I'm presuming this is sanctions against Russia kicking in; all sorts of business has been stopped dead in its tracks, not just charity donations. There's even serious moves to kick Russia out of the SWIFT network: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-04/ultimate-sanction-barring-ru... It strikes me as quite unlikely that there's anything at all WMF can actually do about this. Possibly it could have been handled better, but that won't change the fact.
On 13 November 2014 00:12, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
I'm sure that you're correct here Joseph, but this is another example I think where the Foundation should have notified the relevant chapter *before* taking the action, so that they would be ready when the questions started rolling in.
Unfortunately, I think we're getting back to the bad old days of chapter and user group press contacts being the last people to find out about potentially controversial issues like this.
Regards, Craig Franklin (personal view only)
On 13 November 2014 10:07, Joseph Seddon josephseddon@gmail.com wrote:
I would hate to preclude any answer from the foundation. However the laws that govern the foundation are that of the US. Given the previous and renewed ongoing palaver with Ukraine and the presence of economic sanctions and the increasing likelihood of on top of what is already present, I imagine this related to that.
Im not sure of what legal risks accepting such donations would expose the foundation to. However such precautions have been made in the past relating to unrest.
Its no slight on the country or its individuals, just a precautionary measure.
Seddon On 12 Nov 2014 19:48, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
rubin.happy, 12/11/2014 18:48:
We received some alerts from our users that donations are now blocked when user is from Russia: http://habrastorage.org/files/31b/b1f/ec9/31bb1fec9b9e45abb6ac4babcc2371 84.png
Thanks for the information. Everyone can see the same warning by clicking the "Russia" link in https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give Through what channels are donations blocked? Did anyone try sending a wire to the EU (SEPA) account (IBAN GB54CHAS60924241034640), or a PayPal donation?
Nemo
P.s.: ROTFLOL "Please email donate@wikimedia.org for more information on how to make a bank transfer to the Wikimedia Foundation." In case someone forgets there is an ocean between Europe and USA.
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