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Wikipedia needs to answer for this...


BitInstant Blog - The Full Faith and Credit of Wikipedia
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/11/20/the-full-faith-and-credit-of-wikipedia.html (http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/11/20/the-full-faith-and-credit-of-wikipedia.html)

Please retweet if you can:  https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/271305619837943809 (https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/271305619837943809)

I've retweeted! I'm about to read the article, but what's amazing is that prior to coming to this forum, I was thinking about you, envisioning YOU penning an article addressing Wikipedia.

~Bruno K~

Erik, great article. You convinced me.
I think the culprit is that they are afraid of endorsing Bitcoin. They are depending too much on donations from people that believe that Bitcoin is drug money. The Wordpress news will hopefully steer the needle in the right direction for us.
Keep up the good work.

And that is why you're my favorite writer (sorry Loup--you're still second). I did find one error, and you presented it twice. The yellow donation banner you spoke of was not only yellow, but a few other colors, carefully chosen to elicit readers at the subconscious level. In fact, during the onset of said campaign, I once purposely refreshed a Wikipedia page to reassure myself I wasn't seeing things. The other colors I remember are red, blue and green. Hopefully, another reader or two of this post will confirm.

This post, Erik, is no way being hyper-critical of your very fine article. It touches upon most everything I hoped it would--and more.

~Bruno K~

Keep the pressure on...

- http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/11/20/the-full-faith-and-credit-of-wikipedia.html
 
It was inevitable that some forward thinking industry leader (like WordPress) would look at Bitcoin, determine that it can be used to better the world, and embraces it.

Now that this message is out there, the excuses used in the past for rejecting bitcoin (like the EFF's and Wikipedia's) sound foolish, in hindsight.

A similar argument was posted in another thread relating to the EFF's rejection of Bitcoin:


Time for a renewed push to get EFF to accept Bitcoins?
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=125405.0

After the wordpress news, I sent an email to wikipedia as follows:


And this was the reply about a day later.

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that WordPress has been getting more secret heat over this move than is known.  I wouldn't be surprised if they reverse themselves in a couple months, and then the detractors will use that as evidence that bitcoin doesn't really work for companies like WordPress.

Great article.

That idea crossed my mind too but I rejected it right away, like, I don't want to think about that.

Erik, great post, in line with what can be expected from you.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Jimmy_Wales_Fundraiser_Appeal_edit.jpg/220px-Jimmy_Wales_Fundraiser_Appeal_edit.jpg
That idea crossed his mind, too. He's got nothing to loose when waiting some months. He would have much to win/loose moving now though.

I just sent them an email to add some pressure.

You would think that Jimmy Wales -- the porn guru -- wouldn't be afraid of bitcoin.

I just tried my very first submission to HN:
http://news.ycombinator.com/newest

Feel free to upvote it.

I agree with others who say that it's time to give up on trying to get Wikipedia to accept B donations.

We all know the real reasons why they don't do it.

Simply don't send them any support! I am sure they will be fine with fiat donations from others, and our conscience should be clear when we continue to use it for free!  ;D

Trying to convince them to accept it, makes us look desperate and needy.

As i've said before, if Bitcoin is big-enough idea to succeed, it's big enough to speak for itself now. We should just use it and improve it, and stop begging others to accept it.

When the fiat house of cards implodes in the right places, my bet is many entities will change their mind about B.

At that time, the ones that did not support B these days, will not get a satoshi or any other currency from me either...  :P 

Well put.  +1

We should approach one of wikipedis's competitors.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page is a good start.

Or http://en.citizendium.org/

Speaking of donations, when is the Douchebag Foundation (http://www.douchebagfoundation.org/donate/) going to accept Bitcoin?  :D :D :D :D

fucking coward

never used WordPress, but I think I will send them a little just because

I'm not sure, but I guess it has something to do with "fluidity duty".

+2 Although I think we need to keep putting out articles like Erik's to call out organizations who say one thing and do another.

Great article Erik!

How about sending tips to Wikipedia by Twitter to open their eyes a bit? Heres the instructions: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/13m7wo/flood_wikipedia_with_donations_by_twitter/

When Pirate pays everyone back.

Excellent Article!!! Keep up the great job!!

I feel BTC will survive on its merits. BTC is financial freedom. Fiat is inevitable failure. I will stick with silver and my BTC.   

Lets face it.. fiat is not going to 'fail'

If that happened we would have total anarchy and I doubt many would be able to get to whatever was left of the internet.

I do believe btc will prosper as a commodity/currency.  Eventually more valuable then gold, but much more easily transferable and divisible. (note the eventually)

Anarchy is not a requirement for "failure". The freefall of value is failure enough for me. Things aren't getting better for USD over the next ten years.

Fiat failed tons of times, it will happens again and again. And it happens to a major fiat, then it can drag in the black hole others too.....

I think we need a glossary of tems.

define 'failure of fiat currency'.....  after some googling..  i have no idea!

google Zimbabwe dollar, Yougoslavian dinar, Argentinian peso, and so and so forth.

You can't advise governments or fall in love with somebody who works for goverment without abandoning libertarian principles?

@ ERIK VOORHEES :

Very nice article, like it so much, I've forward it to few friends that does'nt follow BTC news even if involved in BTC !

Marvellous, Inteeligent, well writen !  Congratulations, I totaly agree with the entire article !

I'll also write to wikipedia, as already done before, as im willing to donate only in BTC.
EDIT:mail sent:


Thank you for the nice writing !

:D

+1 From my contact with them, it's clear to me that WikiMedia has become just another member of the establishment corporatocracy, which is another reason we should not be begging to donate to them.

Since they've shown their true colors, i won't support them again.

He doesn't seem to be the only "decider" on their decisions either.

It would be useful if when BitPay pops up a particular merchant's payment interface that it says on that page "Accepting Bitcoin since [date]".

That way, we could prioritize the merchants into those who were with Bitcoin "BW" (before WordPress) and AW (after WordPress), and we can then make the spending decisions accordingly.

I found this quite funny:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Jimbo_Wales

There are some decent arguments supporting their accepting bitcoins, including those that involve automatic conversions to US dollars or whatever, but I don't think the original post is a very good argument, unless you already agree with it.


Well, here's Wikimedia's stated mission (https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement):
There's nothing in there that even begins to suggest that bitcoin would be accepted by them.

What about their mission statement suggests that they're against control at all and for openness in anything but educational content they themselves provide?

They don't approve of freedom of expression, as you can see by all their policies preventing certain expressions, but even if they 'approved' of freedom of expression with money, why would they have to accept all forms of money rather than the kinds they freely chose based on whatever criteria they wanted?

The arguments also seem dishonest. The arguer isn't actually asking for every new currency that someone comes up with to be accepted by Wikipedia, but the argument is asking for that, as implied by the freedom of expression with money argument. Why would only one open currency be sufficient to satisfy that argument? Why couldn't everyone argue the same for their currency?

I get a different impression. As the EFF put it (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/eff-and-bitcoin/):
This is directly what is being asked above: that Wikipedia not only accept bitcoins but that they do it through support of the ideological tenets above. Why should they?

Bumping this thread to ask if there's a copy of OP's text somewhere else?
BitInstant blog is no longer up.

Thanks.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130401064214/http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/11/20/the-full-faith-and-credit-of-wikipedia.html

Wikipedia speaks with forked tongue.