Interesting.
This certainly seems like an endorsement of Stripe:  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/payment-provider-stripe-levels-transparency

gosh.. someone should tell the EFF about Bitcoin 


Well, it does imply to me that they should in theory be open to using an intermediary such as Bitpay or Paysius. Perhaps they weren't aware of such intermediaries when they did their about-face on Bitcoin.

Anyway.. I now suspect directly (or indirectly via ranting threads like this) needling the EFF on this isn't likely to be productive.

Perhaps a fundraiser in the legal subsection of the forum to get a lawyer to write up a basic overview of tax & legal implications for non-profits operating via Bitcoin intermediaries would be a better approach... then we could have something to point people to, which counters the EFF's statements.

From the EFF's statement:

From the Humble Bundle founders:


I stand by my interpretation regarding "it's scary".

No - I don't literally think the EFF is '*telling* them not to' in terms of legal advice - I just think they're effectively warning them off - and I think they're doing so based on legal uncertainty.

That is rich coming from an organisation forged in the fires of legal uncertainty.  Do/did they warn people against using any encryption due to lack of legal clarity?

Let's check that:

from: https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en

So the EFF not only  uses Tor despite the 'legal uncertainties' - and that 'no court has ever considered any case involving the Tor technology'  but, they give detailed instructions on how Tor works and how to use it on their 'Surveillance Self-Defense' site:
https://ssd.eff.org/tech/tor


The EFF's SSD site gives a whole load of information about protecting yourself from *government* surveillance.  Here it seems - they're ready to push the envelope right up to the legal frontier - as their name suggests.  

Am I wrong in seeing a double standard here??


There is quite a contrast to their stance on Bitcoin.
I understand they may not have the resources or interest to take it on - in which case - silence would have been preferable to what they've said on the issue so far.

I get that - but I don't think a Bitcoin-suspicious 501(c)(3) will immediately understand this from looking at that page.
Their fears of massive accounting changes, process changes / staff training,  tax and legal implications  need to be allayed.
Perhaps it's not Bitpay's job to clarify all that on this page - and maybe it does even require a lawyer to write up... but it'd be nice to be able to point them somewhere which states things very plainly.

I get a strong sense not many people in this thread read the linked article about the EFF (http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/effs-own-chilling-breeze.html )



To be clear, because people in this thread seem to be seeing this as purely a criticism of the EFF's own decision not to use it - this is more about their effect on other organisations.

They are a legal advocacy group - so their situation is undoubtedly different to most non-profits who are simply receiving donations.
Their public statement should not be such a vague pompous load of "it's scary"... it would be better if they had a much shorter statement saying they weren't using it for reasons specific to 'legal advocacy'.


Please piss off with the moronic comments about not understanding the value of the EFF. They do good work - as strongly stated in the article above. That doesn't put them above critique and public review.

There's little point trying to get more girls there - if there aren't enough guys there giving good tips.
Chicken - egg .. yeah yeah..  but there have been some fit girls try it out, and apparently not enough incentive for them to stick around.
I suspect there just isn't enough BTC flowing there to make it worthwhile.
If there was - they'd be posting pics/shows all the time and it would be growing.

I doubt this scene will be particularly vibrant until there is a really large Bitcoin userbase - as presumably it's only a pretty small proportion of folk who are interested in tipping for this sort of thing.
It wouldn't surprise me if a good slice of the tips so far are given by BTC enthusiasts more out of encouragement for the whole idea/industry, rather than any particular enthusiasm for what the girls are showing. (that's my excuse for throwing a few bitcents in anyway!)

Fine - except that their public statement is a nebulous pile of FUD and their direct statements to other non-profits downright discouraging of adoption.
They should be more cognizant of their effect on the rest of the non-profit community.

Usually I'm accepting if someone has no interest in Bitcoin.
The EFF case is galling because of the 'chilling effects' outlined in the article: http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/effs-own-chilling-breeze.html
It's hypocritical.

I guess I find the Ada Initiative's response a little annoying because
a) they've cited the EFFs FUD

b) The type of technology they say they want to encourage women to get involved in is

Bitcoin is open,decentralized,grassroots, perhaps somewhat 'activist' - and seems like a good fit.  Well they obviously don't see it. So be it. I tried.



 

Yeah.. umm. How do I order?

I'm not against a bit of 'harden the f**k up' as far as online speech goes, but I'm also not averse to initiatives to bring counter-voices in to verbally smack them down.
As we saw with the whole jessy/vegetta thing - that can work pretty nicely.

In the meantime - anyone should be able to smack down that crap whether or not they have penis and identify as male,female or something else; without retarded claims of 'white knighting'.   Well - claim it if you want - but it's dumb.

Nobody's *forcing* you to be a nice person Atlas, I'm just arguing for it in general as a measure which will
a) make this place a little more representative of society as a whole (nearly half the potential population avoiding it isn't a good start)
b) grow the Bitcoin userbase

Do you really have a problem with that?

There's a problem when I'd be embarrassed to tell my girlfriend,mum and/or sister to join up to this forum to join in the discussion - and I would be.
The imbalance is a historical social effect that some are obviously too young and/or ignorant to appreciate.
It's a problem if women themselves see that what is stopping them join in is not so much technical hurdles - but social and community ones.
The existence of organisations such as the Ada Initiative demonstrates this.

Atlas - your ability to see problems where they don't exist and miss real problems is prizeworthy.

I agree this forum is awful in that regard.

The only way around this is for women to be involved in the technology itself. When more women have visibility as code contributors and Bitcoin entrepreneurs - the misogynistic voices here will be smacked down quicker and harder.


It would be pointless for me to try to hide this forum from a womens advocacy group such as Ada Initiative when discussing Bitcoin with them.
It's got to start somewhere - and I don't apologize for holding this forum up as an example of something that's a bit broken, and that they may have the potential to begin to address.

edit: my comment above regarding 'risk taking' gender differences only reflects my *current* understanding.
From what I see, studies bear this out: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111001533
I have no opinion on whether this is genetic or social in basis though - it's just something I see as a plausible explanation for a gender imbalance in a technology such as Bitcoin which (largely due to bad press) has a reputation as being edgy/risky.

Once that imbalance exists though - it's accelerated by the obnoxious comments which go unchallenged. Perhaps my discussion of 'risk taking' gender effects isn't helpful either - but if so - I wish there were more women around here to correct any misconceptions I have in that regard!

Thanks - I did point that out to them, as well as Jeremy Hansen in Vermont.

Their latest response:

I've now pointed out to them the underrepresentation of women in the bitcoin community - along with how misogynistic it can be in here:
"How do we get the women on board?' https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=32386.0

Not the greatest advertisement for this community I'll admit; but if their mission really is to get females more involved in open source Technology - you'd think they'd be interested in addressing this imbalance.

I also pointed out that it was quite likely they'd be eligible for over $1000 USD in initial donations via bitcoin100  which would help offset any implementation costs (which I think would be small anyway).

Really - I think there is an unfortunate imbalance of the sexes here, and it's sad to see this organisation fail to understand that Bitcoin is an important technology.
At the risk of being sexist myself - I can't help but wonder if  the relative scarcity  of females involved in Bitcoin is due to the differences between the sexes as far as 'risk taking'. Certainly by allowing themselves to be swayed by EFF FUD - they appear to be approaching it in a timid fashion.
(I'm sure they'd say 'prudent'/'cautious' - but I'm calling it as I see it).

FWIW I've pointed adainitiative.org to Bitpay's page where they offer to process donations free of charge for 501(c)(3) registered organisations:

https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-charities

I also mentioned paysius as a possible intermediary in my initial query - but I'm not aware of a specific page regarding their handling of charities.

I think the bitpay charities page is a good start, but it would be good if it was more descriptive as to the 'tax implications' (or lack thereof!) that these organisations seem to be scared of, and it would be nice also if it showed an example or two of charities which are already using it.

Today I received this response from adainitiative.org, regarding my query as to whether they would accept Bitcoin donations:


Notice in the FAQ - they cite EFF's stance:


It's one thing for the EFF not to accept Bitcoin for it's own reasons specific to legal advocacy - but from the above, we see that their about-face and public statements continue to damage Bitcoin's reputation in the non-profit sphere.

From earlier this year: ( http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/effs-own-chilling-breeze.html )


also:
I'm not completely certain - but pretty sure the 'particular organization' referred to above is the EFF.

So... is it any wonder the bitcoin100.org project (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52543) has struggled to find recipients for Bitcoin charity?


The EFF is an asset to the online community  - but their stance here from 2011 (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/eff-and-bitcoin) seems to be an ongoing impediment to Bitcoin adoption amongst non-profits.
Does anyone have any inside contacts at the EFF to see if they're ready to revisit their public position - and just as importantly, the obvious behind the scenes advice they have been giving to 'steer clear' of Bitcoin?

I also received nothing on the original email address I subscribed to the list. No sign of failed delivery in my mailserver logs either - so it may be worth checking your systems Avalon guys.

I recently subscribed my gmail address as a backup - and it got the announcement.

Did Donald Norman really say that?



However, Yanis Varoufakis also said on Twitter:
( https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/252921848180928512 )

single mention.


Another one confused/ignorant about the nature of Bitcoin. Interesting that a tech journalist on a fairly large site is making such a fundamental mis-statement.

Yes please.
Even though USD is the de facto yardstick for valuing BTC - it's a shame (and timewasting ) to use US-centric time abbreviations on such a global forum.

Please consider using ISO 8601 date formats too.
10/03 is only unambiguous because March this year happens to have passed.   If you'd said say 11/10  - I'd have been genuinely confused as to your meaning.

C'mon people - Bitcoin is global. Some minor adjustments to parochial habits isn't that hard.

Again Bitcoin only gets a passing mention in this story...but it's a good one.