Anthony wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity".
If that's what happened, then the WMF absolutely should have issued an announcement saying that.
The fact that the WMF apparently didn't issue such an announcement makes it look like that's not what happened.
I'm disinclined to read anything more than necessary into the circumstances. Any of us who follow WMF activities will acknowledge that it is only recently climbing out of a period of organizational chaos. If making such announcements had fallen within Carolyn's normal employment duties there could very well have been confusion about who would make the announcement when she was the person affected.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence can have as much application to organizations as to individuals. I see no reason to suggest more sinister events.
The experience of this incident suggests that procedures should be developed regarding the announcement of hirings and departures of employees. It is good at any given time to know who is or is not working in key managerial or public roles, and the effective dates thereof. How much more can be said about the circumstances of someone's leaving will vary with the circumstances. At times a cryptic comment may be as much as can be said.
Take this theoretical example. If an employee is found pilfering small amounts from petty cash that person needs to go. A quiet departure may be best for everyone. There may not be enough evidence to support theft charges in criminal court, and simply participating may cost much more in employee wasted time than the amount that was stolen. Considering that some people have already complained that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage their reputations, how much more damaging would internet gnatterings about petty theft be.
Ec