[ANN] Donate to Wikipedia with Bitcoin

[organofcorti]

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:

Hi,

I use wikipedia a lot, and I would like to donate. However I don't use
Paypal since I've had bad experiences with them. I don't use my debit card
online anymore since I found out that my bank's insurance doesn't cover
fraud for debit cards.

I do however use bitcoin. If you are concerned about holding bitcoin or
managing a wallet, you don't have to - just use
https://bitpay.com/

and they'll do the conversion to US$ for you.

This was the response.

Thank you for your email and interest in supporting free knowledge. Unfortunately we do not accept bitcoins. Other ways to support the Wikimedia Foundation can be found at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en.

Thank you again for your interest.

Sincerely,

Joshua VanDavier
Donor Services Manager
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
https://wikimediafoundation.org
Support us: https://donate.wikimedia.org

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.

[Hexadecibel]

[Serenata]

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.

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.

[Kazimir]

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 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.

[bitcon]

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.

[Gabi]

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? "

[Sukrim]

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.

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...

[Aseras]

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. 

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

[Carlton Banks]

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.

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...

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 

[farlack]

Curious to see logs?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

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

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 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?

[jgarzik]

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

+1

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

[Ban Curtain]

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

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 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.

I wrote to wiki about BitPay. Here is their response:

Josh VanDavier, Mar 08 03:29 pm (PST):
Hi Al,

Thanks for taking the time to email is about this. Currently we do not accept Bitcoins as a donation option. The website you're referring to was set-up without our knowledge and with no contact from BitPay. We have no way to guarantee that the full amount of your donation will be sent to us. A full list of donation methods can be found at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en.

Thanks for taking the time to email us!

Best,
Josh

Joshua VanDavier
Donor Services Manager
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
wikimediafoundation.org
Support us! https://donate.wikimedia.org

My letter to them was:

Al Dmit, Mar 08 05:37 am (PST):
Hello, Wikipedia!

I love your resource very much, wiki has been helping me for a looong time.
Recently you asked for donation. I'd like to donate you in Bitcoins. I've
found this
http://blog.bitpay.com/2012/11/donate-to-wikipedia-with-bitcoin.html
Do they really transfer money to you? I haven't found on your site any info
that you accepting bitcoins.

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

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Do they really transfer money to you?

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.

I haven't found on your site any info that you accepting bitcoins.

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

[tjohej]

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

[TippingPoint]

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: problemsdonating@wikimedia.org.

[ErebusBat]

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).

[World]

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