[WikiEN-l] What's going on? - Inquiry 2

[Sue Reed]

There is a balance here that people are discounting. A simple email that said, "Employee X has decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons effective xx-xx-xxxx. We wish her the best in her future endeavors." possibly would have cleared this all up. It doesn't make the Foundation look like they are trying to shuffle someone out the back door while no one is looking. Any further inquiries can be told that due to the confidentiality policy, no further information would be discussed. 

With the profile of Wikimedia and Wikipedia, any major staff member leaving the company is going to have an impact. 
 
Sue Anne
sreed1234 at yahoo.com


----- Original Message ----
From: Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 9:48:06 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What's going on? - Inquiry 2


WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
> On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
> 
> 
> Certainly.
> 
> However, for a major entity such as the Wikimedia Foundation to lose
> it's Chief Operating Officer without making a formal announcement
> smacks of organizational immaturity. That this was not done, and that
> this is being *defended* smacks of reasons that the Foundation wants
> to keep hidden.

Actually no. I think that on the contrary that case was an example of us 
maturing greatly.

Meanwhile, there is a confidentiality agreement with Carolyn to not 
further comment. Carolyn has the full right of talking to you, but we, 
as an organization, can not give details.
In the past, there were some questions of how trustworthy the Foundation 
could be with confidential personal data. The Foundation was blamed 
because some private data were supposingly revealed and a couple of 
checkusers preferred to stop being checkusers when we requested them to 
simply give us proof of their real identity, because they feared that 
some spills could occur and their private data could become public.

I find quite amusing that now you are trying to blame us for precisely 
respecting confidentiality :-)

Regardless, I think you'll have to get used to the fact that as the 
organization is growing and maturing, all new hire and all new 
resignations will not be announced noisily, nor commented in all private 
details. You are perfectly free to try to guess who, why, when and what.

Ah, and... in case you wonder, Sue started a quest to look for a new COO 
this summer.

On related topics, I am myself starting a quest to look for a new 
treasurer since our current one (Michael) would like to move on. We may 
not do a BIG announcement about that. Before you start reflecting on bad 
hidden dark secrets, there is no secret. Michael has been on the board 
nearly 4 years. He does not have time any more for it. He is very busy 
with Wikia. He is part time working on west coast whilst his home is on 
the east coast. He indicated as early as end of 2006 that he would be 
ready to move out as soon as we found a good replacement. Recently, he 
urged me to start actively looking for a treasurer, as he feels we now 
have a staff in place allowing this change. No big deal. Just a person 
who want to move on :-)

Anthere


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