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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

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Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#161

Post by giraffe_lady »

emacsen wrote: post #124
hayst4ck wrote: post #84

Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power. There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provide…

Aren't you making their point though? The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors. I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that th…

Could you point me to an example of what you have in mind on wikipedia? I'm admittedly not as practiced at discerning subtle antisemitism as I am some other forms of discrimination. But also usually when it's being alluded to in the abstract like this people mean something closer to "criticism of israel's actions."

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#162

Post by 0x457 »

hollerith wrote: post #114
vFunct wrote: post #110

I have a question on non-profits in general. What exactly is the advantage of being incorporated as a non-profit, when all you have to do to not be taxed as a for-profit corporation is spend all your money each year and not show any profit? It seems you'd have more privacy as a for-profit corporation, since you don't have to disclose donors.

If I donate to a 501(c)(3) organization, the donation gets very favorable treatment by the tax code, reducing my taxes (provided I have income that can be cancelled out by the donation).

hmm, please correct me if I'm wrong, but donations just decrease your tax liability by the amount you've donated. It's the same as if you donated your pre-tax dollars to 501(c)(3) org.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#163

Post by SanjayMehta »

duskwuff wrote: post #155
SanjayMehta wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia’s article on Sanger calls him cofounder and credits him with its name: “ Lawrence Mark Sanger (/ˈsæŋər/ ⓘ;[1] born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, including the "Neutral point of view" and "Ignore all rules" policies.” https:/…

"Co-founder" is debatable, but he certainly wasn't "the founder" of the site. Regardless - whether you choose to describe Sanger's early involvement with Wikipedia as a "founder" or not, 2002 was a long time ago, especially online. The site which he was involved with was very different from the one which exists today.

I agree. Wikipedia used to be a useful starting point for almost any research.

Today, not so much. I can’t remember where I read it, but there was an analysis of just one topic where it was shown that circular referencing was used to establish a narrative.

Coming back to the point at hand: the US attorney targeting Wikipedia is merely restating allegations which have been made by many others on Wikipedia’s biases for and against certain topics and individuals.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#164

Post by mindslight »

mikeyouse wrote: post #89
almosthere wrote: post #22

It's 2 paragraphs... What's the substance of the allegation?

It’s a similar nonsense letter to the same ones he sent to several prominent medical journals. Speech chilling, 1st amendment violating unsubstantiated threats on DOJ letterhead. Of all the unfit people in this administration, he’s likely the most unfit. His entire career has been deeply unethical and partisan and often borderline illegal.

But what about The Twitter Files?! (cue X-Files intro music)

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#165

Post by moshegramovsky »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #161
emacsen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you making their point though? The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors. I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that th…

Could you point me to an example of what you have in mind on wikipedia? I'm admittedly not as practiced at discerning subtle antisemitism as I am some other forms of discrimination. But also usually when it's being alluded to in the abstract like this people mean something closer to "criticism of israel's actions."

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#166

Post by moshegramovsky »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #157
moshegramovsky wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. It's exhausting fighting against antisemitic bias, and it feels like it's everywhere these days. My problem with Ed Martin is that what he is doing is clearly wrong. Hannah Arendt wrote a book about people like him.

Could one of you point me to antisemitic bias on wikipedia just so I have a concrete example at hand?

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...

Read it for yourself.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#167

Post by giraffe_lady »

moshegramovsky wrote: post #165
giraffe_lady wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to an example of what you have in mind on wikipedia? I'm admittedly not as practiced at discerning subtle antisemitism as I am some other forms of discrimination. But also usually when it's being alluded to in the abstract like this people mean something closer to "criticism of israel's actions."

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...

OK yeah I've read that. Thanks.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#169

Post by moshegramovsky »

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #140
emacsen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you making their point though? The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors. I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that th…

This is the same ADL that said that Nazi salutes are fine, but that protesting against genocide isn't? Why do we care what the ADL says about anything? They're fascist sympathisers.

It was not remotely okay that they did this, and I agree that refusing to speak out severely hurt their credibility. The next time I get a fundraising email, I'm going to tell them they can kiss something.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#170

Post by imglorp »

tintor wrote: post #144

Wikipedia needs decentralized hosting infra, away from any single country. It is way too important.

Start backing it up now. Partisan influence could be as minor as forcing some edits or as major as pulling their DNS. Every authoritarian in the world follows this same playbook. Over started looking into kiwix.

IA is at risk too.

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