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On 19/11/2010 19:22, Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Noein, personally, I would think that a "duty of transparency about money" and publicizing information about a private employee's salary, benefits, or severance packages are two wildly different things. There is a certain point where things become a matter of personal privacy, after all.
It could be that we come from different horizons of thinking. For me it is natural that any non-profit organization, which owes its existence to the community it represents, should inform transparently what it is doing with the resources it is centralizing. For you it seems natural that people in charge have their private secrets about their managing of the public assets. Apparently we don't put the line between the right for privacy and the duty of transparency at the same level. I am naturally more demanding about a Foundation in charge of 80 000 volunteers. Is this attitude unfounded?
You say you have no clue about how you should understand a decision to
"hide facts". Does that mean we should publicize his medical records too? I think only pertinent facts about the WM mission, and the way WMF handles the mission, should be demanded. We're clearly not talking about a personal fact here, but about a Foundation fact.
As for the medical records: people should be fit to do their jobs, so if there were a serious doubt about it, the question about disclosing the health state should legitimately arise.
How transparent would we need to be? Should we put his salary history for every job he's worked in his life on his article?
I think the transparency must be enough to generate trust. Once again, if serious doubts were arising about the past of a person, they should be cleared not by censorship nor denial but by openness, honesty and sincerity. I admit I may be too naive. But I'd like to be refuted by solid arguments, though.