[WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

[luke brandt]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
........
> 
> Why would you do a background check for a pretty standard office job?
> I don't know about the US, but in the UK such background checks are
> usually only done for jobs where the person will be working with
> children, or similar. Pretty much every application form I've seen has
> the question "Do you have any criminal convictions, other than any
> legally spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act?" (or words to
> that effect), and they just take your word for it. If WMF didn't ask,
> then that was a serious mistake (although an understandable one - by
> the time she was employed directly, she had been working as a temp for
> a while, so it's entirely possible that no-one thought to ask when
> checking for such things changed from being the agency's
> responsibility to being WMF's - of course, it may be time to pick a
> new temp agency...), if they asked and she lied, then its not really
> WMF's fault. You can't go around refusing to trust anything anybody
> says.
> 
> I've missed out the possibility of them asking and her telling the
> truth, since The Register says Mike Godwin said the WMF knew nothing,
> and I'm assuming The Reg is reporting this correctly. I'm also
> assuming The Reg isn't just talking complete nonsense about the whole
> thing. I'm not entirely comfortable with either of those
> assumptions...
> 
Yes, noted that David Gerard said on Tuesday July 17: "... FWIW, she
left for personal reasons unconnected to WMF, who were sorry to see her
go, and was very helpful in handover."