I do understand that it can be difficult, when you feel very well versed on a subject, to accept alternative ideas from someone that you see as less educated or experienced. This is something that I struggle with constantly on a number of political subjects. But the first step is realizing that there are very few “plain facts” when it comes to many of these kinds of topics. It is only when you are willing and able to consider the fundamentals of your beliefs that you are free from prejudices and other logical weaknesses.

I did enjoy editing on Wikipedia, partially because I felt it helped to build something more lasting and positive than discussions like this one. To be honest, other work took precedence, though this may inspire me to make more time for it again! :^)

Somey was hardly wearing kid gloves in his comments, but he went after my *ideas* not me, and he did so by providing information to dispute them and by backing up his ideas with useful information.

If you want to talk about this case, let's talk about this case. If you want to talk about the problem you have with me, talk about you and me. I don't think anyone else here needs you to try to speak for them.

Now, as for your request that instead of looking at how Wikipedia's rules and their application affected this case, but instead make some summary judgement of Wikipedia's 'goodness' or 'badness' “(b)ased on this important statistic alone,” well it speaks for itself, doesn't it? Apart from the Manichaen good/bad guy issue, judging a charity based solely on a comparison of their received funding for a particular year to their program service outlays is not, and shouldn't be, a standard measure. Charities in general do not have stable sources and some keep large amounts of funds in reserve so they can continue to provide services in dry times. Charities like EFF may also be event-driven, and need to keep funds in reserve to have ready to address issues. If you look at a site like Charity Navigator, you'll see one way to more realistically evaluate a charity, though theirs is not the only method. Here's an example: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=s…

By looking at the *efficiency* of funds used, you get a more objective measure of how well the money they use is being spent. How high are administrative (for example executive salaries) expenses compared to program expenses, for example? You'll see that EFF actually rates very highly on this scale, though if you look up the Wikimedia Foundation you will see that, as you noted, their admin expenses do seem rather high (they only get three out of four stars).

I did not dismiss your opinion when I noted you are trying to make money off of your site, what I pointed out was that if you are going to present running a Wiki site as a credential as you did, you should also disclose that the site is competitive with Wikipedia and that it provides an underlying profit motive for your opinions.

Why did you stop editing Wikipedia in 2007?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributi…