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Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

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Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#151

Post by smcl »

mardifoufs wrote: post #37

Honestly the reasoning is weird. Don't get me wrong, I think crypto currencies are for the most part a scam, a ponzi scheme or a platform for pump and dumps. Yet the whole thing just does not make sense imo. It's one thing to be against crypto, but refusing it when you are a charity for the most asinine moral purity tests is absurd. This 100% reminds me of the almost cultist like extremely negative reaction to anythi…

If someone thinks something is a scam, it makes sense for them to be against making money from the scam

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#152

Post by ben-schaaf »

preisschild wrote: post #133
iso1631 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are projects that are fair, were fairly distributed, that work and are secure, that are feeless and instant, all while being truly decentralized Name two?

Monero and Monero related projects, like Haveno. Its probably one of the most used cryptocurrencies for normal transactions, as most darkweb marketplaces use it.

The highest transaction fee in the last 100 transactions has been 4c. That's not a lot but very far from "feeless". Monero mines blocks every 2 minutes; hardly "instant". A full confirmation takes ~20 minutes.

Source: https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#153

Post by namdnay »

throwaway290 wrote: post #150
namdnay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

book flights with crypto? which airline or travel agency accepts crypto? I don't see how it could work with so much volatility. You could buy fully modifiable/refundable first class tickets and use them as free options to bet on the crypto in question

My theory it's a payment processor that converts to %LOCAL_CURRENCY% (if necessary, with an additional conversion through USD/EUR) at the time of purchase and thus would never refund anything in croins at original rate (am open to be proven wrong).

hmmm yes in which case calling it "paying in crypto" is a massive stretch. I can also "buy a flight ticket with a used car" if there's a dealership next to the travel agency

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#154

Post by kuschku »

flotzam wrote: post #48
colesantiago wrote: post #2

This is great news, it is pretty pointless to use cryptocurrencies at all anyway since for Wikipedia: > Crypto was around 0.08% of our revenue last year, and it remains one of our smallest revenue channels. Remember that Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites on the planet, I'm also assuming that other websites trying to accept crypto have even smaller percentages rendering cryptocurrencies as payment useless, not t…

Wikipedia used BitPay, the most widely loathed of all cryptocurrency payment processors - https://debitpay.directory/anti-bitcoin/ - and required prospective donors to provide an obscene amount of personal data: https://bitpay.com/464448/donate It's a high friction, culture-clashing payment flow. I certainly noped out of that form real fast. For comparison: https://www.givedirectly.org/crypto/ And another campaign on…

> required prospective donors to provide an obscene amount of personal data

Yes, that’s known as KYC laws, which are required if you’re a payment processor of any kind.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#155

Post by throwaway290 »

ancymon wrote: post #138

They also oppose having ads on Wikipedia. Personally I don't see much difference between banners asking for donations and ads. I understand there are "bad" ads (privacy violating or ones causing conflict of interest), but not all of them are like this. Same with cryptocurrencies - some of them are "scam", but not all of them. It's strange that Wikipedia sees world as black and white.

If you make ads a meaningful revenue stream, you will sooner or later optimize your content so that people spend more time viewing ads. Money will find a way.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#156

Post by kuschku »

oska wrote: post #121
aaron695 wrote: post #23

Wikipedia is on a knife edge. It can flip quickly. I'm not sure what they are doing to keep it stable, but this is a bad sign. This should not be up to a vote. Wikipedia is there to be an encyclopedia, not have opinions on currency. People should be prepared for when Wikipedia becomes the enemy. F-Droid, DDG, Cloudflare all flipped at points. The problem is if Wikipedia treats themselves like a democracy with no stro…

I just vouched your comment. In return (not really), wondering if you could give me a little more detail on F-Droid 'flipping'. Because this is news to me.

F-Droid rejected Gab. A lot of nazi sympathizers and free speech absolutists disagreed with that move. That’s all there is to it.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#157

Post by ancymon »

throwaway290 wrote: post #155
ancymon wrote: post #138

They also oppose having ads on Wikipedia. Personally I don't see much difference between banners asking for donations and ads. I understand there are "bad" ads (privacy violating or ones causing conflict of interest), but not all of them are like this. Same with cryptocurrencies - some of them are "scam", but not all of them. It's strange that Wikipedia sees world as black and white.

If you make ads a meaningful revenue stream, you will sooner or later optimize your content so that people spend more time viewing ads. Money will find a way.

In this case you mean Wikipedia editors will start making their content more attractive to advertisers?

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#158

Post by gnomewascool »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #143
denkmoon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto can overall be a scam (or not, pick your poison), but if it's helping wikimedia get funding then that 'baby' is worth saving. I think we can all agree that wikimedia is a net positive in the world.

> I think we can all agree that wikimedia is a net positive in the world. Should Wikimedia take funds from the Kremlin, North Korea and Drug cartels, or should they have limits on ethical sources of funding? You don't have to answer what you would do, but it is 100% legitimate for them to choose to have clear, written guidelines on what funds they ethically agree to accept.

I don't think that accepting cryptocurrencies is quite equivalent to accepting funds from the Kremlin, North Korea and Drug cartels.

It's more equivalent to accepting donations in roubles, in North Korean won or in the form of legal drug caches.

It's not about the source, but the means of the payment. I can imagine people accepting money from dubious sources, but not via dubious means and vice-versa.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#159

Post by baobabKoodaa »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #142
jimmydorry wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that token, shouldn't wikimedia be engaging in thorough KYC to ensure none of the money they accept is tainted or as you referred to it: "blood money"?

That's up to them. I do accept donations on good faith, but I can't in good faith accept crypto donations as there is no uncertainty about where they come from. I can't in good conscience ignore what I know because there are other things I don't.

> I do accept donations on good faith, but I can't in good faith accept crypto donations as there is no uncertainty about where they come from.

If I murder a drug dealer, steal his briefcase stuffed with 100-dollar bills, and eventually donate some of that money to you in USD, you will happily accept it "in good faith". But if I work hard as a nurse, exchange some of my hard-earned savings into Ether, and donate it to you, you will refuse because "there is no uncertainty about where they come from"? I'm confused. How are you certain that the USD donations are clean money, and certain that the Ether must be dirty money? I guess just the vague association with "crypto" is enough?

Just admit that this is about ideological purity and nothing else.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#160

Post by throwaway290 »

ancymon wrote: post #157
throwaway290 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make ads a meaningful revenue stream, you will sooner or later optimize your content so that people spend more time viewing ads. Money will find a way.

In this case you mean Wikipedia editors will start making their content more attractive to advertisers?

That or making articles purposefully structured so that the user has to jump around a few links and earn more ad views.
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