<img alt="" height="1" width="1" />Craigslist founder Craig Newmark joins advisory group for nonprofit that runs [b]...[/b]
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By AP SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The nonprofit group that runs online encyclopedia Wikipedia said Friday that it named Craig Newmark, the founder of Web ...



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I once thought well of Newmark. He certainly is modest and personally conservative in a way that contrasts favorably against Mr. Wales. But CL has shown to have many of the same ills as WP. In fact with at least one homicide and a child prostitution ring CL likely serves as what can eventually be expected to surface on Wikipedia. He does seem like he would be more thoughtful in addressing these problems than WMF as a whole, but I haven't seen any evidence of this so far on CL.

At least Craig Newmark adopts the public position that he desires for his site to operate within the scope of ethical considerations. That's a significant departure from that of Jimbo Wales, who notably declared attention to ethics to be "beyond the scope" of Wikimedia projects.

One thing of which I'm convinced... the WMF Advisory Board is a mostly do-nothing body for appearance's sake.

I like the way Craig has not caved to authorities. If anyone remembers the free Recycler mag, he has simply taken it to a digital format.

It is the Erotic Services that gained much attention because it was an open prostitution forum. This was only brought to a higher attention when some nut started clipping escorts that he found on craigslist.

However, you have to compare apples to apples. Craig did make some efforts to stop the prostitution by requiring sex workers to register with a credit card and phone number. He is also not running a 501c3 corp.

While I feel that hooking should be legal for many reasons, I am more focused on his business practices where he 1) didn't pretend his site was a non-profit that catered to the children of Africa, and 2) he didn't shut down at the first hint of impropriety.

This guy didn't do anything wrong. Jack the Ripper didn't need the Internets to find his victims. In my mind there is a huge difference between those who provide a clear path to someone's door (aka using non-public databases to provide addresses) as opposed to someone who advertises a garage sale that ends in massacre. We are so afraid to point the finger at the actual offenders that even the Ft. Hood tragedy has taken an ugly turn as to spend countless hours figuring out where the assailant bought the firearms. He was in the military. He was an American citizen with no felonies. Either way, who cares? Why so much speculation is put on the tool which was used to kill is beyond me. Fuck the tools used - how about prosecuting the offenders and realizing that in order to have a free society, you're going to be able to buy a gun, or piano wire. It's how you use it.

I thought CL was a non-profit, based in part on its .org domain name. I always wondered how running ads, even for (mostly) free could be a non-profit purpose. But clearly the website's factsheet indicates it is not a non-profit. This is further confusing because there is a Craigslist Foundation which is a general internet educational free kulture kind of thing and is a 501 ( c ) (3).

.org is just a preference - not an indication.



however, it is disconcerting that Wales, as a 501c3, has no idea if he pays sales tax, nor knows how his 'team' acquires new equipment. I was not impressed by his 'candor' when it came to such a practice. Although I was impressed that he was still talking to me.