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Letter to UK Charity Commission, Is this a big enough stick? I hope so. |
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Peter Damian |
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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.†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.†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.†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:
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EricBarbour |
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Tue 22nd November 2011, 12:37pm) 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. This has some possibilities. It would be easy to come up with material, right now. You could send them samples of the following: --evidence of WP defamation (Daniel Brandt, conservatives, LaRouche, Taner Akcam, etc) --that Turnitin report on plagiarism --some of my charts about WP's content vs. Britannica --samples of a few of the major editwars You might also point out the "benefit to the public" seems to consist mostly in its use by UK citizens for "amusement", meaning obsessive behaviour/addiction/abuse of others, with administrator examples (Gerard, Sidaway, FT2, Ironholds, Morwen etc). Plus its popular use by schoolchildren as a place to steal content for school papers. Plus its massive football and Doctor Who content. Plus pedophilia and bestiality content. Plus that list of Commons categories I gave you.
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Daniel Brandt |
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Tue 22nd November 2011, 3:39pm) --evidence of WP defamation (Daniel Brandt, conservatives, LaRouche, Taner Akcam, etc)
I suspect that this page that chronicles my problems with Wikipedia editors would be relevant here. Many hours of research were needed to discover the identities of some of the editors listed on that page. Moreover, my complaint letters and emails to Brad Patrick, and later to Mike Godwin, former legal counsels for the U.S. nonprofit foundation, were all ignored.
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SB_Johnny |
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It wasn't me who made honky-tonk angels
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QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Wed 23rd November 2011, 10:00am) QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Tue 22nd November 2011, 3:39pm) --evidence of WP defamation (Daniel Brandt, conservatives, LaRouche, Taner Akcam, etc)
I suspect that this page that chronicles my problems with Wikipedia editors would be relevant here. Many hours of research were needed to discover the identities of some of the editors listed on that page. Moreover, my complaint letters and emails to Brad Patrick, and later to Mike Godwin, former legal counsels for the U.S. nonprofit foundation, were all ignored. No surprise there. Apparently they believe that the the piggy bank is at risk if they dare to remove content, even if the content happens to be illegal.
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Peter Damian |
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David r from meth productions https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w...eth+productionsSock of journalist Johann Hari. Blocked by Courcelles (a) How long had it been going on (b) More importantly, how was it uncovered. I want to know whether the new 'monitor and control' culture that WMUK installed had been effective in spotting this breach of policy. Or was it the Evening Standard or some other watchdog, or someone complaining that set if off? Ed QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Wed 23rd November 2011, 3:00pm) QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Tue 22nd November 2011, 3:39pm) --evidence of WP defamation (Daniel Brandt, conservatives, LaRouche, Taner Akcam, etc)
I suspect that this page that chronicles my problems with Wikipedia editors would be relevant here. Many hours of research were needed to discover the identities of some of the editors listed on that page. Moreover, my complaint letters and emails to Brad Patrick, and later to Mike Godwin, former legal counsels for the U.S. nonprofit foundation, were all ignored. This is highly relevant, can you send me copies of correspondence if possible. However, more recent information is better. It may be that the new control and monitoring culture at the WMUK has been more effective recently. Those IRC 'dickhead' channels are also good. But again, has IRC cleaned up its act? It may be that that new control culture has been effective here. We need evidence for or against. This post has been edited by Peter Damian:
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EricBarbour |
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Perhaps the chair of the Charity Commission should read her own BLP....... QUOTE Controversies
Suzi Leather’s public appointments, none of which were elected posts, have led some right-wing commentators to question the motives of those who appoint her. The Adam Smith Institute accused her of pursuing a "political agenda" on behalf of politicians who lacked the "moral courage" to tackle the issue themselves.[4]
During her tenure at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Leather was criticised for stating that a child's absolute need for a father figure was "nonsense".[5] Jack O'Sullivan, of the campaign group Fathers Direct which campaigns for the rights of fathers, said that "while discrimination against single and lesbian women was wrong, the benefits of a father figure were proven by scientific studies".[5]
The Charities Act (2006)[6] added to the traditional list of "charitable purposes" for which charities can be established (the prevention or relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, and so forth) a requirement that their activities should be carried on "for the public benefit"; and it required the Charities Commission to determine how it would be established that the public benefit was being served. In pursuance of this requirement, in 2009 Dame Suzi instigated an investigation into private schools in order to determine whether non-profit education providers should continue to be accorded charitable status automatically. She has stated that she cannot "see why charitable status was always merited". Specifically, it was decided that, while providing education is a charitable purpose, doing so only in exchange for an economic fee does not meet the requirement that the purpose is carried on for public rather than private benefit. A fee-paying school could nonetheless deserve charitable status, for example if it offered bursaries, or provided teaching or coaching children from surrounding schools, or otherwise contributed. As of July 2009, five private schools in the North West of England had been investigated and it was concluded that two of the five gave insufficient benefit to the public and had therefore failed the proposed test. These school would lose their charitable status in a year’s time "unless they gave out more bursaries".[7] It has been claimed that the Commission may have exceeded its powers under the 2006 Charities Act.[8] [edit] Public Sector Salary
In 2010 a list released by the Cabinet Office in a drive for greater transparency in public life revealed the salaries of 156 "quango" bosses,[9][10] including Dame Leather's remuneration package of £104,999 a year for a 3 day week as head of the Charity Commission. This post has been edited by EricBarbour:
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Michaeldsuarez |
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Wed 23rd November 2011, 10:05pm) Perhaps the chair of the Charity Commission should read her own BLP....... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=302005932The revision that added the controversy section to the article is interesting. It even includes a faux "CENSORED BY COURT ORDER" message. That revision and its faux message apparently influenced the judgment of those who read the Wikipedia article at that time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...comment-4936126This is an example of how Wikipedia editors can influence gullible readers. This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez:
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EricBarbour |
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In fact, people have been inserting defamatory remarks in her BLP for years. Usually via IP address, though it does appear that Galatian (T-C-L-K-R-D)
doesn't like her very much. And looky who expanded the article for the first time. Gosh, Batman, I wonder who this is. This post has been edited by EricBarbour:
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dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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Some good specific examples, though I'd guess to respond to attacks against the Chair or body itself would give the impression of self-interest and give the CC a problem.
What are some good solid generic problems that a public body could not ignore?
The dysfunctional discussion on image filters might actually be a solid example - the way Wikimedia UK has no ability to consider or impose control for the public good, and WMF has stepped back from imposing any solution. Need to hunt out some key words there. It is a good example, because it is current.
Clearly, another good example is the subversion of National Gallery assets into the public domain. I am not clear how best to arrange that argument, and I suspect that there is an implication of breaking some UK law, Misuse of Computers Act (if someone used the National Gallery system to extract the pictures against the express lack of consent of the National Gallery) as well as a moral position. What is the link between the extractor and Wikimedia UK?
The wider problem being that the Wikipedian community is vociferous in imposing its own code of conduct not only within the organisation but on matters that impinge on the real world. I suspect there are some good examples that would support this, the casual promotion of pornography for example. As a generator of conflict and its inability for resolve disputes, it has a negative impact on the charitable aims.
Finally, there is a problem that Wikimedia UK trustees have a duty to Wikimedia UK and should only act in the interests of Wikimedia UK, not the wider Wikipedia or WMF. There is probably little evidence of a conflict of interest, but something worth monitoring.
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dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Thu 24th November 2011, 6:04pm) It's interesting how WMUK abjectedly lied in its application, by claiming that it had any control or influence over editorial policy or practice, when in fact it has none at all. The main purpose of WM chapters is to arrange parties. That's it.
and again, the lawyers make specific reference to Wikimedia's high quality images, some of which were laundered through the US to circumvent UK copyright laws, but presumably would not be public domain in the UK. The exact wording of the application would be helpful, because the Fraud Act of 2002 makes it unlawful to make any sort of misleading statement with the intent of gain. It is the statement that is the critical act, not the gain, which does not have to be crystallised.
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Peter Damian |
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 24th November 2011, 6:39pm) The exact wording of the application would be helpful, because the Fraud Act of 2002 makes it unlawful to make any sort of misleading statement with the intent of gain. It is the statement that is the critical act, not the gain, which does not have to be crystallised.
I had a correspondence with the lawyers, Stone King (who strangely have no article about themselves in Wikipedia, though some lawyers do), who were very helpful. This is all going to be arranged. I have heard nothing directly from WMUK however. This may change when I pay a visit to their offices next week. QUOTE(timbo @ Thu 24th November 2011, 4:37pm) Narcs suck.
t
There were some great articles linked to on your page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carrite about fires in New York garment district where the bosses kept the doors locked and many workers died as a result. How terrible if someone had informed the authorities about these terrible working practices and those bosses were punished. How bad for the bosses. Narcs suck, indeed.
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carbuncle |
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QUOTE(RMHED @ Thu 24th November 2011, 7:41pm) The listing as it appears on the Commissions website, and the trustees. For ease of reference, here is the list of trustees from that link: MR ANDREW TURVEY MR MICHAEL PEEL MR STEVE VIRGIN MR ROGER BAMKIN DR MARTIN LEWIS POULTER MR ASHLEY VAN HAEFTEN MR CHRISTOPHER JOSEPH KEATING I regret looking at the list because one of those names is particularly familiar to me from past interactions. I guess I haven't been paying attention, or I would have noticed this earlier. I'll open up that can of worms when I get the time.
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Detective |
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QUOTE(RMHED @ Thu 24th November 2011, 7:41pm) The listing as it appears on the Commissions website, and the trustees. I see that one of the trustees is a Mr. Steve Virgin. Maybe he's taken on the job hoping to benefit from Jimbo's advice. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) After all, whatever we think of Jimbo, we will all agree that there's one thing he's very good at. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)
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RMHED |
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QUOTE(carbuncle @ Thu 24th November 2011, 9:49pm) QUOTE(RMHED @ Thu 24th November 2011, 7:41pm) The listing as it appears on the Commissions website, and the trustees. For ease of reference, here is the list of trustees from that link: MR ANDREW TURVEY MR MICHAEL PEEL MR STEVE VIRGIN MR ROGER BAMKIN DR MARTIN LEWIS POULTER MR ASHLEY VAN HAEFTEN MR CHRISTOPHER JOSEPH KEATING I regret looking at the list because one of those names is particularly familiar to me from past interactions. I guess I haven't been paying attention, or I would have noticed this earlier. I'll open up that can of worms when I get the time. So the Trustees are just the current members of the Wikimedia UK board. A bunch of geeky white men with too much time on their hands and an inflated sense of their own importance.
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Peter Damian |
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I have discussed with Mike Peel and it turns out that the article in Third Sector http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/go/governance...charity-status/ was a misquote. The Stone King press release http://www.stoneking.co.uk/news/articles/-/page/1244 is more carefully worded, saying that 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.
I.e. WMUK has to demonstrate that there are sufficient editorial controls on Wikipedia, does not have to ensure this. A fine line. This changes nothing, however. I did not think an law firm would have made such an elementary mistake. The real question is, how WMUK can demonstrate that there are sufficient editorial controls. This is what I am focusing on.
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Daniel Brandt |
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If you have an occasion to mention John Seigenthaler, here is a little bit of multimedia that should impress anyone who has an objective interest in the points you are making. Wikipedia was awful in 2005 when the Seigenthaler defamation occurred, Jimbo was still making excuses for the Seigenthaler defamation in 2007, and it's still awful today. Get the connection? This is a two-minute mp3 audio clip of Jimbo, in an interview on Australian television, explaining why it was John Seigenthaler's own fault. The interviewer is Ellen Fanning. She has worked for years at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The show title was "Wikipedia - Right or Wrong" and it aired on Sunday, April 1, 2007 as a feature story. The name of the program was called SUNDAY. The original link to the full video was at ninemsn.com.au but by now it's a dead link. I sent this mp3 clip link to John Seigenthaler and he listened to it. On April 22, 2007 he responded in an email to me: QUOTE Wales is unbelievable!
He says he thinks it "amusing" that I wrote an article in USA Today complaining about Wikipedia's unreliability. He needs a new definition for the word "amusing."
He also needs a new one for the word "obscure."
That "obscure" biography was found by two friends of mine — one, Vic Johnson, in Nashville and the other, Erin MacAnnally, in Honolulu — before I saw it. And it appeared on perhaps two dozen "obscure" mirror sights around the world, most of which I still have not identified.
Jimbo is duplicitous. He says that his expert Wikipedian editors missed the article identifying me as suspected assassin and defector, because it was located in that "obscure" corner of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has no corners.
In fact, the original draft by Brian Chase misspelled the word "early" (it was ealry) and it was caught almost immediately by one of Wales' "expert" editors.
His "expert" didn't have the intelligence or sense to correct the error identifying me as a suspected assassin and defector. Had my friends not found it, odds are that it still would have missed Jimmy's "experts."
In fact, a third friend of mine, Eric Newton, an executive of the Knight Foundation in Miami, saw the original before I called Wales and diverted it to the history page. It was from there that Jimmy archived it when I phoned him.
The fact that he moved it from the history pages to his archives leaves no doubt in my mind that he recognizes that what appears on the history page represents defamation.
It all demonstrates again that Wikipedia is beset by flaw and fraud.
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Peter Damian |
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Here is a transcription of the Fanning interview. QUOTE Fanning: Let's look at a more serious example. There's a man called John Seigenthaler snr. Now for 132 days Wikipedia's entry on him stated, quote, "For a brief time he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations: both John and his brother Bobby. Nothing was ever proven" unquote. Now Seigenthaler in fact worked for Robert Kennedy, he was a pallbearer at his funeral. That's an extraordinary inaccuracy isn't it.
Wales: oh yes it is and basically what happened there [was] someone came and created the article, ah, it slipped by the first line of defence which is the people who were checking new articles and recent changes. Ah, we're not sure exactly how it slipped through that defence but it did, ah, then it wasn't linked to from anywhere else on the site, it was a very obscure article off by itself in the corner. So, since it didn't get categorised as being Kennedy administration related, the kind of people who specialise in that area didn't see it and never got around to finding it and correcting it.
Fanning: You spoke earlier about newspapers. It's inconceivable that any newspaper would ever publish something like that, isn't it?
Wales: Ah ... yeah it probably is inconceivable that something like that would be published by a newspaper but, ah, you know given how obscure it was and that almost no one would have seen it, ah, due to the way that the error happened, you know we don't consider it really, ah, ah, you know sort of an indictment of the whole process.
Fanning: Mr Seigenthaler points out though that it's like a virus. What appears on Wikipedia spreads through the internet and it becomes very difficult to close that down. I mean, he was deeply wounded by it. So, in that sense, it was an indictment of the process.
Wales: Well, you know the interesting thing .. right ... so .. like.. the thing that in this case I always thought was sort of amusing about this was that basically nobody had heard of this and there was really no public talk of it. It was a very obscure article and if he was concerned about it being spread all over the internet then maybe he shouldn't have written an editorial in USA today because that's the only way the general public ever even saw it or heard about it. So, I always thought that it was, ah, a little bit of an odd critique to say "Gee, now it's all over the world and everybody knows about it. Well, yeah, you published it in USA today and so of course "
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thekohser |
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The "obscure" article about John Seigenthaler, by my estimation, was probably getting about 15 to 20 page views per day, for the 132 days it was sabotaged. So, at least 2,000 different people likely saw the defamation. Granted, while that's not a high-traffic article by Wikipedia standards, it still speaks to the fact that 2,000 people looking at something on a site with millions of pages is not exactly "obscure", either.
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Peter Damian |
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Thankfully, it appears that Wikipedia does have high standards. QUOTE The Charity Commission has approved WMUK's application, so they clearly feel that WMUK has sufficiently demonstrated that high standards are ensured. That involved explaining, and providing evidence for, what processes exist to ensure high standards (most of which are processes implemented by and performed by the volunteer community, with a few extra processes handled by the WMF over certain legal matters). I am unclear on why you feel a more formal discussion is required. WMUK's charity status is a matter between WMUK and the Charity Commission. You have no formal involvement in it. In the interests of transparency, I and the WMUK board are happy to answer your questions (as I believe we have now done here), but a formal discussion would suggest that WMUK has some formal duty to explain these things to you, which it does not. --Tango 19:34, 27 November 2011 (UTC) http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2012_Act..._being_spent.3F This post has been edited by Peter Damian:
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dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sun 27th November 2011, 9:25pm) Thankfully, it appears that Wikipedia does have high standards. QUOTE The Charity Commission has approved WMUK's application, so they clearly feel that WMUK has sufficiently demonstrated that high standards are ensured. That involved explaining, and providing evidence for, what processes exist to ensure high standards (most of which are processes implemented by and performed by the volunteer community, with a few extra processes handled by the WMF over certain legal matters). I am unclear on why you feel a more formal discussion is required. WMUK's charity status is a matter between WMUK and the Charity Commission. You have no formal involvement in it. In the interests of transparency, I and the WMUK board are happy to answer your questions (as I believe we have now done here), but a formal discussion would suggest that WMUK has some formal duty to explain these things to you, which it does not. --Tango 19:34, 27 November 2011 (UTC) http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:2012_Act..._being_spent.3FHmm. With my experience of the Charity Commission, I doubt they'd see it as what is being suggested to be a private matter. If there is a suggestiion that the CC has been misled then it is clearly not only a matter of public interest but a matter of law. ...and as ever, information is only free when it suits the holders of the information.
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timbo |
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QUOTE Narcs suck.
t
QUOTE There were some great articles linked to on your page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carrite about fires in New York garment district where the bosses kept the doors locked and many workers died as a result. How terrible if someone had informed the authorities about these terrible working practices and those bosses were punished. How bad for the bosses. Narcs suck, indeed. WHACK WHACK WHACK!!! Beat that straw man! How about this: "The Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Roma, Communists, and other enemies of the regime. How terrible if somebody hadn't informed the world community of their evil intentions years in advance. Untold millions would have been saved. Narcs suck, indeed." Might as well go all the way with that false analogy, no sense pussing out with a handful of dead garment workers. t This post has been edited by timbo:
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lilburne |
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Mon 28th November 2011, 7:48am) QUOTE(lilburne @ Sun 27th November 2011, 11:37pm) Perhaps they explained all about 'pending changes' and how that fitted into the process.
(IMG: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c334/Zako_Zako/1156635592215.jpg) Wouldn't be the first time they've used that one. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10312095The lead time from making an application for charitable status to getting registered is at least a year. If the application was in any way controversial it will have taken longer, with much toing and froing of clarifications etc. There are good odds that they used "pending changes" when the subject of accuracy, or reliability was brought up.
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Peter Damian |
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QUOTE(timbo @ Mon 28th November 2011, 8:52am) How about this: "The Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Roma, Communists, and other enemies of the regime. How terrible if somebody hadn't informed the world community of their evil intentions years in advance. Untold millions would have been saved. Narcs suck, indeed."
That's a good analogy too. General principle: if something bad is going on, tell the world about it, and try not to be put off by bullies. It can be slightly bad, bad, very bad, very very bad. Same principle. Or are there bad things to which the principle doesn't apply? But in that case you need to qualify the principle. Perhaps it applies to all bad things except Wikipedia? OK. But then not really a principle, is it?
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Peter Damian |
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I have as much free time as a Wikipedia admin!
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Mon 28th November 2011, 10:39pm) QUOTE The issues we consider to be serious or significant and unacceptable for any charity, its trustees, employees or agents to be engaged in are set out in the list below. The issues are not listed in any order of priority:
* significant financial loss to the charity;
* serious harm to beneficiaries and, in particular, vulnerable beneficiaries;
* threats to national security, particularly terrorism;
* criminality within or involving a charity; * sham charities set up for an illegal or improper purpose; * charities deliberately being used for significant private advantage; * where a charity's independence is seriously called into question; * serious non-compliance in a charity that damages or has the potential to damage its reputation and/or the reputation of charities generally; * serious non-compliance in a charity which, left unchecked, could damage public trust and confidence in the Charity Commission as an effective regulator. However, WMUK says the Charity Commission has considered all of this QUOTE Thank you for sharing this with us. I believe your points are all either irrelevant to WMUK's charity status or have already been considered by the Charity Commission and deemed not to be a block to that charity status. I don't think there is any point in us trying to argue against the points you make, since they are generally factually accurate (albeit with a lot of spin on them) and the only thing we disagree on is the interpretation of them and their relevance to charity status under UK law. Therefore, I suggest you simply submit your thoughts to the Charity Commission and let them decide if they have merit. Please note, I do not represent WMUK and that is simply a personal opinion. The WMUK board may wish to engage in further discussion with you - that is their choice. --Tango 18:22, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
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timbo |
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:37pm) QUOTE(timbo @ Mon 28th November 2011, 8:52am) How about this: "The Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Roma, Communists, and other enemies of the regime. How terrible if somebody hadn't informed the world community of their evil intentions years in advance. Untold millions would have been saved. Narcs suck, indeed."
That's a good analogy too. General principle: if something bad is going on, tell the world about it, and try not to be put off by bullies. It can be slightly bad, bad, very bad, very very bad. Same principle. Or are there bad things to which the principle doesn't apply? But in that case you need to qualify the principle. Perhaps it applies to all bad things except Wikipedia? OK. But then not really a principle, is it? Actually, it's a ludicrous and insane analogy, but maybe it's difficult to distinguish between genocide or the loss of life on the one hand, from the warts-and-all bureaucratic educational project called Wikipedia on the other... Obsession does not become you, you're too smart for that. t
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Eppur si muove |
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 30th November 2011, 8:11pm) He says “no BLP dispute (to the best of my knowledge) has ever got beyond the stage where it can be resolved through communication with the WMF or through OTRS†Is that true?
I don't know of any going to court but some do definitely involve communications from lawyers. See e.g. Tahir Abbas (T-H-L-K-D) where there has been a lot of discussion involving a critical article by the Times Higher Education Supplement which the publishers have withdrawn from the website and not retracted.
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Kelly Martin |
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Bring back the guttersnipes!
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QUOTE(Eppur si muove @ Wed 30th November 2011, 2:23pm) QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 30th November 2011, 8:11pm) He says “no BLP dispute (to the best of my knowledge) has ever got beyond the stage where it can be resolved through communication with the WMF or through OTRS†Is that true?
I don't know of any going to court but some do definitely involve communications from lawyers. See e.g. Tahir Abbas (T-H-L-K-D) where there has been a lot of discussion involving a critical article by the Times Higher Education Supplement which the publishers have withdrawn from the website and not retracted. In my days of using oversight, I definitely helped resolve defamation claims that were brought to the attention of counsel, by various ways. None of the matters I was involved in led to a suit being filed against the WMF, but as the WMF is almost entirely immune to prosecution in the US anyway (because of Section 230) most attorneys won't bother with the suit as the odds of a dismissal are so high that an attorney that files such a suit and does not provide a meaningful argument for why Section 230 does not apply risks sanctions. It is my understanding that several people have tried to sue "Wikipedia", in various actions, but as Wikipedia is not an entity that can sue or be sued such action will be dismissed on those grounds. It should be noted that the WMF has not been so lucky outside the US; the German Wikipedia has had its domain name (wikipedia.de) temporarily seized on several occasions. Wikimedia is careful to avoid having property outside the United States that could be used as the basis for jurisdiction other than in the US, as Section 230 immunity only exists in the US. There have been defamation prosecutions based on posting content to Wikipedia, against individually-identified editors; I believe some of those have resulted in judgments adverse to the defendants, including injunctive relief. There's also at least one case that I'm aware of where Wikimedia was made aware of an individual who was editing Wikipedia in contravention of a permanent injunction, resulting in Wikimedia being formally served with an order to prevent that individual from continuing to edit Wikipedia. The WMF responded that the court lacked jurisdiction to compel the WMF to do so, but agreed to voluntarily comply anyway. And of course Wikimedia is fairly routinely served with third party discovery motions seeking the identity of individual editors, to which WMF generally responds quickly and quietly. (Good luck getting them to tell you how many such motions they get, or how cooperative they are with respect to them.)
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Cla68 |
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Another example you might could use to show that the Wikimedia UK's charity status application was fraudulent is to highlight the abuse inflicted last year on the Christopher Monckton article, as discussed in this thread. In this case an editor was trying to add negative information to the article sourced to a university professor's slide show. The editor in question, now known as Prioryman, at that time was editing under ChrisO, an abbreviation of his real name. ChrisO's sneaky conversion to Prioryman and the way he was assisted by one of the arbs is detailed, I believe, in one of the "Arbcom-L leaks" threads, although it didn't come up when I searched for it. The edits in question show as being done by "Vanished User 03", which is ChrisO. Make sure you explain that Chris was violating not one, but two Wikipedia policies, Reliable Sourcing and BLP, by using a self-published source (actually, one is a guideline but I doubt the UK government will understand or care about the difference). Point out that WP's admin corps did not spring into action to stop what ChrisO was doing. I think this example would be especially useful since you can put a real name to the editor who was doing it, who lives in the UK, and the person he was defaming is a peer in the British government. This post has been edited by Cla68:
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Eppur si muove |
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QUOTE(Cla68 @ Fri 2nd December 2011, 6:28am) Another example you might could use to show that the Wikimedia UK's charity status application was fraudulent is to highlight the abuse inflicted last year on the Christopher Monckton article, as discussed in this thread. In this case an editor was trying to add negative information to the article sourced to a university professor's slide show. The editor in question, now known as Prioryman, at that time was editing under ChrisO, an abbreviation of his real name. ChrisO's sneaky conversion to Prioryman and the way he was assisted by one of the arbs is detailed, I believe, in one of the "Arbcom-L leaks" threads, although it didn't come up when I searched for it. The edits in question show as being done by "Vanished User 03", which is ChrisO. Make sure you explain that Chris was violating not one, but two Wikipedia policies, Reliable Sourcing and BLP, by using a self-published source (actually, one is a guideline but I doubt the UK government will understand or care about the difference). Point out that WP's admin corps did not spring into action to stop what ChrisO was doing. I think this example would be especially useful since you can put a real name to the editor who was doing it, who lives in the UK, and the person he was defaming is a peer in the British government. Actually, if his wikibio is only slightly misleading, he is a peer in a minor opposition party. But wikipedians seems to regularly misunderstandard what "the government" means in the UK. See e.g. C.P. Snow (T-H-L-K-D) where he had only one government position (parliamentary secretary to the minister of technology which is not really important in the scale of things) and several civil service ones. The terminology seems to be borrowed from the Columbia Encyclopedia which opens "(Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of Leicester), 1905–80, English author and physicist. Snow had an active, varied career, including several important positions in the British government." The Wikipedia article reeks of close paraphrase opening "Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government". Not very good in a an article on one of the major 20th century British novelists.
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Peter Damian |
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I have as much free time as a Wikipedia admin!
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QUOTE(Cla68 @ Fri 2nd December 2011, 6:28am) Another example you might could use to show that the Wikimedia UK's charity status application was fraudulent is to highlight the abuse inflicted last year on the Christopher Monckton article, as discussed in this thread. In this case an editor was trying to add negative information to the article sourced to a university professor's slide show. The editor in question, now known as Prioryman, at that time was editing under ChrisO, an abbreviation of his real name. ChrisO's sneaky conversion to Prioryman and the way he was assisted by one of the arbs is detailed, I believe, in one of the "Arbcom-L leaks" threads, although it didn't come up when I searched for it. The edits in question show as being done by "Vanished User 03", which is ChrisO. Make sure you explain that Chris was violating not one, but two Wikipedia policies, Reliable Sourcing and BLP, by using a self-published source (actually, one is a guideline but I doubt the UK government will understand or care about the difference). Point out that WP's admin corps did not spring into action to stop what ChrisO was doing. I think this example would be especially useful since you can put a real name to the editor who was doing it, who lives in the UK, and the person he was defaming is a peer in the British government. I can't make any sense of the edit trail. It sounds good, but some questions: 1. In what sense was the information added 'negative'? Was it unsourced? Did it fail the balance test? 2. Which sources were not reliable? 3. Why actually didn't admins spring into action? 4. How was ChrisO aided in his return? Thanks
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SB_Johnny |
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It wasn't me who made honky-tonk angels
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sat 3rd December 2011, 4:40am) QUOTE(Cla68 @ Fri 2nd December 2011, 6:28am) Another example you might could use to show that the Wikimedia UK's charity status application was fraudulent is to highlight the abuse inflicted last year on the Christopher Monckton article, as discussed in this thread. In this case an editor was trying to add negative information to the article sourced to a university professor's slide show. The editor in question, now known as Prioryman, at that time was editing under ChrisO, an abbreviation of his real name. ChrisO's sneaky conversion to Prioryman and the way he was assisted by one of the arbs is detailed, I believe, in one of the "Arbcom-L leaks" threads, although it didn't come up when I searched for it. The edits in question show as being done by "Vanished User 03", which is ChrisO. Make sure you explain that Chris was violating not one, but two Wikipedia policies, Reliable Sourcing and BLP, by using a self-published source (actually, one is a guideline but I doubt the UK government will understand or care about the difference). Point out that WP's admin corps did not spring into action to stop what ChrisO was doing. I think this example would be especially useful since you can put a real name to the editor who was doing it, who lives in the UK, and the person he was defaming is a peer in the British government. I can't make any sense of the edit trail. It sounds good, but some questions: 1. In what sense was the information added 'negative'? Was it unsourced? Did it fail the balance test? 2. Which sources were not reliable? 3. Why actually didn't admins spring into action? 4. How was ChrisO aided in his return? Thanks See here for the leak Cla was looking for.
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Daniel Brandt |
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QUOTE(Detective @ Tue 6th December 2011, 3:42pm) QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 30th November 2011, 8:11pm) He says “no BLP dispute (to the best of my knowledge) has ever got beyond the stage where it can be resolved through communication with the WMF or through OTRS†Is that true?
Of course it's true. Just look at how easily Daniel Brandt got his BLP deleted just by writing to OTRS. lol. SlimVirgin, the person who started the BLP on me without my knowledge, before I even knew what Wikipedia was and couldn't have cared less about it, said it best: QUOTE We need to get rid of that article. We've subjected Brandt to hundreds of thousands of words of debate, 14 AfDs, I don't know how many DRVs — wall-to-wall bickering and childishness for 18 sorry months. We've allowed his article to be edited by any anonymous teenager who turns up with a grudge, and the decision to keep the wretched thing has been made 13 times by people who normally edit Star Trek. We've made complete fools of ourselves as a project.
No matter the merits of the article, the process he's been put through is totally unacceptable by any standard. We've shown we can't be trusted with a Brandt bio, and we should delete it for that reason alone, no matter how notable any of us thinks he is.
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lonza leggiera |
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 23rd November 2011, 7:37am) 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 .... No, it wasn't the Charity Commission in that case. It was Her Majesty's Custom's and Revenue. Registration as a charity by the Charities Commission and recognition as a charity for tax purposes by HM Customs and Revenue are completely separate processes—although the former is a requirement for the latter unless the annual income of the charity concerned is less than £5,000 or it is "excepted" or "exempt". Orlowski's register article contains a link to a mailing list on which Andrew Turvey, Wikimedia UK's secretary, reproduces the rejection letter from HM Customs and Revenue. Turvey's commentary and the replies to it on the mailing list indicate that the Wikimedia directors simply didn't do their homework before submitting their application. In his email, for instance, Turvey states that they should "probably" stop referring to themselves as an "exempt charity". What they meant by that is anybody's guess, since Wikimedia UK very clearly does not fall under any of the classes of "excepted" or "exempt" charities listed on the above-linked page on the Charities Commission website. Presumably, the reason why Wiki UK applied directly to HM Customs and Revenue without first registering with the Charities Commission is that their annual income at that time was less than £5,000. That may be what they meant in referring to it as an "exempt charity". Turvey also says "Whilst we can still get Gift Aid declarations (HMRC have previously confirmed this was ok) ... ". It would be interesting to see what this "confirmation" consisted of. I strongly suspect that Turvey has misunderstood it, since his statement is inconsistent with what is written on the Gift Aid basics page of HM Customs an Revenue's website: QUOTE(HM Customs and Revenue) You don't have to register to claim Gift Aid but your charity must be recognised by HMRC as a charity for tax purposes. Recognition by HMRC as a charity is a separate process from registering with the Charity Commission as a charity.
QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 23rd November 2011, 7:37am) .... 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.†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.†http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1102747/ (Third Sector) ..... 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.†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. I'm afraid you appear to have made insufficient allowance for the amount of spin in the Stone-King press release. In all Burchfield's self-promotional boasting of having got the Charities Commission to "update" UK charities law, he has failed to mention one crucial detail which might make the Charity Commission's decision seem a little less revolutionary. On October 16th, 2011, an extraordinary general meeting of Wikipedia UK voted to alter its memorandum and articles of association by replacing its original objects (which HM Customs and Revenue—and presumably also the Charities Commission—had rejected as inadequate to establish that its purposes were entirely charitable) with their current ones. The amendments were lodged with Companies House 4 days later. According to Wiki UK's page on the Charity Commission's website, Companies House registered the amended memorandum and articles on October 26th, and the Charities Commission registered Wiki UK as a charity on November 3rd. According to van Haeften's account the whole process of getting themselves registered took a total of 12 weeks. It would appear that the first 10 of those weeks were spent "negotiating" (or arguing) with the Charities Commission, and formulating a statement of objects which they could be confident of being accepted as establishing a charitable purpose. And, hey presto! Within two weeks of amending their objects they were registered as a charity. There is still one aspect of all this which I don't understand. On their website, Wiki UK are now claiming to be eligible for gift aid tax refunds from HM Revenue and Customs. But, as I pointed out above, registration as a charity with the Charities Commission is not sufficient by itself to achieve this status. A page on HM Customs and Revenue's website seems to indicate that once an organisation had been registered as a charity by the Charities Commission it is pretty much a formality for them to get recognised as a charity for tax purposes by HM Customs and Revenue. But, as I pointed out above, the website also seems to make it clear that this formality must still be completed before the charity can claim gift aid tax relief. I can find no indication anywhere that Wiki UK has actually completed this formality. If they have, HM Customs and Revenue should have issued them a reference number which UK donors need to quote in their tax returns for the tax on their gifts to be refunded to Wiki UK. But the only numbers Wiki UK quotes on its gift aid form are its company and charity registration numbers. On my reading of HM Customs and Revenue's website, there seems no reason to believe that the reference number it issues would be the same as either of those two numbers. This post has been edited by lonza leggiera:
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Peter Damian |
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I have as much free time as a Wikipedia admin!
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QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 17th December 2011, 4:26pm) Failure to act upon fraud or theft is a very different kind of thing than deciding whether a particular kind of activity should be given the status of a charity. My own view is that a project that makes use of "contributors" who are pursuing their own individual ends on a website that hosts articles is not a proper charitable activity. Even less so for merely supporting this type of website without directly hosting any content. A rigorous discussion of the issues raised by the charitable application of the UK chapter would certainly shed light on the hollow nature of "collaboration" on WMF/chapter projects.
So we agree there, right. QUOTE Despite my view I find Petey's self appointed intervention as some kind of party into the CC's decision to be appalling.
Do I need some kind of 'appointment' then? Who does this? QUOTE This type of action act turns pursuit of charitable status into an adversarial process.
If someone's pursuit of charitable status is not legitimate, why shouldn't it be adversarial? What are you talking about? QUOTE This can only serve to undermine the charitable sector and cheapen civil society.
On the contrary, it is those who set up fake charities who undermine it. And who attack those who seek scrutiny. QUOTE Much better to live with the CC's decision than to let another important social institution fall prey to another Wikipedian dispute spilling its bounds. The last thing that is needed is making the charitable sector another place for their endless war of all against all.
I don't follow this argument. QUOTE I am sure that at the end of the day the CC will find Petey to lack something akin to "standing" and to send him packing as an intermeddler.
Oh right, this is because I wasn't appointed, yes? QUOTE Meanwhile I marvel at he cluelessness of Petey in expecting some kind of helping hand from the very people he seeks to undermine. They owe him nothing at all including being nice.
Not with you. It is a principle of the UKCC, and it is a good one, that you first take your questions and challenge to the charity itself. I am simply following protocol here. You understand UK procedures, yes?
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Peter Damian |
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I have as much free time as a Wikipedia admin!
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Sun 18th December 2011, 3:22am) Where were we? Oh yeah, here. This does not look like PD is "trolling" to me, and yes, I would say that Dalton and Mitchell are stonewalling him. Badly. I'd go there and comment, but then I'm not a UK citizen. Think I should anyway? Why not? I am getting nowhere, so I am going to apply directly under the UK Freedom of Information Act. What an irony. QUOTE You don't need me to tell you about Wikipedia and BLPs. You have been around long enough to know as much as I do about them. That is my point. You don't actually want information. --Tango 23:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't want you to tell me about BLPs. I want you or someone to tell me what WMUK told the UK Charity Commission about BLPs. UKCC recognised WMUK as a charity because of assurances given that there were sufficient control over BLPs. I want to know what those assurances were. In any case, I will now be asking UK Charity Commission for those documents under the Freedom of Information Act. What a supreme irony. An organisation whose charitable purpose is that information should be free, is refusing to comply with a legal requirement for transparency and openness. Peter Damian 08:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
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GlassBeadGame |
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sun 18th December 2011, 8:12am) QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sun 18th December 2011, 12:50pm) A FOI should have been have been the starting point. In fact it should have been a prerequisite to even publicly engaging on the matter.
No. That is not the correct process. I have taken advice on this. Worth every penny no doubt. I suppose you felt the need to "exhaust crowd sourcing" first. QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sun 18th December 2011, 8:12am) You always go to the charity first, to try and resolve the matter amicably and reasonably, which is what I was trying to do. If that fails, you try a freedom of information request. Not least for practical reasons. The UKCC wants to avoid the bureaucracy and hassle of filing the request.
You are from the MidWest, according to your signature. You clearly understand nothing of the due process and practices that we observe here in the UK, nor UK charity law. So stop calling me an interfering busybody, which is rich coming from you.
Resolve this this on friendly terms? Really? Do you expect them to turn and say "By God, Petey, we are not a proper chartity after all. We will now cease to exist as it is only right." Or are you just not convinced of your own postion? It might occur to a less rigid person that "resolve amicably" means "stop wasting everybody's time." I have sufficient boundaries to limit myself to discussion and opinion without interjecting myself as principal. You lack these boundaries and now seem to feel you can decide who is entitled to even have opinions on the matter.
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