What tags for charity registration numbers?

Communities United Kingdom
1

On two other threads, there seems to be a consensus that adding charity registration numbers to mosques (and other places) is a good idea.

(See Charity names and numbers and NI charity numbers )

If we take that as decided, the question is what tag to use. This post seeks input on that question.

Table of current instances:

tag count
ref:GB-EAW:charity 28
ref:gb-eaw:charity 4
ref:charity 1
ref:GB-EAW:charity_no 1
ref:GB:charity_commission 1
reg_charity_no 1
ref:GB:charity_no 1

Most of those are mine, so it reflects my evolving practice, now settled on the top-ranked tag.

Infix?

I am persuaded that the infix should code the jurisdiction of registration, rather than have a general “ref:GB:charity”, which wouldn’t tell you which registrar has registered it.

In the UK proper that means using GB-EAW (England & Wales), GB-SCT, and GB-NIR.

Happy to hear pushback on that, but to me it accurately reflects the fact that each jurisdiction has a separate charity register.

Suffix?

:charity seems to offer an easy enough inference that the charity register is being referred to.

:charity_no introduces redundancy.

:charity_commission is ambiguous, because the strict, full name of each registrar specifies its jurisdiction (“Charity Commission for England and Wales”)

Alternative - analogy with :nhle

An alternative I canvassed the Irish list about is to abbreviate the name of the register, by analogy with existing heritage tagging. That would give

ref:GB:ccew (Charity Commission for England and Wales)

ref:GB:oscr (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator)

ref:GB:ccni (Charity Commission for NI)

I think this is the ideal, in theory, because it’s fewest keystrokes and consistent with ref:GB:nhle=* National Heritage List for England

I’ve moved away from it because I think it’s less intuitive: apart from OSCR, those abbreviations aren’t in common use.

I feel it’s probably less portable worldwide, too; whereas ref:IRL:charity , ref:CAN:charity, etc, are likely to behave similarly, at least for common law jurisdictions.

Capitalisation?

For speed of typing I prefer all lower case, but it’s less easy on the eye.

Any and all comments welcome before I tag more mosques with my own system.

(Wikidata)

PS There was strong support from some quarters for using wikidata instead of the charity ref. I’m a bit sceptical, mainly because there is an almost 1:1 relationship between number of mosques and number of mosque charities, so I don’t see it would save much effort if a mosque charity changes its name, or legal form. It also seems to me that including the real charity number would make it easier for consumers to poll the Charity Commission’s API for, eg, latest accounts. But I don’t know a lot about these things, and happy to be persuaded.

1 Like
2

I would say this is a much better way to tag this. ref:GB:* should be rather explicit on what the ref is and who/what it relates too. if you take the charity number in scotland and try to give it to CCEW it will most likely be useless to them. so grouping all the charity numbers under one tag I would say is a mistake. This naming convention also fits very nicely with other british refs e.g.

ref:GB:uprn

ref:GB:wpd_site

ref:GB:wpd_network_id

ref:GB:usrn

ref:GB:the_circuit

ref:GB:fuel_finder
5 Likes
3

Thanks that’s all very helpful

On the quoted part, I just want to check I been clear enough.

My current system has one tag for each jurisdiction:

ref:GB-EAW:charity
ref:GB-SCT:charity
ref:GB-NIR:charity

Does your point still stand?

4

Sorry I think i misunderstood it the first time i read it. There is already some tags out there using the two part country code such as ref:US-TX:thc I personally still prefer ref:GB:ccew over ref:GB-EAW:charity as I feel it is far more verbose about what origination the ref is actually intended for. but this is mostly just personal preference at this point, both work.

1 Like
5

I don’t think I’ve got a good solution to offer here, but I have a couple of thoughts to add:

  • I think keys like this should reflect the list/database or the reference numbers themselves rather than the name of organisation running it. (Organisations may run more than one list, and it’s better to be consistent.)
  • I don’t think the abbreviations being suggested here are well enough known to be good key names anyway. (e.g. UPRN is what they’re universally known as. NHLE is a bit more boarderline, but I think is used as an abbreviation for the list.)
6

Thank you. The point on consistency is well taken.

The official names of the registers are:

EAW “register of charities”
SCT “Scottish Charity Register”
NIR “register of charities”

NB:

  • The EAW and NIR registers are different entities, despite having the same name.

  • The names are case-sensitive (I mean the establishing legislation capitalises the name of Scottish one, but not the other two)

Abbreviating them would give roc; SCR; roc; but those would be even less well known than the ccew and so on. In fact, to my knowledge those abbreviations are simply never used.

Researching further I see CCNI does after all refer to itself as such, routinely, in public-facing documents, as OSCR does. So just CCEW is the odd one out.*

“CCEW” is used officially occasionally (eg) and by lawyers, but afaik never in public-facing docs.

I don’t know that I’ve moved us forward!

Maybe the options now look like this:

  1. use the registrar abbreviations preferred by kitsee as the suffix (:ccew), at the expense of inconsistency with :nhle (bc it refers to the registrar, not the register).
    eg, ref:GB:ccew
  2. use the suffix :register_of_charities (EAW and IRL) or:Scottish_Charity_Register written out in full, at the expense of keystrokes.
    eg, ref:GB-EAW:register_of_charities

Thoughts on those?

*PS for maximum name recognition, the best options may be :Charity_Commission, :OSCR, :CCNI, since that’s how those organisations present themselves to the public.

PPS I know CCEW keeps other registers, such as the Register of Merged Charities; but these are only needed in the rarest of cases that imo the map would not want to concern itself with. So the shortcut of referring to the registrar rather than the register itself may not matter hugely: there is one overwhelming well-referenced register in each jurisdiction, which is what everyone means when they say “charity registration number”.

7

Tagging aside, why the focus on mosques in particular? That seems very specific.

8

Because this is my specific interest! :slight_smile:

And bc they’re generally poorly mapped: often fairly anonymous buildings, very informal institutions with minimal electronic footprint, and belong to no central organisation (unlike the Church of England, say) which might provide a comprehensive list.

2 Likes
9

If there’s no overlap between the three registers, maybe something more memorable and human readable like ref:GB:charity_number. “No” for number can sometimes be confusing.

10

Thanks

Unfortunately there is an overlap, because charity law is different in each jurisdiction. An English charity operating in Scotland usually registers as a Scottish charity also, to assure everyone north of the border that their activities are charitable under Scots law

11

Coming from an Irish point of view, nobody knows what ref:IE:niah means. Despite adding it hundreds of times to OSM, even a few today, I would have had difficulty getting it exactly right. Officially, it is the “National Inventory of Architectural Heritage”, but Taginfo calls it “National Index of Architectural Heritage”. :) Importantly, OSM knows what it is and can link to it. Similarly, wikidata and wikipedia can pick up on some aspects.

I do get the impression that Islam is much less hierarchical than for example Roman Catholicism. However, even within Roman Catholicism, there will be separate charities at the parish, diocese, national and international levels. Even within one parish, there might be separate charities for the church building / activities, funding the priests, the school board(s), the school(s) parents’ association. Then there might be a charities dedicated to a parish / community hall, the relief of poverty, outreach to younger / older people, etc. Then there are religious orders and other organisations, who operate on a separate hierarchy, that don’t answer directly to the parish, diocese, etc.

Each will have it’s charity number from the Charities Regulator: Home | Charities Regulator As quite a few charities operate on a cross-border basis, especially sporting and religious ones, they will also have a number from the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland. A small number of charities will be quite international and may have complicated structures and registrations, e.g. RNLI, Samaritans, De Paul.

I don’t know the details for Islamic charities, but I get the impression that the local mosque and imam(s) are central, but that there will be others that are function-specific or even generalised. However, I suspect that you might find that one object on OSM might have more than one charity number.

If there is more than one charity number, which one does one add?

12

This is all accurate in my experience of both religions.

I’m particularly interested in the charity ref to tag the operator - that is, the charity responsible for what goes on in the mosque. In theory there could be one charity owning the building and another operating it, but that level of sophistication is many years away in the mosque sector.

So I tag as follows (eg)

operator Adur Bangladeshi Muslim Society
operator:type charity
ref:GB:charity_no 1168232

It does bear thinking about how charity numbers might multiply in other contexts. Would I be better tagging operator:ref:GB:charity_no [or whatever we land on eventually] ?