No disrespect intended, and I hope and believe that you and the Board
work with the interests of the organization foremost in your mind. I
do disagree, however, with the judgment seemingly displayed on this
issue. It seems as though it would have benefited the organization to
have simply stated at the time of separation between WMF and Ms. Doran
that there were personnel issues which the Board was bound to
disclose.
Additionally, a heads up about imminent disclosure would also have
been in order given the fact that you consented to an interview with
the Register (of all publications) and presumably were aware that the
story would be published. At this point, the appearance is that the
Board withheld information from the community about a material failure
of due diligence in hiring - and then commented publicly to a
glorified newsblog known to attack Wikipedia without providing the
community fair warning of yet another assault on our credibility.
Now, I may be reading the situation in exactly the wrong way - but I
would like a more elaborate description of why this might be so, and I
imagine I am not alone. There are still many unknowns regarding the
truth here, and the Foundation can only benefit from providing
clarity. If the WMF is unable to comment any further because of
continuing legal constraints (which is completely possible) that too
would be pertinent information. If you intended to convey this in your
response below, it isn't clear to me.
Nathan
On Dec 13, 2007 11:58 PM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Nathan writes:
The community assumes
that the Board operates in good faith, but that faith must be upheld
by the Board through disclosure of information material to the
community.
I agree that the Board should generally disclose as much as it is
legally able to do so.
And assuming that the Board believed that the
community did
not need to be involved in this situation, surely the interview
between the Register and Mike Godwin alerted them to the fact that
press coverage was inevitable in the near future. If it were me, I
would have wanted to get out in front of that story.
Speaking as journalist and an editor as well as a lawyer known to
specialize in freedom of expression issues, I think we did fine. Now,
you may disagree about this, and I respect your disagreement, but
please understand that even a community-oriented, volunteer-driven
enterprise can't always share all the information it has regarding a
personnel matter. There are legal constraints that apply to the Board,
to staff, and to anyone acting formally on the Foundation's behalf.
Now I were you, I'd Assume Good Faith on the part of the Foundation
(and on my part too, I hope) and ask instead what event or person gave
this (oddly speculative and disconnected) story to our good friends at
the Register.
And that is pretty much all I'm going to say on this list about the
Register story or its subject matter.
--Mike
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