[Foundation-l] Plea for candidates: WMF Movement Communications Manager

Sat Apr 16 00:25:04 UTC 2011

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:24 AM, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 16:16, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> Well, I would not be surprised to be wrong, but I don't think your legal
>> theory would be valid, after all the candidate fluent in Urdo may well be
>> an American citizen and have read at Oxford. The question is whether a
>> global organization hires globally, hiring people who have experience and
>> skill in communicating globally.
>>
> Right, I understand that. But my question is whether an employment ad
> in America could lawfully say (or imply), "Ideally your native
> language is not Urdu."

It looks like the problem here is that there is confusion on what is
meant by "as a native speaker".

Some people are taking it to mean "We'd like it to be your first
language", in which case Sarah is quite correct that it specifically
excludes people whose first language is English from the "ideal"
requirements. Others are taking it to mean "We'd like your ability to
be as good as if it were your first language", in which case Berìa is
correct that it is pragmatic, reasonable, and legitimately useful for
the job.

I'd like to invoke the principle of charity and think that Wikimedia
means the latter, but I can see why somebody might be interpreting it
as the former, since the latter reads a bit more into the words.

-- 
Andrew Garrett
http://werdn.us/