On 6/15/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
- and a whistleblower policy
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Whistleblower_Policy&ol...)
Not much more to say :-)
If you have any issue to raise, any criticism, or whatever, please do not hesitate to comment.
My initial reaction to the whistleblower policy was that it was a very bad policy. However, I thought maybe I was just overreacting, so I didn't comment on it. Then I asked Danny, who is a former employee of the corporation, what he thought. His response, which I'm not going to get into in detail on this list, expressed the exact same concern that I had. The policy leaves the executive director and board chair in a position of ultimate authority. And there isn't even an executive director right now.
The rest of my comments are my own, and not derived from Danny's.
"If any employee reasonably believes that some policy, practice, or activity of Wikimedia Foundation Inc is in violation of law, a written complaint must be filed by that employee with the Executive Director or the Board Chair." The word "must" there is incredibly disturbing.
It also bothers me that employees are the ones expected to sign this policy. Looking at this policy, it seems to me that it will only serve to stifle the spread of information. Anything anyone believes to be illegal must be reported to the board chair. The board chair is not required by the policy to do *anything at all* with that information.
I don't understand what the purpose was of the whistleblower policy, but it doesn't seem like it serves any positive purpose.