Um, where else would you put ref syntax and material if not in the edit box? The other, secret edit box? If the editing system is not WSIWG, then people should be prepared for plenty of syntax that doesn't show up when you hit save. Besides, <ref> syntax doesn't consume that much space if you use it correctly and implement <ref name> usage. The full text of a reference should only show up once.

On Dec 12, 2007 7:50 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:

Quoting Angela beesley@gmail.com:

...

On Dec 12, 2007 10:52 PM, River Tarnell river@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

so, the first thing i notice when editing Wikipedia articles these days is that they're full of <ref> tags that make it nearly impossible to find the actual text of the article. the problem seems to be that the entire reference is inline in the text. while this is useful for locality of editing, wouldn't it be nice if it would be close to the text, but not inline?

I think this, along with {{fact}} and other tags, should be moved out of the edit box completely. People should be able to add meta data, interlanguage links, references, trust values, feature stars, AfD notices, stable version flags, and whatever else they like in a separate overlay which readers and editors can turn on and off and can edit in a separate place.

Angela

One somewhat ok solution I've seen is at [[Intelligent design]] where the large number of references in the lead necessitated the use of commenting REFERENCES right before each string of refs.

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On 12/12/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:

Um, where else would you put ref syntax and material if not in the edit box? The other, secret edit box?

On the topic of secret[1] boxes, it would be possible to do something like this as an ugly hack:

[[Miss Libby]]'s car is green.<ref name="foo"/> [[Billy]] likes to drink [[soda]].<ref name="bar"/>

==References==

<div style="display:none;"> <ref name="foo">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref> <ref name="bar">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref> </div> {{reflist}} <!-- contains "<references/>" plus some petty formatting options -->

[[Category:Living people]] {{stub}}

The one obvious downside[2] is that even the invisible instance of the <ref> populates the alphabetical upward anchor ("go back") links that appear at the beginning of each line of the ref-list at the end, which would look something like:

1. ^ a b [actual text of ref].

(that is...)

<li id="_note-foo">^ <a href="#_ref-foo_0" title="">^{<i><b>a</b></i>}</a> <a href="#_ref-foo_1" title="">^{<i><b>b</b></i>}</a> [html to produce actual text of ref] </li>

As a result the first "go back" link would point to the sentence where the ref is actually used, but the second one (i.e. the one containing the bold-italic-superscript lowercase "b") would point to an invisible <div> wherein the ref is defined. This may cause babies to cry.

On the other hand, it has somewhere been suggested that we play with the idea of a non-self-closing <references> tag like this:

The sky is blue<ref name="foo">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref> and the water is green.<ref name="bar"/>

==References==

<references> <ref name="bar">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref> [other refs, but not "foo" which is already defined in-line] </references>

[[Category:Ecology]] {{stub}}

The wikitext inside the <references> block would be sort of a safe zone where <ref>s can be defined without incrementing the usage count or creating confusing "one-way" anchor links, avoiding the problem presented by the "ugly hack" above. Any text within the <references> block but not part of any individual <ref> would probably best be disregarded.

If we get something like this to work, our friendly {{reflist}} template could be modified to accommodate it, i.e. change:

<references/>

to:

<references>{{{actual_refs|}}}</references>

Here, the parameter {{{actual_refs}}} (or whatever you want to call it) would contain zero or more named <ref> tags, separated by as much or as little desired white space or (invisible) editors' notes regarding each ref, or whatever.

This assumes that a blank parameter value (or one not containing any refs, only gibberish) would cause the <references></references> block to behave the same as the self-closing status quo.

—C.W.

[1] Or would such boxes merely be considered "private"? [2] The one non-obvious downside would exist for browsers which can't handle the specified CSS.

Angela wrote:

On Dec 12, 2007 10:52 PM, River Tarnell river@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

so, the first thing i notice when editing Wikipedia articles these days is that they're full of <ref> tags that make it nearly impossible to find the actual text of the article. the problem seems to be that the entire reference is inline in the text. while this is useful for locality of editing, wouldn't it be nice if it would be close to the text, but not inline?

I think this, along with {{fact}} and other tags, should be moved out of the edit box completely. People should be able to add meta data, interlanguage links, references, trust values, feature stars, AfD notices, stable version flags, and whatever else they like in a separate overlay which readers and editors can turn on and off and can edit in a separate place.

I agree, though I think that a fact tag, or something like it, that is primarily there to warn the reader that there may be something problematical about the stated fact is worthwhile. In a sense it is somewhat of a disclaimer for those inclined to see everything as gospel truth. It should not be there as a red flag that signals obsessive bulls to charge. We would like it if people found substantiation, but no-one should be under any obligation to fix them all, or to remove the material that is tagged.

The other caution that I would make is not to move all this to the article's talk page. Adding various templates to talk pages has detracted from their original purpose. At one time if the discussion link was in blue I could go there with reasonable confidence that there was something there to be discussed, or that a potential POV problem was being considered. Now when most of these are filled with some kind of meta-data templates and nothing else I am less inclined to look at them. If others too are less inclined to look at them it limits an important avenue for finding a compromise solution to difficult content problems.

Ec

On 12/13/07, Ral315 en.ral315@gmail.com wrote:

Theoretically, could references be placed on a subpage -- {{/ref}} -- and references via ParserFunctions? It might be a pain on the server end, and I'm not sure if there'd be a limit on such, but I would think it could be a fairly easy way to make the text much more readable. The downside would be that references would have to be on a completely separate page, of course, but it could be a great workaround.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Are you suggesting, for example, to make the references for [[Maya Angelou]] accessible through a sub-page (or a pseudo-article, or misplaced template, or whatever you want to call it) located at [[Maya Angelou/ref]]?

For the sake of argument, I'm assuming the following as a mock-up.

...born '''Marguerite Ann Johnson''' [[April 4]], [[1928]] in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], <ref>{{/ref|born}}</ref>

And something like this on the [[Maya Angelou/ref]] sub-page:

{{#switch:{{{1|}}} | foobar = {{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}} | born = {{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}} | #default = {{fact!}} }}

Sounds like madness, but it seems workable if stored elsewhere than article space. Slightly less crazy would be an intermediate template (let's call it "{{refsub}}" that forwards the initial template call onward to some other subpage, either of the article's talk page, like this:

(Template:Refsub)

{{Talk:{{PAGENAME}}/refs | 1 = {{{1|}}} }}

...or of the refsub template itself (I like this better, actually -- Put the lookup tables in the template namespace, call spades spades):

(Template:Refsub)

{{refsub/{{PAGENAME}} | 1 = {{{1|}}} }}

And you'd use it like this:

...in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], <ref>{{refsub|born}}</ref>

This would forward the parameter {{{1}}} (the name of the ref) to [[Template:Refsub/Maya_Angelou]], lookup the ref name in the #switch table, and return the html created by the citation wikitext found on that line.

This would allow the syntax to be the same for each use, without the ungodly side-effect of storing templates in article space.

Note, before anyone asks: as far as I know it's not possible to get <ref> tags located inside a template to function properly in an article where the template is used. I believe they would populate a separate list of refs "inside" each instance of the template, which would be ignored by the <references/> section of the article, leaving you with little bracketed numbers which don't go anywhere. Whether this is sensible behavior (parser figuring cite.php markup before figuring transclusions) is a debatable elsewhere.

–C.W.

Maybe <Blatt> <Green> <Asimov> or even <ref> Blatt</ref> <ref> Green</ref> <ref>Asimov</ref>, which would then lead to <Blatt> Blatt, Bill, "A Big Book of Dogs", London 1881 etc. etc. in the actual references section. Same amount of typing as the current implementation, and much cleaner to read in the text.

Using angle brackets for refs is a bad idea - they look too much like HTML tags. <ref name="foo"/> works for me.

The other user helping with this article is an academic expert. So I wanted to make the references simple as could be and just did them like this <ref>Rotter (1954)</ref> or like this <ref>Millon (2004), p. 353</ref> The list of books and websites is at the bottom of the page. With websites as links, this does not work an obviously simple way, though.

With that you have to follow the footnote, read the short form of the reference and then manually find the long form. With only a few references, it's not too bad, but that system certainly doesn't scale to pages with dozens of references.

Aude wrote:

Maybe it would be worthwhile for us to do usability testing on different referencing methods. Some usability testing was done on the German Wikipedia, a few years ago. This would allow us to test the interface with general people, rather than experienced Wikipedians. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability

A method I've used a few times is to create a template for each individual reference to make reuse easier. This had the added benefit of making the wiki code much simpler in the article itself; instead of having "<ref>{{cite book|title=The Timetables of Science| first=Alexander| last=Hellemans| coauthors=Bryan Bunch| publisher=Simon and Schuster| location=New York, New York| year=1988| isbn=0671621300 |pages=}}</ref>" embedded in the article's text all you have is "<ref>{{The Timetables of Science}}</ref>" (or "<ref>{{The Timetables of Science|pages=blah}}</ref>" to reference a specific page).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates for other similar examples. If this were to become a widespread practice it might make sense to create a pseudo-namespace to keep the templates organized, much like how almost all userboxes have names beginning with "User ".

On 13/12/2007, Aude audevivere@gmail.com wrote:

Started doing it that way here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitut...

There are 48 references, so far. I will use the short format like this, when the reference is cited repeatedly in the article. If it cited just once, then I will write out the full reference inside the tag. Or put the web citation in the tag. Not ideal but it works. I'm certainly open to trying other methods of handling references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Scots is a similar example - things cited multiple times are just "Paterson", things cited once are full refs.

...

With that you have to follow the footnote, read the short form of the reference and then manually find the long form. With only a few references, it's not too bad, but that system certainly doesn't scale to pages with dozens of references.

You make it sound almost as difficult as turning to the bibliography pages of a printed book.

That's one step, from the body of the text to the reference. This is two - from the body of the text to the footnote and from there to the reference.

On 13/12/2007, Ral315 en.ral315@gmail.com wrote:

On Dec 13, 2007 2:20 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

...

That's one step, from the body of the text to the reference. This is two - from the body of the text to the footnote and from there to the reference.

Do most print works reference fully on each occurrence? I would guess that many also use a shorthand form for subsequent citations, particularly those with hundreds of references.

Which is why it's one step, not zero steps...

On Dec 13, 2007 9:19 PM, joshua.zelinsky@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?

This is appalling. Even if only the broad outline of the story is true, this will be a bad PR hit for Wikimedia and Wikipedia. I hate to say it, but looking at the trend in how the WMF has been dealing with things, Kelly Martin may have been right that it would not last very long.

Johnleemk

On Dec 14, 2007 9:13 AM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:

John Lee schreef:

...

On Dec 13, 2007 9:19 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:

...

According to the Register, the Foundation's former COO was convicted felon.

This is appalling. Even if only the broad outline of the story is true, this will be a bad PR hit for Wikimedia

Yes.

...

and Wikipedia.

No. Why do you think that?

Because people associate the foundation with Wikipedia. If they don't donate to the foundation, who will pay for Wikipedia's servers? In the long run, since we are copylefted, we can solve this problem - forking or whatever. But in the short run, it's a heavy and unnecessary price to pay. I hope the foundation can tackle this PR problem to minimise the hit on donations that may arise.

Johnleemk

Quoting Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:

John Lee wrote:

...

This is appalling.

Or else it's no big deal at all. Partly it depends on how you look at it.

I don't know all the details of this case (and, frankly, I don't care), but my own opinion is that we demonize convicted felons far too much. (I'm speaking of society in general, not the Wikipedia community in particular.) We used to have a much more tolerant and forgiving attitude: once you've served your time, your debt to society is repaid, and (with perhaps a few exceptions) you're a free person. But these days, a felony conviction is an eternal, everexpanding black spot, and in most cases that's just wrong: if a felony conviction means that you can't do anything or participate normally in society for the rest of your life, we might as well say that all felonies are punishable by deportation or execution.

...

Even if only the broad outline of the story is true, this will be a bad PR hit for Wikimedia and Wikipedia.

Well, given the aforementioned trend in society (not to mention the reaction on this list), yeah. But it shouldn't have to be that way, and we on this list certainly shouldn't fan the flames.

Two problems: first, there were multiple convictions, some of which was for fraud. You never put someone with a fraud conviction in charge of money. For anything. And second, the Foundation survives on donations and if it makes bad PR decisions, donations go down and the entire credibility of all Wikimedia projects goes down as well.

Actually, there's not necessarily any informant at all, though the Register have got their facts completely correct (as far as I can make out, this pretty much all tallies with my own data). Virtually all the data for confirmation of the facts is available online for free, though actually finding this data would either require a tip-off or a very impressive dirt-digging operation.

Really, I don't think anyone's accusing Doran of stealing money from WMF (yet), much as she seems to have stolen from others. Two issues here - the dazzling incompetence displayed by the WMF people/Board in not doing a criminal records check (over here, in the UK, you can't even breathe without getting Criminal Records Bureau clearance, I'm sure fellow UK-based WikiMedians can back me up here) - and if, and to what extent, people at WMF have lied to us and to the media.

Fuckups can be forgiven and forgotten. Nobody ever trusts someone caught out in lying again, though.

CM

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

From: scs@eskimo.com Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:32:32 -0500 To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

Joshua Zelinsky wrote:

...

Quoting Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:

...

John Lee wrote:

...

This is appalling.

Or else it's no big deal at all. Partly it depends on how you look at it.

Two problems: first, there were multiple convictions...

Have we confirmed that, or are we still taking the Register's anonymous informant's word for it? (I haven't followed the whole thread; apologies if this point has in fact been cleared up.)

I shouldn't have said "it's no big deal"; clearly it's at least a little bit of a deal. But, as potentially serious as it is, I don't think it's a world-is-coming-to-an-end deal.

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The audit is not complete, and too soon to know either way if there was a problem in her handling finances for the Foundation. I am concerned, having donated in the past, and for the sake of the ongoing fundraiser. Don't want to assume the worse, but it is disturbing that she handled finances. It's critical to do a background check on someone in that position. Now that the Foundation is hiring new staff, this needs to be done.

I know that fraud has happened at other non-profits, and it's disturbing when they do. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/06/10/cancer.funds/index.html

Really hope that's not the case here, but the audit needs to look at all this carefully to provide us with some assurance or at least the facts. The Foundation has responsibilities to the donors.

-Aude

On Dec 14, 2007 7:46 AM, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

Actually, there's not necessarily any informant at all, though the Register have got their facts completely correct (as far as I can make out, this pretty much all tallies with my own data). Virtually all the data for confirmation of the facts is available online for free, though actually finding this data would either require a tip-off or a very impressive dirt-digging operation.

Really, I don't think anyone's accusing Doran of stealing money from WMF (yet), much as she seems to have stolen from others. Two issues here - the dazzling incompetence displayed by the WMF people/Board in not doing a criminal records check (over here, in the UK, you can't even breathe without getting Criminal Records Bureau clearance, I'm sure fellow UK-based WikiMedians can back me up here) - and if, and to what extent, people at WMF have lied to us and to the media.

Fuckups can be forgiven and forgotten. Nobody ever trusts someone caught out in lying again, though.

CM

Christiano;

You implied yesterday on Jimmy's en.wp talk page that you'd known about the criminal cases before Cade's article...

Was that imprecise wording, or did you actually have knowledge before the article ran about the arrests and history here? If you did know, did you discuss it with anyone else and give anyone a heads-up on it?

Thanks...

There are a number of good reasons.

If the answer is yes, then Christiano apparently witheld information from the Foundation which Jimbo and others are saying they did not have prior to Cade Metz' asking for comments prior to the story.

Christiano might both have known and been under the misaprehension that the Foundation did know, in which case not telling them makes sense.

Or he might have chosen not to bring it up with them, knowing or suspecting they did not know.

Christiano is up for Arbcom election right now. I think that everyone involved has good cause to want to know whether a candidate is knowingly withholding information from the Foundation.

I am concerned enoughby the appearance of the situation that I just registered a tentative oppose vote; I will withdraw that and apologize if this has been a miscommunication and Moreschi did not in fact know before Metz' article, or if he knew but believed that Jimbo and the Board knew.

On Dec 14, 2007 7:54 PM, Nathan Awrich nawrich@gmail.com wrote:

It seems to me that whether Moreschi knew or not is probably irrelevant to the issues here, which in my view are mainly issues of governance and judgement. Out of curiosity, what would any of his possible answers to that question mean to you?

On Dec 14, 2007 10:14 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Dec 14, 2007 7:46 AM, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

...

Actually, there's not necessarily any informant at all, though the Register have got their facts completely correct (as far as I can make out, this pretty much all tallies with my own data). Virtually all the data for confirmation of the facts is available online for free, though actually finding this data would either require a tip-off or a very impressive dirt-digging operation.

Really, I don't think anyone's accusing Doran of stealing money from WMF (yet), much as she seems to have stolen from others. Two issues here - the dazzling incompetence displayed by the WMF people/Board in not doing a criminal records check (over here, in the UK, you can't even breathe without getting Criminal Records Bureau clearance, I'm sure fellow UK-based WikiMedians can back me up here) - and if, and to what extent, people at WMF have lied to us and to the media.

Fuckups can be forgiven and forgotten. Nobody ever trusts someone caught out in lying again, though.

CM

Christiano;

You implied yesterday on Jimmy's en.wp talk page that you'd known about the criminal cases before Cade's article...

Was that imprecise wording, or did you actually have knowledge before the article ran about the arrests and history here? If you did know, did you discuss it with anyone else and give anyone a heads-up on it?

Thanks...

-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

...

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On 12/15/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

I'd just assumed the Foundation knew about this about all this and were keeping quiet (as well they might, I suppose). I was as surprised as anyone by Jimbo's announcement that he knew nothing - which I of course believe.

Oh, dear, what a mess this is. But really. Your COO gets carted off to prison and nobody at the organisation - Board, staff - knows anything. I'm prepared to believe this but only up to a point. Come on - there is something here we're not being told.

I think no-one is claiming that there aren't things that they aren't for legal reasons able to state for the record, here. Have you missed all the postings where that was all spelled out by the legal counsel, the Board of Trustees Chair and many others?

I think the correct question here leveled at the critics is if they seriously wish for the Board to act against legal counsels advice? Do you? Ask yourself that.

I am very comfortable in concluding that the current Board has in place more than enough checks and balances to ensure that when mistakes are made, corrections follow, and lessons are learned. If you really do not know who Mike Godwin is, I suggest you use your invesgatory powers in that direction. You will find that his personal record is way better documented on the internet than Ms. Dorans.

-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

Florence Devouard wrote:

It does not seem to be very common practice in the USA to check criminal background. Originally, Carolyn was hired through a company. This company did not do any check on her either, even though they were providing bookkeepers. When Carolyn was hired by Brad through this company, we had only 3 staff members.

One thing I will be absolutely insistent upon is that I have always told the truth. And to the best of my knowledge, other board members told the truth as well. When she was hired, we had no idea she had a criminal background, or it is pretty obvious we would not have hired her. You may choose to believe us or not on this, but if you are going to call us liars, I will ask you to provide proofs that we lied.

Also, we have been asked not to comment on personnel issues from our legal counsel and I hope you would not advice us generally to not follow the recommandation of WMF legal advisor.

The Board has my vote of confidence in how it handled this matter. There is no question of "dazzling incompetence", and those who would use that epithet may not have much experience with real-life sensitive decisions.

Carolyn may have been right to say nothing because she wasn't asked. Whether she would have been hired if she had been open about her past is a matter of speculation. I would prefer to believe that she would at least have been given an opportunity to explain the circumstances, and given a fair hearing.

Ec

On Dec 15, 2007 2:29 AM, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

That's as may be - though I will point out that Carolyn Doran would not even have stood up to a Google search, let alone a criminal records check - the whole-shooting-the-boyfriend thing wound up in the Washington Post.

If one searches on her maiden name and not married / widowed name, one finds the Post articles.

If one doesn't already KNOW that's her maiden name, there's nothing in the Wikipedia info about her that contains her maiden name, so there's nothing to clue in where to start looking for it.

Cade Metz may have gotten that off her arrrest records in Florida; guessed that the middle name was maiden, and searched from there. If you don't already know about those, or her maiden name from more detailed HR records, I don't know how anyone could find it.

Seems like it took the wikinewsies approximately 5 minutes to find

the archived stories.

Once they knew what to look for. Confirming something once you know particulars is much easier than knowing what to look for in the first place.

From there, again, it seems as though plenty of US states keep online

free jail records, easily accessible, and certainly plenty do keep records of current inmates of the state prisons, again accessible online and for free (including Florida, which have a very dandy "Find an inmate" search button)! Remarkable!

The one thing I don't understand is this. Jimbo says he had no knowledge of this whole Carolyn Doran business until it hit The Register. That's fine, I guess we have to believe that. Did no one bother to tell him? Evidently not. I refuse to believe that no one at WMF knew anything until The Register made their phone call/published the story. What I am asking is who knew what when. The whole reaction to this has been one of confusion - this was always going to hit the press anyway, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned?

Assuming bad faith and incompetence? Tsk.

For the very simple reason that I found it impossible to believe that the COO of WMF got carted off to jail and nobody bothered to tell the boss (that's you). Evidently I was wrong. It's somewhat hard to believe, but it seems to be true. How bizarre.

CM

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:36:15 -0800 From: jwales@wikia.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

Christiano Moreschi wrote:

...

The one thing I don't understand is this. Jimbo says he had no knowledge of this whole Carolyn Doran business until it hit The Register. That's fine, I guess we have to believe that. Did no one bother to tell him? Evidently not. I refuse to believe that no one at WMF knew anything until The Register made their phone call/published the story. What I am asking is who knew what when. The whole reaction to this has been one of confusion - this was always going to hit the press anyway, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned?

"did no one bother to tell him?" "this was always going to hit the press, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned"

Moreschi, you are the only one who has claimed to have known in advance, and so my question is: why didn't *you* tell me?

I learned that the Register was going to run some kind of story just hours before they ran it, and even then I had no idea what would be in it.

If you knew something, why didn't you tell me?

--Jimbo

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Because I thought it would be redundant! That it would be a waste of an email! Look, I knew nothing about this Register article. Bored one afternoon, I just followed the same trail of deduction and investigation that one has to assume the Register followed - all the stuff is there online - and I thought "Oh, no wonder they (WMF) kept that quiet!" I realise now that, sadly, I was wrong.

Jimbo, don't look at me. Look at your staff/Board. Someone there must have known - the COO can't just vanish to jail and no one on the staff/Board knows anything - and they neglected to tell you. That's the other story of incompetence here - apart from hiring her in the first place - and if they had, you could have got a counter-spin machine working in advance for when the story eventually did go public, as sooner or later it was bound too. Look at your own staff, and ask "who did not tell me when they should have done?". They're your staff, not mine. Nor did I think it my concern to let you know in case of fraud concerns - by that time the audit had just kicked off, and if she has stolen money your auditors will find it. It seems unlikely anyway, and you have promised (and all plaudits to you for doing so) to put back in from your own pocket any monies she took out.

CM

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:56:56 -0800 From: jwales@wikia.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

Christiano Moreschi wrote:

...

For the very simple reason that I found it impossible to believe that the COO of WMF got carted off to jail and nobody bothered to tell the boss (that's you). Evidently I was wrong. It's somewhat hard to believe, but it seems to be true. How bizarre.

Again, I ask you. If you knew something, why did you not tell me?

--Jimbo

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On 15/12/2007, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

Someone there must have known - the COO can't just vanish to jail and no one on the staff/Board knows anything - and they neglected to tell you. That's the other story of incompetence here ...

Wait, wait, wait.

You seem to be assuming the Foundation *had* to know about her extracurricular activities, but this seems to be a misplaced assumption.

Let's look at the story again, shall we?

----

First off, her past history. This is the stuff that a background check would have picked up - one doesn't seem to have been done. Fair dos, criticise them for that, you can consider it unfortunate or unforgivable according to taste. But if you don't do it, you don't pick up anything, however odd it may be...

(I am assuming she didn't tell them. I would be quite bemused if she had and they employed her regardless)

Secondly, her time at Wikimedia.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/page2....

* "Four months after Doran's hiring, on May 20th, she was arrested ... paid a $5,250 bond and was released that same day."

So here's our first incident. Looking at the calendar, May 20th was a Sunday; it all happened on that one day; if she didn't tell anyone, how would the Foundation have known? I know this is all a matter of public record, but that doesn't equate to "people get told about it" - I'm sure *my* HR department doesn't scan the local paper every week to find out if I've been caught doing something.

* An incident where she was stopped by immigration sometime in June

Details entirely unclear; maybe they knew about it, maybe they didn't. Even if they did, there's no reason they would know the *content* of the interview.

* "On July 4 ... the Wikimedia Foundation passed a private resolution concerning Carolyn Doran, and she was soon removed from the official Foundation staff list"

['soon' = on the 10th]

* "A month later, she was arrested and jailed by the Pinellas Park, Florida police after a warrant was issued by the sheriff in Loudoun County, Virginia. ... This November ... she was extradited to Virginia"

It seems that the 'carted off to jail' happened a good month after she *stopped* being WMF's COO. It doesn't strike me as desperately surprising that they didn't know about it - keeping tabs on the whereabouts of your ex-employees a month after they've left is very nice, and all, but not really required!

----

The rest of it seems to boil down to "when we knew about it we could google and find confirmation!" Well, bully for you. How many of your current colleagues do you regularly google to check on their criminal pasts? If the answer is more than zero, um, this strikes me as a little worrying...

We can legitimately criticise the hiring practices here, and I certainly won't argue with you doing so. But to think that Wikimedia somehow failed to notice an employee being sent to jail is just mad - it's something even the original article isn't claiming!

Andrew Gray wrote:

On 15/12/2007, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

...

Someone there must have known - the COO can't just vanish to jail and no one on the staff/Board knows anything - and they neglected to tell you. That's the other story of incompetence here ...

Wait, wait, wait.

You seem to be assuming the Foundation *had* to know about her extracurricular activities, but this seems to be a misplaced assumption.

Let's look at the story again, shall we?

---

First off, her past history. This is the stuff that a background check would have picked up - one doesn't seem to have been done. Fair dos, criticise them for that, you can consider it unfortunate or unforgivable according to taste. But if you don't do it, you don't pick up anything, however odd it may be...

(I am assuming she didn't tell them. I would be quite bemused if she had and they employed her regardless)

Secondly, her time at Wikimedia.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/page2....

• "Four months after Doran's hiring, on May 20th, she was arrested ...

paid a $5,250 bond and was released that same day."

So here's our first incident. Looking at the calendar, May 20th was a Sunday; it all happened on that one day; if she didn't tell anyone, how would the Foundation have known? I know this is all a matter of public record, but that doesn't equate to "people get told about it" - I'm sure *my* HR department doesn't scan the local paper every week to find out if I've been caught doing something.

• An incident where she was stopped by immigration sometime in June

Details entirely unclear; maybe they knew about it, maybe they didn't. Even if they did, there's no reason they would know the *content* of the interview.

• "On July 4 ... the Wikimedia Foundation passed a private resolution

concerning Carolyn Doran, and she was soon removed from the official Foundation staff list"

['soon' = on the 10th]

• "A month later, she was arrested and jailed by the Pinellas Park,

Florida police after a warrant was issued by the sheriff in Loudoun County, Virginia. ... This November ... she was extradited to Virginia"

It seems that the 'carted off to jail' happened a good month after she *stopped* being WMF's COO. It doesn't strike me as desperately surprising that they didn't know about it - keeping tabs on the whereabouts of your ex-employees a month after they've left is very nice, and all, but not really required!

---

The rest of it seems to boil down to "when we knew about it we could google and find confirmation!" Well, bully for you. How many of your current colleagues do you regularly google to check on their criminal pasts? If the answer is more than zero, um, this strikes me as a little worrying...

We can legitimately criticise the hiring practices here, and I certainly won't argue with you doing so. But to think that Wikimedia somehow failed to notice an employee being sent to jail is just mad - it's something even the original article isn't claiming!

Just what do you think you're doing, bringing logic and reason into a perfectly good excuse to blame everyone and their dog for something?

Mistakes happen. This is a big one, and there better be changes to ensure it never happens again, but I have a sneaking suspicion the Foundation has damn well learned its lesson already. Can't we move forward from here, and discuss prevention of similar problems, rather than looking back and seeing who we can point fingers at and look for conspiracies?

But, you know, conspiracy theorism is more interesting than suggestions for personnel improvements. It's also useless, but hey, details.

On 16/12/2007, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

A further complication is her initial employment by the agency. Understable that the foundation might have expected them to pick up any issues.

This happens quite a lot IME. I have gotten jobs where I was dealing with confidential personal information via an agency and no-one ever quite checked me. Most people are honest, so this hadn't led to problems before, but the boss blanched when I pointed out this minor hole in the security of their hiring arrangements ...

- d.

Andrew Gray wrote:

...Let's look at the story again, shall we?...

Excellent summary. Thanks.

...it all happened on that one day; if she didn't tell anyone, how would the Foundation have known? I know this is all a matter of public record, but that doesn't equate to "people get told about it" -

Right. Life is not a Hollywood movie with an omniscient screenwriter who makes sure the hero always knows what's going on. In real life, there are few to no mechanisms which automatically, immediately notify you of everything you might care about.

• "On July 4 ... the Wikimedia Foundation passed a private resolution

concerning Carolyn Doran, and she was soon removed from the official Foundation staff list"

And for anybody who hasn't figured it out: it's likely that the reason the resolution was passed was that the Foundation found out, 'way back in July, that Doran had these issues and that she couldn't therefore remain COO. But there are evidently some really crazy laws and legal precedents (I've encountered them myself) which drastically restrict what you can say publicly about employment termination decisions.

On Dec 18, 2007 7:56 AM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:

On 12/15/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:

...

"I, _____, (hereafter "Applicant"), authorize ______ (hereafter, "Company") to perform a criminal background check, investigative consumer report, etc. etc. on Applicant and make general inquiries as to Applicant's character, general reputation, personal characteristics and mode of living, etc. etc. Applicant releases Company from any liability from here to eternity, etc. etc.

For some reason companies generally don't actually do this. Call it a hollow scare tactic, call it lack of resources, call it assuming good faith, or call it incompetence. Maybe Applicant has nice legs or good handwriting. Maybe Company needs warm bodies and needs them yesterday. Doesn't really matter until somebody points a finger later and said "this should have prevented that", especially if one is merely trying to explain why convicted felons outnumber unemployed people. ;-)

Of course I have yet to see one of these release forms that mentions a "Google search" ;-) It may be a cold cold post-post-modern job market but still primarily lacking in technical savvy, otherwise what would they need you for...

Most companies don't do background checks, I have found.

Those that ask for permission to do so generally do. My consulting company does, and rarely we find things that weren't disclosed to us beforehand. Some of our customers do (and in one case, turned up something our background check company missed...), both for consultants and internal permanent hires. One of those included fingerprints and a FBI check.

The proportion that have done something is about a quarter.

Thanks for your sincere comments.

On 12/15/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Christiano Moreschi wrote:

...

Jimbo, don't look at me. Look at your staff/Board.

Believe me, we are all taking a very hard look at everything.

My point is not to blame you or to go into accusations or complaints of any kind.

Here is what I am saying to the entire community:

I am one of you. I am here to work in my best efforts for the benefit of Wikipedia, for the benefit of our shared goal...

As I have said for years: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

That's what we're doing. You, me, all of us.

If you ever hear of anything like this again, please do not make the "bad faith" assumption that it is being "hushed up". Assume that I would be outraged if I knew, and come and tell me.

I would really really appreciate it.

--Jimbo

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On Dec 15, 2007 11:00 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

If you ever hear of anything like this again, please do not make the "bad faith" assumption that it is being "hushed up". Assume that I would be outraged if I knew, and come and tell me.

Why you? Anyone who's an employee of the foundation is supposed to tell "the Executive Director or the Board Chair".

On Dec 16, 2007 9:42 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Anthony wrote:

...

On Dec 15, 2007 11:00 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

...

If you ever hear of anything like this again, please do not make the "bad faith" assumption that it is being "hushed up". Assume that I would be outraged if I knew, and come and tell me.

Why you? Anyone who's an employee of the foundation is supposed to tell "the Executive Director or the Board Chair".

My request was a personal one, made to people I consider friends. I would like to hear about it, if anyone ever hears about anything like this in the future.

Well, you already know about Michael Davis's prior legal problems, right? I don't think you're going to be outraged about them. I mean, you weren't even outraged about Carolyn's legal problems.

Anyway, I also would like to hear about it, if anyone ever hears about anything like this in the future. And I probably actually will be outraged.

On Dec 17, 2007 12:31 AM, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:

Anthony wrote:

...

Anyway, I also would like to hear about it, if anyone ever hears about anything like this in the future. And I probably actually will be outraged.

I'm confident you will be. You're very good at it, having had lots of practice.

See, at least my statement is credible.

If you don't mind answering, how did you find out or know this had happened?

On Dec 15, 2007 3:49 AM, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

For the very simple reason that I found it impossible to believe that the COO of WMF got carted off to jail and nobody bothered to tell the boss (that's you). Evidently I was wrong. It's somewhat hard to believe, but it seems to be true. How bizarre.

CM

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

...

Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:36:15 -0800 From: jwales@wikia.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

...

Christiano Moreschi wrote:

...

The one thing I don't understand is this. Jimbo says he had no knowledge of this whole Carolyn Doran business until it hit The Register. That's fine, I guess we have to believe that. Did no one bother to tell him? Evidently not. I refuse to believe that no one at WMF knew anything until The Register made their phone call/published the story. What I am asking is who knew what when. The whole reaction to this has been one of confusion - this was always going to hit the press anyway, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned?

"did no one bother to tell him?" "this was always going to hit the press, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned"

Moreschi, you are the only one who has claimed to have known in advance, and so my question is: why didn't *you* tell me?

I learned that the Register was going to run some kind of story just hours before they ran it, and even then I had no idea what would be in it.

If you knew something, why didn't you tell me?

--Jimbo

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Second, and more directed at you

Quoting Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk:

That's as may be - though I will point out that Carolyn Doran would not even have stood up to a Google search, let alone a criminal records check - the whole-shooting-the-boyfriend thing wound up in the Washington Post. Seems like it took the wikinewsies approximately 5 minutes to find the archived stories. From there, again, it seems as though plenty of US states keep online free jail records, easily accessible, and certainly plenty do keep records of current inmates of the state prisons, again accessible online and for free (including Florida, which have a very dandy "Find an inmate" search button)! Remarkable!

The one thing I don't understand is this. Jimbo says he had no knowledge of this whole Carolyn Doran business until it hit The Register. That's fine, I guess we have to believe that. Did no one bother to tell him? Evidently not. I refuse to believe that no one at WMF knew anything until The Register made their phone call/published the story. What I am asking is who knew what when. The whole reaction to this has been one of confusion - this was always going to hit the press anyway, so surely a more coordinated response could have been planned?

Two points: first, not everyone bothers googling the names of people they know. Furthermore, there appear to be multiple people by the name of Carolyn Doran who have an internet presence, so even a quick google search wouldn't make it completely obvious unless you had some idea what you were looking for. Second, and more directed at you, you still haven't clarified whether you knew about this beforehand which you seemed to claim on Jimbo's talk page. Did you know about this?

Quoting Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:

Joshua Zelinsky wrote:

...

Quoting Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:

...

John Lee wrote:

...

This is appalling.

Or else it's no big deal at all. Partly it depends on how you look at it.

Two problems: first, there were multiple convictions...

Have we confirmed that, or are we still taking the Register's anonymous informant's word for it? (I haven't followed the whole thread; apologies if this point has in fact been cleared up.)

Wikinews has tracked down a variety of criminal records. See http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Former_Chief_Operating_Officer_of_Wikimedia_Foun...

The only one I see completely confirmed there aside from the DUI is her shooting her boyfriend according to the Washington Post. I haven't seen any records yet that directly pertain to the larceny or check fraud.

I shouldn't have said "it's no big deal"; clearly it's at least a little bit of a deal. But, as potentially serious as it is, I don't think it's a world-is-coming-to-an-end deal.

---

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Nathan Awrich wrote:

I'd like to agree with what someone else wrote - assume good faith is a principle of life that is included in policy at Wikipedia only because cynicism has become such a habit, particularly in the United States. I know I have difficulty adhering to that principle, especially concerning public figures, but I try!

Thanks to Mike Godwin for clearing up that he and the Foundation are prevented from commenting in detail.

Perhaps, though, you can answer some general questions?

I assume those questions were for Mike Godwin, but since you posted them as a response to my message, I have a couple of answers:

• Does the Foundation perform criminal background checks on

prospective new hires at any level of responsibility?

I know little to nothing about the Wikimedia Foundation or its board. But from personal experience: I'm on the Board of a corporation (not as big as WMF, but not tiny, either), and I don't think the question of criminal background checks has ever come up for us. We hired a new Executive Director last year, and while one of my fellow board members may have done something privately, I certainly never heard about it.

Perhaps I and the rest of my Board were/are grossly negligent in this respect. (We have a board meeting next week; I'll ask, out of curiosity.) But as far as I'm concerned, I'm a reasonable person, and the fact that we didn't think to run any checks doesn't bother me. So I can very easily imagine that, especially a year or two ago, the Wikimedia Foundation's board, still coming to grips with how much of a tiger it had by the tail, didn't think to either.

On 14/12/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@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.

I've missed out the possibility of them asking and her telling the truth, since The Register says Mike Godwin said the WMF knew nothing, and I'm assuming The Reg is reporting this correctly. I'm also assuming The Reg isn't just talking complete nonsense about the whole thing. I'm not entirely comfortable with either of those assumptions...

On Dec 13, 2007 9:43 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

On 14/12/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@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

On Wed, Dec 12, 2007 at 08:30:46PM -0500, Aude wrote:

The other user helping with this article is an academic expert. So I wanted to make the references simple as could be and just did them like this <ref>Rotter (1954)</ref> or like this <ref>Millon (2004), p. 353</ref>

Even simpler is to use Harvard referencing and use footnotes for parenthetical comments that belong in footnotes. For example,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_logic

It's even possible to get the inline citations to link to the full reference, although it isn't completely implemented in that article yet.

- Carl

On Dec 13, 2007 10:41 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:

phoebe ayers wrote:

...

While we're at it, I've been asked many times if there's a way to do an "ibid" style citation to an existing reference but citing different page numbers or volumes, either retyping the whole ref or having to add references like "Green, p. 23." It would be great to have something where you could add a page # parameter to the ref tag in order to cite exact references throughout the text -- e.g. <ref name="Green" page="23"> -- and in references, the full Green reference would show up with "p. 23" attached to the end. Does this already exist and I just don't know about it?

As much as I like the "ibid" style, I don't think it would work in an electronic environment where at any time an entirely new and perhaps unrelated reference could be added between the original reference and the "ibid". "Op. cit." and loc. cit." might have a better chance.

Ec

Yep :) that's why I meant something *like* ibid. The point is to be able to refer to multiple pages in a single work, for maximum precision. I don't think ibid or op cit. is good for our environment -- you need to either have the full reference or a partial reference, e.g. "See Green p. 26". In normal scholarly work the reference is shortened when it's referred to many times, but I wonder if that makes sense for us?

-- phoebe