On Dec 13, 2007 9:43 PM, <wikien-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:43:54 +0000
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.
> On 14/12/2007, joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu <joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu> wrote:
> > According to the Register, the Foundation's former COO was convicted
> felon.
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/
> >
> > This is just great. And now all the Register's previous material looks
> correct
> > because they broke this nonsense. This is likely going to be all over
> the
> > newspapers tomorrow. I'm so shocked and appalled that I don't even know
> > what to
> > say about this. Why were basic background checks not done and why
> > didn't we know
> > about this sooner. Are we trying to implode?
>
> Why would you do a background check for a pretty standard office job?
> I don't know about the US, but in the UK such background checks are
> usually only done for jobs where the person will be working with
> children, or similar.<http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
>
It depends on the company. For the companies I have worked for, a background
check including criminal record check is pretty much standard. Some even
require drug tests, and I work in the financial services industry where
there pretty much is no exposure to child care.
--Avi
--
en:User:Avraham
----
pub 1024D/785EA229 3/6/2007 Avi (Wikipedia-related) <aviwiki(a)gmail.com>
Primary key fingerprint: D233 20E7 0697 C3BC 4445 7D45 CBA0 3F46 785E
A229
On 17 Dec 2007 at 14:33:44 +0000, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> It seems to me to be inevitable that any balanced piece over a page or
> two in length is going to link to WR (or a similar site), in much the
> same way as it's guaranteed to have a paragraph or two on Citizendium
> or Knol or whatever other competitor just got a press release issued.
Is that a "law" of Godwin's variety... as a discussion of Wikipedia
gets longer, the probability of a link to WR being introduced
approaches one?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Lately there has been a whole series of controversies, scandals, and
the like which have led to negative publicity for Wikipedia. In the
middle of all that, Google announced a (vaporware so far) project to
produce a community-authored information resource of some sort, which
got some press as an alleged "Wikipedia-killer". From the media
reaction to all this, it is very clear that Wikipedia's honeymoon is
long over. A few years ago, the media, blogosphere, general public,
and the ranks of Wikipedians themselves were full of people in their
initial bloom of enthusiasm over how fantastically Wikipedia had
succeeded in such a short time through a method of collective
authorship that it seemed in theory couldn't possibly work. Then,
the critics were in the minority and were easy to dismiss as people
who "just don't get new media", or who had conflicts of interest or
personal grudges of some sort that impaired their objective judgment.
The pro-Wikipedia crowd had a genuine enthusiasm that was catching,
and the anti-Wikipedia crowd was just an ugly bunch of party-poopers.
Now, everything is different. A victim of its own success, Wikipedia
is now part of the "establishment", a major part of the world's
information infrastructure rather than a neat little geeky project.
Just about everybody in and out of it has moved on from their wave of
enthusiasm to be jaded and cynical. The insiders circle their wagons
against "attackers" and try to blame everything on trolls and
harassers and banned users and attack sites and irresponsible
reporters and pernicious memes and so on. The outsiders find it's
more interesting and newsworthy to find and expose problems with
Wikipedia than to talk about how great it is. Even a few Wikipedia-
related bloggers who have previously stayed away from, denounced, or
downplayed all of the "wikidrama" of previous internal controversies
are now starting to sound alarms about how things are getting so bad
that major change is needed:
http://original-research.blogspot.com/http://wikip.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately, some of the commentary they're drawing is just more of
the same insider reactions: to kill the messenger by denouncing them
as irresponsible rumor-mongers (even though these are actually people
who have largely sided with the establishment before against the
drama-queens and sensationalists). This sort of reaction may have
worked a while back when the critics were a small minority, but it
won't work now. Even if some amount of the criticism is still
overblown and unfounded, it is necessary to constructively engage the
critics instead of dismissing or attacking them, or else the problems
will keep getting worse in a never-ending spiral.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:13:45 +0000, "Andrew Gray"
<shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm really not sure this has faded as much as you make out. I mean, I
> stumbled across *yet another* of those "let's look at Wikipedia, isn't
> it really exciting" articles today entirely by accident -
> http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid52864.aspx
But I'll note that this positively-toned article does include a link
to Wikipedia Review, showing that even friendly, sympathetic
reporters don't seem to share the "Linking to attack sites is EVIL!"
taboo.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
To give some measure of reassurance to Robert, there have been cases
where arbcom has re-evaluated previous cases. It has been a fact, and
I presume remains the fact that arbcoms are not bound by decisions
reached by previous incarnations of hte arbcom from previous years.
The case of RK's banning from the first arbcom being overturned by the
immediately following appointed arbcom, springs to mind.
(I am cc:ing this to wikien-l, where all followups should be directed,
as this is clearly not a foundation matter)
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 16 Dec 2007 11:40:26 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>e wrote:
> When in doubt (or in the wrong) blame the victim?
Ah, but distinguishing reliably between perpetrators and victims once
the fur starts flying... there's the rub.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
After following this thread for awhile, I think this is a big tempest
in a teapot.
Based on the information presented in the Register article, my
impression is that Carolyn Doran falls more in the category of
"dysfunctional person" than "major criminal." Her criminal record
shows that she had a drinking problem, wrote checks for which she did
not have funds, once stole a small amount of money ($300), and shot a
boyfriend. This suggests to me someone who makes bad decisions, has a
chaotic personal life and has poor impulse control. I'd rather not
have her as a next-door neighbor, and it is unfortunate that the
Wikimedia Foundation hired her, but I doubt that she used her position
to embezzle large sums of money from the Foundation, and thus far I've
seen no evidence presented suggesting that she stole anything at all
or failed in any other way to perform her duties while a Foundation
employee.
There are a few questions that Wikipedians and the public in general
might want to know about this incident, including the following:
* Does this incident warrant changes in the Wikimedia Foundation's
personnel hiring and screening procedures, and if so, has it
implemented them?
* Did Doran misappropriate funds or engage in other on-the-job
misconduct that materially affected the Foundation's fulfillment of
its mission? (Her trip to Amsterdam on Foundation business may have
violated her parole and added to her personal legal difficulties, but
I wouldn't classify it as conduct that materially hurt the
Foundation's work.)
* Does the Foundation have adequate procedures in place for preventing
internal fraud? (For example, I serve on the board of a nonprofit
organization that handles several million dollars in assets, and it
has a number of policies in place regarding who can write checks, who
opens the mail, etc.)
These questions are of legitimate interest to potential donors who
want to know whether the Wikimedia Foundation is effectively managing
its resources. However, I see little point in pursuing questions about
what Jimbo knew when or whether Foundation representatives should have
done more by way of publicly discussing the circumstances behind
Doran's departure.
I've had some experience in personnel matters, and there are good
reasons for employers to exercise care in what they disclose publicly
about former employees and their reasons for leaving. These include
the privacy rights of employees as well as negotiated agreements that
sometimes accompany resignations and firings. I therefore would not
expect Wikimedia Foundation representatives to share much information
about Carolyn Doran, even if they do know something more than they
have publicly shared. If they didn't know more, they didn't know it.
If they DID know more, there's probably a good reason why they're not
discussing it.
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
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