Last weekend, the Board held one of its frequent meetings, this time in San Francisco. During that meeting, the Board rejected a proposed confidentiality/non-disparagement agreement that was presented to them. Frankly, I am very proud of them that they refused. From what little we know of it, the document was a sham, and the Board should hold the people behind this document fully accountable for this attempted power-grab and cover-up.
Let's take a look at Florence's email. Here are some quotes, with my comments:
1. The document we were presented was received differently depending on board members. Does that mean that different Board members were asked to sign different documents depending on how much the Foundation trusted them? If so, who determines this level of trust? The staff? I thought it was the Board's job to oversee staff, not the staff's job to oversee Board.
2. It also made it mandatory for all board members at the end of theiremployment (yeah, that was the text :-)) -- Since when are Board members employees? See my point above. BTW, Florence reiterated this later in the email. And if they are employees, who are they answerable to? My understanding was always that the staff is answerable to the Board, not the other way around.
3. To give a copy of all documents, emails, etc... shared during activity, and to destroy our own personal copy. -- While this may be acceptable in some circumstances, especially for staff, essentially what it says is that only the Foundation has control over Board documents, minutes, etc. Transparency aside, essentially, what this looks like is an attempt to cover up various internal problems that were raised, some of them on this blog. Gold-plated washing machine email? Deniability obtained, because only the Foundation now has copies of the email (or do they?). Jimmy fucking around with donations? Deniability obtained. Brad Patrick fired for incompetence? Deniability obtained. Etc. With the Foundation's ethics called into question recently, essentially, what Sue and her henchmen are doing is calling on the Board to destroy documents--destroy evidence.
4. Still, when someone has signed a document where it is stated that should he disparage (whatever that means) a board member, a staff member or the Foundation generally, he will be led in court, I expect that a board member will think double before raising a touchy issue; and might prefer closing his eyes to possibly getting in trouble. -- Is the WMF now implying that it will sue any Board member who might speak out against them? In other words, is it attempting to protect the unholy troika of Jimmy, Sue, and Erik by threatening a law suit against any former Board member who says, "Wait a minute. Something wasn't quite kosher"?
Personally, I find all of this quite shocking, especially for an organization that prides itself on transparency ... or is that just a codeword for "Follow the leader"? Are U.S. libel laws insufficient to protect the members of the Board from disparagement? Is free speech, the cornerstone of Wikipedia, utterly irrelevant when it comes to the current management?
My one consolation is that the Board had the good sense to reject the damn thing. Good work!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
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11 comments:
I am reminded of the political cartoon that shows the Pillars of Democracy; one of them was free speech. A person remarked, "I do not like that pillar! Take it down!" The point is that if you take down one pillar of democracy the structure collapses.
You know, if the Wikimedia Foundation did not want to be whined about all the time, maybe they should stop acting incompetently, eh?
(I know it is more difficult than that, but my point stands.)
I agree with you here--this non-disparagement thing is a terrible idea. One thing, though, regarding the first point:
"The document we were presented was received differently depending on board members."
I would interpret this to mean that some board members approved and some did not, i.e. it was not universally well-received.
Aside from this, though, I think you're right on, and so was Florence. We absolutely don't want anything that would discourage board members from acting in the best interests of the foundation for fear of legal repercussions.
Thank you Tracy. Quite honestly, I am not sure what Florence meant precisely in her first point. I interpreted it one way, though I can certainly see the validity of how you interpret it. It would be great if Florence would clarify.
Remember that Florence is not a native English speaker. Although she is very competent with her English, occasionally an idiom does elude her & the results can be either mildly amusing or puzzling; this is obviously the later.
The most obvious interpretation is that she meant to say that the various members of the Board responded to this proposal in different ways. If she meant to say that each board member received a different copy of the proposal, she would have said it in that simple, direct manner.
Just my guess, based on a few moment's thought without interruptions from the newest member of my family. (If I could gather more of these moments, I might actually accomplish one of my many projects I have left undone for too long!)
Geoff
This all begs the question: WHO put forward this non-disclusure proposal?
Good Will is an asset often protected by contract when selling a business.
Maybe this was a Good Wool clause.
Playing on your pun of a Good Wool clause, it got me thinking. If indeed this was to prevent future media events such as these surrounding Danny here, how effective would this be do we think? Danny obviously has left so such an agreement wouldn't be binding to him. That, and there's always been plenty of blogs out there willing to leak things if someone was afraid to come forward as themselves.
And "Good Will" is only a balance sheet item which estimates a non-cash value of people's perception of a specific company. Hence good will would only be necessary if someone were planning to sell Wikipedia (read Danny's previous posts) and the fear of continued irregularities like Danny has shown would decrease the value of the entire site and ultimately the price to buy. Hmmm, is there something more that Sue, Erik & Jimmy are afraid will come out at the next round of elections? Or was Danny right about Elevation Partners? Certainly gives me something to think about.
"The document we were presented was received differently depending on board members."
Are you dumb? This means some board members cares, others didn't.
The sentence does not read "some board members received different documents."
Dufus.
that's creepy...
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