[WikiEN-l] "Taxman denies Wikipedia UK charity status"

Sat May 2 14:51:35 UTC 2009

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On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:24 AM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Gwern Branwen wrote:
>> Thought I might link the latest Orlowski 'article'.
>>
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/27/wikipedia_charity_not/
>>
>> "Wiki-fiddling isn't a charitable activity, according to the UK tax
>> man. Revenue and Customs is denying tax privileges that go with
>> charity status to Wikimedia UK, or Wiki UK Limited, as it's officially
>> registered."
>>
>> Any article that start with an insult, you know it's going to be good!
>>
>
> Insult to whom?  Tax collectors are always fair game, and I would
> suggest that "wiki-fiddling" is an ironic twist of the tax man's views.

Er.

That might be plausible if Orlowski hadn't been writing mendaciously
about Wikipedia, and using 'wiki-fiddling' as an insult for, like,
half a decade now.

>> Worth noting also is the quiet little redefinition - something isn't
>> charitable activity unless it can get tax breaks.
>>
>
> Tax breaks derive from charitable activity.  That's exactly how I read
> him.  Where's the redefinition?

What he's getting at is he's trying for the proof that
charitableness ⊃ tax-breaks
~tax-breaks
∴ ~charitableness.

Which is of course a formally invalid proof, but nevertheless the hope
is that the reader will conclude that because the tax-man has adjudged
Wikipedia not worthy of tax-breaks, that Wikipedia is not a charitable
enterprise. That this is wrong is obvious once you know that not all
charitable things get breaks - for example, I understand that one way
in the US to fail 401(c) status is to get too much funding from one
place (the 'public support' test, or whatever it is).

Which raises the question, what then is Wikipedia?  It's 'digital
sharecropping' for the benefit of Jimbo and rich hedge funds etc. etc.
This Orlowski will go into later... (On a tangent, this general
viewpoint seems to be common to critics such as Lanier, Weinstein, &
Brandt.)

>> 'Wikimedia requested that because it is "disseminating knowledge", the
>> operating company should receive charitable tax perks, stating its
>> objective is to "aid and encourage people to collect, develop and
>> effectively disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and
>> historic content in the public domain or under a license that allows
>> everyone to freely use, distribute and modify content... [blah blah]"'
>>
>> Scare quotes, belittling phrases ('charitable tax perks'? seriously);
>> the second quote is neutral, but one could be forgiven for not even
>> noticing that due to the insert of 'blah blah'. A more charitable
>> person would understand that all those terms are very specific and
>> there for a reason. Of course, a more charitable person would be
>> writhing in utter shame that they are Orlowski.
>>
>
> "Blah blah" = "More legalese follows".

Right. That's how we should interpret it? A neutral comment to the
effect that the rest is boring and irrelevant? Because there are no
more standard, less childish expressions to that effect? (Such as
'...' or 'etc.')

I remember when I was a teenager, one of the most infuriating and
insulting things I could say to my parents was 'blah blah'. I don't
think this is a coincidence. 'blah blah' never means, in a hostile
context like this, anything positive or neutral.

> Maybe the drafters had specific reasons in mind when they employed these
> words, but they obviously failed to take into account what it would take
> to satisfy Inland Revenue when they used them.  "Charitable tax perks"
> is certainly a term of colloquial art that could be used to generally
> describe the benefits received by any registered charity.

'charitable tax perks' is a term of colloquial art? We must read in
very different worlds. In my world, when one speaks of 'perks', it's
generally in close conjunction with phrases like 'fat cats' and
'string them up by the necks' and 'outrageous'.

Incidentally, "charitable tax perks" turns up exactly 4 hits - 2 based
on Orlowski, and 2 from a personal site. I guess all the uses of this
term of art are offline?

>> '"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,"
>> Customs responded in declining the request.
>>
>> Harsh, or what?'
>>
>> Perhaps. But then, as an American unacquainted with British charity
>> laws, this sounds to me like 'we've never supported encyclopedias, and
>> we have no mandate to start now'; which while arguably unfair and
>> silly isn't particularly harsh. 'Just doing my job, ma'am.'
>>
>
> Some Americans can be just as unacquainted with British ironic writing
> as with British charity laws.

'Ironic'. Yes, I'm sure that's what it is. I realize now that I've
wronged our critics like Lanier/Weinstein/Brandt/Orlowski - 'twas all
in good fun!

> The result is certainly harsh, but that's
> what you get when you apply rules strictly, and legal precedent tends to
> favour a more traditional interpretation of "educational"
>> "The problem could be solved if, as everyone expects, Wikipedia
>> becomes a commercial operation that doesn't need charitable status.
>> Bono-backed VC company Elevation Partners has chucked $1.35m at
>> Wikipedia, and the Mozilla Foundation provides a workable legal
>> precedent: a non-profit with a commercial wing. License changes are
>> currently being mooted."
>>
>> This is actually my favorite paragraph in the entire piece. There's so
>> much to like about it! There's a subtle touch in saying 'Bono-backed'
>> - - it's utterly irrelevant, of course, but it immediately brings
>> associations of Hollywood and sneering liberals and ineffective social
>> policies and aid expenditures and staleness. There's a foisting of
>> views; 'everyone expects' Wikipedia to become a commercial operation?
>> Indeed.
>>
>
> Innovation in education does smack of "sneering liberalism", and such
> talk is bound to add one more painful knot in conservative jockstraps.
>> "But for now, the fiddlers could find ways of making the operation
>> look more edukashnul and that. We suggest Wikia UK establish a British
>> School of Fiddling, in which the public can be tutored in the
>> labyrinthine layers of bureaucracy required to have their edits to
>> "the Encyclopedia anybody can edit" rejected."
>>
>> And a final salvo. I take off some points here for invoking fiddling
>> twice; it's not stylish, as it was already used in the lead. Three
>> times in an article is just tedious. 'edukashnul' gets some points for
>> having no apparent target - at least, I can't figure out who the
>> spleen is directed at. The government? The chapter? The Foundation?
>> Otherwise, good rhetoric in the figure of a School of Fiddling.
>>
> Could it be that traditional "edukashun" is the problem.  That word
> alone strengthens my view that government is the real object of the
> criticism.  You're just shooting the messenger.
>
> Ec

I'd note that the *only* use of the word 'educational' (from which
Orlowski's 'edukashnul' is derived) is in the quote from the Chapter.

Ray: in general, I'm disappointed with your commentary. You're engaged
in all sorts of bizarre contortions to try to see Orlowki's usual
anti-Wikipedia trolling (see [[Andrew Orlowski#Criticism of
Wikipedia]]) as instead an anti-government screed - as if Orlowski
would ever support Wikipedia or miss an opportunity like this! - and I
really don't know why.

- --
gwern
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