[Foundation-l] [Announcement] New Head of Communications: Jay Walsh

[Michael Snow]

Chad wrote:
> So let me get this straight.
>
> We moved to San Francisco to hire the best Silicon Valley has to offer...and yet
> our first new hires are a German and a Canadian?
>
> Just seems like things don't quite add up. Perhaps the Board and Sue should
> better communicate the goals of the move to each other.
You haven't got it straight in the slightest. Please do that first you 
want to be snarky about things.
1. The first hires announced were one from California and one from 
Chicago (recently relocated to San Francisco).
2. The stated reasons for moving to San Francisco were not solely or 
even primarily about the hiring pool - among the issues mentioned were 
proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners, and 
better location for international travel.

For that matter, I'm not sure why you imagine it would be appropriate 
for an international project like this to restrict itself to people from 
the US when considering whom to hire. This kind of attitude is part of 
why Americans, and the English Wikipedia (including the many 
non-Americans working on it), sometimes get a bad reputation among us. 
I'm embarrassed to be associated with that mentality.

If you wanted to raise issues about the qualifications of the people 
actually hired, or the process being followed, as some people have done, 
that might be different. But spare us the carping just to be able to 
carp, and don't try to push us down the divisive road to xenophobia. 
Working across languages and cultures is hard enough already as it is.

--Michael Snow