I think I have found a lever at long last. The clue is in the long time it took for Wikimedia UK to get recognised as a charity. As Ashley van H says here
http://bambuser.com/channel/pigsonthewing/broadcast/2140981 "it was quite a big story [i.e. charitable status] for the U.K - the charity commission struggled for a long period, and has had to refine their understanding of a public utility". What does he mean? Well it goes back to 2009, when the Charity Commission ruled that "The production of an encyclopaedia is not the charitable advancement of education and has not been accepted as such in law... If the object [should] be the mere increase of knowledge it is not in itself a charitable object unless it is combined with teaching or education,"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/27/wi...ia_charity_not/ (register article)
So kudos to Jonathan Burchfield, partner at the law firm Stone King (specialists in Charity and Education Law, for reversing this decision:
QUOTE
In accepting Stone King’s application on behalf of Wikimedia UK, the Commission has been at pains to point out that the publication of information useful to the public and the promotion of open content are not inherently charitable activities. Any similar organisation seeking to become registered with the Charity Commission
would need to demonstrate that its activities are exclusively for the public benefit and that the content promoted has sufficient editorial controls and safeguards on the accuracy and objectivity of the information provided. In Wikipedia’s case, for example, the continuous development and operation of editing policies and content security tools assure an increasingly high quality of content.â€
http://www.stoneking.co.uk/news/articles/-/page/1244 (Stone King press release)
QUOTE
“Burchfield said that in order to be registered, Wikimedia UK had to demonstrate that it had
high standards for controlling and monitoring the content of Wikipedia so that it was not easily open to abuse.â€
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1102747/ (Third Sector)
This is really really really important. Wikimedia's lawyers had to argue that Wikimedia can operate under the heading "object of general public utility" as proposed by Samuel Romilly in the 19th century. There is a (somewhat long and difficult) legal judgment here
http://www.btinternet.com/~akme/shaw.html which illustrates the principle involved. According to the Romilly principle, benefit has to be conferred on the
public by the proposed ends of the charity. Political purposes are not OK, nor the furtherance of a movement such as 'the Wikimedia movement'. Some identifiable section of the community must derive a real benefit from the purpose. More details from the Charity Commission website
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Librar...e/lawpb1208.pdf .
It was under a generous interpretation of the Romilly principle that WMUK was recognised. This was clearly why there was a requirement that "the content promoted has sufficient editorial controls and safeguards on the accuracy and objectivity of the information provided. "
I am now preparing an appeal to the UK Charities Commission, giving clear evidence of all the points in which WMUK demonstrably fails to meet the requirement for general public benefit, either because it lacks 'sufficient editorial controls', or for other reasons such as simply not benefiting the general public.
Any suggestions welcome. I am particularly interested in
recent cases where Wikipedia has failed to provide appropriate control or oversight. I can think of a few, such as the Philip Mould case
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikipedi...in-fiction.html, where a gross slur remained on the site for a year and a half. What are appropriate controls for this sort of thing? Is anonymous editing an insufficient? I think so. Is making the WMUK board collectively responsible for the content of BLPs a minimum condition for good control? I think so too. Please let me have your suggestions
A thing that already puzzles me is that if WMUK must 'control and monitor' the content, the following statement from its website seems inconsistent with that.
QUOTE
Please note that we are a separate organization from the Wikimedia Foundation, and
have no control over Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia Foundation projects.â€
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Indeed, the whole principle on which Wikipedia was founded was that there should be no editorial oversight in the traditional sense, and that all content would be the result of a ruthless Darwinian fight for survival. That in itself makes it impossible for WMUK to 'control and monitor' content.
This post has been edited by Peter Damian: