It's just me that finds silly this reluctance of the wikimedia foundation against adding some ads?
These beg banners they put end up being more annoying than a small add would be, and I don't think it's nearly as effective.
I agree. Wikimedia has plenty of potential revenue opportunities that would not compromise the project's integrity. I doubt that Wikimedia could be completely self-sufficient, but I bet it could get by without any donation drives if it was managed correctly.
I don't like the way Wikimedia is run in general. In particular, Wales should be removed from any sort of leadership position -- he has a long history of making stupid decisions and bypassing his own (poorly-designed) rules.
I"ve been unfortunately far too involved with Wikimedia politics. The structure of the Wikimedia Foundaion is one that certainly is stacked deliberately with people who share his philosophies, as Larry Sanger certainly can testify (who arguably is the legitimate title of "founder" of Wikipedia, not Jimmy Wales). What Jimmy Wales offered was the initial server farm which supported Wikipedia at a time when you couldn't put something like that together easily without personally buying the equipment yourself and hiring electricians to run the wiring, including network support.
Of course many people don't want to admit that much of that was financed by the porn industry, which is particularly ironic given some of the prudish actions by Jimmy Wales of late. He does try to brush quite a bit of his past away, and it doesn't quite square with his current squeeky clean public persona that seems to be present at the moment. He deserves some kudos, but he also can cause a whole bunch of problems when he steps in and tries to act as a "god-king". A good example of how there is huge push-back on his actions can be found on this page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flagIf there ever was a peasant revolt among the Wikimedia user community, this is it. It was also a successful coup-d'etat so far as it did ultimately strip Jimmy Wales of a number of significant abilities and drew a firm line in the sand past which this guy simply can't act. Sort of like a Wikimedia version of the Magna Carta after a strange fashion where the powers of the king are now significantly limited. I agree that he should be thanked for his service, and then told to move along.
Getting back to the main topic at hand, which is trying to persuade the Wikimedia Foundation to accept Bitcoins for donations. Perhaps an open letter to the Wikimedia community would work out and they might be willing to accept donations like the EFF is doing. If this is done, a very well formed letter could be put onto the Foundation-l mailing list, which is by far and away the best place for us ordinary serfs to communicate with the WMF board. Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't, but I promise that there will be some significant feedback if it is done, mostly by nay sayers who love to shoot any proposal down.
In terms of historical examples, e-gold put some significant effort into trying to get the WMF to accept them as at least a donation option and bent over backwards to help out with the technical side of getting things integrated into the donation pages. It was a little more complicated than simply displaying a bitcoins donation address, but not much more. Other alternative currencies have come and gone over the years too, and it simply isn't a part of the WMF mission or the philosophy of those in power with the WMF to support alternative currencies.
I might be surprised as sometimes all it takes is to ask, and I would certainly be willing to post such a message created and formed here on this forum to make an open letter to the WMF and the Wikimedia community in general, certainly to give my personal endorsement. I do have at least some pull so far as some credibility I've built up over the years, so it wouldn't be dismissed immediately if I made the request. I can't make any promises and it does seem like a proposal that may get shot down, but it wouldn't hurt to at least try.
The most likely response is that there are plenty of ways to donate to the WMF, and that people should try to use those methods first. Still, I know that some rather "unconventional" methods of donation have been used in the past, including the donation of several thousand shares of Google stock. Of course that has real tangible value that doesn't need explaining. It may also simply be premature to use Bitcoins for the WMF at the moment. As a practical matter, it might be easier to persuade the Wal-Mart board of directors to use Bitcoins than the WMF board of trustees. Where should we put that kind of effort?
