Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

meta.wikimedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 401 posts

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

#51

Post by CryptoPunk »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36
jdrc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was not one of the arguments made in the RFC > Common arguments in support include: issues of environmental sustainability, that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes implicit endorsement of the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, and community issues with the risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies. it looks 100% ideological

Accepting cryptocurrencies is equally ideological

The ideology of people not needing a central government's permission to privately interact?

What I would concede is that it does challenge the dominant ideology of the establishment.

As this former Federal Reserve economist describes, the Federal Reserve system is extremely centralized:

https://twitter.com/gordonliao/status/1484605701435523072?s=...

This is just one aspect of centralized economic control cryptocurrency threatens to upend.

Centralization will inevitably engender rent-seeking, so the dominant ideological framework being one that glorifies that centralized gatekeeping, and villifies a free market, is entirely predictable.

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

#53

Post by sennight »

TheDong wrote: post #14
vmception wrote: post #9

So they excluded all the new accounts and unregistered voters, and only got 70% of the vote for reasons that are all solved with education. Thats… medieval.

> reasons that are all solved with education Reasons like "risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies", solvable with education, sure. People who use cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other related stuff all have a vested interest in it succeeding. That has led to a lot of people who have annoyingly strong opinions about it. Things like "educating others" by cryptobro-splaining all over things is not…

> ...vested interest in it succeeding. That has led to a lot of people who have annoyingly strong opinions about it.

Cryptobro-splainer here. Having been involved from the beginning, I can tell you that detractors (especially vocal ones) are far more invested than proponents. Imagine declaring bitcoin dead in 2014, and then again the next year, and then the next... and while this is going on you can't help but calculate how much potential profit your mistake has cost you. You are also going to be struggling with envy, and your offended sense of justice. What would such an experience do to a person? Well, it makes them very upset - and desperate for something that would shield their ego. The whole environmental impact cover is a perfect example: the papers people point to are always poorly executed, using outdated data and poorly justified guestimation... always without acknowledging the most important part - "relative to what?" But that isn't really the point, the point is to provide a moral justification for the costly shortsighted position.

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

#54

Post by ohgodplsno »

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…

>So it must be purged from everywhere.

Yes.

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

#55

Post by tsimionescu »

vmception wrote: post #15
TheDong wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasons that are all solved with education Reasons like "risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies", solvable with education, sure. People who use cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other related stuff all have a vested interest in it succeeding. That has led to a lot of people who have annoyingly strong opinions about it. Things like "educating others" by cryptobro-splaining all over things is not…

Yes, exactly like that reason. Linked to the other reason about their environmental impact which is not relevant to most crypto currencies. And the problem of supposed implicit endorsement of the perceived environmental impact, which changes when people understand which crypto currencies to use or how to use them or what specific problems to solve or advocate against. All solved with education. If people that know th…

> their environmental impact which is not relevant to most crypto currencies.

It's very relevant to "most" cryptocurrencies by value, though - Bitcoin and Ethereum are still PoW, and these two make up most of the market anyway, especially when including other coins based on their chains, like Tether and USDC.

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

#56

Post by derevaunseraun »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36
jdrc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was not one of the arguments made in the RFC > Common arguments in support include: issues of environmental sustainability, that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes implicit endorsement of the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, and community issues with the risk to the movement’s reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies. it looks 100% ideological

Accepting cryptocurrencies is equally ideological

since when?

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

#57

Post by mardifoufs »

qeternity wrote: post #45
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…

> when you are a charity They are a non-profit only in the most technical sense these days, but have never been a charity.

Yes you are right! I always mix charity and non profit. But yeah, Wikimedia became a huge organization with an annual budget of 150M$ (of which a lot goes to completely unrelated pet projects), so it is a non profit only in a technical sense as you said.

But it still feels the need to plead (or almost beg) for 3-5$ donations yearly with huge call to action banners on every wiki page. Which is okay, I get that they need funds. But to then throw away 140 000$ worth of donations on a whim completely contradicts the "every dollar counts, please help" message of their fundraising banners.

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

#58

Post by jackvalentine »

mardifoufs wrote: post #57
qeternity wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you are a charity They are a non-profit only in the most technical sense these days, but have never been a charity.

Yes you are right! I always mix charity and non profit. But yeah, Wikimedia became a huge organization with an annual budget of 150M$ (of which a lot goes to completely unrelated pet projects), so it is a non profit only in a technical sense as you said. But it still feels the need to plead (or almost beg) for 3-5$ donations yearly with huge call to action banners on every wiki page. Which is okay, I get that they ne…

Where is the line for what they should accept as payment?

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

#59

Post by mardifoufs »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #54
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…

>So it must be purged from everywhere. Yes.

I guess to each his own religion.

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

#60

Post by rvz »

TheDudeMan wrote: post #32
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #5

Am I reading correctly that this is all cryptocurrencies, not just PoW? That's slightly surprising, although it probably simplifies things.

Does it simplify things? That's kinda hard to imagine. I find it annoying that all cryptocurrencies would found guilty-by-association when it is well known that not all cryptocurrencies damage to the environment.

> I find it annoying that all cryptocurrencies would found guilty-by-association when it is well known that not all cryptocurrencies damage to the environment.

If you read the responses in support of the proposal, you can clearly see that the majority of them are citing 'Environmental reasons and concerns' which that even has already been refuted to death.

Mozilla seems to have made the sensible decision to not allow PoW cryptocurrencies and to allow only eco-friendly cryptocurrencies. It is the mining that is doing the damage to the environment which that is the problem.

Guilt-by-association works all the time on people who want a blanket ban on anything they don't like, especially when there are bad eggs spoiling the bunch.

Post reply on HN