Topic: [ANN] Donate to Wikipedia with Bitcoin (Read 6429 times)

Something is happening
http://newsbtc.com/2014/01/09/wikimedia-foundation-mulls-bitcoin-donations-2/
http://bitcoinowl.com/email-reveals-wikipedias-organization-wants-accept-bitcoin

Is this still active?

Wiki is doing their anual fundraising drive and I would like to contribute, and I trust BitPay, but I don't want to just send the money into the ether either (haha).

Wikipedia has resisted our advances so far, but don't forget what an advantage for us it will be when they finally do accept BTC.

A variation of the Bitpay method would be an escalating interval method.  Increase the escrow or holding period of the BTC collected for Wikipedia.  Perhaps double the waiting period each time.

And they have this statement at
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage&country=US&uselang=en&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=donate&utm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org

We are trying to make it easy for people in every country to donate. Please let us know how we could make it easier for you. Send your suggestions to: [email protected].

I've donated to them in the past and put a comment on their "Real-time donor comments from around the world" and it was hosted here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionHistory/en
Now that page works no more.
It redirects here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
Showing only some "biz graph", no freakin comments, so WP I think you really don't need my money. It's like wikipedia is saying "we get so many donations nowadays that we don't need your stinkin' money. Please donate somewhere else". I say "gladly!" 

Now wanna take a look at how the wikimediafoundation.org donation comment webpage looked like in the past? Actually it is very very similar to how the openstreetmap.org donation comments work today! Take a look:
http://donate.openstreetmap.org/comments/

Here's a screenshot of how http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionHistory/en looked like in January 5 2009, full with comments and you can/could donate anonymously and at every donation you had the chance to leave a comment regardless of if you were anonymous or not:
http://s15.postimage.org/pcza0r123/image.png

That was never the question, of course they do (I guess you couldn't be too careful though). The only question is whether it's displayed someplace visible, where people can see there's demand to donate using Bitcoin.

It was also clear that this is Bitpay's initiative and not any official move by the Wikimedia Foundation.

I wrote to wiki about BitPay. Here is their response:
My letter to them was:

So this means that it is better to wait when wiki start accept bitcoins on their own. Although I hope BitPay do everything honestly

+1

I would donate, if there were a static donations-for-wikipedia address.

Does the Wikimedia Foundation have a list where the donation from BitPay is displayed? I recall there was once such a list, but now I can't seem to find it.

Can I assume your donation entries include a comment to the effect that this donation was enabled by Bitcoin? I don't know if anyone reads these, but it's a start.

Can you provide a static, public Bitcoin address from which all received funds will be converted and donated to Wikipedia?

Curious to see logs?

More "chicken & egg" acceptance issues. Once Bitcoin becomes more accepted directly in the region where you do your work, you will not need to worry about bank transfer issues. Just changing the BTC for local currency in person, or even spending them directly should become easier and easier. And it will still be just as difficult to transfer Plutonium or precious works of art digitally, Bitcoin less so 

And so completely missed to reason o get thm to take BTC.

In this case however a lot of people in this thread are demanding something from Wikipedia - to accept donations in a currency they explicitly don't support in receiving.

As I said - just donating anything is like for example donating fridges on the north pole. A nice gesture maybe, but neither useful nor needed. I also work at an NGO that might like to get Bitcoin donations, but currently it looks like it's impossible to pull off, for example because payment providers like BitPay don't send SEPA transfers to my country (which is in the SEPA zone...) and holding Bitcoins (even donated ones) is a certain risk and takes more work than the potential benefits.

Wikipedia also doesn't allow me to send them Plutonium or Gold or any other precious metal by mail! I cannot give them stock certificates I own, I can't donate Litecoins and I can't send them the Picasso in my living room...

Well don't expect wikipedia accepting bitcoin now. They now are like "ahah these guys give money to us even if we don't accept their currency, why should we accept it now? "

the difference is that the beggar on the street will take any currency you give him, because he knows that it is better than having nothing. after all, you can still wipe your ass with a dollar bill and still use it afterwards.  by wikipedia vehemently denying bitcoins tells me that they are not financially struggling at all.   maybe when their financial institution begins to defraud them like the 99% of us already have been via bailouts, foreclosures, etc., they might try to open their eyes.

It's 2012, Wikipedia IS the media.

If Wikipedia would openly accept Bitcoin donations and explain why this currency brings power to the people, has great benefits for everybody (except for banks), and fits so well with their ideology (free, open, transparent, fair, community-driven, etc), it would be a huge statement for Bitcoin, that other media would pick up and dive into. Rather than repeating their uninformed "Bitcoin, hacker's money to buy drugs online" rubbish or similar utter nonsense that we've seen before.

Freedom of information - freedom of money. It makes sense to me.

I can't understand why people just need to tell other people off about their opinions!
The point I was trying to make, which was obviously missed, is that if someone is asking me for something, I expect THEM to go through all the trouble to get it. If they can't / won't then, just as I already said, too bad for them. If this kind of attitude does not address your "accept that!" and "stop demanding" statements, I marked in bold quoting your answer, well, I can't be more clear than that.

Although your point about the beggar is quite correct, I don't find the way you communicate it by jumping on others, nice or polite. I think your response was directed to me and not the community, since I was quoted and that's why I'm responding to you. And BTW, it's funny that my point of view sounds like a US one, although I was born, raised and still live in Europe

P.S. To possible trolls: I won't reply to posts like "cry baby" and "whining" etc, so don't bother.

I hadn't seen this post, and a few days ago I decided I'd donate to wikipedia after seeing their requests for donations. I couldn't find anything about accepting bitcoin on their site but I remembered something about them accepting bitcoin from a year or so ago, so I emailed them:


This was the response.




Which sort of missed the point - that they don't have to accept bitcoin directly in order to get donations. So I'm glad bitpay is doing this instead, although it does show the gap between what wikimediafoundation.org thinks it knows about bitcoin and what it actually knows.

I just sent 2BTC to wikipedia.

Outstanding. Thanks bitpay!

Would be interesting to know the number of addresses (people) that donated because I feel that many chosen to give only a small amount to show that they are willing to donate more (if the button were on Wikipedia site).

This number should be told to Wikipedia too, so they know there is more from where that sum came.

https://bitpay.com/terms

Sounds very much like an US point of view. Ever been travelling in Europe before the Euro (or in a lot of countries still without Euro)? You will quickly learn that small amounts of money in any obscure currency but your own is useless - which is why e.g. services like Paypal exist that take a lot of smaller payments to convert them to whatever they need to. If you go to the US and try to buy a burger with a 2€ coin, good luck with that. I still have about the equivalent of a few EUR in foreign currencies lying around at home (I think USD as well) that are completely useless, as I can't exchange them or buy anything with them (even mailing them to that country would cost more than the money's worth).

Having useless stuff lying around actually has opportunity costs and as this beggar can't expect to ever use the 5$ bill, he's better off not taking it at all than having to store it somewhere and maybe even getting into trouble with his colleagues or anything else. Same with Wikipedia - if they don't accept BTC, accept that! Even if you put up 1 BTC in escrow that has to be claimed by them, there's probably too much hassle or overhead to get it converted to something they can use. Since services like BitPay offer to pay in USD instead, just do that or stop demanding to pay someone with something that's not usable to this person/entity.

If I decide to donate to you 5000 litres of milk (which are also worth something) you'd also try to sell it (which might be in some cases as hard as selling Bitcoins) and have BTC or USD or EUR or whatever and have great trouble with that instead of enjoying the great gift of fresh milk you've gotten.

They get millions from voluntary do-gooders around the world.  If they start accepting bitcoin and the media paints them as encouraging a form of payment that promotes (insert evil activity here), they are screwed.  It's just too risky for the amount they would get in bitcoin.

Bitpay has essentially allowed them to test the waters first (without their permission of course).  If Wikipedia sees that the media accepts it, the tides will turn.

Let's hope they can garner some positive press out of it.

LOL

I just sent them an email telling them that they don't really need money if they don't accept bitcoin.
BTW I have nothing against those who donate trough bitpay's solution but I want them to know that they will get MUCH more by accepting them directly.

period

Supposing I'm a US citizen visiting a country in Europe....
There is a beggar in the street *selling* handkerchiefs. I take a $5 bill out of my pocket and hand it to the beggar. To my surprise he does not accept it and ask me to convert that in Euro first.

Does this sound right to you? To me it doesn't.

Some things to get straight:
Wikipedia is not a beggar by any means! They do provide a service, which is of course valuable, free of charge and *ask* for donations. If I decide to donate, I get to choose the donation method. If Wikipedia does not support or accept the donation method that works for me, then too bad for them. I don't see this approach as trying to hold Wikipedia hostage, as mentioned above by Hexadecibel. I see it as a simple case "What works for me doesn't work for them" and vice versa.

I like Bitpay's idea, though I'd prefer a single bitcoin address for all donations, so everyone can see the bits flowing (though there might be technical difficulties following this road).

Dear Wikipedia:

You are imperfect community institution with inferior payment processors, and as such you shall be assimilated into The Collective.
Resistance is futile


Sincerely Borg

Any chance we can see a daily log? 

Wikipedia does not hate Bitcoin.  They just have a lot to lose since so much of their income is based on donations (i.e. public sentiment).  

If Bitpay is transparent (a transaction log would be nice), and the donations are plentiful, the press will pick it up and the tides will start to turn.

This is one of the smartest moves I've seen a Bitcoin company make.  

Bravo!

I am donating a bitcoin now.

I wonder who showed us the potential of gold...

Because it will help show them the potential of our currency and our community.

Or maybe no. They don't need our bitcoin, then why should we give them to them?

So its clear that people declaring that they wont donate until wikipedia themselves accepts bitcoin never intended to in the first place.

Good for you bitpay. Ill be making my donation as soon as I get home.

Seriously, trying to hold wikipedia hostage until they accept bitcoins is just childish and does more harm to bitcoin than good.

+21.000.000 They don't need our Bitcoins; we should not send them anything! 

In what way ?

Also if you wanted to do this yourself (register a merchant account and offer a button to donate to something you consider worth donating to) you would act against BitPay's TOS...

So merchants pay fees to bitpay so that bitpay can give money to wikipedia for 0 fee even if wikipedia DO NOT want bitcoins.

This is so retard...

Just to make sure:
BitPay essentially offers to take our BTC and pays something they consider an equivalent amount of USD to Wikimedia. All in all Wikimedia gets is a single donation per day by BitPay in USD (potentially with a remark like "this is coming from the Bitcoin community" or similar).

I like the idea, but as mentioned above it would be great to still ahve a list of payments in Bitcoin how much was donated, in USD how much arrived at Wikimedia and it would be nice if BitPay would offer such a service for some other uses as well ("Pay for paypal with Bitcoin"? "Bitcoin to SEPA"...)

Nice. Thank you 

No.  BitPay is offering this service completely free to the donors and to Wikipedia.

Are you charging 0.99% fee?

BitPay has a list, but only if you entered an email address.  If you did not enter an email address on the form, the donation is anonymous.  Only the donor has a copy of the receipt.

Does Wikipedia publish the donations list so we can see our donations on their site and feel good about it?

This morning we sent a direct deposit to Wikipedia for $790.36 which is all of the bitcoin donations received from noon yesterday until this morning.

Great job guys!

We will continue to do this every day.  I do have hope that eventually the donate button will be on Wikipedia's site, but for now having the button on our blog accomplishes the same thing. 

Donated!
Large organizations need more time to understand what is BTC

I claim to want wikipedia to accept my BTC. And once they do, I will most certainly donate generously.

I appreciate bitpay's initiative. But getting Wikipedia to publicly announce they accept Bitcoin themselves, THAT's what this is about.

+1

+1

+1

+1

I do appreciate this option but personally I still won't give them anything until they themselves accept Bitcoin. My opinion is that if they don't accept bitcoins they really don't need the money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/06/29/wikipedia-accepts-enemies-of-the-internet-currencies/

How does this work for tax purposes?  If I give bitcoins to BitPay, and BitPay gives dollars to Wikipedia, WIkipedia will issue a tax receipt showing BitPay as the donor.

As much as I like seeing bitpay being proactive I have many doubts The Wikimedia Foundation will like this.
And I don't like it either, TBH...

it's not a scam, wiki either accepts the btc via bitpay by making an official account or bitpay refunds it if they don't create an account and you get to use that publicity to hammer it home to them they they can't really be hurting for money that bad if they are turning it down.

Exact. A donation is a donation so they should not spit on it if they really need it.

I have no idea but if they really need money then they would accept bitcoin and would not be so picky about donations

If they have enough money why is 1/3 of my screen taken up by their banner ad begging for money?

I often read wikipedia and so far it seems they don't want our donations, it seems they have enough money

Be sure to mention that more of us are ready to donate when they have their own bitcoin addy.

+1

So you are suggesting Bitpay should scam me? I don't like that suggestion.

+1


+1

And us. Please show us too the mountains of coins that will be donated....

Don't forget to show them (the Wikipedians) how much money you will have donated from Bitcoin users.

It's good for those who want to support wikipedia I agree but for myself I still prefer supporting bitcoin.

I appreciate bitpay efforts, but I think I can live without wikipedia.
Eventually, a brand new wikipedia will flourish, and they will accept bitcoins from start.

If you honestly don't use/read/consult wikipedia ever as part of your boycott, then you are totally in the clear and my argument doesn't really apply to you.

And it ain't trollin' if dem facts be true. Fact 1: You claim to want to donate to wikipedia with BTC. Fact 2: You have a way to do so.

No thanks.

They don't really need donations if they don't accept bitcoin

and mccorvic, 0/10 trolling.

I don't call it dogma, I call it boycott and yes I will boycott as much as I can those who don't accept my bitcoins.

I donated .8 BTC (not a lot, but if a respectable amount of my entire BTC holding)

While it would be nice if Wiki accepted BTC straight up it is also important to support Wikipedia itself.  

All these people who claim they refuse to donate until Wikipedia immediatly accepts their dogmatic terms for donation are giving BTC a bad name and reinforces the stereotype that BTC is more a religion than anything else.  Look, you have been given a way to use BTC to support an important organization. Put your money where your mouth is or just admit that you're really just pushing dogma.

Donated 1$ to express my interest.

Real donations to come as soon as they officially accept Bitcoin.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/06/29/wikipedia-accepts-enemies-of-the-internet-currencies/

I think you should hold all the money donated for a month or so and show Wikipedia how much they are missing out. Only pay if the officially setup their own account, otherwise refund everyone and the end.

+1,000,000,000,000,000

Thanks for the initiative but I won't donate until THEY ask for bitcoin donation.

Yep, we will get there.  Big companies like this need to take baby steps.

Or they should advertise this.. That people can donate with bitcoins through bitpay.

Wiki is a worthwhile cause. But I would prefer to get them to accept bitcoin on their own.

I don't approve this. Just my opinion...

Donated!  It totally seems to work!

This isn't Wikipedia's official action.

Who "them"? Wikipedia? I doubt they know about this.

This is great news. Good for you!

Anyone with bitcoins can now donate to Wikipedia with bitcoin!

http://blog.bitpay.com/2012/11/donate-to-wikipedia-with-bitcoin.html