[kde-community] Fundraising

[John Layt]

On 10 July 2014 11:10, Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, let me be bold and give a suggestion (that isn't new at all [2]):
> lets use our *software* to reach out to our users and tell them how they
> could help us.
>
> Right now, we depend on users actively reaching out to us, to read planet
> KDE, our dot and kde.org, to find out how to help. Let's make it easier.
> Let's reach out to them.
>
> I'm not suggesting a irremovable flashing banner on the panel and pink fluffy
> bunnies running over the window decoration, carrying signs "donate to KDE".
> Perhaps unicorns. Certainly no bunnies ;-)
>
> No, goal is to INFORM our users that they could participate, help us, in
> various ways. In a decent way. With the simple option to ignore us.
>
> And yes, there are some technical difficulties, and we'd have to work with
> the distributions. I'm sure we can have a conversation about that - but I'd
> like to know first: do we *want* this in the first place? Because if we
> *want* it, I am certain we can *do* it. We're KDE ;-)

Not unexpectedly, I do have a few ideas of varying degrees of
evil-ness and unicorn-potential :-)

As I mentioned in the thread you linked to we currently have a
"donate" link in the "About KDE" dialog under the "Support KDE" tab
where absolutely no-one will see it.  We need to put any donate links
or buttons in places where the users are more likely to see it in as
part of their regular workflow.  Annoying as it may have been, being
confronted with Jimmy Wales' pleading face at the top of every
Wikipedia page for a month was surprisingly effective :-)

There's several places we could insert a Donate link or text, each
with varying degrees of visibility and annoyance.  We'll probably want
to try more than one of them so we could probably have a small library
or group of classes to provide a consistent interaction model, i.e.
provide a KDonateButton and KDonateDialog for use in gui's, etc.  We
could make this configurable so independent apps can run their own
fund-raising campaigns, and have a single config option to turn all
marketing messages off.

Having a generic "Donate" link or text will be less effective than
having targeted text and images, for example for Randa or for new
servers or Join the Game.  People are more likely to donate if there
is a clear target with tangible benefits.  We could have a method
where-by the donate code can check a server to see what the current
campaigns are, perhaps using an rss feed or json file.  Whenever an
app starts it could trigger a delayed check of this.  If they cannot
connect then a generic text and image is used.  Such an update method
could also be used to trigger the more annoying notification methods
on a low-volume schedule.  Of course, these marketing messages we're
pushing out don't have to all be of the "give us money" type, they
could also be more generic "Attend Akademy", "Try Krita" , "Oppose
Software Patents" or "Magical Unicorns" type messages.

Where we do put donate links in the software, we need to make sure
that each channel and campaign has a different link or parameter to
identify it so we can track which campaign the money is intended for
and which channels are the most effective.

So where to put these marketing messages?

The simplest would be to add a "Donate to KDE..." item in the Help
menu which would pop-up the donate dialog, which would display the
latest campaigns.  This is quick and easy and highly unlikely to annoy
users or distros or app authors, but would still be easy for them to
turn off if it did.  However, it doesn't put the new campaigns under
the users immediate attention.

We could insert messages into the KTipsDatabase so that the tips
dialog randomly shows the latest campaigns.  On the first-run of an
app we could show the generic donate text, and when new campaigns are
launched we can make that the next tip to be shown.  Again, this is a
fairly low-annoyance method that can easily be disabled, and increases
visibility, but only if the user keeps showing tips at start-up.

Boud has mentioned that Krita donations increased when he put a donate
button in the splash screen.  We could automatically place a button in
all KSplashScreen instances, or even have the normal splash replaced
with newly launched campaigns.  Again, easily disabled if unwanted,
and with guaranteed visibility, but not all apps use it, and the
annoyance factor is higher.

Somewhere that people regularly look at is the configure settings
dialog.  We could insert a default panel in every config dialog that
gives some of the generic "About KDE" or "About App" style info, like
where to get help on UserBase, etc, with the marketing messages
included in the layout.  This would have the potential for high user
exposure, but also high user annoyance at seeing it when all they want
is to configure something.

In the more annoying category, there are many apps that could have
marketing messages subtly displayed on start-up, the non-modal
notifications in apps like Kate or Dolphin could easily show a
marketing message on start-up that fades away after a little bit.
Something like Rekonq offers a lot of options for displaying messages,
as Firefox makes clear.  Konqueror, KMyMoney and other apps that start
up with a nice intro or summary screen could easily include a subtle
marketing pitch.  These have a high annoyance potential so would need
to be carefully designed or rarely used, depending on the app, but
providing some common library tools would enable the apps to decide
the best way for themselves.

We could insert banner style messages into the KDE Help Centre, either
just as non-modal notifications that fade away, or as full-on banner
ads permanently in the header layout.  It could be a bad place for it
though as users looking for help with a problem may not be in a
receptive mood.  KCrash could also be a bad option for the same
reason.

It's been suggested before to have a donate plasmoid that gets
installed on the default desktop.  A more generic version for "KDE
Konnect" could scroll through the various campaigns and other useful
info.  Even if the distros disable this by default, it could still
appear in the list of available plasmoids for people to stumble
across.  More usefully, it could also include an RSS feed from the Dot
and Planet, commit stats, etc, to make it more appealing for users to
leave enabled.

The Windows installer could easily have a donate message page inserted
into it, or perhaps show the latest campaigns while software is
downloading or installing (beats just watching the boring 0-100%
bars).  This is commonly done in many commercial and distro
installers, and is a channel we exclusively control so would be
uncontroversial.

Getting really evil, we could insert campaign messages into the Plasma
Notifications.  Or we could have a separate notifier icon in the
system tray.  Or insert a "Donate" option into the Kicker menu in the
Favourites or Leave tab.  Or add an iCalendar feed to the Plasma
calendar.  Or put a "$" windeco button in every KWin title bar.  Or
have a Donate icon in System Settings.  Or have KRunner display ads
interspersed with search results.  Or Amarok could play ads in-between
tracks.  Or...

Obviously, we could adopt some of the worst spammy practices of the
commercial software world and really really really annoy our users and
distributors.  We don't want that so we'll have to be more subtle, and
always allow people to easily opt-out from all future marketing.  Done
right though we could raise the profile subtly, especially if we make
the communication channel useful enough.  Where do people see that
line being?  What of the above do people see as being completely
unacceptable?  Do we prefer opt-in or opt-out?  How much choice do we
give app maintainers in deciding to participate?  If we do any of
this, we will need a clear set of ethical guidelines on what is
acceptable and what isn't, with full visibility and accountability,
and total control for our users.

Cheers!

John.

[P.S. Dear media peeps following this list, a number of the
suggestions above are firmly tongue-in-cheek to help explore where the
limits might lie, so please don't report this as "OMG KDE to spam
users!".  We are talking fluffy unicorns here :-) ]