QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Wed 21st December 2011, 9:08pm)
DB: Are you saying this public utility stuff was not the basis for the UK Chapter prevailing in the appeal? We really need to see the text of the UK-Chapters appeal and the CC's decision.
No, I was simply clarifying that contrary to the press report that the UK Chapter had not claimed that they had any editorial control, and in fact they explicitly deny that they have any editorial control at all.
As I understand it, they are claiming charitable status just for being helpful to Wikipedia, and that they have successfully argued that Wikipedia is a useful resource for the public with appropriate controls.
There are three issues I would take up with the Charities Commission:
- that they have not apparently advised the Wikimedia UK to have a better constituted set of trustees. While the trustees might be capable of running the charity according to its charter, the CC will intervene to direct the trust to have a group of trustees widely drawn from the community, rather than a bunch of mates, due to the obvious issues of lack of proper accountability. For example, the fact that there is not one trustee drawn from outside the Wikipedia community when it is clear that the public benefit of the charity is directed to the readership, not the editors, then there is an imbalance. That is not a matter of complaint, simply an observation to draw to the attention of both Wikimedia UK and the CC. In the first instance, I think the appropriate thing is to formally bring it to the attention of Wikimedia UK, let them do nothing about it, then point out the issue to the CC, and they are likely to make a suggestion. This has happened at other charities I've been involved with and is normal, especially on a substantial charity such as this.
- if Wikimedia UK have explicitly denied responsibility for the production and control of Wikipedia, then surely the only public benefit they are offering are these peripheral activities that produce precious little public good. i.e. if the benefit of Wikimedia UK is Wikipedia and the associated projects, then their ability to influence its production is so small as to be inconsequential, and the justification of public benefit, while possibly applicable to Wikipedia, cannot really be applied to Wikimedia UK. It would be like creating a charity supporting the National Trust where it was justified on the upkeep of old buildings, but actually the only activities were organising trips to evangelise the work of the National Trust. The charity is supposed to generate £1m per annum, but where is the value for money that you could say that there was even £10,000 of benefit created in Wikipedia.
- The more difficult issue is to show that the superficial presentation of public benefit is undermined by the distorted philosophy of Wikipedian group think, that there is a continuous distortion to the extent that the encyclopedia is not acting in the long term UK public interest, partly due to its monopolistic domination of information on the Internet. Also this is partly due to their failure to abide by the norms of UK society and law (for example, we can show that they vociferously refuse to abide by the UK standards of child protection, pornography, and copyright and have sought to do harm to British institutions). This is easier to deal with in the context of the UK chapter where we need not bother ourselves with the extremist freedom cult of America where any oddball behaviour is tolerated and justified and any harm is magically discounted under some logic that in the long term good must prevail.
So, my argument would be that the case for public utility supporting a UK charity must be measured under a UK perspective. While Wikipedia might believe it has an appropriate set of guidelines, it should be possible to show that there are many measures where Wikipedia fails to act according to UK law, and that when this has been brought to their attention, the response is a big "fuck you", Wikipedia is more important than the communities it is supposed to serve.
I think that the examples required to demonstrate this include:
- the pornography debate, where there have been some panicked knee-jerk reactions, but the masses have fought for uncensored pornographic content, some of it unlawful in the UK, and failed to institute the most basic of controls. The failure of the WMF to bring this under control.
- the acceptance of copyright material from the UK obtained by nefarious means under the justification that American copyright law permits such use.
- More nuanced arguments on the cultish view on policy (Verifiability not Truth) and the way that a limited number of people hold sway and do not allow proper control of policy by the people it is supposedly providing the service to. If Wikipedia was a country, the USA would have passed a few thousand resolutions and George Bush would have invaded by now. The editors should have very little control over policy, the people who should be defining policy is the readership, and in this context, the UK readership.
While I am being deliberately provocative with regards to the US culture comments, it is important to understand that this is a UK charity, and UK standards apply. While the WMF is cocooned by some odd American legislation, it is handy to remember that the UK chapter is an English company and charity governed by English law, and they might be more susceptible to arguments of mal-administration inthe context of seeking UK benefits.