[Wikipedia-l] Re: Legal challenge from Enforcer

[Michael Snow]

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