Letter to UK Charity Commission, Is this a big enough stick? I hope so. Options

[Peter Damian]

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:

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)

“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.

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: Tue 22nd November 2011, 8:38pm

[dogbiscuit]

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.

[Cla68]

If I remember right, there was an article on a British lower-division professional rugby or football team which had been heavily vandalized and the vandalism had stood for something like a year. The text had said something like, among other things, "The Farthingham Trotters are the largets openly homosexual team in British professional football" or something like that.