Jimbo Wales on Wikipedia accepting bitcoins

[arabianights]

I iz asked a question

Of course they can't be expected to switch to bitcoin over paypal... but imagine if they did... could be just what bitcoin needs...

[Stephen Gornick]

It's unclear that the level of donations would be sufficient to overcome the engineering and other administrative costs of doing so.

Step 1. Load http://www.BitAddress.org

Step 2. Wiggle mouse

Step 3. Hit File -> Print  (two copies, one off-site)

Step 4. Edit
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales

 and say "Hey Wikipeeps, we are going to see if any of you are interested in donating using bitcoin.  Here's the address: "

Step 5. Watch a few hundred dollars worth of funds come in.

Maybe the engineering and administrative costs in following these 5 steps are more than I estimated though and am wrong.

[Gabi]

But it's like in some videogames, if you are big you have high inefficiency cost and new units and researches cost more!!!   

[elux]

Well, it's on his radar, and he didn't dismiss it outright. Good job on that. 

Maybe set up a fund, which is to be donated to Wikipedia if/when they decide to accept Bitcoin,
but let donations be returned to the originating address after say 365 days, if they don't want them.

Perhaps a (couple of) thousand Bitcoins would be enough of a carrot to get Wikimedia talking.

[triplehelix]

why not just point him towards the mtgox merchant solution?

[Red Emerald]

why not just point him towards the mtgox merchant solution?

or bit-pay

[foggyb]

He won't, if he's at all familiar with bitcoin and these forums. Look what happened to the Armoury donation drive. Only 30% of target with a project that is highly integrated with, and directly benefits bitcoin.

People don't like to donate bitcoins much. I can understand why.

[triplehelix]

why not just point him towards the mtgox merchant solution?

or bit-pay

well, the fees bitpay charges are similiar to cc or paypal fees.  he can be shown a real benifit with the .2% gox fee.

[rjk]

He seems to think that it must be offered as part of the "checkout" process, potentially confusing noobs. Someone needs to tell him that they can be accepted without any kind of "checkout" needed, and all he needs to do is post an address. Could point him towards erowid and others for examples.

[HostFat]

I think that archive.org is a very good example

[rjk]

I think that archive.org is a very good example

Yes that is a good one, thanks for pointing it out - I wasn't aware that they had added a Bitcoin donation option. Looks like more than 500 BTC have been donated to them since about December 2011.