Mediaboss Marketing

In response to donors' requests, the Wikimedia Foundation started accepting cryptocurrency donations in 2014.

Eight years later, a longtime Wikipedia editor is arguing "it is no longer ethical" to continue to accept crypto.

"Cryptocurrencies have been joined by a bubble of predatory, inherently harmful technologies," the editor, Molly White, wrote in an opinion piece for the organization's newspaper, The Signpost, published Sunday. White, known on the site by her handle GorillaWarfare, is also a software engineer at HubSpot and has written on blockchain technologies and privacy.

Early cryptocurrency advocates promised the tech would become an alternative to traditional banking. It was meant to create privacy, anonymity, decentralization, and freedom, particularly for those who couldn't afford traditional banking. It was to help those who couldn't open accounts, get loans or credit cards, or afford processing fees.

"The idea was that this would give financial freedom to a lot of people," White told Insider over email.

But, as cryptocurrency has matured into Web3, "those values don't really seem so central anymore," she told Insider. "Most projects are more interested in making a quick buck, and are in fact very centralized."

Instead of decentralized freedom, much crypto wealth has landed in the hands of the few while becoming a risky speculation investment that "resembles a landscape with scammers and marks," her piece argued in classic Wikipedia style full of footnotes to document her points.

More than that, White maintains that crypto mining is harmful to the environment and is misaligned with the Wikimedia Foundation's Resolution for Environmental Impact approved by the board of trustees in 2017 to "reduce the impact of our activities on the environment." She cites research on how China and Kazakhstan, the two largest centers for mining bitcoin, have relied heavily on coal to power such operations and have begun to crack down on mining.

She says continuing to accept crypto risks damaging the nonprofit's reputation.

"Tons of people dismiss concerns about the environmental damage of the Ethereum blockchain because the project plans to move to a proof-of-stake soon," she reflected. Proof-of-stake is an alternative approach to proof-of-work's computational-intensive approach, which validates transactions through a math puzzle. Instead, transactions are approved by individual validators through a consensus process.

"Problem is, Ethereum has been saying they will move to proof-of-stake 'soon' for years now, while doing enormous environmental damage," White said.

White doesn't stand alone. Mozilla paused cryptocurrency donations after a tweet announcing a partnership with BitPay drew backlash. The Mozilla cofounder Jamie "jwz" Zawinski went so far as to call the crypto world "planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters." BitPay is a processor that charges a 1% processing fee and is also used by Wikimedia.

Whether White's plea will have an impact is unclear, but the organization says it's listening to its community on the matter. "We are monitoring recent concerns raised by the community around cryptocurrency donations, and considering them seriously as we determine our path forward," a Wikimedia Foundation representative said.

The person also described cryptocurrency as "still a small portion of the overall revenue to the Wikimedia Foundation," bringing in $130,100.94 last year. That's 0.08% of revenue from donations, making it the foundation's smallest funding source.

Despite this, White argues against its optics.

"The fact of the matter is that most cryptocurrency donations to the WMF came in via Bitcoin, an enormously damaging currency with no intentions to move to a more sustainable model," she emailed Insider, using an abbreviation for the Wikimedia Foundation.

"People are trying to use technology alone to solve social problems, and that's never going to work," she continued. "Its promises weren't any more realistic ten years ago than they are now."

See original here:
Wikipedia Editor Urges the Org to Stop Accepting Crypto - Business Insider

But the theory of algebraic stacks was never spelled out as comprehensively as Grothendieck had done with schemes. This is the void that de Jong stepped in to fill in 2008. I thought it would be good to collect all these results in one place so theyd be easier to reference, he said.

Eleven years later, as de Jong typed in his last equation, he realized how much more was left to be done. Mistakes to fix. Definitions to align. Concepts to add and link. To some extent, its just what I do now, he said. I sort of dont know how to stop.

The enormity of the task is one factor fueling de Jongs obsession. At 7,300 pages, the project still covers just half of the existing scholarship on algebraic stacks. The immediacy of online publishing is another motivating factor. Thanks tohyperlinks and the cloud, the Stacks Project is a living document that requires updates and corrections in the way plants require water and sunlight.

The Stacks Project is not static because algebraic geometry is not static, said Kedlaya, a former student of de Jongs. The subject continues to expand, even at a foundational level. Theres constantly new material to incorporate, and this system is built to expand indefinitely.

Link:
This Wikipedia of Algebraic Geometry Will Forever Be Incomplete. That's the Point. - Columbia University

Liverpool are closing in on the signing of Porto forward Luis Diaz, with the Colombian's move to Anfield set to be confirmed in advance of the deadline on Monday night

Video Unavailable

Play now

Eduardo Camavinga, Youri Tielemans or Jude Bellingham? | Which central midfielder would suit Liverpool best?

Liverpool are closing in on a stunning late window move for Portos Luis Diaz, with the Reds preparing to shell out almost 50million to land his signature.

January had promised to be another low-key window for the Reds, who also spent the summer watching their titles splash the cash with reckless abandon.

But with just days before the deadline, it is understood Liverpool are set to welcome Diaz after putting an offer of 37.5m on the table, with a further 12.5m in additional payments tied to performance incentives.

Jurgen Klopps swoop for the talented Colombian has come out of the blue after months of speculation linking him with other Premier League clubs.

Have Your Say! Could Diaz help fire Liverpool to the title this season? Let us know here.

Image:

Who is Luis Diaz? "Indomitable dragon" already loved by Liverpool star before transfer

Manchester United had a reported interest, whilst Tottenham were hoping of completing a move in the next few days, only to be gazumped by title-chasing Liverpool.

The winger has emerged as one of the hottest properties in world football after a stunning performance for his national side at last summers Copa America.

Diaz finished as top scorer along with Lionel Messi, including a spectacular injury-time winner in the third place play-off against Peru.

The 25-year-old is now set to compete with the likes of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota for one of the three starting berths in Liverpools attack.

And with Mane, Salah and Firminos contracts set to expire in 2023, there is an expectation that Liverpools front-line could be evolved in the coming months, having already seen Jota effectively replace Firmino in the central role.

The arrival of Diaz is sure to give the Reds a huge boost as they chase an unprecedented quadruple, despite their chances of lifting the Premier League title appearing slim.

It will also galvanise a fanbase, some of whom had grown frustrated at owners Fenway Sports Groups lack of investment in recent windows.

That excitement has been reflected by one supporter moving quickly to edit Diazs page to signal his imminent arrival.

On the list of clubs he has played for, one user has already predicted his next move, including the Mighty Reds under Barranquilla, Junior and FC Porto.

The rogue edit was quickly reverted, but Reds fans likely wont have to wait long for it to be officially confirmed, with the expectation a deal could be completed imminently.

Reports in Portugal had suggested Porto had received higher bids from other clubs, but Diazs insistence that he would like to join Liverpool, meant a deal was able to be agreed.

Porto are also set to waive the 67m release clause in the forwards contract, having been dumped out of the Champions League at the group stage, with Liverpool beating them 5-1 and 2-0 to ensure they finished third.

Read More

Read More

Go here to read the rest:
Liverpool bound Luis Diaz's Wikipedia page altered ahead of 50m transfer - The Mirror

It's cool thatanyone can update Wikipedia with any info that they want. It's even better when they write something as awesome as this about Ryan Fitzpatrick.

If you've never used Wikipedia, it'sdescribed as "an online free content encyclopedia project helping create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." So the idea is that anyone can update or edit Wikipedia at any time. While a lot of the info on that site is factual,unless you check with the sources of the update at the bottom, it's tough to verify it.

Catch Brett by listening live Mon-Fri 10am-3pm

Catch Brett by listening live Mon-Fri 10am-3pm

However, I will verify that whoever updated Ryan Fitzpatrick's Wikipedia page recently was right on. They could not have been more descriptive about Ryan Fitzpatrick and his involvement at the Bills game last Saturday night when they took on the Patriots at Highmark Stadium.

It has since been deleted, but luckily, someone took a screenshot:

attachment-Ryan Fitzpatrick Wikipedia page

Here's what's true about it:

Here's what's hilarious about it:

You know what? Now that I look at it, I'm not too sure that the whole thing isn't true.

16 Buffalo Bills With Some Of The Best And Worst Nicknames

Quiz: Bet Can You Remember If This Guy played for the Bills?

The Most Marketable Buffalo Bills

How To Dress For Foul Weather At A Home Bills Game

Every Pick Made By Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane

View original post here:
Someone Edited Ryan Fitzpatrick's Wikipedia And It's Amazing - wyrk.com

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopediacurated by volunteer community editors, found itself at the center of conversations about whether to categorize non-fungible tokens as "art." Da-Kuk via Getty Images

Fans of the Instagram account @depthsofwikipedia know that Wikipedia editors have a passion for lists, be they precise charts of animal sounds or catalogs of ill-fated inventors. On the free online encyclopedia, teams of community volunteers work to curate reliable sources and occasionally engage in lengthy forum debates about the finer details of maintaining the sites vast number of entries.

One such debate among editors attracted widespread attention in late December, as moderators on the Wikipedia list of most expensive artworks by living artists sparred over whether to include non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The question hinged on whether an NFT, a relatively new digital phenomenon, could be classified as a work of art, reports Artnet News.

Earlier this month, five out of six community editors voted not to include NFTs on the most-expensive list, according to Brian Quarmby of Cointelegraph. (These changes have yet to take effect; as Artnet News points out, as of Monday.)

Some users debated the results and cited examples of conceptual art to argue in favor of NFTs inclusion, as Radhika Parashar reports for Gadgets 360. Others argued that NFTs are still a relatively new phenomenon and therefore too difficult to classify.

Wikipedia really cant be in the business of deciding what counts as art or not, which is why putting NFTs, art or not, in their own list makes things a lot simpler, argues one editor under the username jonas.

NFTs have their own list, which should be linked in the article, and entries generally shouldn't be listed in both, writes jonas.

Talk about NFTs flooded many corners of the internet early last year. Known as a form of digital tokens, they are unique and indivisible codes that indicate the authenticity of a digital file or piece of art. Systems for buying, selling and owning NFTs all take place online with the help of blockchain technology, used commonly in cryptocurrency trading.

Since then, NFTs of digital art have sold for unprecedented sums. A graphic designer, known as Beeple, sold Everydays: The First 5000 Days, an NFT of 5,000 of his daily sketches, for an eye-popping $69.3 million through Christies auction house in March 2021. And designer Pak sold an NFT, Merge, for $91.8 million in December. (Many economists interpret the sky-high prices of NFTs as result of a market bubble that will inevitably burst, similarly to the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s, writes Emily Stewart for Vox.)

Beeple and Paks creations are two works that, if classified as art by Wikipedia editors, would rank third and eighth respectively on the most-expensive list, per Artnet.

Following the Wikipedia debate, some in the pro-cryptocurrency camp began to take notice. Duncan Cock Foster, a co-founder of digital art auction platform Nifty Gateway, took to Twitter to complain that NFTs exclusion from the most-expensive art list qualified as a disaster.

Speaking with Helen Holmes of the Observer, Foster added, Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that artists who create NFTs are artists [S]aying an NFT artwork shouldnt be included on a list of artworks is just because it is an NFT is arbitrary and wrong.

As Gareth Harris reports for the Art Newspaper, some museums have tentatively waded into the NFT frenzy. The British Museum (BM) in London put 200 NFTs of works by Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai up for sale last year. The museum now plans to repeat the feat by selling tokens of works by Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner. Prices for Turner tokens start at about $912 (799).

Jasper Johns, who sold Flag (1954-1955) in 2010 for $110 million, and Damien Hirst, who sold For the Love of God (2007) three years earlier for $100 million, currently top the living-artist list. Also on the list are sculptor Jeff Koons and painter David Hockney, whose 1972 work Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million in 2018.

After Beeple sold 5000 Days for a record price in March 2021, Hockney criticized the workand the NFT trend writ largein a podcast interview.

I saw the pictures, says Hockney, referring to the mosaic of images that constitutes Beeples digital work.

But I mean, it just looked like silly little things, the artist adds. I couldnt make out what it was, actually.

Even Wikipedia itself has signed on as a participant in the NFT trend.Last year, co-founder Jimmy Wales sold the sites first edit for $750,000 as an NFT at Christies auction house, as Jack Guy for CNN reported at the time.

Per Artnet News, Wikipedia editors agreed to revisit the NFT conversation at a later date following the vote. Those interested can read the debate in full on the articles discussion page.

Recommended Videos

Continued here:
Should NFTs Be Classified as Art? Wikipedia's Editors Vote 'No' - Smithsonian