On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Thomas Dalton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> And, in fact, wikimediafoundation.org says "nonprofit charitable >>> organization". I don't know why people generally say "non-profit" >>> instead of "charity", then - charity would be more precise and would >>> probably be better perceived. >> >> I'm afraid I disagree with you here. >> Non-profit vs for-profit is a distinction in taxation and precise. >> Charity vs not being charity may 1) no legal distinction in some cases >> and 2) Wikimedia Foundation could be no charity in some definition of >> non-US jurisdiction (and at worse it may be taken as deceitful). >> >> I am for adding "charitable" etc. but against replacing "charity" etc. >> with "non-profit". > > I would say "being charitable" and "being a charity" mean the same > thing (in reference to an organisation). Under the UK definitions (I > expect other jurisdictions are similar), a charity is a non-profit > whose objects and activities fit the definition of charitable objects > and activities (that definition may vary from place to place). Since > the WMF is described as a charitable organisation on the official > webpage, I assume it is correct to call it such, so "charity" is a > more precise term than "non-profit". I don't think there is a > jurisdictional problem - as long as it is a charity in its own > jurisdiction, it should be fine to call it a charity on its own > webpages. > > The issue of varying cultural perceptions of the term "charity" (or > literal translations) is a more serious one - we should give > translators sufficient leeway to deal with such localisation issues.
That is why I prefer to keep calling it "non-profit". During translation I met some translators who strongly hesitate to use the equivalent "charity" in their languages since WMF type organization couldn't be in the scope of those "equivalent". As far as I know "non-profit" has caused no such problem. -- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
