Encouraging Wikipedia (and other organizations) to accept Bitcoins

[TippingPoint]

I have spent some time thinking about how to hasten the day when almost all organizations will accept Bitcoins.  You know, when there is a Bitcoin donation button or link on the web pages of Wikipedia, and the top non-profit and charitable organizations.  This would greatly increase awareness and perceived legitimacy among some of the population, and demonstrate some of the advantages of Bitcoins.

My idea (although it might turn out to not be original) is to collect donations for one or more targeted organizations in escrow, and inform them of the amount being held for them should they ever make Bitcoins an accepted method of donation on their website.  It could then be donated to them, possibly via multiple payments.  It might even be possible to design an expiring escrow account, so that if they do not accept bitcoin donations within 1 year of the start of donations, the money would be rolled over into the escrow of our second choice for donations, etc.

All Bitcoin exchanges, merchants and users should recognize what a change this would create in public perception and awareness.

And I ask that a mod move this thread out into the mainstream forum for discussion and refinement...

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[BTCtrader71]

I think this is a good idea and I would consider at least a token donation to certain organizations.

I had a related idea about how to win congressional support for bitcoins: place something in the range of 1-10 bitcoins in escrow for each and every member of US congress. At least a few of them might start paying attention to the price and wondering -- and then HOPING -- that its exponential climb will continue for the next 5 years so that their 10 btc will be a meaningful sum.

[TippingPoint]

Thank you for replying to my first post.

Yes.  Political donations in Bitcoins.

We need more friends in High places.

[vlees]

With this idea you would gain a hype for a short time (as so many things did with BTC) and then the average person forgets about it.

What BTC needs is an easy way to securely store your money. Of course there are online sites offering this, which puts back the centralized bank into the network, which is something I would not see as desirable.
This leaves the option to speed up synchronizing local clients with the network (which takes quite some time nowadays). Because right now I won't be able to convince my mom that BTC is good when she first has to download a program and let it run 3-4 hours until it is usable.

[TippingPoint]

Thank you for replying.

I use the original Bitcoin-QT client, but if your internet connection is limited, Electrum is very fast and simple.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Electrum

[letcore]

I just emailed them

https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage&country=IE&uselang=en&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=donate&utm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org

[letcore]

Bypassing the Paypal/mastercard/visa dictatorships gives me great joy.

I guess it's only a matter of time until Wikipedia take bitcoin. Kind of surprised they haven't already done it.

Unless... some of their funding comes from Paypal/mastercard/visa...  one wonders...

[BTCtrader71]

There are actually a lot of organizations that do already take donations in bitcoin:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Donation-accepting_organizations_and_projects

[TippingPoint]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions.

It was Forbes magazine that documented the strange posture of Wikipedia against Bitcoin.
Wikipedia Accepts 'Enemies Of The Internet' Currencies
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/06/29/wikipedia-accepts-enemies-of-the-internet-currencies/

When Wikipedia finally posts a Bitcoin Donation button on their main page, it will be a Tipping Point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point

The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.

[Illimensky]

This leaves the option to speed up synchronizing local clients with the network (which takes quite some time nowadays). Because right now I won't be able to convince my mom that BTC is good when she first has to download a program and let it run 3-4 hours until it is usable.

You can get pre-downloaded blockchains from multiple sources, like SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/blockchain/).