Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that purports to know about almost everything, seems to have missed important information about one of its own. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit arm of Wikipedia.
The Foundation’s now-former COO, Carolyn Bothwell Doran was originally hired after being sent over as a part-time bookkeeper by a temp agency. It’s not clear how she rose to the COO position.
As COO, Doran was responsible for personnel management, with access to sensitive personal information. She was responsible for financial management with access to financial records. She prepared and filed the foundation’s tax return. That’s the kind of person you want to be able to trust.
But Doran had a secret. Actually, she had several secrets.
She was on probation for a 2004 hit-and-run accident. She served seven months in jail for that one, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Doran also had multiple drunken-driving convictions, and a record that included theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest.
Well, Wikipedia has since fired her. The web site profy.com reports on the reaction of Wikipedia founder Jimmie Wales and adds their own acerbic comment on the benefits of background checks.
Wales’ message to the Wikipedia community was laughable:
“We are very saddened and hurt by these shocking revelations. Of course we are doing soul searching about what we could have done different.”
Soul searching? How about a simple background check?
Take the following bits of wisdom away from this. Bit number one: even really smart people can make really bad personnel decisions if they don’t exercise due diligence. Bit number two: background checks do more to help security than soul searching.