[Foundation-l] Foundation Discretion Regarding Personnel Matters

Sun Dec 16 20:22:51 UTC 2007

Thomas Dalton writes:

>  You're not even reading what I'm saying, are you? I was *defending*
> the WMF by pointing out that they didn't know in advance, then Mike
> comes along and contradicts me suggesting that they in fact did.

It seems to be the general rule, Thomas, that whenever you summarize  
what I or any other Foundation representatives have said, you get  
something wrong (and often several things wrong).  This is no  
exception. My advice is to quit summarizing us in this way and go back  
to quoting, if you must persist in taking issue with us.

The Foundation did not know "in advance" of Carolyn's hiring of  
anything problematic in her background. We didn't know "in advance" of  
the Register story what claims it would make about Carolyn.  The  
statements I made to the Register were carefully crafted and factually  
accurate. The same goes for my statements on this list.

> If
> they didn't know, it's really not their fault, but if they did,
> failure to do anything about it is gross incompetence.

Precision in quoting and citation also would save you from creating  
false dichotomies.

I'm heartened that most readers of this list seem to be reading our  
actual words with a bit more care than you show here. (It would be a  
shame if they relied on your summaries -- doing so would, in my view,  
be a sign of gross incompetence.  Not merely incompetence, but GROSS  
incompetence, the very worst kind!)

--Mike