On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
And, in fact,
wikimediafoundation.org says
"nonprofit charitable
organization". I don't know why people generally say "non-profit"
instead of "charity", then - charity would be more precise and would
probably be better perceived.
I'm afraid I disagree with you here.
Non-profit vs for-profit is a distinction in taxation and precise.
Charity vs not being charity may 1) no legal distinction in some cases
and 2) Wikimedia Foundation could be no charity in some definition of
non-US jurisdiction (and at worse it may be taken as deceitful).
I am for adding "charitable" etc. but against replacing "charity"
etc.
with "non-profit".
I would say "being charitable" and "being a charity" mean the same
thing (in reference to an organisation). Under the UK definitions (I
expect other jurisdictions are similar), a charity is a non-profit
whose objects and activities fit the definition of charitable objects
and activities (that definition may vary from place to place). Since
the WMF is described as a charitable organisation on the official
webpage, I assume it is correct to call it such, so "charity" is a
more precise term than "non-profit". I don't think there is a
jurisdictional problem - as long as it is a charity in its own
jurisdiction, it should be fine to call it a charity on its own
webpages.
The issue of varying cultural perceptions of the term "charity" (or
literal translations) is a more serious one - we should give
translators sufficient leeway to deal with such localisation issues.
That is why I prefer to keep calling it "non-profit". During
translation I met some translators who strongly hesitate to use the
equivalent "charity" in their languages since WMF type organization
couldn't be in the scope of those "equivalent". As far as I know
"non-profit" has caused no such problem.
--
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English):
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD