On 19 September 2011 15:54, Roger Bamkin <[email protected]> wrote: > Lodewijk wrote " I can imagine that whether Wikipedia is publicly beneficial > is not really into question" ... actually ... it is. > > This is not about reality but law. In this case we need to prove that > Wikipedia is of public benefit. As Fae notes, WMUK raises funds which it > uses in part to fund Wikipedia. If we can prove that Wikipedia is useful > then WMUK can prove its value (in UK charity law). (Most people would think > that increasing knowledge is of public benefit, but not according to UK > charity law.)
I think it is fair to say that increasing knowledge isn't necessarily in the public benefit. We don't increase knowledge, though, we make existing knowledge available to the public. I think that *is* innherently beneficial to the public. That's why "In Re Shaw" isn't applicable to our application in the slightest. That case is about research into a new alphabet and I think most people would agree that the proposed research isn't likely to benefit the public (since it's a ridiculous proposal that will never actually be implemented in a million years). _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list [email protected] http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
