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

Steven Walling steven.walling at gmail.com
Fri Dec 14 05:34:11 UTC 2007


This seems to be pretty old hat. The disgusting part of the Register's story
is that it relies more on alluding to things without evidence. There's no
evidence that she was fired or resigned because of the Foundation finding
out about her record. But the Register sure works hard to make it look
plausible. And next they so blatantly hint that the audit has been postponed
due to her, again without any credible evidence.

Worst of all, they are trying to scare up hits with the heavy hint that
somehow millions of donated funds have been mishandled. With zero evidence
of any financial mishandling, they so clearly say that donators have been
duped by an organization that hires felons willy-nilly. Disgusting. It makes
me want to burn my press credentials.

Critics hating Wikipedia's methods or community is one thing. But this is
pure slander for the sake of profit.


On Dec 13, 2007 9:18 PM, Nathan Awrich <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't want to badger you, and I imagine it takes time to craft an
> official statement/response to this issue, but when Mike says
> 'documentation' is that another way of saying you knew but didn't have
> documentary proof? Is this lack of proof the result of a failure to
> conduct a basic criminal background check ahead of hiring, or even a
> Google search that might have turned up the Washpost stories?
>
> ~Nathan
>
> On Dec 14, 2007 12:13 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > As Mike Godwin said to the reporter, ""We've never had any documentation
> > of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran's part at all."  There was no
> > question of the board "disclosing" information that we did not have.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nathan Awrich wrote:
> > > No one - no one - gets a position as a corporate officer with a felony
> > > record including deaths, gunshot wounds, larceny, check kiting, etc.
> > > No one. Not even for a convenience store, let alone a major world-wide
> > > organization like Wikimedia. The fact that this information was not
> > > disclosed to the community and the public is disturbing - the fact
> > > that it was glossed over as if the question was inappropriate when it
> > > was asked of Ms Devouard is far more disturbing, if its true the Board
> > > was aware of the details.
> > >
> > > On Dec 13, 2007 10:30 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >> On Dec 13, 2007 7:12 PM, Avi <avi.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>> It depends on the company. For the companies I have worked for, a
> background
> > >>> check including criminal record check is pretty much standard. Some
> even
> > >>> require drug tests, and I work in the financial services industry
> where
> > >>> there pretty much is no exposure to child care.
> > >> My consulting company does background checks on everyone, and some of
> > >> our customers do as well.
> > >>
> > >> Having a DUI conviction or arrest is not a disqualifier for an
> > >> executive, financial, or technical job, usually.
> > >>
> > >> Not disclosing it would be grounds for termination if discovered, but
> > >> that doesn't seem to apply here.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> -george william herbert
> > >> george.herbert at gmail.com
> > >>
> > >>
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