Talk:Former Chief Operating Officer of Wikimedia Foundation is convicted felon

OR and source

Only one source so far. I e-mailed Mike Godwin for a response. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Also note, i am not sure I believe this report yet. So I am attempting to go through proper channels to get the real info. Below are a list of people I contacted.

Jimbo Wales: Could not provide any help in the matter. Said to e-mail Godwin.

Mike Godwin: E-mailed. Awaiting reply.

DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please keep in mind that according to Wikipedia: The Register ("El Reg" to its staff) is a British technology and satirical website. Also, it says "Audit pending" on this article (I don't know what that means, but I am guessing they require some sort of peer review). Just be cautious. --SVTCobra 02:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but I checked her edits on Wikipedia. See talk page. Pretty suspicious stuff. She had a sockpuppet, possibly her. —FellowWiki Newsie 02:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I just found an edit to her talk page made tonight at 02:28 (one minute before I posted this comment!) by an IP. [1] Also, [2] —FellowWiki Newsie 02:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

All the edits prior to that "She's gone" section seem to be before the time that she was COO, or is there something off with the six-month claim of being an employee? --SVTCobra 02:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

More interesting links: Is this transparency? Well, now we know.... —FellowWiki Newsie 02:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

"Audit pending" refers to the fact that an audit of the Wikimedia "Foundation's finances - which was originally due for release in September ... - is still pending", which you would know if you had read the article. 158.143.201.102 13:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This is being discussed on WikiEN-l (the English Wikipedia's mailing list) right now. One possibility someone (George Herbert) has raised is that there are two people in Florida with this name. We may want to get the court records in Florida and verify it is the same person. JoshuaZ 03:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've also sent an e-mail to the Foundation-L mailing list regarding this, no response yet. Avruch 04:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Both Jimmy Wales and Mike Godwin have responded to mailing lists - Godwin to Foundation-l and Wales to wikien-l. Avruch 05:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Wales has not talked about it and has not responded because he is not too sure bout the whole thing. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 11:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust the word of Wikipedia administrators. It is in their nature to engage in censorship and totalitarianism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.87.162.215 (talk) 06:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The Register as a source

All claims from the Register should be sourced explicitly to the Register since they have a history of bad reporting about Wikipedia and Wikimedia (indeed, a few days ago they had two hit pieces that were presented as journalism). We may also want to note in the article Kelly Martin's initial criticism of the strange departure (Kelly is a former English Wikipedia admin, checkuser and ArbCom, so her opinion is relevant). JoshuaZ 03:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Washington Post source

Her name is brought up twice in Washington Post articles from 1990. Arrested, Asked that the charges be dropped. In the end her boyfriend at the time decided not to go forward with the charges. TheCustomOfLife 04:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

She was also the roommate and friend of a woman, Miss Cassondra Ann Betancourt, who poisoned a man in 1994 to get his life insurance money, and the jury heard testimony that she was an indirect accomplice to it. The free version is here, but does not mention her name. By request, I can e-mail anyone who wants the full copy (which does mention her name). Also, if anyone has LexisNexis, they can easily get the copy themselves. TheCustomOfLife 05:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've excerpted the part that has to do with Carolyn.

A former roommate of Betancourt's, Sterling resident Carolyn Bothwell, testified yesterday that Betancourt told her in July 1994 that Montague "won't be around in September to worry about."

Betancourt's attorney, Gregory Harris, suggested that his client meant that she would be breaking off her relationship with Montague, not that "Cassie was going to do him in."

The tapes were recorded at the home of Bothwell, who is a neighbor of Montague's daughter, Janet Hall. Betancourt lived with Bothwell for three months in the spring of 1994.

Bothwell testified that she bought a recording device and put it on her telephone to capture threatening phone calls from her former common-law husband. She said Betancourt was with her when she bought the device. Bothwell said she gave the tapes to investigators after she found out about Montague's death.

Harris suggested that Bothwell, who has a pending credit card forgery case in Loudoun, was trying to curry favor with prosecutors with her testimony. Bothwell denied that. "I had enough to lose coming up here," she said. "I had nothing to gain." TheCustomOfLife 05:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

And the final 1998 court verdict. I have the PDF copy of that as well so if anyone would like me to forward that, I can, or they can read it for themselves if they have a LexisNexis account.

Carolyn Bothwell, a friend of Hall's, assisted the police investigation by wearing a concealed recording device on six different occasions in a futile attempt to obtain incriminating statements from appellant. Bothwell testified that she, already a convicted felon, was the target of a felony prosecution in Loudoun County at the time of appellant's trial but that her case had been continued. She further testified that she had reached no agreement with the Loudoun County prosecutor's office regarding the effect her cooperation in appellant's case might have on her own prosecution. TheCustomOfLife 05:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

And something else that may or may not be influential, in 1999 her husband died on their honeymoon in an apparent drowning, but the coroner's office didn't determine how. As like always, you can find it on LexisNexis, Washington Post obituaries, November 13, 1999, Metro, page B6.

Excerpts:

Sean H. Doran, 40, an Air Force major who was an intelligence officer with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in Reston, died Nov 4. in Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. He lived in Potomac Falls, Va.

A family spokesman said Maj. Doran, who was on his honeymoon, died in an apparent drowning.

A spokesman for the Royal Cayman Islands Police reported that Maj. Doran's body was recovered from the North Sound and that the official cause of death had not been determined by the coroner's office.

[...] Survivors include his wife, the former Carolyn Bothwell, whom he married Oct. 30, [...] TheCustomOfLife 05:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

BLP on en.wp

The Wikipedia article for Carolyn is, currently, a soft redirect to this news article. However, I'm not 100% convinced that "Chief Operating Officer of Wikimedia Foundation was convicted felon" is a nice BLP-compliant statement... is there any way to potentially reword the name of the article without it smacking of censorship? I realize Wikinews isn't subject to Wikipedia's policies, which is why I'm asking, rather than moving it myself (especially since I'm at a loss for what to rename it to...). EVula // talk // 07:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Since court documents call her a convicted felon, I think what we have is fine. TheCustomOfLife 07:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Then it's a doubly moot point, then; we've converted the article to a redirect to WMF. Yay. EVula // talk // 08:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

PACER

There is zero mention of any of these cases in the U.S. PACER party case index. No criminal cases for any Carolyn Doran, and all civil/bankruptcy cases have a different middle initial. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

LexisNexis has outlined every source I used. Go there. PACER is not comprehensive. TheCustomOfLife 10:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have just spent over 20 minutes trying to find where I can sign up and gain access to LexisNexis. I ended up having to use the "contact us" form and have yet to learn what this may cost. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

You'll find more results searching under her earlier name "Carolyn Bothwell" than searching for her as "Carolyn Doran". Yes there is stuff in Pacer, your just not looking hard enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.213.130 (talk) 21:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Page protected?

I've been adding sources to this article, why is the page now protected? Jussenadv 17:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Not sure why. I'm going to ask the protecting admin. In the meantime, what sources were you going to add? JoshuaZ 17:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It was just unprotected by Brianmc. JoshuaZ 17:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Washington Post

I have several articles from the Post and court documents that are used in our article. If you want to see them, e-mail me. See my user page. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

WMF did not do background checks in 2006

Florence Devouard posted on the mailing list that as far as she knows, in fall 2006 WMF did not do background checks on its new hires. [3]

Brad was ED at that time. The board hires the ED and has authority over the ED. Then the ED has authority over all staff members (and he is the one who hires them). In fall 2006, we did not perform criminal background checks afaik.

Are we doing that now ? From what I understood, Mike took care of this and this is now being done. It is fairly recent, the board did not get any report on this, so I can not further comment.TheCustomOfLife 01:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Death of husband

Mentioning the death of the husband seems like insinuation and tabloid journalism. I'm inclined to take it out. There's no indication of foul play at all. JoshuaZ 16:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone object to my removing it? JoshuaZ 02:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I do. It's pertinent yet doesn't mention she was directly involved (which is the "official line"). I still think it's important to have. So yes, I do object to removing it. Anyone else find it a bit odd that nobody could immediately figure out the true cause of the drowning, and then it was swept under the rug? No, don't remove it. TheCustomOfLife 10:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with TheCustomOfLife. It does seem pertinent and is phrased appropriately, with attribution to proper sources. Wilhelm 12:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC).

Ok. I guess it stays. JoshuaZ 16:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I e-mailed the Island Police...no response. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 12:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost

Should we make a note of the Wikipedia Signpost article about this? -- "Former Wikimedia employee's criminal history detailed". Wilhelm 23:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC).

As with below, too late. The story will soon drop off our front page and into the archives. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Tampa Tribune

This was just posted by the Tampa Tribune, I'd recommend it as a more reliable source than the Register. Have to admit: I found this via w: Wikipedia Review. I'll add it to the list of sources. It contains some info regarding the Texas crimes which I don't think we had been able to find so far. I added it to the top of the source list since it looks like it's the most comprehensive on the subject. If you have some convention for source ordering feel free to change. Jussenadv 07:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The key convention in Wikinews articles is they are what was known at the time. So, for a Wikinews article dated the 14th is is not appropriate to make any content edits - including addition of sources - after the article has been published for 24 hours or so.

The Register may be a questionable source, but this is also tagged as original reporting. LexisNexis was dug into as well as the U.S. courts' PACER system. As the people who broke the story the Register should be mentioned, but if you check against what they wrote we actually dug up a bit more. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The Associated Press picks up the story, December 21, 2007

• Felon Became COO of Wikipedia Foundation, The Associated Press
• Former Wikipedia Officer Found To Have Long Criminal Record, The Washington Post

Should this be noted somewhere? Wilhelm 04:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC).

Story wiped from Google News Archive?

What does everyone think is going on with this? Is Google doing a "memory hole" on the Carolyn Doran story? Do we live in a Stalinist/Orwellian state? -- 72.94.165.206 14:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Despite the confusing names, "Google News Archive" is not an archive for "Google News". It is a Google-run archive of historical news (particularly newspapers) going back 200 years. It's quite possible for Google News search results to never make it into Google News Archive search results without there necessarily being a fascist conspiracy. —Pathoschild 08:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Extraneous comma

This sentence contains an unnecessary comma after the word Although: "Although, Doran assisted the prosecution in attempting to gain incriminating evidence by wearing a wire while with Betancourt, Doran never received her lesser sentence." -- Thekohser (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Done --InfantGorilla (talk) 20:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)