donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
I think that's all you need to know.
Tomorrow I will set up a web page on wikimedia.org (the foundation website) with a variety of buttons and what-not to use, but there's no reason you can't get started now if you like. At least initially, all funds will go towards the new server(s) that I'm shopping for -- the more you give, the more you get. :-)
Also, I'm talking to a few different merchant account processors, so that we can get our own merchant account and save on fees. But via PayPal, we can accept money already via credit card, and in U.S., Canadian, Euros, Pounds Sterling, and Yen.
Although it isn't as full global as I would like, Paypal is available to people in the United States and 38 countries, including:
* Anguilla * Argentina * Australia * Austria * Belgium * Brazil * Canada * Chile * China * Costa Rica * Denmark * Dominican Republic * Finland * France * Germany * Greece * Hong Kong * Iceland * India * Ireland * Israel * Italy * Jamaica * Japan * Luxembourg * Mexico * Netherlands * New Zealand * Norway * Portugal * Singapore * South Korea * Spain * Sweden * Switzerland * Taiwan * United Kingdom
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote in news:20030821130355.B456@joey.bomis.com:
donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
PayPal is popular but you need a credit card. Those are not very popular in Europe. Expensive, unsucre and not very usefull. Most transactions are done by bank tranfer and a debet card.
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from one account to a other account in the euro-zone for the same price like a local transfer. That is almost always free.
Whit PayPal there are transcation costs and change from currency costs.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can be usefull for donations from Europe. No need for a credit card, easy to do, no loss of mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1 euro - x%
Walter Vermeir wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote in news:20030821130355.B456@joey.bomis.com:
donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
PayPal is popular but you need a credit card. Those are not very popular in Europe. Expensive, unsucre and not very usefull. Most transactions are done by bank tranfer and a debet card.
A few points: -- Paypal does not require a credit card. You can make direct bank transfers as well. -- Credit cards are not expensive -- they are entirely free. I certainly don't pay anything at all for any of mine (and you don't pay interest if you pay your bills on time either). They're essentially the same as a debit card, but more secure (if there's a dispute with a dishonest merchant, you don't pay until the dispute is resolved, while with a debit card they already have your money, and you don't get it back until the dispute is resolved -- also by law in the US at least, the consumer is only responsible for up to $50 of credit card fraud). -- In the US at least, most debit cards work through the credit card system as well. They're treated as debit, but you can use them in a credit card reader just fine.
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from one account to a other account in the euro-zone for the same price like a local transfer. That is almost always free.
Whit PayPal there are transcation costs and change from currency costs.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can be usefull for donations from Europe. No need for a credit card, easy to do, no loss of mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1 euro - x%
On the other hand, the expenses are all currently in the US, so the currency will have to be converted at some point to US$. This would also require a resident of Europe to handle the bank account and to periodically mail checks to Jimbo (or bank transfer the funds to a US account, which probably isn't free).
-Mark
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi,
PayPal is popular but you need a credit card. Those are not very popular in Europe. Expensive, unsucre and not very usefull. Most transactions are done by bank tranfer and a debet card.
A few points: -- Paypal does not require a credit card. You can make direct bank transfers as well.
Without creating a PayPal account (which I didn't want at the moment) I wasn't able to make sure if this applies to free PayPal accounts and to bank accounts outside the US. Could you please give some more information on this?
-- Credit cards are not expensive -- they are entirely free. I certainly don't pay anything at all for any of mine (and you don't pay interest if you pay your bills on time either). They're essentially the same as a debit card, but more secure (if there's a dispute with a dishonest merchant, you don't pay until the dispute is resolved, while with a debit card they already have your money, and you don't get it back until the dispute is resolved -- also by law in the US at least, the consumer is only responsible for up to $50 of credit card fraud). -- In the US at least, most debit cards work through the credit card system as well. They're treated as debit, but you can use them in a credit card reader just fine.
But credit cards just are not that common in the Euro zone -- I guess you're not familiar with money transfer systems here. E.g., a lot of operations in Germany is made via Online Banking systems at the moment, and there is also the Maestro EC debit card system used in many countries of the eurozone.
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from one account to a other account in the euro-zone for the same price like a local transfer. That is almost always free.
I think that'll be possible starting in 2004? At the moment, it's not really true.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can be usefull for donations from Europe. No need for a credit card, easy to do, no loss of mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1 euro - x%
On the other hand, the expenses are all currently in the US, so the currency will have to be converted at some point to US$. This would also require a resident of Europe to handle the bank account and to periodically mail checks to Jimbo (or bank transfer the funds to a US account, which probably isn't free).
It depends on the number of euro zone Wikipedians and the amount of money that'll be founded by them, if this is a good idea or not. __ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Till Westermayer wrote:
-- Paypal does not require a credit card. You can make direct bank transfers as well.
Without creating a PayPal account (which I didn't want at the moment) I wasn't able to make sure if this applies to free PayPal accounts and to bank accounts outside the US. Could you please give some more information on this?
I was unable to find any more information by logging in either. The "add a checking account" section doesn't specifically say anything about it being a US checking account, but since it knows I'm from the US it may be displaying the "US version" of the page to me. Perhaps a euro-zone Wikipedian with a paypal account could investigate?
But credit cards just are not that common in the Euro zone -- I guess you're not familiar with money transfer systems here. E.g., a lot of operations in Germany is made via Online Banking systems at the moment, and there is also the Maestro EC debit card system used in many countries of the eurozone.
Yeah, I'm not too familiar with them. I do recall that many places in Belgium did accept credit cards last time I visited, particularly restaurants (Diner's Club seems particularly popular there, while it's rather unpopular in the US, but I saw plenty of MasterCard, Visa, and American Express signs in restaurant and shop windows as well). Oddly it was my *debit* card that wouldn't work (the US and European debit card networks must not be interconnected).
What is the usual procedure in the Euro-zone for ordering stuff online, e.g. from amazon.de? Do you enter a debit number with PIN, or do a bank transfer?
On the other hand, the expenses are all currently in the US, so the currency will have to be converted at some point to US$. This would also require a resident of Europe to handle the bank account and to periodically mail checks to Jimbo (or bank transfer the funds to a US account, which probably isn't free).
It depends on the number of euro zone Wikipedians and the amount of money that'll be founded by them, if this is a good idea or not.
Yeah, if there's a lot of donations from euro-zone Wikipedians, a bulk currency conversion may get us a better rate than converting each transaction to US$, so this might be something to consider. It may complicate the legal situation though -- is Wikipedia, as a US soon-to-be-501(c)(3) corporation, allowed to have euro-zone bank accounts? If not, we could have a euro-zone individual create a bank account to collect money in the name of Wikipedia, and then transfer it to the US foundation, but that may (or may not) be complicated legally (on that matter I have no knowledge).
-Mark
I mean no offense, but it seems like people really don't know much about PayPal... I use it almost exclusively for my banking... someone made a comment about 'free' PayPal accounts and limits thereon- there's no other kind. And I have no credit cards, but have a full PayPal account (and a PayPal debit card).
And there's no conversion that has to occur to send Euros to Wikimedia. When you send money, you can choose which currency it's sent in (though if your account only uses Euros (which currencies are used in your account is strictly up to your control), it'll be sent in Euros). If the Wikimedia account is set to accept Euros, it'll add to its Euro balance (if you accept multiple currencies, you have separate balances in each, but can transfer between them at any time with no charge), otherwise it'll automatically be converted to dollars.
Someone mentioned the Maestro system- it's worth noting that's MasterCard's debit system. There's a large degree of interoperability there.
Just some notes.
--Jake
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi Delirium,
Without creating a PayPal account (which I didn't want at the moment) I wasn't able to make sure if this applies to free PayPal accounts and to bank accounts outside the US. Could you please give some more information on this?
I was unable to find any more information by logging in either. The "add a checking account" section doesn't specifically say anything about it being a US checking account, but since it knows I'm from the US it may be displaying the "US version" of the page to me. Perhaps a euro-zone Wikipedian with a paypal account could investigate?
Any euro-zone PayPal Wikipedian who can say something on this?
But credit cards just are not that common in the Euro zone -- I guess you're not familiar with money transfer systems here. E.g., a lot of operations in Germany is made via Online Banking systems at the moment, and there is also the Maestro EC debit card system used in many countries of the eurozone.
Yeah, I'm not too familiar with them. I do recall that many places in Belgium did accept credit cards last time I visited, particularly restaurants (Diner's Club seems particularly popular there, while it's rather unpopular in the US, but I saw plenty of MasterCard, Visa, and American Express signs in restaurant and shop windows as well). Oddly it was my *debit* card that wouldn't work (the US and European debit card networks must not be interconnected).
Maybe I should be more precise next time: a lot of shops and restaurants accept credit cards, but they are not that common in the sense that most people only use them for business transactions and travel, but not in daily-use. Most people own a bank-issued debit card ("EC" card).
What is the usual procedure in the Euro-zone for ordering stuff online, e.g. from amazon.de? Do you enter a debit number with PIN, or do a bank transfer?
I do bank transfer, that is, amazon.de has an option that it can withdraw (is that the term?) money from my bank account, I use this. IIRC, this direct bank account transfer system was made part of amazon.de because credit card shopping is not so common in Germany, especially (like Erik Zachte said for the Netherlands, IIRC), because many don't believe in internet security.
If paypal includes a possibility to pay with such a system, that would be a good thing.
PINs together with EC (debit) cards are only used at ATMs, and in shops (with small card-readers-cum-numeric-keyboard).
HTH, __ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Delirium wrote:
I was unable to find any more information by logging in either.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=0&loc=281&am...
This page explains things for 'non-U.S. accounts'. It seems that there are no fees to send money from a non-U.S. account. There's little explanation that I can find of how to get money *into* PayPal.
--Jimbo
"Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com wrote in message news:20030822075641.P23554@joey.bomis.com...
Delirium wrote:
I was unable to find any more information by logging in either.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=0&loc=281&am... e=_home&flow=
This page explains things for 'non-U.S. accounts'. It seems that there are no fees to send money from a non-U.S. account. There's little explanation that I can find of how to get money *into* PayPal.
You have to pay a $1.95 fee to sign up if you live outside the US. They were very sneaky about it. You click on "sign up for your FREE PayPal account", then you read the contract carefully (no mention of this behaviour), you give them all your details and your credit card number, and then they say "congratulations you have created a PayPal account", but when you try to send money, they tell you that you have a transaction limit of $0, with an extra $0 per month, and that you have to enrol for "expanded use" if you want to raise it. To do this, you pay them $1.95, then wait for your next credit card statement which contains the secret number, which you then type in.
I finally found the place where they tell you about this behaviour, hidden amongst the multitude of claims that it is free to sign up and free to send:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_payments-outside
At this point I got rather annoyed and closed my account, with some nasty comments in the "why are you leaving us" form. Sorry Wikimedia.
-- Tim Starling
on 8/25/03 9:39 AM, Tim Starling at ts4294967296@hotmail.com wrote:
You have to pay a $1.95 fee to sign up if you live outside the US. They were very sneaky about it. You click on "sign up for your FREE PayPal account", then you read the contract carefully (no mention of this behaviour), you give them all your details and your credit card number, and then they say "congratulations you have created a PayPal account", but when you try to send money, they tell you that you have a transaction limit of $0, with an extra $0 per month, and that you have to enrol for "expanded use" if you want to raise it. To do this, you pay them $1.95, then wait for your next credit card statement which contains the secret number, which you then type in.
I finally found the place where they tell you about this behaviour, hidden amongst the multitude of claims that it is free to sign up and free to send:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_payments-outside
At this point I got rather annoyed and closed my account, with some nasty comments in the "why are you leaving us" form. Sorry Wikimedia.
-- Tim Starling
Very different from my experience. I think I was paid $10 to join. ;
Fred
Walter Vermeir wrote:
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from one account to a other account in the euro-zone for the same price like a local transfer. That is almost always free.
Whit PayPal there are transcation costs and change from currency costs.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can be usefull for donations from Europe. No need for a credit card, easy to do, no loss of mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1 euro - x%
O.k., can anyone recommend a large and reputable 'euro-zone' bank where I can open an account from here?
Do other people have feedback for me on whether this is a sensible thing to do?
One problem with what you've said, though, is that I don't foresee much of a need for the Wikimedia Foundation to *spend* Euros in the short term. There is sometimes talk of locating a server in Europe, but I'm unconvinced that there are good technical reasons for doing so. (But, if there are, I'm all for it.)
Other than that, I'll be buying machines in California.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
I would certainly feel a bit more comfortable giving money to donation@wikipedia.org og donation@wikimedia.org than some address at public.gmane.org.
Gustav Foseid wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
I would certainly feel a bit more comfortable giving money to donation@wikipedia.org og donation@wikimedia.org than some address at public.gmane.org.
If you're reading the mailing lists through the gmane newsgroup gateway, beware that it corrupts its copy of postings by obscuring things it thinks are e-mail addresses.
The address given in the above e-mail is in fact 'd o n a t i o n at-sign w i k i p e d i a dot o r g'. There is no public.gmane.org involved.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com writes:
If you're reading the mailing lists through the gmane newsgroup gateway, beware that it corrupts its copy of postings by obscuring things it thinks are e-mail addresses.
Aahh.
The address given in the above e-mail is in fact 'd o n a t i o n at-sign w i k i p e d i a dot o r g'. There is no public.gmane.org involved.
Thank you. Much more reassuring :-)
Thai said, I think a more localized way of doing donations should be considered for Europe and perhaps Asia. For me, PayPal is fine, though.
Gustav Foseid wrote:
Thai said, I think a more localized way of doing donations should be considered for Europe and perhaps Asia.
I agree with you, although I do note that Paypal claims to work perfectly fine in most (not all) European and Asian countries.
If there are other services in Europe or Asia that (a) are popular and easier to use for people there, and (b) easy for me to set up, then please let me know.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
If there are other services in Europe or Asia that (a) are popular and easier to use for people there, and (b) easy for me to set up, then please let me know.
(a) would probably be any national bank account (at least in Europe). (b) Would probably be nothing.
An added benefit would be that most national banking systems takes a smaller commision than PayPal¹. If opening bank accounts in a number of countries will attract so much more donations that the extra work is worth it, it probably should be done. This, however, should be in the future some time.
¹ PayPal charges a commision of approx. 2-5%. In Norway (which I believe is quiet typical for Europe) a flat fee ranging from nothing to NOK 5 (USD 0.65, EUR 0.60) is normal.
Well, as is well known, it's the secret ambition of every capitalist oppressor such as myself to have a Swiss bank account, so perhaps I should make an effort to open one for Wikimedia Foundation when I am in Germany next year. :-)
--Jimbo
On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 07:21:35 -0700, Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com gave utterance to the following:
Gustav Foseid wrote:
Thai said, I think a more localized way of doing donations should be considered for Europe and perhaps Asia.
I agree with you, although I do note that Paypal claims to work perfectly fine in most (not all) European and Asian countries.
If there are other services in Europe or Asia that (a) are popular and easier to use for people there, and (b) easy for me to set up, then please let me know.
I would suggest Worldpay, but their fees are rather high. (in NZ it's about $NZ500 a year, commission of 4% and a GBP2.5 fee every time they remit to your account, so unless business is brisk it's uneconomic. But they do offer payment in a range of currencies, remitted in the one of your choice, and it might be worth checking if they offer a special deal for NPO's. I don't mind paying by credit card in $US, but there has been enough FUD spread about Paypal that I plan never to create an account there - I don't trust them to keep my CC data secure.
Yes, but I don't understand what you're saying. Maybe if you are reading through gmane they are mangling the address somehow?
The correct address is: donation -at- wikipedia.org.
I will be adding donation -at- wikipediafoundation.org as soon as I have access to that, probably later today (thanks, mav!).
Gustav Foseid wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
donation@wikipedia.org is the correct email address to use.
I would certainly feel a bit more comfortable giving money to donation@wikipedia.org og donation@wikimedia.org than some address at public.gmane.org.
-- Gustav Foseid
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
Yes, but I don't understand what you're saying. Maybe if you are reading through gmane they are mangling the address somehow?
The correct address is: donation -at- wikipedia.org.
It was gmane that that mangled the address.
Matthew Woodcraft mattheww@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote in news:20030823094149.GA6542@chiark.greenend.org.uk:
Gustav Foseid wrote:
It was gmane that that mangled the address.
Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
-M-
If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is not a good idea i find.
The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". If you send a email to a @public.gmane.org email adress you recieve a auto-responds that you have to confirm befor it is forward to the real adress.
It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email adress is save from spammers.
"Walter Vermeir" walter@wikipedia.be wrote in message news:bie2fj$qs5$1@sea.gmane.org...
If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is
not
a good idea i find.
The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". If you send a email to a @public.gmane.org email adress you recieve a auto-responds that you have to confirm befor it is forward to the real adress.
It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email adress is save from spammers.
The entire list is archived on the web with email addresses unencrypted, at mail.wikipedia.org. It's even indexed in Google. The only thing the encryption does is annoy people. I say turn it off.
The encryption of "from" addresses should stay on, because they're also hidden in the archive. Just the encryption in the email body should be turned off.
-- Tim Starling <tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau>
=======@=======
"Walter Vermeir" skribis:
Matthew Woodcraft [...] wrote [...]
Gustav Foseid wrote:
It was gmane that that mangled the address.
Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is not a good idea i find.
The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". [...] It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email adress is save from spammers.
As Matthew said:
we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
So the spammers could get your adress anyway ...
If you want to switch it off:
http://gmane.org/info.php?group=gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc&...
(No need to "ask gmane to switch it off", you can do it yourself.)
Paul
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 02:50:59 +0200, Paul Ebermann Paul-Ebermann@gmx.de gave utterance to the following:
"Walter Vermeir" skribis:
Matthew Woodcraft [...] wrote [...]
Gustav Foseid wrote:
It was gmane that that mangled the address.
Why don't we turn that feature off? It's clear that it can cause confusion, and we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
If there is support for it I can ask gmane to swith it off. But this is not a good idea i find.
The email adress is not realy mangled but "encrypted". [...] It is a very good anti-spam function and you still can send a email to person. It is one the reasons i like the gmane acces to much, your email adress is save from spammers.
As Matthew said:
we don't mangle addresses in the web archives of the lists.
So the spammers could get your adress anyway ...
So the archive should be taken offline until it can be rewritten with all email addresses either encrypted or munged (global substitution of the last four characters of any string containing @ other than in the first or last character with .... should work.
The address I post to these groups with is spam free, and I'd like to keep it that way because the traffic is far to high to have to pass it through mailwasher.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org