Tim Starling wrote:

"Enforcer" appears to be Bird, not 142. And as far as I can see he's not making a legal challenge or encouraging anyone to do the same, he's encouraging people to complain to the relevant regulatory body. That's his right and I wish him luck. Wikimedia is a serious organisation and can't be intimidated every time some disgruntled user calls the cops. If Wikimedia really was breaking the law (and I accept Jimbo's assurance that it is not), then that is a problem that I hope we would all be interested in seeing addressed.

Like Tim, I find Jimbo's assurances completely satisfactory.

Regulation of charitable solicitations is primarily designed to prevent deceptive practices. The reason states require nonprofits to register and report is to discourage unscrupulous and fraudulent organizations from preying on people's charitable impulses. They don't care about where you register, or what exactly constitutes "solicitation", except as a means to that end. The laws would be more "vigorously enforced" if some Attorney General had credible information indicating that Wikimedia was seriously misusing funds.

Jimbo's detailed response covers most of the ways donations could be misused, and shows that Wikimedia is not doing anything remotely fraudulent with the money. The other major concern of regulators is the proportion of charitable donations that is actually used for charitable functions. The issue here is primarily professional solicitors, who may take a huge chunk of the money they raise for a charity. As I understand it, Wikimedia uses no such services, and the only portion of donations not used directly for the foundation's objectives are the fees deducted by PayPal for contributions made using that service. This is a small percentage, and really more in the nature of administrative expenses. If you compared Wikimedia to almost any other nonprofit, I believe it would come out way ahead in the percentage of donations that actually served their intended purpose.

By the way, would it be appropriate to check if Enforcer/Bird is also the same as the users who were trying to add the Bomis disclaimer to the Fallujah article? Those users were TruthSayer, JillP, and SaltyDog.

--Michael Snow