Greg Kohs sent me a private reply in which he indicated that his
public replies were not getting through. If a listadmin blocked him
from posting to the list, can someone tell him so affirmatively?
Thanks.
-george
On 12/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Employees of public relations firms are not a
protected class under US
anti-discrimination law.
Further, such employees, acting as individuals and not agents of their
firms, are not restricted from editing Wikipedia.
What's been banned is a certain class of commercial speech; no publisher,
even an "open content" one, is mandated to accept all speech from anyone,
and in particular the protections of commercial speech producers are far
more easily legally restricted.
This is a pretty weak legal claim, Greg. Please stop wasting people's time.
-george
On 12/5/06, Gregory Kohs < thekohser(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Jim Schuler wisely stated:
>Might depend on tax law. If I remember correctly (it's been 15 years
since
>I dealt with this), 501(c) and 501(c)(3)
tax-exempt and private
foundations
can run
afoul of the IRS if there is a clear indication of active
discrimination.
But then also stated:
In this case, I don't see any evidence of an
active policy
of discrimination...
There actually *is* a fairly active policy of discrimination that's been
carried out for the
past few months.
Employees of public relations firms are not allowed to edit Wikipedia.
http://blog.bitepr.com/2006/08/jimmy_wales_on_.html
The IRS and the appropriate Attorneys General will certainly get involved
when an
organization operating with tax-deductible funding begins to administer
itself in ways
that run contrary to its stated public mission. The State of Florida's
Division of Consumer
Services was sufficiently concerned about Wikipedia's discrimination
against
commercial interests (in light of the GFDL explicitly stating the license
must not
limit commercial use of the work), that it contacted Brad Patrick in late
November.
The earlier comment by Earle Martin that "Wikipedia is a
privately-operated
members'
club" is a sad statement of empirical evidence that the Wikipedia
leadership
has
clearly lost sight of its being a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity that goes
well
beyond a
private club.
(Still on a Wiki-break, but this list is just too fascinating.)
--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354
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-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com