On Dec 13, 2007 9:43 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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. Pretty much every application form I've seen has
the question "Do you have any criminal convictions, other than any
legally spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act?" (or words to
that effect), and they just take your word for it. If WMF didn't ask,
then that was a serious mistake (although an understandable one - by
the time she was employed directly, she had been working as a temp for
a while, so it's entirely possible that no-one thought to ask when
checking for such things changed from being the agency's
responsibility to being WMF's - of course, it may be time to pick a
new temp agency...), if they asked and she lied, then its not really
WMF's fault. You can't go around refusing to trust anything anybody
says.
Background checks probably wouldn't be done for a temp office worker.
There's a huge difference for a senior executive with signing authority - it
is simply due dilligence. No wonder the audit isn't finished yet, now every
single transaction she was involved in has to be properly tracked down.
People forget that the WMF is a charitable organization and has some pretty
stringent fiduciary responsibilities in law.
Risker