[Foundation-l] Foundation Discretion Regarding Personnel

[Mike Godwin]

Anthony writes:

>  It took me about 10 minutes to search the Pinellas County court
> records and find the two DUIs and the fugitive warrant from Virginia,
> and that's without using her maiden name.  That Jimbo says he was
> "stunned" when he read it suggests you didn't even know about that.

There's plenty that you apparently don't know about. For example, did  
you know that a company is legally liable if it mishandles a criminal  
background check, and that this is why this service is now contracted  
to specialized services?

You seem to be advising me to act in ways that make the Foundation  
more likely to be legally vulnerable.  I'm sorry, but I must politely  
refuse.

Thomas Dalton writes:

>> Criminal background checks take at least a day, and possibly a few
>> days, to do properly, at least in the United States.  The allegations
>> made in the Register story would have taken significant time for us  
>> to
>> confirm or refute.
>
> So the Wikinews volunteers are better at legal research than the WMF
> General Counsel? Great...

It has nothing to do with legal research or with my abilities to  
conduct it.

Perhaps you should do some research on your own regarding how  
corporations avoid liability when conducting background checks.

> We're not talking about hiring and firing, we're talking about giving
> the community a heads-up rather than letting The Register be the one
> to break the story.

Thomas, I'm beginning to think you've gone a little nuts. You've  
confused two different things:

(1) a general background check on a WMF employee *before* the Register  
story was published, and

(2) a specific check of the Register's references *after* the story  
was published, which can be done a lot quicker.

If you are under the impression that Cade Metz called us and read to  
us the text of his story over the phone, you are entirely mistaken.   
He alluded vaguely to some issues when he called me after letting us  
know his story would be running in a couple of hours.

And, in any case, because I think the insanity has gotten out of hand,  
I want to underscore the fact that in no way was the Foundation going  
to rush to publication of a story about a personnel matter in order to  
beat the Register.  Seriously. What a crazy idea.

> The foundation seems to have a great deal of difficulty realising that
> they can say something without saying everything.

Oddly enough, I've been doing just that.  The problem is that  
sometimes people aren't listening when you're saying something but not  
saying everything. Not that I'm pointing any fingers here.*


*Reminder:  Americans aren't good at irony! We know sports!


--Mike