice click-baity title, “Keith — This is a little awkward,” which successfully got me to open the message. It proceeded to lay on the guilt to try and get me to donate. In a sense it worked, I just donated again, but as a user, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like I bailed out a friend who’s run out of money again.

Dear Wikipedia—

I know this is an automated email and I’m sure you sent it to a ton of people, but I’ll reply anyway and share some feedback just in case someone is reading this inbox.

I love Wikipedia. I use it regularly. I think it’s great that it exists. But I think you need to bring as much innovation to your business model as you’ve brought to the creation of content.

You’re clearly struggling to fundraise and it’s not for lack of interest in Wikipedia or because of a lack of value you are delivering. It’s evident in the tone of all your emails and on-site campaigns that you all feel a little baffled: “If so many people use and love us, why are we struggling to fundraise” must be running through your heads.

You all need to think differently about fundraising. You’re laying on the guilt for users, you’re getting “louder” and louder with your on-site messaging — and yes, this is one way to increase your donations. But you’ve reached a local maximum with it and you’ll get diminishing returns as you try to get even louder over time. This is becoming as annoying to your customer base as the advertising on many media websites has become. It’s making me think less of you.

I’m not saying you need to put ads on your website. I get your reasons for wanting to avoid that. Please just take a fresh look at your business model and come up with something better. Just like the traditional publishing mistakenly said, “there is no way a crowdsourced group of people could create an encyclopedia that is as accurate and useful as Britannica,” don’t mistakenly say, “the only way for us to avoid advertising is for us to loudly ask our users over and over again for donations.”

Take a cue from Kickstarter or from Medium or from bitcoin “microcurrency” or from the hybrid donations where you “buy” something with your donation (like TED membership fees) — come up with something else. There is a better option out there and it’s worth you all looking for it rather than being a little more annoying each year.

Please know that I write all this because I *love* Wikipedia and want to continue to see it thrive, not because I hate you guys. :)

With much love,Keith