[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[geni]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 14:30, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> According to its certificate of incorporation, available in the filing 
> history, the "Jimmy Wales Foundation" is a "private company limited by 
> guarantee". This is quite different from the sort of charitable foundation 
> the Wikimedia Foundation is.

The WMF is a 501(c)(3) organization a concept that doesn't really
exist under UK law (registered charity is rather narrower). If you
wanted to create a rough 501(c)(3) analogue under uk law (although
differences in tax law mean its going to be very rough) then your
options would be a Community Interest Company (but that results in a
much tighter restriction on political activities than  501(c)(3) see
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1788/part/2/made ) or a
private company limited by guarantee.

Since this discussion of UK company law is largely irrelivant to
foundation issues I suggest there is little point in continuing things
on this mailing list.


-- 
geni
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi all,

As regards the use of the proceeds from this auction, Jimmy Wales posted
the following rather non-committal statement on his English Wikipedia talk
page:[1]

"I'm planning to donate a significant portion and use a significant portion
for wt.social. I haven't made any final decisions. I offered to pledge to
donate to the WMF, but they (the board) preferred that I not do that."


The way this is phrased could mean 95% for WT.Social and 5% for charity, or
vice versa.


WT.Social (current Alexa rank around 120,000) is Jimmy Wales' commercial
enterprise and the successor to the failed Wikitribune site established in
April 2017. Wikitribune Ltd.'s filing history (incl. financial statements),
as linked on WT.Social's "About" page, is here:


https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10713170/filing-history


Reading the above pledge, I was reminded of a previous pledge Jimmy Wales
had made to support worthy causes.


When he and Berners-Lee (who, incidentally, also auctioned an NFT recently)
shared a controversial[2] $1M award from the United Arab Emirates (each
receiving $500K) in 2014, he told the Daily Dot that he "never planned to
keep the money and will use the funds to start his own foundation dedicated
to furthering human rights."[3]


Could Jimmy Wales or the WMF board provide further information, beyond what
is below, on what became of this promise?


And in the meantime, could readers help me with a crowdsourcing effort to
survey what publicly available information there is on how this money was
used, and whether its use matched the public pledge?


Looking at this over the weekend, I found that a Twitter account for the
Jimmy Wales Foundation (@JWalesF) was set up in January 2015, soon after
the Daily Dot report.


Two-and-a-half years later, in September 2017, Jimmy Wales incorporated a
"Jimmy Wales Foundation". Its filing history is here:


https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/1095/filing-history


According to its certificate of incorporation, available in the filing
history, the "Jimmy Wales Foundation" is a "private company limited by
guarantee". This is quite different from the sort of charitable foundation
the Wikimedia Foundation is. A search of the UK Register of Charities for
the Jimmy Wales Foundation accordingly draws a blank:


https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/results/page/1/delta/20/keywords/Jimmy+Wales+Foundation


Section 24 of the certificate of incorporation states that the Jimmy Wales
Foundation's "directors are entitled to such remuneration as the directors
determine". This remuneration may "take any form." Jimmy Wales is the only
director listed in the document.


The foundation's first financial statement after incorporation lists assets
of £25,319 (around $30,000). More recent statements show a negative
balance. I am left wondering: Where did the other $470,000 go?


Looking into what the Jimmy Wales Foundation has achieved since its
inception, I found that it had made 1,267 tweets, with the last one of
these occurring in February 2019. A Google News search finds 9 mentions of
the Jimmy Wales Foundation in the media.


A number of these are mentions of Orit Kopel, the co-founder of WT.Social,
who also describes herself as the Ex-CEO of the Jimmy Wales Foundation on
Twitter.[4]


Given the size of the original award, this seems on the face of it
remarkably modest value for money in terms of the fight for human rights.


As the Daily Dot[3] reported, Wales promised that "every penny of the money
will be used to combat human rights abuses worldwide with a specific focus
on the Middle East and with a specific focus of freedom of speech/access to
knowledge issues."


Of course – and I hope this is the case – there may have been other
activities consistent with this pledge that I am unaware of. Any
information shedding light on this would be very welcome.


Best,

Andreas


[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Wales=1058450267=1058449512
–
see also statement on proceeds at
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/birth-wikipedia/jimmy-wales-b-1966-2001/141268

[2]
https://web.archive.org/web/20191107063546/https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20150624-uae-grants-belie-free-speech-activism-return-them-now/

[3] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/jimmy-wales-uae-prize-money/

[4] https://archive.md/wip/C2rxY

On Mon, Dec 6, 2021 at 12:56 PM Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

> Hoi,
> When Jimmy wants to sell his pc, he can. When he sells something
> intangible like the "first edit of Wikipedia" even that has nothing to do
> with us.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 13:49, Lane Chance  wrote:
>
>> I don't understand how a Wikimedia trustee using Wikimedia websites,
>> Wikimedia branding, and this Wikimedia supported email list to promote a
>> funding event for their own commercial project, i.e. "WT:Social", fits with
>> the bylaws which include:
>> "The 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Lane Chance]

I don't understand how a Wikimedia trustee using Wikimedia websites,
Wikimedia branding, and this Wikimedia supported email list to promote a
funding event for their own commercial project, i.e. "WT:Social", fits with
the bylaws which include:
"The property of this Foundation is irrevocably dedicated to charitable
purposes and no part of the net income or assets of this Foundation shall
ever inure to the benefit of any Trustee or officer thereof or to the
benefit of any private individual other than compensation in a reasonable
amount to its officers, employees, and contractors for services rendered."
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws

Could someone explain why the Wikimedia Foundation gave permission to one
of their trustees to do this in contravention of their own bylaws?

Hopefully asking questions does not automatically get you branded as an
"idealogue" or "attention-seeker".

On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 00:20, Nathan  wrote:

> I too expected a stronger reaction from the rigid idealogues and the
> attention-seekers (although I see that did indeed occur on-wiki, courtesy
> of the same old grandstanding admins), and thought the minimal response was
> perhaps a sign of progress!
>
> Might just be disinterest and the ever-shrinking profile of Wikimedia-L.
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Nathan]

I too expected a stronger reaction from the rigid idealogues and the
attention-seekers (although I see that did indeed occur on-wiki, courtesy
of the same old grandstanding admins), and thought the minimal response was
perhaps a sign of progress!

Might just be disinterest and the ever-shrinking profile of Wikimedia-L.
___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi Mike,

No, not on Meta – on English Wikipedia. You had best go through the page
history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=history

The final section removal (there was a bit of back and forth) was here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales=1058461602=1058461154

As mentioned in the edit summary, there was a discussion at an
Administrators' Noticeboard (AN/I) as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents=1058842599#Self_promotion_on_en.wiki_by_User:Jimbo_Wales

So, muted reaction here, not so muted elsewhere. :)

Best,
Andreas

On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 10:57 PM Mike Peel  wrote:

> I missed this. Link to the on-wiki discussions? (Presumably on meta, since
> this isn’t just enwiki-specific?)
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 5 Dec 2021, at 22:51, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
>
> 
> Well, all the sturm und drang on this one is on Facebook, in the Wikipedia
> Weekly group:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/posts/4534171036630692/
>
> Other than that, there was a bit of drama on Jimmy Wales' talk page, where
> an admin removed the talk page section Jimmy had created about this as
> self-promotional, and Smiley on Wikipediocracy found bits of the long-lost,
> original Bomis test wiki in the Internet archive.
>
> And Joseph Reagle wrote a blog post:
>
> https://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedias-wiped-edit.html
>
> Andreas
>
> On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 10:26 PM Mike Peel  wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> tl;dr: huh, this is weird.
>>
>> I'm amazed at the muted reception to this. Even prodding David Gerard on
>> Facebook (who even wrote a book about the badness of Blockchain) didn't
>> go very far.
>>
>> The concept of NFT seems to go against the very principles of Wikipedia.
>> On one hand, we share our work freely, both in terms of access and by
>> using a copyleft license. On the other hand, this NFT takes something
>> that was shared freely, and then restricts it so that it can be sold.
>>
>> Copyright-wise, it actually looks OK: presumably the edit was released
>> under the GFDL (if that was even applied back then), and I think that
>> Jimmy owns all of the copyright here (maybe not some of the MediaWiki
>> interface?). So, while it's weird, it seems OK?
>>
>> On the other hand, I'd have loved to see an email thread here about
>> "Auction at Christie's" that would have seen Christie's releasing
>> text/media of the items they were selling under CC licenses, so that
>> they could be used on the Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> Or even better: we work with museums a lot, why not donate memorable
>> moments/equipment to them? Or perhaps we've already done that with
>> servers or later edits?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>>
>> On 3/12/21 13:03:40, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> > *Hi all,
>> >
>> > I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with Christie’s
>> > auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.
>> >
>> > We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used
>> > during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I
>> > created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia.
>> >
>> > A bit of Q
>> >
>> > **What is an NFT?**
>> >
>> > NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly thorough article
>> > about it on English Wikipedia
>> > .
>> >
>> > **What is this NFT exactly?**
>> >
>> > I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of “the
>> > original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a
>> > picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what
>> > the source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed
>> > by me.”
>> >
>> > I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just
>> > doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first
>> > installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer
>> > to do something interactive.
>> >
>> > The artistic concept is not just to see what Wikipedia looked like to
>> me
>> > in that moment, but to relive the experience: here is this incredible
>> > vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it becoming an encyclopedia
>> > for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be taken over by vandals and
>> > trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?  What kind of community
>> > can you attract?
>> >
>> > **Will any portion of the proceeds go to the WMF?**
>> >
>> > The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I not pledge
>> > any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate, just not
>> > to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help support
>> > a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll decide
>> > after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice
>> > welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.)
>> >
>> > I’ve 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Mike Peel]

I missed this. Link to the on-wiki discussions? (Presumably on meta, since this 
isn’t just enwiki-specific?)

Thanks,
Mike

> On 5 Dec 2021, at 22:51, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> 
> 
> Well, all the sturm und drang on this one is on Facebook, in the Wikipedia 
> Weekly group:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/posts/4534171036630692/
> 
> Other than that, there was a bit of drama on Jimmy Wales' talk page, where an 
> admin removed the talk page section Jimmy had created about this as 
> self-promotional, and Smiley on Wikipediocracy found bits of the long-lost, 
> original Bomis test wiki in the Internet archive.
> 
> And Joseph Reagle wrote a blog post:
> 
> https://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedias-wiped-edit.html
> 
> Andreas
> 
>> On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 10:26 PM Mike Peel  wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> tl;dr: huh, this is weird.
>> 
>> I'm amazed at the muted reception to this. Even prodding David Gerard on 
>> Facebook (who even wrote a book about the badness of Blockchain) didn't 
>> go very far.
>> 
>> The concept of NFT seems to go against the very principles of Wikipedia. 
>> On one hand, we share our work freely, both in terms of access and by 
>> using a copyleft license. On the other hand, this NFT takes something 
>> that was shared freely, and then restricts it so that it can be sold.
>> 
>> Copyright-wise, it actually looks OK: presumably the edit was released 
>> under the GFDL (if that was even applied back then), and I think that 
>> Jimmy owns all of the copyright here (maybe not some of the MediaWiki 
>> interface?). So, while it's weird, it seems OK?
>> 
>> On the other hand, I'd have loved to see an email thread here about 
>> "Auction at Christie's" that would have seen Christie's releasing 
>> text/media of the items they were selling under CC licenses, so that 
>> they could be used on the Wikimedia projects.
>> 
>> Or even better: we work with museums a lot, why not donate memorable 
>> moments/equipment to them? Or perhaps we've already done that with 
>> servers or later edits?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>> 
>> On 3/12/21 13:03:40, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> > *Hi all,
>> > 
>> > I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with Christie’s 
>> > auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.
>> > 
>> > We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used 
>> > during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I 
>> > created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia.
>> > 
>> > A bit of Q
>> > 
>> > **What is an NFT?**
>> > 
>> > NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly thorough article 
>> > about it on English Wikipedia 
>> > .
>> > 
>> > **What is this NFT exactly?**
>> > 
>> > I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of “the 
>> > original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a 
>> > picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what 
>> > the source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed 
>> > by me.”
>> > 
>> > I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just 
>> > doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first 
>> > installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer 
>> > to do something interactive.
>> > 
>> > The artistic concept is not just to see what Wikipedia looked like to me 
>> > in that moment, but to relive the experience: here is this incredible 
>> > vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it becoming an encyclopedia 
>> > for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be taken over by vandals and 
>> > trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?  What kind of community 
>> > can you attract?
>> > 
>> > **Will any portion of the proceeds go to the WMF?**
>> > 
>> > The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I not pledge 
>> > any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate, just not 
>> > to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help support 
>> > a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll decide 
>> > after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice 
>> > welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.)
>> > 
>> > I’ve worked with the WMF per the board’s instructions on getting 
>> > approval on all the marketing materials to make sure that it’s clear 
>> > that this is a personal project of mine and not a WMF thing at all.  I 
>> > believe the WMF will also post about that.
>> > 
>> > **What about the environmental costs of creating an NFT?**
>> > 
>> > Ethereum is moving from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake', which 
>> > requires a lot less energy per NFT - I’m happy to see that and hope it 
>> > happens soon.
>> > 
>> > In the meantime, I’ve looked for the highest estimate of the amount of 
>> > electricity consumed to mint an NFT.  I’ve found an 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Andreas Kolbe]

Well, all the sturm und drang on this one is on Facebook, in the Wikipedia
Weekly group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/posts/4534171036630692/

Other than that, there was a bit of drama on Jimmy Wales' talk page, where
an admin removed the talk page section Jimmy had created about this as
self-promotional, and Smiley on Wikipediocracy found bits of the long-lost,
original Bomis test wiki in the Internet archive.

And Joseph Reagle wrote a blog post:

https://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedias-wiped-edit.html

Andreas

On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 10:26 PM Mike Peel  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> tl;dr: huh, this is weird.
>
> I'm amazed at the muted reception to this. Even prodding David Gerard on
> Facebook (who even wrote a book about the badness of Blockchain) didn't
> go very far.
>
> The concept of NFT seems to go against the very principles of Wikipedia.
> On one hand, we share our work freely, both in terms of access and by
> using a copyleft license. On the other hand, this NFT takes something
> that was shared freely, and then restricts it so that it can be sold.
>
> Copyright-wise, it actually looks OK: presumably the edit was released
> under the GFDL (if that was even applied back then), and I think that
> Jimmy owns all of the copyright here (maybe not some of the MediaWiki
> interface?). So, while it's weird, it seems OK?
>
> On the other hand, I'd have loved to see an email thread here about
> "Auction at Christie's" that would have seen Christie's releasing
> text/media of the items they were selling under CC licenses, so that
> they could be used on the Wikimedia projects.
>
> Or even better: we work with museums a lot, why not donate memorable
> moments/equipment to them? Or perhaps we've already done that with
> servers or later edits?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 3/12/21 13:03:40, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > *Hi all,
> >
> > I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with Christie’s
> > auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.
> >
> > We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used
> > during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I
> > created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia.
> >
> > A bit of Q
> >
> > **What is an NFT?**
> >
> > NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly thorough article
> > about it on English Wikipedia
> > .
> >
> > **What is this NFT exactly?**
> >
> > I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of “the
> > original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a
> > picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what
> > the source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed
> > by me.”
> >
> > I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just
> > doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first
> > installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer
> > to do something interactive.
> >
> > The artistic concept is not just to see what Wikipedia looked like to me
> > in that moment, but to relive the experience: here is this incredible
> > vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it becoming an encyclopedia
> > for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be taken over by vandals and
> > trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?  What kind of community
> > can you attract?
> >
> > **Will any portion of the proceeds go to the WMF?**
> >
> > The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I not pledge
> > any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate, just not
> > to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help support
> > a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll decide
> > after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice
> > welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.)
> >
> > I’ve worked with the WMF per the board’s instructions on getting
> > approval on all the marketing materials to make sure that it’s clear
> > that this is a personal project of mine and not a WMF thing at all.  I
> > believe the WMF will also post about that.
> >
> > **What about the environmental costs of creating an NFT?**
> >
> > Ethereum is moving from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake', which
> > requires a lot less energy per NFT - I’m happy to see that and hope it
> > happens soon.
> >
> > In the meantime, I’ve looked for the highest estimate of the amount of
> > electricity consumed to mint an NFT.  I’ve found an estimate that the
> > average NFT minting consumes 340kWh.  For scale, my friend has a Tesla
> > Model X, and 340kWh would charge it about 3 ½ times.  This is roughly
> > 81.6 kg of CO2.  For further comparison an economy-class ticket to NYC
> > from London generates about 1800 kilograms of CO2. (Citation needed, and
> > very happy for anyone with expertise to help me improve 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Mike Peel]

Hi all,

tl;dr: huh, this is weird.

I'm amazed at the muted reception to this. Even prodding David Gerard on 
Facebook (who even wrote a book about the badness of Blockchain) didn't 
go very far.


The concept of NFT seems to go against the very principles of Wikipedia. 
On one hand, we share our work freely, both in terms of access and by 
using a copyleft license. On the other hand, this NFT takes something 
that was shared freely, and then restricts it so that it can be sold.


Copyright-wise, it actually looks OK: presumably the edit was released 
under the GFDL (if that was even applied back then), and I think that 
Jimmy owns all of the copyright here (maybe not some of the MediaWiki 
interface?). So, while it's weird, it seems OK?


On the other hand, I'd have loved to see an email thread here about 
"Auction at Christie's" that would have seen Christie's releasing 
text/media of the items they were selling under CC licenses, so that 
they could be used on the Wikimedia projects.


Or even better: we work with museums a lot, why not donate memorable 
moments/equipment to them? Or perhaps we've already done that with 
servers or later edits?


Thanks,
Mike

On 3/12/21 13:03:40, Jimmy Wales wrote:

*Hi all,

I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with Christie’s 
auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.


We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used 
during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I 
created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia.


A bit of Q

**What is an NFT?**

NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly thorough article 
about it on English Wikipedia 
.


**What is this NFT exactly?**

I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of “the 
original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a 
picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what 
the source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed 
by me.”


I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just 
doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first 
installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer 
to do something interactive.


The artistic concept is not just to see what Wikipedia looked like to me 
in that moment, but to relive the experience: here is this incredible 
vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it becoming an encyclopedia 
for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be taken over by vandals and 
trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?  What kind of community 
can you attract?


**Will any portion of the proceeds go to the WMF?**

The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I not pledge 
any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate, just not 
to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help support 
a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll decide 
after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice 
welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.)


I’ve worked with the WMF per the board’s instructions on getting 
approval on all the marketing materials to make sure that it’s clear 
that this is a personal project of mine and not a WMF thing at all.  I 
believe the WMF will also post about that.


**What about the environmental costs of creating an NFT?**

Ethereum is moving from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake', which 
requires a lot less energy per NFT - I’m happy to see that and hope it 
happens soon.


In the meantime, I’ve looked for the highest estimate of the amount of 
electricity consumed to mint an NFT.  I’ve found an estimate that the 
average NFT minting consumes 340kWh.  For scale, my friend has a Tesla 
Model X, and 340kWh would charge it about 3 ½ times.  This is roughly 
81.6 kg of CO2.  For further comparison an economy-class ticket to NYC 
from London generates about 1800 kilograms of CO2. (Citation needed, and 
very happy for anyone with expertise to help me improve these calculations.)


While I generally think it is better not to generate emissions than to 
generate and offset, I also think that generating withOUT offsetting is 
much worse.  So I’ll be finding the most pessimistic estimate of the CO2 
that I’ve generated and offset it by 5x.


** What is the estimate for the auction? **

Christie’s was unable to offer any public estimate for either the 
computer or the NFT.  I can sincerely say that I have absolutely no idea 
what to expect.  Given the current state of the NFT market, I’m very 
hopeful that some crypto whale will find this irresistible, who knows 
though?


I’ll be around for the next 8 hours or so to answer any questions but to 
keep it all centralized, let’s keep it on my English wikipedia talk 
page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Amy Vossbrinck]

Hi Jimmy:

Go for it!  Any time in life when, as individuals, we have something to
give that can better the life of others, we should make the most of the
opportunity.  No matter where you decide to donate the proceeds from the
auction, it will be of benefit to the recipient(s).
It surely seems you have checked all the "legal boxes" beyond that, I would
always go with "follow your heart".  Life is too short to be overthinking
everything.

*Take care, Amy*


*Amy Vossbrinck (she/her)*

*Executive Assistant*

*Chief Financial Officer*


*We are not in a post fact world
*


On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 7:58 AM Jimmy Wales 
wrote:

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> *Hi all, I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with
> Christie’s auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.
> We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used
> during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I
> created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia. A bit of Q
> **What is an NFT?** NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly
> thorough article about it on English Wikipedia
> 
> . **What is this NFT
> exactly?** I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of
> “the original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a
> picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what the
> source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed by me.”
> I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just
> doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first
> installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer to
> do something interactive. The artistic concept is not just to see what
> Wikipedia looked like to me in that moment, but to relive the experience:
> here is this incredible vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it
> becoming an encyclopedia for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be
> taken over by vandals and trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?
> What kind of community can you attract? **Will any portion of the proceeds
> go to the WMF?** The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I
> not pledge any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate,
> just not to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help
> support a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll
> decide after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice
> welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.) I’ve
> worked with the WMF per the board’s instructions on getting approval on all
> the marketing materials to make sure that it’s clear that this is a
> personal project of mine and not a WMF thing at all.  I believe the WMF
> will also post about that. **What about the environmental costs of creating
> an NFT?** Ethereum is moving from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake',
> which requires a lot less energy per NFT - I’m happy to see that and hope
> it happens soon. In the meantime, I’ve looked for the highest estimate of
> the amount of electricity consumed to mint an NFT.  I’ve found an estimate
> that the average NFT minting consumes 340kWh.  For scale, my friend has a
> Tesla Model X, and 340kWh would charge it about 3 ½ times.  This is roughly
> 81.6 kg of CO2.  For further comparison an economy-class ticket to NYC from
> London generates about 1800 kilograms of CO2. (Citation needed, and very
> happy for anyone with expertise to help me improve these calculations.)
> While I generally think it is better not to generate emissions than to
> generate and offset, I also think that generating withOUT offsetting is
> much worse.  So I’ll be finding the most pessimistic estimate of the CO2
> that I’ve generated and offset it by 5x. ** What is the estimate for the
> auction? ** Christie’s was unable to offer any public estimate for either
> the computer or the NFT.  I can sincerely say that I have absolutely no
> idea what to expect.  Given the current state of the NFT market, I’m very
> hopeful that some crypto whale will find this irresistible, who knows
> though? I’ll be around for the next 8 hours or so to answer any questions
> but to keep it all centralized, let’s keep it on my English wikipedia talk
> page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales
> 
> 
>  Article at Christie’s
> website here:
> https://www.christies.com/features/First-Wikipedia-edit-to-be-sold-as-NFT-11983-1.aspx
> 
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Samuel Klein]

Thanks for the post; I appreciate finding out from an internal list before
social media / the news.

Adam, agreed this list isn't a good place for general discussion about it,
bit a heads-up seems fine (and a longer thread on wiki appropriate)




>> *I’ll be around for the next 8 hours or so to answer any questions but to
>> keep it all centralized, let’s keep it on my English wikipedia talk page,
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales
>> 
>> 
>> *
>>
>
___
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To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Auction at Christie's

[Adam Wight]

This is a good opportunity for us to take a look at the new conflict of
interest policies [1], in light of preventing this sort of email in the
future.  In my opinion, the WMF Board had the right idea—this is a personal
project, and broadcasting to a movement list gives a strong sense of
capitalizing on fame and networks, at the expense of nudging us towards
venal boosterism.

I'm sure this was an innocent idea and something good will be done with the
money, but that's beside the point, we're not a forum for major donor press
releases.  Thank you for sharing some of the thought process behind your
post.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy/2021_updates

On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 3:10 PM Jimmy Wales 
wrote:

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> *Hi all, I am writing to let you know that I am doing an auction with
> Christie’s auction house, commencing today and closing on December 15th.
> We’re auctioning two things - the original Strawberry iMac that I used
> during the founding time period of Wikipedia, and an NFT artwork that I
> created to commemorate the earliest moment of Wikipedia. A bit of Q
> **What is an NFT?** NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’, there is a fairly
> thorough article about it on English Wikipedia
> 
> . **What is this NFT
> exactly?** I saw earlier in the year that Tim Berners-Lee did an NFT of
> “the original source code of the web”.   In his own words: “"I’m selling a
> picture that I made, with a Python program that I wrote myself, of what the
> source code would look like if it was stuck on the wall and signed by me.”
> I thought I should try to push forward from that and so instead of just
> doing a picture (screenshot) of what Wikipedia looked like when I first
> installed the Usemod software and typed “Hello, World!” I would prefer to
> do something interactive. The artistic concept is not just to see what
> Wikipedia looked like to me in that moment, but to relive the experience:
> here is this incredible vulnerable thing, a wiki, and you dream of it
> becoming an encyclopedia for the whole world, but will it?  Will it be
> taken over by vandals and trolls instantly?  What policies will you need?
> What kind of community can you attract? **Will any portion of the proceeds
> go to the WMF?** The Wikimedia Foundation board has explicitly asked that I
> not pledge any funds to Wikimedia.  (They aren’t asking me not to donate,
> just not to pledge to do so up front.)  I am pledging to donate to “help
> support a variety of charities working in the free culture world.”  I’ll
> decide after we see how it goes in terms of what exactly I’ll do!  (Advice
> welcome!  I’d be interested in a community process to help choose.) I’ve
> worked with the WMF per the board’s instructions on getting approval on all
> the marketing materials to make sure that it’s clear that this is a
> personal project of mine and not a WMF thing at all.  I believe the WMF
> will also post about that. **What about the environmental costs of creating
> an NFT?** Ethereum is moving from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake',
> which requires a lot less energy per NFT - I’m happy to see that and hope
> it happens soon. In the meantime, I’ve looked for the highest estimate of
> the amount of electricity consumed to mint an NFT.  I’ve found an estimate
> that the average NFT minting consumes 340kWh.  For scale, my friend has a
> Tesla Model X, and 340kWh would charge it about 3 ½ times.  This is roughly
> 81.6 kg of CO2.  For further comparison an economy-class ticket to NYC from
> London generates about 1800 kilograms of CO2. (Citation needed, and very
> happy for anyone with expertise to help me improve these calculations.)
> While I generally think it is better not to generate emissions than to
> generate and offset, I also think that generating withOUT offsetting is
> much worse.  So I’ll be finding the most pessimistic estimate of the CO2
> that I’ve generated and offset it by 5x. ** What is the estimate for the
> auction? ** Christie’s was unable to offer any public estimate for either
> the computer or the NFT.  I can sincerely say that I have absolutely no
> idea what to expect.  Given the current state of the NFT market, I’m very
> hopeful that some crypto whale will find this irresistible, who knows
> though? I’ll be around for the next 8 hours or so to answer any questions
> but to keep it all centralized, let’s keep it on my English wikipedia talk
> page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales
> 
> 
>  Article at Christie’s
> website here:
> https://www.christies.com/features/First-Wikipedia-edit-to-be-sold-as-NFT-11983-1.aspx
>