This does not seem unreasonable. Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W Sent: Friday, May 18, 2018 4:47 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board Recruitment: Updates
I have a difference of perspective on this with Philippe and Seddon. Records of personnel issues at many government agencies in the US are public records, and many of those government agencies seem to do OK with recruiting candidates. I have yet to hear any convincing reason why WMF should be *less* transparent than government agencies. From my perspective, one of the benefits of significant transparency for contracts and severance agreements are that politicians and officials cannot use government funds for "hush money" nearly as easily as they could if severance agreements and other contracts were confidential. I don't want the WMF Board and Executive Director to have the option to use WMF funds as an incentive for someone to remain quiet about any problems that they might know about at WMF. Realistically, prevention of every kind of problem is impossible, but public documentation of severance agreements would be a good step. Also, as a taxpayer I think that I should have the right to know what elected officials are doing with my money. Similarly, I think that donors (and everyone) should have the right to know what WMF is doing with donated funds. There may be some time restrictions (for example, if WMF is involved in current or pending litigation, then the expenses for that might remain confidential until after the matter is resolved) but in general I think that WMF should publicly account for how it uses donated funds. That includes the terms of employment contracts and severance agreements. I will "practice what I preach" on this matter. If I ever do paid work for WMF again (most likely in the form of a grant of some type; I am still thinking about whether this would entangle me financially with WMF in ways that I think would make me likely to be quiet when I have concerns), I will publish the terms of the contract and any amendments to that contract if I have WMF's permission to do so. I would redact only information that could be used for fraud, my phone number, my address, etc. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
