Let Wikipedia know, that we are here!

[knight22]

then it's not money you want to give them, you just want to promote Bitcoin and increase you own wealth.

And as far as I'm concerned, I'm more interested in seeing the fractional banking system fall rather than increasing my own wealth.

[Ecurb123]

done, email message below:



Subject: bitcoin donation

Hello,

I've donated in the past and I would like to again, do you accept bitcoin?

Thanks,
Alfred

[Ecurb123]

got a reply already:

---------------------------------

Hi Alfred,

Thanks for your email and for your interest in supporting free knowledge. Unfortunately we do not accept bitcoins, however, we are aware of bitcoin and we will continue to monitor it with interest. For a full list of other donation options, please visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en. Thank you again for your interest!

Sincerely,

Michael Beattie
Donor Services Associate
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
https://wikimediafoundation.org
Support us: https://donate.wikimedia.org

[Welsh]

got a reply already:

---------------------------------

Hi Alfred,

Thanks for your email and for your interest in supporting free knowledge. Unfortunately we do not accept bitcoins, however, we are aware of bitcoin and we will continue to monitor it with interest. For a full list of other donation options, please visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en. Thank you again for your interest!

Sincerely,

Michael Beattie
Donor Services Associate
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
https://wikimediafoundation.org
Support us: https://donate.wikimedia.org

It's nice to see they are monitoring it. But, I don't think they will accept it any time soon. It would be a great step for Bitcoin if Wiki did support it as it would show that Bitcoin is supporting a good cause. But, I don't think they will. I believe that they don't want to get involved with Bitcoin because it doesn't have enough people. They are accepting credit cards and paypal because nearly every person you find on the internet has got one of those two. If not there is only a few. Accepting Bitcoin could be more hassle than it's worth to them. First they would want to learn about it and find out why it would benefit them. We can't tell them it would benefit them, only they know what will benefit them. I personally think it would be a great step, but I don't think they are interested judging on that email. They are aware because they just got spammed emailed by a lot of people. They may even mark a lot of this down to spam. If people who have sent that email don't actually donate with other gateways.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

We could get proactive and create a bitcoin donation address for them. John K. or some other reputable forum member could held the donated bitcoins in escrow until Wikimedia officially accepts bitcoins. If there is a decent amount of bitcoins in the donation address it might convince them in the end.

That already happened. Several times. The results were..... lackluster.

Here's an example of one such attempt - Getting Wikipedia to accept Bitcoin donations - Community pledge.

I am still of the opinion that spamming them with millions of mails isn't going to help. If anything would help it's a more in-depth dialogue; engaging in such dialogue with them is on my todo list.

However, a "pledge" is not as important as I initially thought, and the willingness of the community to donate to such a pledge is underwhelming.

[knight22]

Here's an example of one such attempt - Getting Wikipedia to accept Bitcoin donations - Community pledge.

I am still of the opinion that spamming them with millions of mails isn't going to help. If anything would help it's a more in-depth dialogue; engaging in such dialogue with them is on my todo list.

However, a "pledge" is not as important as I initially thought, and the willingness of the community to donate to such a pledge is underwhelming.

But who is responsible to take such a decision? Jimmy Wales?

[Akka]

However, a "pledge" is not as important as I initially thought, and the willingness of the community to donate to such a pledge is underwhelming.

And exactly this is the point. I think many (most) people don't want to donate, they just want Wikipedia to accept Bitcoin. And in that case it's actually better for the reputation of it when Wikipedia doesn't accept them.

Otherwise we would just see a Headline like

"The Generous Bitcoin Community"

After Receiving 10,000nds Mails to accept Bitcoin as donation Option, Wikimedia finally adds Bitcoin and receives a stunning $1052 in the first month an $0 in the second.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Here's an example of one such attempt - Getting Wikipedia to accept Bitcoin donations - Community pledge.

I am still of the opinion that spamming them with millions of mails isn't going to help. If anything would help it's a more in-depth dialogue; engaging in such dialogue with them is on my todo list.

However, a "pledge" is not as important as I initially thought, and the willingness of the community to donate to such a pledge is underwhelming.

But who is responsible to take such a decision? Jimmy Wales?

No, they have a fundraising team making these decisions. Jimmy is not part of this team.

[desired_username]

Accepting bitcoin donations doesn't involve much effort. If they create a wallet, it doesn't even need to be online. They would only need a bitcoin address on their donation page.

[repentance]

However, a "pledge" is not as important as I initially thought, and the willingness of the community to donate to such a pledge is underwhelming.

Has there ever been a time when a significant amount of Bitcoins have been donated/pledged to any cause?  Even when addresses are set up with the intention of being able to say "hey, people have donated X amount, all you have to do is accept Bitcoin to claim it), my recollection is that the amounts donated have been trivial - which tends to bolster psy's argument that people don't really want to put their Bitcoin where their mouths are.

A few hundred or even a few thousand dollars worth of Bitcoins aren't going to be persuasive when dealing with large organisations.  You need to convince them that donations will increase by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (after administration costs) by accepting Bitcoin - that it will bring them new donors, not just the same donors giving them the same amount by a different method.

[IncreaseMyT]

Ok done

[tkbx]

Wikipedia AGAIN, as every year, is asking for donations.

https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage&utm_source=donate

From Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 500 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.

If everyone reading this donated £3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of £5, £20, £50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

Let Wikipedia know, that We, Bitcoin users, are here! We would like to donate to Wikipedia using our worldwide, digital currency - Bitcoin.

Please, everyone, send an e-mail to donate@wikimedia.org, and ask them if they accepting Bitcoin donations.
Who knows, one day, maybe they will reconsider it and start accepting it. Whole world will notice!

Everyone who will send them an e-mail, please write in this thread.

Good luck!

Sent. I suspect with the number of Bitcoin users (some wealthy) who support freedom of speech, Wikipedia would be greatly rewarded by accepting Bitcoin.

[LightRider]

Dear Wikipedia,

If you do not start accepting bitcoin, we, the bitcoin community, will conflate every media story and mention of Wikipedia with Wikileaks and Julian Assange, and vice versa.

Regards,

[Liquid]

Sent 

[wtogami]

http://blog.bitpay.com/2012/11/donate-to-wikipedia-with-bitcoin.html
Please stop bothering Wikipedia to do something they do not want to do yet.  If it really is about giving to Wikipedia with Bitcoin, there is a method here.  Do you really care about promoting Bitcoin or giving to Wikipedia?  If the latter then it doesn't matter how it gets there.

https://my.fsf.org/donate/
https://my.fsf.org/donate/bitcoin-litecoin.asc
Note that there are other highly respected non-profit orgs who treat Bitcoin very seriously.

[Pumpkin]

Totally disagree with wtogami. Wikipedia doesn't want bitcoin - an open fair money. It is not something small. They are AGAINST alternatives currencies. Why would you want to donate to them?

[hivewallet]

We're quite surprised at how many voices are against this.

Has the tide turned in the Bitcoin world? Do most of you see the adoption as inevitable at this point, hence no need to push it?

[greyhawk]

We're quite surprised at how many voices are against this.

Who is this "we"?

Anyways annoying people is not exactly the best way to turn people to your cause. In fact it's detrimental. See the dropbox votebox debacle for how that ends.

[ElectricMucus]

Who is this "we"?

The king of Bitcoin.

Dear highness!

[IncreaseMyT]

This is what I got for a response, and honestly, due to the situation at hand, it seems like a positive message overall.  So Bitpay saying to stop bugging them to do something they don't want to do seems a little off.  Obviously request's should be professional of course.

Hi Todd,

Thanks for your email and for your suggestion. We are aware of bitcoin, and we will continue to monitor it with interest. Thanks again for taking the time to email us.

Sincerely,

Michael Beattie
Donor Services Associate
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
https://wikimediafoundation.org
Support us: https://donate.wikimedia.org